Thursday, April 23, 2020

The Light Triad predicts Tinder use for love (long-term mating)

Looking from the bright side: The Light Triad predicts Tinder use for love. Barış Sevi, Burak Doğruyol. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, April 22, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407520918942

Abstract: The Dark Triad of personality has gained much attention in the literature, while the lighter side of personality has not received comparable attention. This study aimed to examine how the Light Triad of personality traits (Faith in Humanity, Humanism, and Kantianism) differs between Tinder users, and how these personality traits are related to motivations to use Tinder for short- and long-term mating. Cross-sectional data from current Tinder users (n = 130), past Tinder users (n = 56), and people who have never used Tinder (n = 121) were examined. The results revealed that compared to Tinder users, nonusers have higher scores on Kantianism, which might be related to Kantians not emphasizing attractiveness, a factor that has a role in online dating success. Further, Tinder users with higher total scores on the Light Triad were found to show higher motivation to use Tinder for long-term mating, whereas a significant relation was not found motivation to use Tinder for short-term mating. Long-term mating requires establishing a cooperative relationship with someone, and the motivation to use Tinder to find long-term mates may be due to the cooperation-promoting nature of the Light Triad.

Keywords Casual sex, Light Triad, love, mating, Tinder


Average happiness is high in modern societies & tends to rise even higher, which contradicts longstanding pessimism about modernization; also, happiness doesn't depend primarily on one’s social position

World Database of Happiness. A ‘findings archive.’ Ruut Veenhoven. Chapter prepared for Handbook of Wellbeing, Happiness and the Environment. Editors: Heinz Welsch, David Maddison and Katrin Rehdanz. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2018. https://personal.eur.nl/veenhoven/Pub2020s/2020a-full.pdf

1.2 Intriguing findings on happiness

The new line of research has produced several unexpected results, such as:

*  The majority of humanity appears to enjoy life. Unhappiness is the exception rather than the rule. This is at odds with common misery counts in the social sciences (Diener & Diener 1996).
*  Average happiness is high in modern societies and tends to rise even higher. This finding contradicts longstanding pessimism about modernization (Cummins 2000, Veenhoven 2005, Veenhoven & Hagerty 2005, Inglehart et. al. (2008).
*  In modern western nations, happiness differs little across social categories, such as rich and poor or males and females. The difference is rather in psychological competence (Headey and Wearing 1992). This result is at odds with the common notion in sociology that happiness depends primarily on one’s social position.
*  Differences in happiness within nations (as measured by standard deviations) tend to get smaller. This contradicts claims about growing inequality in modern society (Veenhoven 2002).
*  People live happier in individualistic societies such as Denmark, than in collectivistic societies such as Japan (Veenhoven 1999, Verne 2009). This contradicts the view that modern society falls short in social cohesion, such as proclaimed in books like ‘Bowling Alone’ (Putman 2000).
*  People do not live happier in welfare states than in equally rich nations where ‘father state’ is less open handed. Inequality of happiness does not appear to be smaller in welfare states either (Veenhoven 2000b). This finding conflicts with political left thinking.
*  Happiness is not just a matter of being better off than the Jones; though social comparison plays a role, it is not the whole story. This finding challenges cognitive theories of happiness and supports affective explanations (Veenhoven 1991, 1995, 2008).
*  Happiness is not very trait like; over a lifetime it appears to be quite variable. This finding does not fit the ‘set-point’ theory of happiness (Veenhoven 1994b, Ehrhardt et al. 2000, and Headey 2006).


Key words: literature review, research synthesis, methodology, research archive,
comparative analysis, happiness, life satisfaction, subjective wellbeing, quality of life,
air-pollution, economic growth

Foraging minds in modern environments: Individuals consistently displayed an enhanced memory for locations of high-calorie and savory-tasting foods

Foraging minds in modern environments: High-calorie and savory-taste biases in human food spatial memory. Rachelle de Vries, Emely de Vet, Kees de Graaf, Sanne Boesveldt. Appetite, April 22 2020, 104718, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2020.104718

Abstract: Human memory may show sensitivity to content that carried fitness-relevance throughout evolutionary history. We investigated whether biases in human food spatial memory exist and influence the eating behavior of individuals within the modern food environment. In two lab studies with distinct samples of 88 participants, individuals had to re-locate foods on a map in a computer-based spatial memory task using visual (Study 1) or olfactory (Study 2) cues that signaled sweet and savory high- and low-calorie foods. Individuals consistently displayed an enhanced memory for locations of high-calorie and savory-tasting foods – regardless of hedonic evaluations, personal experiences with foods, or the time taken to encode food locations. However, we did not find any clear effects of the high-calorie or savory-taste bias in food spatial memory on eating behavior. Findings highlight that content matters deeply for the faculty of human food spatial memory and indicate an implicit cognitive system presumably attuned to ancestral priorities of optimal foraging.

Keywords: Cognitive biasFood spatial memoryEating behaviorOptimal foraging theoryVisionOlfaction