Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Women who believe that desirable mates are hard to come by, tend to be warier of women in general; wariness of women is linked to less reported number of good female friends

Mate Scarcity Effects on Women’s Wariness of Other Women. Jovana Vukovic, Rudy Jean-Bart, Daniela Branson, Jason Zephir, Alexandra Wright. EvoS Journal, Jul 2019. http://evostudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Vukovic-et-al_Vol10SpIss1.pdf

Abstract: Previous studies have found that the scarcity of potential mates in the environment may influence mate-choice relevant behaviors, including intrasexual competition. In the current study, we investigated the relationship between the scarcity of Black men and women’s perceptions of other women (i.e., potential competitors). Since Black men are factually scarce in Broward County, we predicted that women who believe that Black men are scarce may hold less favorable opinions of other women (i.e., potential competitors). We interpreted attitudes of wariness toward other women as likely proxies to intrasexual competition. Our results show that women who believe that desirable mates are hard to come by, tend to be warier of women in general. We also found a negative correlation between wariness of women and reported number of good female friends. These results are consistent with previous findings suggesting heightened intrasexual competition when competition for desirable mates is high due to a sex ratio imbalance.

KEYWORDS: Sex Ratio Imbalance, Intrasexual Competition, Female Friendship, Mate Scarcity

Part of the survey:

Rate  the  following  statements  on  a  scale  from  1  (disagree  strongly)  to  10 (agree strongly):
Women are vengeful.
Women are competitive.
Women make good best friends.
I trust other women.
I feel more defensive around women than I do men.
I feel more comfortable around men than I do around women.
I am sometimes jealous of my female friends.
In the past, I have gossiped about a female friend who was flirting with the person I liked in a romantic way.
In the past, I started a rumor to get back at a friend who flirted with the person I liked in a romantic way.


Are We Monogamous? A Review of the Evolution of Pair-Bonding in Humans and Its Contemporary Variation Cross-Culturally

Are We Monogamous? A Review of the Evolution of Pair-Bonding in Humans and Its Contemporary Variation Cross-Culturally. Ryan Schacht and Karen L. Kramer. Front. Ecol. Evol., July 17 2019, https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2019.00230

Abstract; Despite a long history of study, consensus on a human-typical mating system remains elusive. While a simple classification would be useful for cross-species comparisons, monogamous, polyandrous, and polygynous marriage systems exist across contemporary human societies. Moreover, sexual relationships occur outside of or in tandem with marriage, resulting in most societies exhibiting multiple kinds of marriage and mating relationships. Further complicating a straightforward classification of mating system are the multiple possible interpretations of biological traits typical of humans used to indicate ancestral mating patterns. While challenging to characterize, our review of the literature offers several key insights. 1) Although polygyny is socially sanctioned in most societies, monogamy is the dominant marriage-type within any one group cross-culturally. 2) Sex outside of marriage occurs across societies, yet human extra pair paternity rates are relatively low when compared to those of socially monogamous birds and mammals. 3) Though the timing of the evolution of certain anatomical characteristics is open to debate, human levels of sexual dimorphism and relative testis size point to a diverging history of sexual selection from our great ape relatives. Thus, we conclude that while there are many ethnographic examples of variation across human societies in terms of marriage patterns, extramarital affairs, the stability of relationships, and the ways in which fathers invest, the pair-bond is a ubiquitous feature of human mating relationships. This may be expressed through polygyny and/or polyandry but is most commonly observed in the form of serial monogamy.

Conclusion

Consensus on a human-typical mating system has remained elusive in the literature. Across human societies today, monogamous, polyandrous, polygynous, and short-term mating patterns are present, with most societies exhibiting multiple types of marriages and mating relationships. Further complicating a straightforward classification of mating system are the multiple possible interpretations of biological traits typical of humans used to indicate ancestral mating patterns. While challenging, our review of the literature offers several key insights. 1) Although polygyny is socially sanctioned in most societies, monogamy is the dominant marriage-type within any one group cross-culturally. 2) Sex outside of marriage occurs across societies, yet human extra pair paternity rates are relatively low when compared to those of socially monogamous birds and mammals. 3) While the timing of the evolution of certain anatomical characteristics is open to debate, human levels of sexual dimorphism and relative testis size point to a diverging history of sexual selection from our great ape relatives.

In sum, we conclude that while there are many ethnographic examples of variation across human societies in terms of mating patterns, the stability of relationships, and the ways in which fathers invest, the residential pair-bond is a ubiquitous feature of human mating relationships. This, at times, is expressed through polygyny and/or polyandry, but is most commonly observed in the form of monogamous marriage that is serial and characterized by low levels of extra-pair paternity and high levels of paternal care.

Students are Almost as Effective as Professors in University Teaching

Students are Almost as Effective as Professors in University Teaching. Jan Feld, Nicolás alamanca, Ulf Zölitz, Economics of Education Review, July 16 2019, 101912, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2019.101912

Abstract: In a previous paper, we have shown that academic rank is largely unrelated to tutorial teaching effectiveness. In this paper, we further explore the effectiveness of the lowest-ranked instructors: students. We confirm that students are almost as effective as senior instructors, and we produce results informative on the effects of expanding the use of student instructors. We conclude that hiring moderately more student instructors would not harm students, but exclusively using them will likely negatively affect student outcomes. Given how inexpensive student instructors are, however, such a policy might still be worth it.


We overestimate how much observers think our one-off success or failure offers insight about a competence; we think their seeing a performance in a specific skill will reveal a lot about a general skill

Moon, A., Gan, M., & Critcher, C. R. (2019). The overblown implications effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000204

Abstract: People frequently engage in behaviors that put their competencies on display. However, do such actors understand how others view them in light of these performances? Eight studies support an overblown implications effect (OIE): Actors overestimate how much observers think an actor’s one-off success or failure offers clear insight about a relevant competency (Study 1). Furthermore, actors overblow performances’ implications even in prospect, before there are experienced successes or failures on which to ruminate (Studies 2 and 3). To explain the OIE, we introduce the construct of working trait definitions—accessible beliefs about what specific skills define a general trait or competency. When actors try to adopt observers’ perspective, the narrow performance domain seems disproportionately important in defining the general trait (Study 4). By manipulating actors’ working trait definitions to include other (unobserved) trait-relevant behaviors, we eliminated the OIE (Study 5). The final 3 studies (Studies 6a–6c) more precisely localized the error. Although actors and observers agreed on what a single success or failure (e.g., the quality of a single batch of cookies) could reveal about actors’ narrow competence (e.g., skill at baking cookies), actors erred in thinking observers would feel this performance would reveal a considerable amount about the more general skill (e.g., cooking ability) and related specific competencies (e.g., skill at making omelets). Discussion centers on how the present theoretical account differs from previous explanations why metaperceptions err and identifies important open questions for future research.

Oldest European accounts that describe the reactions of animals to their own reflections on the surface of a body of water or in a mirror

Ancient and Medieval Animals and Self-recognition: Observations from Early European Sources in Early Science and Medicine- Lucyna Kostuch, Beata Wojciechowska and Sylwia Konarska-Zimnicka. Early Science and Medicine, Volume 24: Issue 2, Jul 2 2019. https://doi.org/10.1163/15733823-00242P01

Abstract: This article presents the oldest European accounts that describe the reactions of animals to their own reflections on the surface of a body of water or in a mirror. The analysed sources will encompass Greco-Roman accounts, including the reception of these accounts in the Middle Ages. While this article belongs to the field of the history of science, it seeks to provide a historical commentary with insights from contemporary studies (the mirror test, MSR). The article presents surviving ancient and medieval accounts about particular animal species that describe their ability or inability to recognise a mirror reflection. The species discussed are the horse, mule, dog, birds (sparrow, partridge, rooster, quail, jackdaw, starling and pheasant), the monkey and tiger. Brief mention is also made of the sheep, pigeon, goose, parrot, raven and cat.

Keywords: ancient and medieval animals ; mirror test ; self-recognition