Sunday, February 10, 2019

Conspiracy Beliefs and Personaliy Traits: Agreeableness, openness to experience, & the remaining Big Five personality factors were not significantly associated with conspiracy beliefs

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A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Psychological Research on Conspiracy Beliefs: Field Characteristics, Measurement Instruments, and A...

British colonial rule correlates positively with democracy levels at independence; changes in the international system during the Cold War eliminated the British advantage

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British colonialism and democracy: Divergent inheritances and diminishing legacies. Alexander Lee, Jack Paine. Journal of Comparative Econom...

Everyone should feel entitled to more: This privatized approach taken by the US Gov't and employers exacerbates inequalities among workers

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The Real Mommy War Is Against the State. Caitlyn Collins. The New York Times. Feb 10, 2019, Page SR7, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/09/opi...

Why do people love to share their running routes on social media? When people sense their own mate value to be low, or when there is a mating motive, they want to ensure workout posts are noticed

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If you work it, flaunt it: Conspicuous displays of exercise efforts increase mate value. Jolien Vandenbroele, Anneleen Van Kerckhove, Maggie...
Saturday, February 9, 2019

Interplay Between Genetic and Environmental Contributions in the Unfolding of Personality Differences from Early Adolescence to Young Adulthood

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Unravelling the Interplay Between Genetic and Environmental Contributions in the Unfolding of Personality Differences from Early Adolescence...

Is the Capacity for Vocal Learning in Vertebrates Rooted in Fish Schooling Behavior?

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Is the Capacity for Vocal Learning in Vertebrates Rooted in Fish Schooling Behavior? Matz Larsson, Benjamin W. Abbott. Evolutionary Biology,...

Monozygotic Twins Seem To Have Higher Genetic Quality (significantly more physically attractive & healthier) than DZ Twins and Singletons; MZ twins may be a quality-maximizing feature of sexual reproduction

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Do Monozygotic Twins Have Higher Genetic Quality than Dizygotic Twins and Singletons? Hints from Attractiveness Ratings and Self-Reported He...

Little is known about the operation of male mate choice in systems with perceived high costs to male choosiness, like Rana sylvatica; matings with preferred females produced fewer and lower-quality offspring

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Fitness costs of mating with preferred females in a scramble mating system. Lindsey Swierk, Tracy Langkilde. Behavioral Ecology, arz001, htt...
Friday, February 8, 2019

Alext Tabarrok: First in-depth, independent evaluation of one MVP project & it doesn't look great: The project did some good but the big push failed & the good could have been done at lower cost

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Barnett, C., Masset, E. Dogbe, T., Jupp, D., Korboe, D., Acharya, A., Nelson, K., Eager, R. and Hilton, T. (2018) 'Impact Evaluation of ...

Conservatives seem more fear-motivated, disgust-sensitive, & happy; liberals might have greater overall negative emotional biases towards politicians who are ideologically dissimilar

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Contempt of Congress: Do Liberals and Conservatives Harbor Equivalent Negative Emotional Biases Towards Ideologically Congruent vs. Incongru...

Mice use olfaction to asses risk in the environment from predators & food; ethanol elicited clear avoidance in laboratory mice, as fox faeces did; ethanol could be a cue for fruit ripening (over-ripe, unhealthy fruits)

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Ethanol and a chemical from fox faeces modulate exploratory behaviour in laboratory mice. Carlos Grau et al. Applied Animal Behaviour Scienc...

Anxious attachment (hypervigilant detection of and reactivity to social inconsistency and unreliability) heightens pattern deviancy (distortions of repeated forms or models) aversion, contributing to prejudice

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Anxious Attachment as an Antecedent of People's Aversion Towards Pattern Deviancy. Anton Gollwitzer, Margaret S. Clark. European Journal...

People tend to derogate their ideological opponents. But how does social status affect this tendency?

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Taking the High Ground: The Impact of Social Status on the Derogation of Ideological Opponents. Aiden Gregg, Nikhila Mahadevan, Constantine ...

People primarily justify eating meat using one of four rationalizations: they believe it is natural, necessary, normal, and/or nice; each of these is associated with a specific psychological profile

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Psychological profiles of people who justify eating meat as natural, necessary, normal, or nice. Christopher J. Hopwood, Wiebke Bleidorn. Fo...
Thursday, February 7, 2019

Limits to Fitness Benefits of Prolonged Post-reproductive Lifespan in Women: Having a maternal grandmother improves grandchild survival, co-residence with old paternal grandmothers decreases grandchild survival

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Limits to Fitness Benefits of Prolonged Post-reproductive Lifespan in Women. Simon N. Chapman et al. Current Biology, https://doi.org/10.101...

Preliminary support for the cuckoldry-risk hypothesis: Men pursuing a relatively slow life history strategy produced higher quality ejaculates, implying resource allocation decisions for greater parenting effort

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Barbaro, N., Shackelford, T. K., Holub, A. M., Jeffery, A. J., Lopes, G. S., & Zeigler-Hill, V. (2018). Life history correlates of human...

Consciousness rests on the brain’s ability to sustain rich brain dynamics (including signal coordination) & pave the way for determining specific & generalizable fingerprints of conscious & unconscious states

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Human consciousness is supported by dynamic complex patterns of brain signal coordination. A. Demertzi et al. Science Advances Feb 06 2019: ...

Professor Jack Ponton's New Paper: Grid Scale Electricity Storage Can’t Save Renewables

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Professor Jack Ponton's New Paper: Grid Scale Electricity Storage Can’t Save Renewables. Global Warming Policy Foundation, Feb 7 2019, h...