Wednesday, June 19, 2019

The predictive effects of fear of being single on physical attractiveness and less selective partner selection strategies

The predictive effects of fear of being single on physical attractiveness and less selective partner selection strategies. Stephanie S. Spielmann et al. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, June 19, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407519856701

Abstract: Fear of being single (FOBS) tends to predict settling for less when seeking a romantic partner. The present research sought to examine whether this is due, at least in part, to lower physical attractiveness among those who fear being single. In a photo-rating study (Study 1, N = 122) and a speed-dating study (Study 2, N = 171), participants completed the FOBS Scale, rated perceptions of their own physical attractiveness, and were then rated on physical attractiveness by a team of raters. In Studies 1 and 2, FOBS was not significantly associated with judge-rated physical attractiveness as a bivariate association or in hierarchical regressions accounting for anxious and avoidant attachments, gender, and smiling. There were mixed findings in both studies regarding the association between FOBS and self-rated physical attractiveness in bivariate versus multivariate analyses. However, the tendency of those with stronger FOBS to be less selective during speed dating was not explained by either their judge-rated or their self-rated physical attractiveness.

Keywords: Fear of being single, physical attractiveness, selectivity, speed dating

Retracted Papers Die Hard, see the Diederik Stapel case and the Enduring Influence of Flawed Science: Stapel’s papers are still cited in a favorable way within and outside the psychological literature

Moris Fernandez, Luis, and Miguel A. Vadillo. 2019. “Retracted Papers Die Hard: Diederik Stapel and the Enduring Influence of Flawed Science.” PsyArXiv. June 19. doi:10.31234/osf.io/cszpy

Abstract: Self-correction is a defining feature of science. However, science’s ability to correct itself is far from optimal as shown, for instance, by the persistent influence of papers that have been retracted due to faulty methods or research misconduct. In this study, we track citations to the retracted work of Diederik Stapel. These citations provide a powerful indicative of the enduring influence of flawed science, as the (admittedly fabricated) data reported in these retracted papers provide no evidence for or against any hypothesis and this case of fraud was widely known due to the extensive media coverage of the scandal. Our data show that Stapel’s papers are still cited in a favorable way within and without the psychological literature. To ameliorate this problem, we propose that papers should be screened during the review process to monitor citations to retracted papers.

We say we see a lot of news reports about “Politics”, “Science” and “International,” but the categories “Tragedies and Weird news”’ and “Sport” are by far the most visited

The News We Like Are Not the News We Visit: News Categories Popularity in Usage Data. Zied Ben Houidi et al. Vol 13 No 01 (2019): Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Conference on Web and Social Media, 2019-07-06. https://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/ICWSM/article/view/3212

Abstract: Most of our knowledge about online news consumption comes from survey-based news market reports, partial usage data from a single editor, or what people publicly share on social networks. This paper complements these sources by presenting the first holistic study of visits across online news outlets that a population uses to read news. We monitor the entire network traffic generated by Internet users in four locations in Italy. Together these users generated 80 million visits to 5.4 million news articles in about one year and a half. This unique view allows us to evaluate how usage data complements existing data sources. We find for instance that only 16% of news visits in our datasets came from online social networks. In addition, the popularity of news categories when considering all visits is quite different from the one when considering only news discovered on social media, or visits to a single major news outlet. Interestingly, a substantial mismatch emerges between self-reported news-category preferences (as measured by Reuters Institute in the same year and same country) and their actual popularity in terms of visits in our datasets. In particular, unlike self-reported preferences expressed by users in surveys that put “Politics”, “Science” and “International” as the most appreciated categories, “Tragedies and Weird news”’ and “Sport” are by far the most visited. We discuss two possible causes of this mismatch and conjecture that the most plausible reason is the disassociation that may occur between individuals’ cognitive values and their cue-triggered attraction.

Rolf Degen summarizing: Ironically, it may not be the much-trumpeted echo chambers, but exposure to cross-cutting views that increases the spread of misinformation on social media

Explaining the Spread of Misinformation on Social Media: Evidence fromthe 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. Pablo Barbera. Note prepared for the APSA Comparative Politics Newsletter, Fall 2018. http://pablobarbera.com/static/barbera-CP-note.pdf

Abstract: Over the past few years, concerns about the negative societal consequences of the spreadof misinformation have become widespread. While false news and propaganda are far from being a new phenomenon, the emergence and popularization of social networking platforms appear to have increased the prevalence of false news stories and the speed at which they become viral. False rumors and news stories that were spread on social media have been mentioned as one of the reasons for the recent rise of populist candidates in the U.S. and Europe and as fuel inciting violence against ethnic minorities in countries such as Sri Lanka and Myanmar (see e.g. Taub and Fisher, 2018). The same new technology tools that allowed the pro-democracy groups during the Arab Spring to coordinate and start a revolution are now seemingly giving a platform to conspiracy theorists and extremist actors seeking to manipulate the political agenda in their own financial or political interest. However, we still know relatively little about the extent to which false news are indeed widespread on social media and the extent to which they have a causal effect on individual attitude change or offline violence. This short note offers an overview of the existing empirical evidence regarding the prevalence of misinformation on social media sites and different individual- and contextual-level factors that may explain its diffusion.


Men looking at women: The contrapposto pose was perceived as more attractive than the standing pose

Waist-to-Hip Ratio as Supernormal Stimuli: Effect of Contrapposto Pose and Viewing Angle. Farid Pazhoohi. Archives of Sexual Behavior, June 18 2019. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-01486-z

Abstract: In women, the waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) is an indicator of attractiveness, health, youthfulness, and reproductive potential. In the current study, we hypothesized that viewing angle and body postures influence the attractiveness of these forms based on the view dependency of WHR stimuli (vdWHR). Using eye tracking, we quantified the number of fixations and dwell time on 3D images of a female avatar in two different poses (standing and contrapposto) from eight viewing angles incrementing in 45 degrees of rotation. A total of 68 heterosexual individuals (25 men and 43 women) participated in the study. Results showed that the contrapposto pose was perceived as more attractive than the standing pose and that lower vdWHR sides of the stimuli attracted more first fixation, total fixations, and dwell time. Overall, the results supported that WHR is view-dependent and vdWHRs lower than optimal WHRs are supernormal stimuli that may generate peak shifts in responding. Results are discussed in terms of the attractiveness of women’s movements (gaits and dance) and augmented artistic presentations.