We found that males, and males over 30 in particular, rated sports cars as more desirable when they were made to feel that they had a small penis

Richardson, Daniel C., Joseph Devlin, John S. Hogan, and Chuck Thompson. 2023. “Small Penises and Fast Cars: Evidence for a Psychological Link.” PsyArXiv. January 10. doi:10.31234/osf.io/uy7ph

Abstract: In this experiment, we manipulated what men believed about their own penis size, relative to others. We gave them false information, stating that the average penis size was larger than it in fact is, reasoning that, on average, these males will feel that relatively and subjectively their own penis was smaller; compared to those told that the average penis size was smaller than true average. We then asked them to rate how much they would like to own a sports car. These facts and questions were buried amongst other items giving information and asking for product ratings, so that our hypothesis was masked from participants. We found that males, and males over 30 in particular, rated sports cars as more desirable when they were made to feel that they had a small penis.

Interests in becoming a surgeon were associated with higher rates of psychopathy, even more so in women

What kind of Dr do you want to be?: A cross-sectional study measuring personality and sex effects of medical students. Irem F. Kashikchi, Bayram M. Savrun, Peter K. Jonason. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 205, April 2023, 112075, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2022.112075

Abstract: Turkish medical students (N = 376; 145 men, 231 women) aged 18–25 (M = 20.36, SD = 2.02) reported on their personality and post-graduation specialty preferences. We found (1) sex differences in interests in psychiatry in favor of women (suppressed by Machiavellianism and competitiveness) and surgery in favor of men (mediated by psychopathy and competitiveness), (2) interests in basic/diagnostic medicine were associated with higher rates of narcissism and competitiveness in women, (3) interests in surgery were associated with higher rates of psychopathy (mediated by masculinity and competitiveness), and (4) interests in psychiatry were associated with less competitiveness. In women, psychopathy was correlated with interests in surgery more than basic/diagnostic medicine whereas competitiveness was more strongly correlated with interests in basic/diagnostic medicine than psychiatry. In men, competitiveness was more correlated with interests in psychiatry than surgery. Lastly, the relationship between interests in basic/diagnostic medicine and competitiveness was more strongly correlated in women than in men. Results are discussed in relation to sociocultural and evolutionary models of vocational interests.

Introduction

The reasons people make choices is determined by their personality and context; this includes their choices in professions. To date, research on medical specialty selection has (1) been limited to actual physicians (Bucknall et al., 2015), (2) focused on socially desirable personality traits (Milić et al., 2020), and (3) was quite Western in nature (Grasreiner et al., 2018). In this study, we provide a broad account of individual differences in vocational interests in medicine among Turkish medical students.

Like all other choices, the appeal of medical preferences may come down to what perceived utility each serves in people's lives. The motivational goals for being a medical doctor may center around communion (i.e., helping others) and agency (i.e., earning status) and each of these may be differently appealing to different people as a function of their personality and their sex. People characterized, either directly or indirectly, by seeking status may pursue medicine to satisfy these desires. For instance, those characterized by narcissism (e.g., sense of entitlement, grandiosity; Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001), Machiavellianism (e.g., pragmatism, duplicitousness; Jones & Paulhus, 2009), and psychopathy (e.g., callousness, antisociality; Hare et al., 2012), and those who enjoy competition (Buser et al., 2014) may be especially prone to seek status, compete with others (Vedel & Thomsen, 2017), and have less empathy compared to non-surgical areas (Walocha et al., 2013) which may inform their vocational interests (Jonason et al., 2014). Unsurprisingly, these traits are common in surgeons (Bucknall et al., 2015) where little direct interaction with patients is required and being a surgeon is considered particularly prestigious (Murphy, 2018); limited empathy and heightened interest in status are agentic characteristics. In contrast, where direct interaction with patients and empathy are job requirements like in psychiatry, these traits are likely not only costs, but may also dissuade people characterized by these traits to choose a profession like psychiatry. As such, more empathy should enable choices in psychiatry as a specialty reliant on emotional intelligence and interpersonal interactions (Chen et al., 2012). Therefore, we predict the Dark Triad traits and competitiveness should be associated with greater interests in surgery, whereas more empathy should be associated with greater interests in psychiatry.

Beyond personality traits, there are sex/gender effects on medical preferences. For instance, surgery is often preferred by men whereas women tend to prefer psychiatry (Öğrenci Seçme ve Yerleştirme Merkezi, 2020; but see Milić et al., 2020). More generally, girls/women choose more “people-oriented” jobs (i.e., communal) and boys/men are more interested in jobs that require dealing with “things” (Luoto, 2020). Some researchers contend these sex differences are a function of learned social roles of what are considered appropriate jobs for men and women (Wood & Eagly, 2012) whereas other researchers contend these sex differences are manifestations of different evolved biases that enabled the reproductive fitness of our female (i.e., being more group-oriented provides protection for women) and male (i.e., acquiring status earned men greater access to mating opportunities) ancestors (Puts, 2010). Whichever perspective is correct, we think replication and extension of these sex differences and gender role effects may be revealing here.

To better understand these sex/gender effects we consider the idea of (1) sex-typical and (2) sex-atypical job preferences. First, we expect that greater masculinity should be linked to preferences for surgery, whereas greater femininity should be linked preferences to psychiatry. In reference to the second point, understanding how gender non-conforming people make their specialty choices may further elucidate sex/gender effects in preferences. For example, women who chose male-typical occupations are more assertive and tough-minded compared to women in female-typical jobs (Lemkau, 1983) and men who prefer female-typical jobs are more emotionally sensitive compared to other men preferring male-typical occupations (Lemkau, 1984). There are two ways to test these issues. First, examining whether the correlations between the personality traits and preferences differed in the sexes (i.e., moderation). For instance, if sex-typical traits, like psychopathy, are more strongly correlated with sex-typical professions, like surgery, in men than in women, we will have shown that when “properly matched”, traits predict preferences in sex-differentiated ways. Second, we test whether sex differences are a function of the personality traits. For instance, if the removal of variance of a sex-atypical trait like empathy in men makes the sex difference grow, we have shown that the sex differences are larger when considering more sex-typical people (i.e., suppression). Alternatively, men and those high in psychopathy may think of their patients as “things” more than women and those low in psychopathy, translating into a reduction of sex differences in interest for surgery by psychopathy (i.e., mediation).

Last, because surgical and psychiatric specialties may require considerably different characteristics, they might be considered as the two extreme ends of a specialty preference spectrum. Hence, we include more “neutral” specialties (i.e., basic/diagnostic medicine) requiring both patient-physician contact like psychiatry as well as some surgical practices when the occasion arises (i.e., removal of melanoma). By this, we can examine personality and sex differences in specialty preferences in a broader context.

In the current study, we examine the vocational interests (i.e., basic/diagnostic medicine, surgery, psychiatry) of medical students through the lens of personality psychology in broad (i.e., the Dark Triad traits) and narrow (e.g., competitiveness) manifestations overall and in men and women. We explore the possibilities that (1) these correlations are different in men and women, (2) sex differences in preferences may be a function of personality traits, and (3) narrowband traits may serve as the mechanisms that link broadband traits to medical specialties. Importantly, we do this in a Turkish, as opposed to a Western sample, thereby adding sampling heterogeneity to the areas of vocational interests and medical specialization preferences to see whether previous findings were Western-specific.

Again, the affinity to censorship depends on the third person effect: the belief that others are more easily influenced by "bad" media content than oneself

Do Users Want Platform Moderation or Individual Control? Examining the Role of Third-Person Effects and Free Speech Support in Shaping Moderation Preferences. Shagun Jhaver, Amy Zhang. arXiv, Jan 5 2023. https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.02208

Abstract: Online platforms employ commercial content moderators and use automated systems to identify and remove the most blatantly inappropriate content for all users. They also provide moderation settings that let users personalize their preferences for which posts they want to avoid seeing. This study presents the results of a nationally representative survey of 984 US adults. We examine how users would prefer for three categories of norm-violating content (hate speech, sexually explicit content, and violent content) to be regulated. Specifically, we analyze whether users prefer platforms to remove such content for all users or leave it up to each user to decide if and how much they want to moderate it. We explore the influence of presumed effects on others (PME3) and support for freedom of expression on user attitudes, the two critical factors identified as relevant for social media censorship attitudes by prior literature, about this choice. We find perceived negative effects on others and free speech support as significant predictors of preference for having personal moderation settings over platform-directed moderation for regulating each speech category. Our findings show that platform governance initiatives need to account for both the actual and perceived media effects of norm-violating speech categories to increase user satisfaction. Our analysis also suggests that people do not see personal moderation tools as an infringement on others' free speech but as a means to assert greater agency to shape their social media feeds.

Previous research has produced inconsistent findings regarding the role of altruism in mating success; this study sought to test whether altruism (charity/volunteer work) relates to number of offspring

Allen, M. S., Robson, D. A., Mishra, M., & Laborde, S. (2023). A prospective and retrospective 10-year study of altruism and reproductive success. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, Jan 2023. https://doi.org/10.1037/ebs0000320

Abstract: Previous research has produced inconsistent findings regarding the role of altruism in mating success. This study sought to test whether altruism (charity/volunteer work) relates to number of offspring. A nationally representative sample of Australian adults was separated into those unlikely to have more children (n = 4,296; age ≥ 45 [women], age ≥ 55 [men], Mage = 68.9 ± 11.0 years) and those likely to have more children (n = 4,724; age range = 18–44 [women], 18–54 [men], Mage = 32.8 ± 10.5 years). Measures of altruism and number of children were taken at baseline and 10 years later. In the retrospective analysis of older adults, there was a very small effect size in the predicted direction, indicating that more altruistic adults had more children. In the prospective analysis of younger adults, higher levels of altruism related to a greater number of total children 10 years later, as well as a greater number of children conceived during those 10 years. Increases in altruism over 10 years also related to a greater number of total children and a greater number of children conceived during those 10 years. Effect sizes were small to very small in all instances. There were no sex moderation effects and analyses controlled for personality, medical difficulties in childbearing, and sociodemographic factors. These findings provide evidence that altruism has a role in reproductive success, and indicate that inconsistent findings in previous research might simply reflect the small (real-world) effect size. 

Impact Statement: This research has demonstrated that Australian adults who do more charity or volunteer work tend to have more children. This effect was observed in men and women, as well as both younger and older adults. The study indicates that taking part in more charity or volunteer work might be a useful approach to developing successful relationships and long-term life satisfaction.

Revisiting the Connection Between State Medicaid Expansions and Adult Mortality: These findings imply that evidence that pre-ACA Medicaid expansions to adults saved lives is not as clear as previously suggested

Revisiting the Connection Between State Medicaid Expansions and Adult Mortality. Charles J. Courtemanche, Jordan W. Jones, Antonios M. Koumpias & Daniela Zapata, NBER Working Paper 30818, January 2023. DOI 10.3386/w30818

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of Medicaid expansions to parents and childless adults on adult mortality. Specifically, we evaluate the long-run effects of eight state Medicaid expansions from 1994 through 2005 on all-cause, healthcare-amenable, non-healthcare-amenable, and HIV-related mortality rates using state-level data. We utilize the synthetic control method to estimate effects for each treated state separately and the generalized synthetic control method to estimate average effects across all treated states. Using a 5% significance level, we find no evidence that Medicaid expansions affect any of the outcomes in any of the treated states or all of them combined. Moreover, there is no clear pattern in the signs of the estimated treatment effects. These findings imply that evidence that pre-ACA Medicaid expansions to adults saved lives is not as clear as previously suggested.

Discussion

Currently, there is significant data on self-awareness in social animals, but little information on solitary species (Ma et al., 2015). Although all animals that have passed the MSR are all social, sociality does not automatically suggest that animals are self-aware. Some social animals fail to demonstrate self-recognition. To confirm any hypothesis that compares social and solitary animals and their capacity for self-awareness, additional research must be conducted on MSR in solitary species. This paper recommends monitor lizards (Varanidae) for future MSR testing because they are highly solitary but also very intelligent (Pianka and King, 2004; Northcutt, 2013; Güntürkün et al., 2020; Howard and Freeman, 2022). In particular, the Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis) is an attractive candidate. They live solitarily and only occasionally congregate at large carcasses (MacLean, 1978). Less is known about the cognitive ability of Komodo dragons, so a self-recognition test would also shed light on this aspect of study.

The hypothesis presented in this paper also serves as preliminary support for a more comprehensive meta-analysis. A future study quantifying sociality on an ordinal or numeric scale instead of a binary social versus non-social categorization is highly recommended. This helps mitigate the lack of research in solitary species as using graded sociality allows for more precise comparisons within social species (for which information on self-recognition is abundant). For example, it is possible that a highly social animal like the Indian house crow is more capable of self-recognition than a semi-social animal like Clark’s nutcracker. This paper recommends starting the meta-analysis with corvids because the social behavior of species within the same family is more comparable. Corvids display varying levels of sociality and numerous corvid species have already been tested for self-recognition. Subsequent studies can quantify variables such as group size and association level for drastically different species, expanding toward a comprehensive scale including all the animals covered in this study.

Many uncertainties remain in the study of animal self-awareness. The mark test itself remains a debatable measure of self-awareness, with the major question: does failing the MSR test mean a lack of self-awareness? It is possible that some self-aware animals simply do not care about the mark but do possess awareness of their private mental thoughts and an understanding of self. As shown in tests with garter snakes, dogs, and octopuses, the MSR test is subject to sensory limitations, creating a possible bias against animals that do not use vision as their primary sense. Failing the visual MSR does not necessarily mean the species cannot self-recognize. Additionally, as is the case with the gorillas and rhesus macaques, it is unknown if trained self-directed behavior necessarily means natural self-recognition. Moreover, Gallup and Anderson’s (2019) review concludes that differences in self-awareness in different animals may be qualitative rather than quantitative. Thus, developing more objective and reliable self-recognition tests, perhaps designed individually for one species or a group of similar species, remains a future challenge.

Another area of future research is whether self-recognizing, non-human animals can know their internal mental states such as emotions. A basic level of self-awareness is confirmed to be present in non-human animals that conclusively pass the mirror test, but it is unknown if this can be extended to include their knowledge of internal thoughts and emotions.

A basic level of self-knowledge is guaranteed in animals that pass the mirror test, but it is unknown if they possess advanced understanding of private mental states. Despite uncertainties in the methodology of determining self-awareness and a scarcity of information on solitary species, the existing data appears firm in the pattern of social animals being more likely to be self-aware than non-social ones because no solitary species has shown self-recognition. Among the species analyzed in this article, the conclusively self-aware animals were social to some degree, with humans and chimpanzees being highly social and orangutans being semi-social. Other animals exhibiting strongly suggestive signs of self-awareness were also highly social. These are bonobos, bottlenose dolphins, and the bluestreak cleaner wrasse. Certain species showed signs of MSR in individual studies or after training, but the research lacks independent verification by additional studies to be considered strongly suggestive of self-awareness. Examples include the orca, Eurasian magpie, Asian elephant, ant, western gorilla, pigeon, rhesus macaque, and garter snake. The three solitary species, octopus, panda, and Malayan sun bear, analyzed in this paper failed to demonstrate self-recognition. Several social animals also failed to demonstrate self-recognition, such as New Caledonian crows, the gray parrot, and sea lions, although this does not affect the comparison with solitary species. This hypothesis is strengthened by the social intelligence hypothesis, which suggests that social animals are more likely to boast greater cognitive abilities than solitary species due to more opportunities for cognitive challenge in complex social environments. Given the existing literature, this article proposes social animals are more likely to be self-aware than solitary ones.

This paper found that only social animals have demonstrated self-awareness while no solitary species has ever shown this capability

Sociality and self-awareness in animals. Yanyu Lei. Front. Psychol., January 9 2023. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1065638

Abstract: Recognizing one’s mirror reflection as oneself appears to be a simple task, but beyond humans, very few animals have consistently demonstrated this capability. Mirror self-recognition is indicative of self-awareness, which is one’s capacity for self-directed knowledge. This Perspective reviews literature from the past 50 years on animal self-recognition and evaluates 20 different species. The goal was to determine a common characteristic shared by all self-aware animals that allow for this advanced cognitive capability. This paper found that only social animals have demonstrated self-awareness while no solitary species has ever shown this capability. This is supported by the social intelligence hypothesis, which posits that social animals are more cognitively sophisticated than solitary ones because their brains evolved to process the more complex social environment around them. Given the available information, this article proposes that social animals are more likely to be self-aware than solitary species.

Where Are the Workers? From Great Resignation to Quiet Quitting

Where Are the Workers? From Great Resignation to Quiet Quitting. Dain Lee, Jinhyeok Park & Yongseok Shin. NBER Working Paper 30833. January 2023. DOI 10.3386/w30833

Abstract: To better understand the tight post-pandemic labor market in the US, we decompose the decline in aggregate hours worked into the extensive (fewer people working) and the intensive margin changes (workers working fewer hours). Although the pre-existing trend of lower labor force participation especially by young men without a bachelor's degree accounts for some of the decline in aggregate hours, the intensive margin accounts for more than half of the decline between 2019 and 2022. The decline in hours among workers was larger for men than women. Among men, the decline was larger for those with a bachelor's degree than those with less education, for prime-age workers than older workers, and also for those who already worked long hours and had high earnings. Workers' hours reduction can explain why the labor market is even tighter than what is expected at the current levels of unemployment and labor force participation.

Why do humans make so many laws? On the origin of laws by natural selection.

On the origin of laws by natural selection. Peter De Scioli. Evolution and Human Behavior, January 9 2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2023.01.004

Abstract: Humans are lawmakers like we are toolmakers. Why do humans make so many laws? Here we examine the structure of laws to look for clues about how humans use them in evolutionary competition. We will see that laws are messages with a distinct combination of ideas. Laws are similar to threats but critical differences show that they have a different function. Instead, the structure of laws matches moral rules, revealing that laws derive from moral judgment. Moral judgment evolved as a strategy for choosing sides in conflicts by impartial rules of action—rather than by hierarchy or faction. For this purpose, humans can create endless laws to govern nearly any action. However, as prolific lawmakers, humans produce a confusion of contradictory laws, giving rise to a perpetual battle to control the laws. To illustrate, we visit some of the major conflicts over laws of violence, property, sex, faction, and power.

Introduction

Let us ponder down a path from the evolution of the human mind all the way to laws, governments, and societies. On such a long trek, we may become lost and separated at times but remember we are here to enjoy the views and to invigorate ourselves by struggling with immense perplexities. If we discover anything of use, it will be more than we could have hoped.

We will travel light to keep a brisk pace and focus on ideas and arguments. Set aside for a moment the heavy jargon and weighty traditions that have amassed on these subjects. Rest assured, we will return at the end to review numerous literatures under Notes. The Notes follow the sections of the article and review literature on each topic in order.

Modern societies depend on governments. Governments are made of laws. Therefore, if we can understand how and why an animal, Homo sapiens, makes so many laws about so many things, we will have come a long way toward our destination.

Partisanship on Social Media: In-Party Love Among American Politicians, Greater Engagement with Out-Party Hate Among Ordinary Users

Partisanship on Social Media: In-Party Love Among American Politicians, Greater Engagement with Out-Party Hate Among Ordinary Users. Xudong Yu, Magdalena Wojcieszak & Andreu Casas. Political Behavior, Jan 8 2023. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-022-09850-x

Abstract: Americans view their in-party members positively and out-party members negatively. It remains unclear, however, whether in-party affinity (i.e., positive partisanship) or out-party animosity (i.e., negative partisanship) more strongly influences political attitudes and behaviors. Unlike past work, which relies on survey self-reports or experimental designs among ordinary citizens, this pre-registered project examines actual social media expressions of an exhaustive list of American politicians as well as citizens’ engagement with these posts. Relying on 1,195,844 tweets sent by 564 political elites (i.e., members of US House and Senate, Presidential and Vice-Presidential nominees from 2000 to 2020, and members of the Trump Cabinet) and machine learning to reliably classify the tone of the tweets, we show that elite expressions online are driven by positive partisanship more than negative partisanship. Although politicians post many tweets negative toward the out-party, they post more tweets positive toward their in-party. However, more ideologically extreme politicians and those in the opposition (i.e., the Democrats) are more negative toward the out-party than those ideologically moderate and whose party is in power. Furthermore, examining how Twitter users react to these posts, we find that negative partisanship plays a greater role in online engagement: users are more likely to like and share politicians’ tweets negative toward the out-party than tweets positive toward the in-party. This project has important theoretical and democratic implications, and extends the use of trace data and computational methods in political behavior.

Discussion

Our project examined social media expressions of American politicians as well as users’ engagement with these tweets to offer comprehensive evidence on the effects of positive and negative partisanship on elites and citizens. We offer three noteworthy findings. First, American politicians are more likely to express support toward their own party than to speak out against the opponents, indicating that the overall charge of partisanship for these elites is positive when they discuss politics on social media. This robust pattern emerges when comparing the total number of tweets praising the in-party with that of tweets criticizing the out-party and also calculating the proportion of elite accounts/elites that post more tweets expressing in-party favorability than those expressing out-party negativity. Although many scholars observe that negative partisanship is on the rise in the US (e.g., Abramowitz & Webster, 2016; Iyengar et al., 2012), our evidence suggests that positive partisanship still dominates political expressions of American politicians on Twitter, so—at least in this context—our findings are more optimistic than the general observations. However, we note that a large share of elite tweets attacks the opposition, an issue we address in more detail below. Because we analyzed an exhaustive set of 564 political elites, identified all their tweets mentioning the in-party and the out-party, and employed validated classifiers to analyze those tweets, we are confident that our results are a robust and accurate representation of political expressions by American politicians on Twitter.

Second, in an exception to this general pattern, we find that politicians who are ideologically more extreme are more likely to express negative partisanship than their more moderate counterparts: the former group is most motivated to attack the out-party. This largely holds for two measures of extremity and is consistent with prior literature that ideological polarization contributes to negative feelings toward the opposition (Abramowitz & Webster, 2018; Webster & Abramowitz, 2017). Combined with the fact that negative partisanship does not trail by a large margin, it implies that if the ideological division between the two parties keeps widening, negative partisanship may increase and may outstrip positive partisanship in elite opinion expressions. Moreover, in line with previous evidence that threats to party identity strengthen negative partisanship (Amira et al., 2021), members of the party in the opposition—i.e., Democrats—show greater negative partisanship than those of the ruling party and they become less negative toward the out-party after winning the House back in the 2018 midterm election. This finding suggests that negative partisanship may be used by the opposition as a tool to unite the party and against the common enemy (Bankert, 2022), yet more research on the temporal variations in and factors influencing positive and negative partisanship among politicians is needed to shed more light on this consequential finding.

Third, despite the overall dominance of positive partisanship among the elites, it is negative partisanship that drives ordinary citizens’ liking and sharing of elite messages. Tweets that attack the out-party receive more likes and retweets than those that favor the in-party. Although this contradicts previous finding that citizens penalize politicians for attacking the out-party (Costa, 2021), the inconsistency could be due to different methodologies and different demographics of the general public vs. (politically active) Twitter users. That said, we suspect our finding is not constrained to Twitter. Extensive work has established that “negativity bias” holds across studies, cultures, samples, and in divergent contexts (e.g., Ito et al., 1998; Soroka et al., 2019; Trussler & Soroka, 2014). More specific to our work, although the most politically active Twitter users follow in-party accounts, are more sorted, and have colder feelings toward the out-party than average Twitter users (Pew, 2019a), which could partly explain our finding, the very same characteristics apply to politically active and interested citizens in general (Levendusky, 2009), whether on Twitter or not. Lastly, a recent study (Rathje et al., 2021) found similar patterns across Twitter and Facebook, suggesting that greater engagement with out-party animosity is not unique to Twitter users.

When interpreting the results, several limitations need to be noted. First, as the data were collected before the 2020 election, it is unclear if these patterns would emerge after Joe Biden became the president. It is possible that Twitter suspending the account of Donald Trump and other events may have changed the nature of elite expressions. Second, as the American political system, media system, and party structures are unique, the findings of our study should not be generalized to other countries. More international and comparative research should be done to test whether politicians and citizens in different countries behave similarly or differently.

Third, we focus on tweets that explicitly mention the two parties and key politicians but do not account for policies, media organizations, or other factors associated with a party. It is very challenging to construct a comprehensive and unbiased list of political topics discussed from 2016 to 2020, and assessing how politicians talk about policies and other things is an important task for future work.

Fourth, we do not know the partisan affiliations of those users who engaged with elite tweets. We are interested in the more foundational evidence about elite expressions and citizen engagement; the questions surrounding political homophily are secondary and cannot be tested in our data. We speculate that users are more likely to engage with messages attacking the out-party because they primarily follow and interact with likeminded others (e.g., Eady et al., 2019; Mosleh et al., 2021; Wojcieszak et al., 2022). But regardless of this ideological consistency, our evidence shows that negativity toward the out-party, per se, is engaging and gets more attention (see also Rathje et al., 2021). In short, although the specific mechanisms behind these engagements cannot be disentangled in our data, we suspect it is the mere negativity combined with ideological consistency. It is likely that tweets negative toward the out-party infuriate out-party members, yet there are no reasons for those users to like and share these tweets (i.e., the behaviors we examined). Future work should explore whether out-party members are activated by such posts and fight back by commenting and quote tweeting.

Despite these limitations, our findings have important implications for American politics. To begin with, although elite expressions are mainly positive, the difference between the strength of positive and negative partisanship is not substantial. Some of the most powerful and most widely followed politicians, such as Trump and Biden, are also the ones who are most negative toward the out-party. Donald Trump post 440% (162 vs. 30) and Joe Biden post 294% (563 vs. 143) more tweets negative toward the out-party than tweets positive toward the in-party, respectively. Therefore, out-party negativity may actually reach a larger audience than in-party positivity. If we simply use the number of followers as a rough indicator of readership (e.g., if a politician has one million followers and they post two out-party attacks, then we assume that these tweets are read two million times), overall, tweets attacking the out-party are read 27% more than tweets praising the in-party, although the former is outnumbered by the latter.Footnote20

As importantly, negative partisanship may be amplified through citizen-elite interactions and through other means of communication. In our data, citizens reward politicians for attacking the opposition with more likes and shares, encouraging politicians to express out-party hostility more fiercely; and more exposure to elite tweets attacking the out-party may, in turn, generate greater citizen engagement and enhance out-party hostility among citizens. In fact, tweets sent by extreme in-party elites—who are most negative toward the out-party—are also more likely to be shared (Wojcieszak et al., 2022). Other work also shows that news organizations are more likely to cover extreme politicians than moderate politicians (Wagner & Gruszczynski, 2018). This amplification, by social media users, journalists, and news organizations, may further increase the general perception that American elites are hostile toward the other side. Questions as to whether users’ preferences for out-party negativity on social media are further exacerbated by Twitter’s algorithmFootnote21 or whether elite communication as mediated through mainstream media is more or less negative compared to social media are important directions for future work.

These two factors—the most powerful politicians are very negative toward the out-party and elite negative partisanship may be amplified by users and media—may ultimately create “illusion of polarization” in that citizens encounter a greater share of negative than positive elite information and expressions. Again, however, our over-time evidence systematically shows that this is an illusion, in that most elites, most of the time, post information and opinions that are not negative towards their political opponents. After accounting for the number of followers, the modal tone of the political elites is positive—politicians who mostly post positive tweets, as a whole, have 58% more followers than politicians who are mainly negative. Simply, the positive majority is not as influential and popular as the negative minority (e.g., an average negative politician has 43% more followers than an average positive politician).

We hope these findings inspire further research on the political use of social media, research that investigates the dynamics between politicians, media, and citizens using actual behavioral data and ideally, across different platforms. Only then will we be able to have a complete overview of the social media ecosystem, correctly identify problems, and come up with solutions.

The idea of pay transparency is to give workers the ability to renegotiate away pay discrepancies, but it actually shifts the bargaining power from the workers to the employer, naking wages more equal but lower

Pay-transparency laws do not work as advertised. The Economist, Jan 5 2023. https://www.economist.com/united-states/2023/01/05/pay-transparency-laws-do-not-work-as-advertised

Which is a pity, as California and Washington have just adopted them

Labour advocates champion pay-transparency laws on the grounds that they will narrow pay disparities. But research suggests that this is achieved not by boosting the wages of lower-paid workers but by curbing the wages of higher-paid ones. A forthcoming paper by economists at the University of Toronto and Princeton University estimates that Canadian salary-disclosure laws implemented between 1996 and 2016 narrowed the gender pay gap of university professors by 20-30%. But there is also evidence that they lower salaries, on average. Another paper by professors at Chapel Hill, Cornell and Columbia University found that a Danish pay-transparency law adopted in 2006 shrank the gender pay gap by 13%, but only because it curbed the wages of male employees. Studies of Britain’s gender-pay-gap law, which was implemented in 2018, have reached similar conclusions.

Another misconception about pay-transparency laws is that they strengthen the bargaining power of workers. A recent paper by Zoe Cullen of Harvard Business School and Bobby Pakzad-Hurson of Brown University analysed the effects of 13 state laws passed between 2004 and 2016 that were designed to protect the right of workers to ask about the salaries of their co-workers. The authors found that the laws were associated with a 2% drop in wages, an outcome which the authors attribute to reduced bargaining power. “Although the idea of pay transparency is to give workers the ability to renegotiate away pay discrepancies, it actually shifts the bargaining power from the workers to the employer,” says Mr Pakzad-Hurson. “So wages are more equal,” explains Ms Cullen, “but they’re also lower.”

Rolf Degen summarizing... Widely touted psychology study, suggesting, in essence, that the rich are jerks, bites the dust in another, sophisticated replication failure

Jung, M. H., Smeets, P., Stoop, J., & Vosgerau, J. (2023). Social status and unethical behavior: Two replications of the field studies in Piff et al. (2012). Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Jan 2023. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001333

Abstract: Prominent social psychologists and major media outlets have put forward the notion that people of high socioeconomic status (SES) are more selfish and behave more unethically than people of low SES. In contrast, other research in economics and sociology has hypothesized and found a positive relationship between SES and prosocial and ethical behavior. We review the empirical evidence for these contradictory findings and conduct two direct, well-powered, and preregistered replications of the field studies by Piff and colleagues (2012) to test the relationship between SES and unethical/selfish behavior. Unlike the original findings, we find no evidence of a positive relationship between SES and unethical/selfish behavior in the two field replication studies.

People are more strongly persuaded by self-generated arguments than by arguments of others, particularly if they find argument generation easy

Persuasive Benefits of Self-Generated Arguments: Moderation and Mechanism. Mengran Xu, Duane T. Wegener. Social Psychological and Personality Science, January 6, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506221146612

Abstract: We aimed to derive a more systematic understanding of the persuasive advantages of self- versus other-generated arguments. Through three initial data collections (Ntotal = 492) and another two large preregistered studies (Ns = 528 and 496), we found that when people experienced a low level of difficulty (measured or manipulated) generating the arguments, self-generated arguments were more persuasive than other-generated arguments. However, when people experienced a high level of difficulty (measured or manipulated), the typical self-persuasion advantage was reduced significantly. Factor analyses identified perceptions of argument quality as a plausible and replicated mediator of the persuasive advantage of self-generated over other-generated arguments.

General Discussion

Through three initial data collections, a large preregistered replication measuring generation difficulty, and a preregistered study manipulating generation difficulty, we found that difficulty in generating the arguments reduced the self-persuasion advantage. To better understand reasons self-generated arguments might be more persuasive (when generation is easy), we examined an array of relevant perceptions of the arguments and of the process of generating (vs. receiving) them. Consistently across studies, when the difficulty of argument generation/reception was not particularly high, self-generated arguments were viewed as stronger, which then also uniquely predicted persuasion by those arguments. There was also some potential additional role for perceptions of knowledge fit.

Theoretical Implications

The current work offers several theoretical insights. First, it helps one better understand the long-standing effects of self-generated arguments. Researchers had observed that the self-persuasion advantage did not always happen, and some had speculated that difficulty in argument generation might play a role (e.g., Mann, 1967). Some prior work examined the meta-cognitive consequences of ease of generation (e.g., Müller et al., 2017; Wänke et al., 1997) without directly comparing reactions to the same self-generated and other-generated arguments or examining the perceptions of the arguments potentially responsible for such effects. Identifying difficulty as a moderator is important, as it also speaks to reasons why cognitive role-playing might sometimes be less effective than emotional role-playing (Mann, 1967). Participants might have had an easier time generating arguments for topics used in emotional role-playing (e.g., quitting smoking) than for topics used in the research on cognitive role-playing (e.g., justifying the number of commercial movie theaters that will be in business 3 years from now).

Traditional research mostly offered speculations on why active argument generation is more effective than passive argument reception. The current work identified perceived argument quality as a primary factor contributing to self-persuasion, with knowledge fit possibly being a secondary contributor. By using a wide spectrum of argument quality, novelty, and liking measures closely tied to perceptions of the arguments, we conceptually replicated previous results and buttressed previous arguments that perceptions of overall argument quality were at least partly responsible for persuasive advantages of self-generated over other-generated arguments (cf. Greenwald & Albert, 1968), even when controlling for knowledge fit (cf. Baldwin et al., 2013).

It is worth noting that Baldwin et al. (2013) argued that argument convincingness came from the extent to which the arguments match the participants’ own concerns on the issue. In the current work, this sense of match versus mismatch might have been captured to some degree by the knowledge fit factor. When constraining our EFA models to two factors, knowledge fit did load with the perceptions of argument quality. However, when allowing for a three-factor solution, knowledge fit loaded separately, and it was the argument quality perceptions that served as the primary mechanism responsible for self-generation effects. However, it remains possible that our measures of knowledge fit reflected more of a cognitive fit (i.e., the way the person thinks about the issue) than in the Baldwin et al. (2013) research (i.e., addressing the person’s concerns on the issue). To the extent that the various perceptions of knowledge fit play a role, however, the current work suggests that their contributions might rely on their connections to perceptions of the overall argument quality.

Limitations and Future Directions

All studies showed the same difficulty by generation interaction pattern, but there was also a consistent pattern across all studies, such that participants with relatively negative attitudes at Time 1 (i.e., those who generated counter-attitudinal arguments) showed a more pronounced difficulty by generation interaction compared with those with relatively positive initial attitudes. However, favorability of initial attitudes did not moderate the difficulty by generation patterns on the mediators. This consistent pattern is not what one would predict based on Briñol et al. (2012). However, the attitudes in the current research were likely quite different from those in Briñol et al. (2012). Briñol et al. (2012) used a familiar topic (tuition increase/decrease) for which people likely had rather strong, well-formed attitudes. In contrast, the topic we chose for our studies was more in line with the classic self-persuasion literature—something quite novel for participants. When participants were initially unfavorable toward the disappearance of paper money, this might simply reflect that they had more room to be convinced otherwise (even with the same perceptions of the mediators). This might have allowed participants with less favorable attitudes to show the most pronounced two-way interaction between difficulty and generation conditions, whereas more well-formed attitudes might have reduced self-persuasion. It would be worthwhile for future work to explore the potential moderators of when generating arguments for a somewhat counter-attitudinal position results in more versus less impact of the generated arguments.

In addition, the current difficulty moderation might relate to research on mere thought effects. Although the traditional effect of mere thought was to polarize attitudes, moderation can occur when people are required to think longer and experience more difficulty in generating new supportive thoughts, creating less confidence in those thoughts and less persuasion by them (Clarkson et al., 2011; cf. Tormala et al., 2007). Because it seemed odd to consider generation difficulty as influencing confidence in thoughts toward other-generated arguments, we did not assess confidence in thoughts. However, future research could have participants generate cognitive responses to the arguments and assess confidence in those thoughts. This could raise a host of intriguing questions, such as whether thought confidence is necessary for the effects of perceived argument quality.

When Psychotherapy Fails (which happens regularly)

When Psychotherapy Fails. Brechje Dandachi-FitzGerald, Henry Otgaar & Harald Merckelbach. Chapter in Toward a Science of Clinical Psychology pp 301–319. January 1 2023. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-14332-8_16

Abstract: Psychotherapy aims to make patients better. As is true for any type of treatment, psychotherapy regularly fails to achieve this goal. Therapeutic failures may take many forms, and the list of possible reasons for failure is similarly extensive. As we will explain in this chapter, there is no conclusive definition of psychotherapeutic failure. Also, failures are sometimes inevitable and thus, cannot always be blamed on the therapist. This chapter is about failures, mistakes, adverse events, and disappointing outcomes during or after psychotherapy. Obviously, these are uncomfortable topics, as it is far more glorious to discuss treatment successes. Still, much can be done about psychotherapeutic failures, but remedies start with acknowledging that harmful therapy effects and therapeutic failures do exist and are important research subjects in their own right.

People who positively judge positive emotions experience better psychological health; those who negatively judge negative emotions experience worse psychological health

Willroth, Emily C., Gerald Young, Maya Tamir, and Iris Mauss. 2023. “Judging Emotions as Good or Bad: Individual Differences and Associations with Psychological Health.” PsyArXiv. January 6. doi:10.31234/osf.io/3ds84

Abstract: People differ in their initial emotional responses to events, and we are beginning to understand these responses and their pervasive implications for psychological health. However, people also differ in how they think about and react to their initial emotions (i.e., emotion judgments). In turn, how people judge their emotions – as predominantly positive or negative – may have crucial implications for psychological health. Across five MTurk and undergraduate samples collected between 2017 and 2022 (total N=1,647), we investigated the nature of habitual emotion judgments (Aim 1) and their associations with psychological health (Aim 2). In Aim 1, we found four distinct habitual emotion judgments that differ according to the valence of the judgment (positive or negative) and the valence of the emotion being judged (positive or negative). Individual differences in habitual emotion judgments were moderately stable across time and were associated with, but not redundant with, conceptually related constructs (e.g., affect valuation, emotion preferences, stress mindsets, meta emotions) and broader traits (i.e., extraversion, neuroticism, trait emotions). In Aim 2, positive judgments of positive emotions were uniquely associated with better psychological health and negative judgments of negative emotions were uniquely associated with worse psychological health concurrently and prospectively, above and beyond the other types of emotion judgments, and above and beyond conceptually related constructs and broader traits. This research gives insight into how people judge their emotions, how these judgments relate to other emotion-related constructs, and their implications for psychological health.

Individuals’ beliefs that they can infer trust and trustworthiness from appearance are unfounded

Attributions of Trust and Trustworthiness. Rick K. Wilson & Catherine C. Eckel. Political Behavior, Jan 5 2023. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-022-09855-6

Abstract: This study examines whether individuals can accurately predict trust and trustworthiness in others based on their appearance. Using photos and decisions from previous experimental trust games, subjects were asked to view the photos and guess the levels of trust and trustworthiness of the individuals depicted. The results show that subjects had little ability to accurately guess the trust and trustworthiness behavior of others. There is significant heterogeneity in the accuracy of guesses, and errors in guesses are systematically related to the observable characteristics of the photos. Subjects’ guesses appear to be influenced by stereotypes based on the features seen in the photos, such as gender, skin color, or attractiveness. These findings suggest that individuals’ beliefs that they can infer trust and trustworthiness from appearance are unfounded, and that efforts to reduce the impact of stereotypes on inferred trustworthiness may improve the efficiency of trust-based interactions.

Motivations to reciprocate cooperation and punish defection are calibrated by estimates of how easily others can switch partners

Motivations to reciprocate cooperation and punish defection are calibrated by estimates of how easily others can switch partners. Sakura Arai, John Tooby, Leda Cosmides. PLoS One, April 19, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267153

Abstract: Evolutionary models of dyadic cooperation demonstrate that selection favors different strategies for reciprocity depending on opportunities to choose alternative partners. We propose that selection has favored mechanisms that estimate the extent to which others can switch partners and calibrate motivations to reciprocate and punish accordingly. These estimates should reflect default assumptions about relational mobility: the probability that individuals in one’s social world will have the opportunity to form relationships with new partners. This prior probability can be updated by cues present in the immediate situation one is facing. The resulting estimate of a partner’s outside options should serve as input to motivational systems regulating reciprocity: Higher estimates should down-regulate the use of sanctions to prevent defection by a current partner, and up-regulate efforts to attract better cooperative partners by curating one’s own reputation and monitoring that of others. We tested this hypothesis using a Trust Game with Punishment (TGP), which provides continuous measures of reciprocity, defection, and punishment in response to defection. We measured each participant’s perception of relational mobility in their real-world social ecology and experimentally varied a cue to partner switching. Moreover, the study was conducted in the US (n = 519) and Japan (n = 520): societies that are high versus low in relational mobility. Across conditions and societies, higher perceptions of relational mobility were associated with increased reciprocity and decreased punishment: i.e., those who thought that others have many opportunities to find new partners reciprocated more and punished less. The situational cue to partner switching was detected, but relational mobility in one’s real social world regulated motivations to reciprocate and punish, even in the experimental setting. The current research provides evidence that motivational systems are designed to estimate varying degrees of partner choice in one’s social ecology and regulate reciprocal behaviors accordingly.

4 Discussion

4.1 Evidence that motivational systems are designed for social ecologies with varying levels of partner choice

Ancestral variation in the availability of cooperative partners would have favored the evolution of motivational systems that treat partner choice as a continuous variable. Motivations to keep valuable cooperative partners and abandon unrewarding ones should be up-regulated in response to the perception that others can easily switch partners.

Here we tested the hypothesis that an individual’s motivations to reciprocate and punish are calibrated by that person’s estimate of the degree to which others in their local social ecology can exercise partner choice. This estimate is captured by measures of relational mobility [50]. The higher an individual’s relational mobility score, the more opportunities they believe others have to leave unsatisfying relationships for better ones.

We assessed motivations to trust, reciprocate, defect, punish, and switch partners by allowing people to cooperate for mutual benefit with a new individual. The results showed that motivations to reciprocate and punish tracked participants’ perceptions of relational mobility. The more partner choice they thought others in their social ecology could exercise, the more they reciprocated their partner’s trust and the less they paid to punish their partner—even when that partner had defected.

Providing incentives for desirable partners to stay in the relationship is the proposed function of these motivational calibrations. If that is correct, then people who have the opportunity to switch partners will be more likely to stay with a partner who reciprocates their trust and more likely to leave one who punishes them. After two rounds, half the participants were asked if they wanted to keep their current partner or switch to someone new. Holding all else equal, having been defected on more than quadrupled the odds that they wanted to switch and having been punished tripled the odds they would choose to leave. These were the two biggest independent predictors of switching decisions. The desire to leave a partner who punished was especially strong for participants who returned 40%—a response that creates a positive payoff for both parties that is almost equal. These individuals were almost 10 times more likely to want a new partner.

4.1.1 Are priors about social ecology updated by information about the situation or the person?

Perceptions of relational mobility are based on a huge database of experiences in a local social ecology—sometimes a lifetime’s worth. For this reason, we proposed that relational mobility serves as an estimate of the prior probability that others in one’s social ecology can exercise partner choice. It is a best guess before you learn what your partner is like—the situation participants faced in round 1.

If relational mobility in your social ecology is used to estimate a partner’s outside options when you know nothing else about that person, then its effect on cooperative motivations should be reduced (or eliminated) by data about that specific person’s value as a cooperative partner—to yourself and others. The evidence indicates that participants in both societies updated this prior based on first-hand knowledge of their partner’s willingness to cooperate and reluctance to punish. Once participants had experienced how their partner behaved in round 1, relational mobility no longer predicted how much they trusted, reciprocated, or punished in round 2, in either the US or Japan. The behavior of the sham partner in round 1 (and, of course, in round 2) did predict their responses. The only behavior that relational mobility continued to influence was antisocial punishment. The belief others in your social ecology can easily switch partners tempered—but did not eliminate—antisocial punishment. (See S5 Appendix.)

The results suggest that estimates of partner choice based on social ecology are updated based on properties of the person with whom one is interacting. But are these estimates updated in response to cues about a temporary situation one is facing—ones unrelated to the partner’s value as a cooperator? It is not clear that they should be.

Delton et al. [35] examined the evolution of motivations to cooperate in Bayesian agents who knew the base rate of one-shot interactions in their population and updated this prior based on a cue about the immediate situation they were facing. The cue reflected the probability that they would never interact again with their current partner. These Bayesian agents evolved a strong disposition to cooperate even when they rationally believed the interaction was one-shot. Selection favored agents who behaved as if they would repeatedly interact with their current partner even when they knew this was unlikely. Agent-based models also show that meeting a new individual once was a good cue that you will meet them again in ancestral social ecologies [64]. Every participant in our study was exposed to this ancestrally-reliable cue to a shadow of the future: They interacted with their partner for two rounds.

We did, however, provide a verbal cue relevant to partner choice in the temporary situation that they were facing. Half the participants were told they would be interacting with the same partner in every round (i.e., they were engaged in a repeated interaction with this person). The other half were told they could change partners after two rounds (i.e., their current partner can refuse to interact with them repeatedly). If this verbal cue is used to (temporarily) update their prior probability that a newly encountered person can exercise partner choice, their motivations to cooperate or punish might shift in response.

There was little evidence that participants in round 1 used this situational cue to update a prior that was based on their social ecology. Being told whether they would have the opportunity to switch partners had no effect on how much participants punished defections by their partner: Higher relational mobility in their local social ecology predicted less punishment, regardless of condition or society. The cue did have an effect on how much American participants reciprocated their partner’s trust, however. Although average levels of reciprocation were similar in both conditions, higher relational mobility predicted more reciprocation when Americans were told they and their partner could part ways after two rounds, but not when they were told that all of their interactions would be with the same partner.

Japanese participants did not respond to this cue at all: Their estimates of relational mobility predicted more reciprocation (and less punishment) to the same extent in both conditions. That is, there was no evidence that people in Japan updated their prior hypothesis about relational mobility based on the situational cue we provided. If they did, the change was too small to influence their willingness to reciprocate or punish.

If this result generalizes to other cues about a temporary situation, it suggests that the benefits of opportunistic behavior in the short term were generally outweighed by the risk of losing a valuable, long-term cooperative partner.

4.2 What is the function of punishment in dyadic reciprocal cooperation?

What, if anything, is the adaptive function of motivations to pay a cost to punish a defecting partner? This was not a rare response: Of participants who were trusters in round 1, 44% punished when the responder defected. It is usually assumed that the function of punishing defectors is to elicit more cooperation from them in the future—especially when they do not have the option to change partners.

People who believe others in their social ecology have fewer options to switch partners did pay more to punish defectors: Low relational mobility scores predicted paying more to punish. But there was no evidence that punishment succeeded in eliciting greater cooperation from participants. Quite the contrary: Participants who were punished for returning 0–40% in round 1 did not respond by sending more points as truster in round 2. Indeed, they returned fewer points as truster (β = -.22, p = .0002), and this effect was particularly pronounced for those who had provided a positive payoff by returning 40% in round 1, β = -.41, p = .0001 (vs. β = -.12, p = .099 for those who provided a negative payoff in round 1; see S5 Appendix). Moreover, those who were punished in round 1 were more likely to retaliate by punishing their partner in round 2 (S5 Appendix; for similar results, see [65, 66]).

Not only did punishment fail to elicit more cooperation from punished partners, but it also drove them away. When partner switching was possible, having been punished was one of the biggest independent predictors of wanting to change partners. Driving away defectors might be a function of punishment, of course—when they were not punished, ~70% of people who returned 0–40% wanted to remain with their accommodating partner (~68% of those who returned 0–30%; ~71% of those returning 40%). Although participants in this study could prevent future interactions at lower cost by simply deciding to switch after round 2, avoiding unrewarding partners may be more difficult in real life, especially when they want to continue cooperating with you.

Krasnow et al. [57] suggest that punishing defection signals a willingness to continue cooperating with your current partner, but on more favorable terms. Using a paradigm similar to the TGP, they found that participants who punished a defecting partner in the first round were 11 times more likely to cooperate than defect in the second one (switching was not an option). This pattern was not apparent in our study: Participants who punished a defecting partner did not return more in round 2 than those who did not (39.28% vs. 35.18%, t (226.99) = 1.41, p = .160), and they were not more likely to want to remain with their partner—indeed, the more points participants paid to punish the partner, the more—although slightly—they wanted to switch (OR = 1.02; 95% CI = [1.01, 1.03]). (Note, however, that a participant’s decision to stay did not ensure a continuing interaction in our study; the partner also had the option to leave, and punished ones were likely to do so.)

Our results showing that retaliatory punishment was common—~45% of those who were punished in round 1 retaliated in round 2—suggest an alternative explanation. In Krasnow et al. [57], participants who punished defectors in round 1 may have cooperated in round 2 to avoid (very costly) retaliatory punishment by their partner. Those who did not punish partners who succumbed to the temptation to cheat in round 1 may have assumed their partner would “reciprocate” by not punishing when them when they did the same in round 2.

Motivations to punish did not reflect the participant’s own commitment to stay in the relationship, but they were up-regulated by estimates that partners might have few outside options: Lower relational mobility in one’s social ecology did predict amount paid to punish defectors. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that motivations to punish evolved to deter bad treatment in the future by partners who do not seem to value your welfare [67]. Defecting now may be a reliable cue that this partner does not value your welfare sufficiently, and punishment was overwhelmingly directed at defectors. In ancestral social ecologies, partners who part ways now may nevertheless have to cooperate again in the future [64, 67, 68]. Punishment may have evolved as a warning, to deter bad treatment by defectors who may darken your door in the future.

4.3 Micro and macro effects of social ecology

We measured two variables regarding participants’ real-life social ecology of partner choice. First, we measured participants’ perceptions of their partner choice ecology with the relational mobility scale [50]. Second, we recruited participants from two societies in which average relational mobility scores are typically high (US) versus low (Japan). This lets us see whether behavior at the individual level scales up to explain differences between nations.

Within each society, the motivations of individuals were calibrated by their perceptions of other people’s relational mobility: the number of opportunities they believe that others have to form new relationships. Moreover, the pattern of calibration was universal: Within each society, higher relational mobility scores predicted more reciprocation and less punishment. Individual-level effects tracked individual perceptions of the local social ecology.

What about group-level differences? The concept of relational mobility was built from Yamagishi’s seminal work on general trust: a cognitive bias to assume that newly encountered people will treat you with benevolence rather than exploitation [69, 70]. General trust varies across nations; scores on the standard survey measure are higher in the US than Japan, for example. Where general trust is higher, people are more willing to risk cooperating with strangers who could, if untrustworthy, profit at their expense. The benefit of trusting strangers is that it allows people to discover better cooperative partners, giving them more outside options. The resulting increase relational mobility then tempers the risk of trusting strangers: The threat that a good partner will leave for a better outside option can deter exploitive behavior and increase benevolence.

With this in mind, we compared average behavior in the US and Japan. As in other studies, perceptions of relational mobility were higher in the US than Japan (RM others: 4.12 vs. 3.57, t (1028.2) = 13.76, p = 10−16; RM self: 4.20 vs. 3.37, t (1030.8) = 18.71, p = 10−16). That is, the average American believes others have more outside options than the average person from Japan does. Moreover, as Yamagishi’s view of general trust predicts, when participants had no prior experiences with their partners, American trusters risked more points on a stranger than Japanese participants did (Trust: 59 vs. 50.6, t (502.55) = 2.9, p = .004). And trusting strangers usually paid off: Most responders delivered a positive payoff in both societies (US 67%, JP 76%).

Did the perception that others have more outside options lead the average American to reciprocate more and punish less than the average person from Japan? No. Not only did Americans return less, on average, than Japanese participants, but more of them exploited their partner’s trust by delivering a negative payoff (US 33% vs. JP 24%). Americans were also more punitive, not less: They paid more to punish their partners, even when controlling for all other factors (including whether their partner defected). And, despite less reciprocation and more punishment at the macro-level, Americans were more likely to stay with their partner than Japanese participants (all else equal).

Within each society, individual differences in reciprocation and punishment were associated with individual differences in perceptions of relational mobility, but this did not translate into group-level differences between the US and Japan. Assuming that individual differences fully explain group-level differences is called the ecological fallacy [71–73]. The data clearly show that the micro-level effect of individuals’ perceptions of relational mobility and the macro-level effect of society were independent of one another. The individual-level psychological calibrations and the group-level differences between nations coexist, rather than one producing the other.

Features of the social ecology other than relational mobility could be responsible for the differences in group-level calibrations between the US and Japan (see e.g., [56, 74]). That Japanese participants were less punitive than Americans is contrary to findings that Japan (or East Asian countries in general) has “tighter” norms than the US which, when broken, elicit great censure [75, 76], but perhaps consistent with studies showing greater motivations to avoid rejection in people in Japan than the US [74]. Our data cannot speak to these explanations of the group-level differences we found.

4.4 Limitations and future directions

Motivations responded when participants learned how the partner treats them, but the partner switching instructions influenced Americans only (and not much at that). This could be because repeated interactions—with interruptions between—were common ancestrally, making long-run estimates of social ecology a more reliable basis for calibration than cues about a fleeting situation. The other possibility is that a cue delivered online was too divorced from real life, devoid of psychophysical cues typical of social isolation versus community. Future studies might enhance the salience of the situational cue, perhaps by including visual displays showing many versus few alternative partners (avatars or faces), or by giving participants prior experiences of a desirable partner leaving for a better one or an unrewarding partner staying.

A person with fewer outside options than others in their local ecology may feel they need to reciprocate more and punish less. We did adapt the relational mobility scale to ask about the self; although self and other scores were correlated r (515) = .60 (p = 10−16) in the US and r (516) = .50 (p = 10−16) in Japan, we calculated whether RM self < RM other for each participant. In Japan, 67% of participants felt their outside options were worse than those of other people, compared to 44% in the US. And, in both countries, those who felt they have fewer outside options returned more points than those who felt their options were better than or equal to others, but the difference in points returned was not significant. A better measure in the future might be to ask, for each RM question, whether people feel they have more, the same, or fewer options than others in their society.

Dyadic cooperation may be affected by other aspects of the social ecology as well, such as how likely others will be to take advantage of you [69]. Punishment as a deterrent may be up-regulated in ecologies where the probability of being exploited are higher, as they were in the US in this study. Perceptions of these probabilities would be a fruitful variable to assess.

Lastly, our participants were from either the US or Japan, two populous, large-scale industrialized societies. Objectively speaking, most people in these countries are free to associate with anyone they like, and they are surrounded by strangers, each of whom is a potential new partner. It would be fruitful to extend the current line of research to smaller societies in which the actual—not only perceived—possibility of partner choice is more limited.