Thursday, July 4, 2019

Death awareness: Terror management or cognitive adaptation to time management?

Death awareness: Terror management or cognitive adaptation to time management? X.T. Wang, Peng Wang. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y

Abstract: Death awareness refers to thinking about and recognizing the inevitability of one’s own death. According to the popular terror management theory, death awareness is a common source of many irrational defensive reactions to existential anxiety. However, an evolutionary perspective suggests that death awareness is an essential part of human-unique autonoetic consciousness, and should be viewed as a cognitive adaptation to the problems of resource management, mainly time management. In three studies, we explored proactive effects of death awareness, activated experimentally or experientially by the affliction of cancer. In Studies 1 and 2, compared to a control group, the participants who contemplated death underestimated the passage of time in a time-perception task and had a lower delay-discounting rate, indicated by a more future-oriented preference for a larger-and-delayed reward to a smaller-and-immediate reward. In Study 3, cancer patients, when compared with non-cancer patients with more curable diseases, overestimated the passage of time and had a higher delay discounting rate (more present-oriented) when making intertemporal choices. These findings do not support defensive reactions predicted from terror management theory. Instead, the results reveal a proactive time management pattern adapted to different types of death awareness: mortality reminder and cancer experience.


Activating pathogen threat consistently made dense social environments seem more crowded, & consistently generated more negative affect toward these environments; people were more likely to choose uncrowded environments

The infectiousness of crowds: Crowding experiences are amplified by pathogen threats. Iris M. Wang, Joshua M. Ackerman. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y

Abstract: In our everyday lives, we may find ourselves in situations where many people are congregated, like on a subway car during rush hour, or in a dance club on a Saturday night. People sometimes perceive these social situations as unpleasantly crowded. Previous work has demonstrated that incidental factors such as being hungry or hot increase perceptions of crowdedness. Yet, crowds afford additional threats and opportunities to individuals, ones that exist because other people can act as agents (even unwitting ones) of harm and safety. Here, we demonstrate that crowding perceptions and evaluations depend on specific, active threats for perceivers. Eight studies (combined N = 2056) test whether infectious disease threats, which are associated with crowded conditions, increase negative reactions and avoidant behavioral intentions. Across studies, activating pathogen threat consistently made dense social environments seem more crowded, and consistently generated more negative affect toward these environments. Finally, under pathogen threat, people were more likely to choose to inhabit uncrowded environments. These outcomes were threat-specific. That is, they were more influenced by pathogen threat relative to other threats of physical safety. These studies suggest that interpretations of social environments depend on the unique threats and opportunities those environments afford to individuals.

Mothers of very young children report more dates than fathers of very young children; single parents of children less than 5 report higher frequency of sexual activity & more first dates in the past 3 months than those of older children

Using conjoint analysis to assess men’s relationship interest in women with and without children. Viviana Weekes-Shackelford, Justin K Mogilski, Todd K. Shackelford. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y

Abstract: If the presence of children and remarriage (or re-mating) were recurrent features of human evolutionary history, mating psychology should contain features that address problems associated with the presence of children and re-mating and we should see this revealed in a variety of mating behaviors. Mothers of very young children (<2yrs) report more dates than fathers of very young children and single parents of children less than 5 report higher frequency of sexual activity and more first dates in the past 3 months than do parents of older children. Men and women with at least one genetic child with their partner also perform more frequent individual mate retention behaviors. Furthermore, women report different mate preferences before and after having children. The current research used conjoint analysis to explore men’s long- and short-term interest in women with and without children. Over 500 men were asked to rank profiles of potential mates that varied by the woman’s age, her child’s age, her child’s sex, and the father’s involvement. Findings add to a provisional framework for research on mating psychology after having children.

Plant avoidance behaviors in Shuar infants and toddlers (Amazonians in southeastern Ecuador)

Plant avoidance behaviors in Shuar infants and toddlers. Annie E. Wertz, Alejandro S. Erut, Andrew Marcus Smith, Claudia Elsner, H. Clark Barrett. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y

Abstract: Recent research shows that 8- to 18-month-old infants from the US and Germany are reluctant to touch plants and look more frequently toward adults before touching plants, a behavioral avoidance strategy that would mitigate plant dangers. Here we test Shuar infants and toddlers to examine whether infants growing up with substantial exposure to plants exhibit similar avoidance behaviors. The Shuar are an indigenous Amazonian society in southeastern Ecuador. Infants and toddlers (7- to 36month-olds; N=52) from four small rural Shuar villages were tested. The stimuli were real plants, artificial plants, feature-matched novel artifacts, familiar artifacts, and naturally occurring objects. An experimenter placed each stimulus object in front of the infant for 10 seconds; infants’ touch behavior and looking behavior were coded. The results showed that Shuar infants, like infants from the US and Germany, took longer to touch plants (real and artificial) compared to familiar artifacts and stones. However, unlike US and German infants, Shuar infants were as reluctant to touch novel artifacts as plants, and exhibited similar amounts of social looking across all object types. These results suggest informative similarities and differences between the Shuar and infants from the US and Germany.


Check also How Plants Shape the Mind. Annie E. Wertz. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, June 1 2019, https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/06/the-adaptive-problems-humans-faced-with.html

And And The seeds of social learning: Infants exhibit more social looking for plants than other object types. Claudia E lsner, Annie E.Wertz. Cognition, Volume 183, February 2019, Pages 244-255. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/02/knowing-which-plants-are-beneficial-or.html

A meta-analysis of sex differences in human navigation skills: Children younger than 13 years showed much smaller effect sizes (d = .15) than older age groups

A meta-analysis of sex differences in human navigation skills. Alina Nazareth et al. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, July 3 2019. https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13423-019-01633-6

Abstract: There are inconsistent reports regarding behavioral sex differences in the human navigation literature. This meta-analysis quantifies the overall magnitude of sex differences in large-scale navigation skills in a variety of paradigms and populations, and examines potential moderators, using 694 effect sizes from 266 studies and a multilevel analytic approach. Overall, male participants outperform female participants, with a small to medium effect size (d = 0.34 to 0.38). The type of task, the type of dependent variable and the testing environment significantly contribute to variability in effect sizes, although there are only a few situations in which differences are either nonexistent or very large. Pointing and recall tasks (and the deviation scores associated with them) show larger sex differences than distance estimation tasks or learning to criterion. Studies with children younger than 13 years showed much smaller effect sizes (d = .15) than older age groups. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding sex differences in human spatial navigation and identify avenues for future navigation research.

Keywords: Meta-analysis Sex difference Navigation Spatial skills

Check also Phenotypic and genetic evidence for a unifactorial structure of spatial abilities. Kaili Rimfeld, Nicholas G. Shakeshaft, Margherita Malanchini, Maja Rodic, Saskia Selzam, Kerry Schofield, Philip S. Dale, Yulia Kovas, and Robert Plomin. PNAS March 7, 2017 114 (10) 2777-2782; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1607883114