Intelligence is a well-studied construct that has correlations with many educational, employment, & health outcomes; there is a lack of education in the area, & so incorrect beliefs about intelligence are widespread

Warne, Russell T., and Jared Z. Burton. 2019. “The Neglected Intelligence Course: Needs and Suggested Solutions.” PsyArXiv. January 8. doi:10.31234/osf.io/epu2s (https://psyarxiv.com/epu2s/)

Abstract: Intelligence is a well-studied construct in psychology that has correlational relationships with many educational, employment, and health outcomes. However, prior research indicates that incorrect beliefs about intelligence are widespread. In an effort to discern the degree to which the psychology curriculum is responsible for these inaccuracies, we collected course descriptions and catalog information from 303 American colleges and universities. We found that college courses dedicated to mainstream intelligence science are rare. Because the lack of intelligence education within psychology is a plausible contributor to incorrect beliefs about intelligence, we present an outline for a college-level course on intelligence. We also provide advice for implementing a course, including course readings and advice for handling controversies.

The human imagination: the cognitive neuroscience of visual mental imagery

The human imagination: the cognitive neuroscience of visual mental imagery. Joel Pearson.
Nature Reviews Neuroscience (2019). August 5 2019. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41583-019-0202-9

Abstract: Mental imagery can be advantageous, unnecessary and even clinically disruptive. With methodological constraints now overcome, research has shown that visual imagery involves a network of brain areas from the frontal cortex to sensory areas, overlapping with the default mode network, and can function much like a weak version of afferent perception. Imagery vividness and strength range from completely absent (aphantasia) to photo-like (hyperphantasia). Both the anatomy and function of the primary visual cortex are related to visual imagery. The use of imagery as a tool has been linked to many compound cognitive processes and imagery plays both symptomatic and mechanistic roles in neurological and mental disorders and treatments.

Among tens of thousands of camgirls (seen 35+ mn times per day), competition is won by those clothed with their face fully shown; it seems men prefer some slow-building 'courtship'

Laura Johnsen, Isaac Cormier, Maryanne L. Fisher (2019). An Ethological Study of Camgirls: Plentiful, Sexually Available Virtual Women for Hire. Human Ethology, 34(Suppl.), HES39, Aug 2019. https:// doi.org/10.22330/he/34/suppl

ABSTRACT: Camgirls are defined as “young women that operate their own webcams to communicate with a broad audience online, often engaging in explicit behaviour in real-time in return for financial compensation” (Bleakley, 2014, p. 893). The number of camgirls is staggering; LiveJasmin.com reported over 2000 models at any given moment, with 35-40 million daily visitors in 2017. The unfettered access to live-action explicit performances can be overwhelming for viewers, and given that there are numerous websites, and therefore tens of thousands of camgirls, there is competition amongst the performers to solicit interest from viewers. We examined the various behaviours camgirls use to obtain viewers and explore whether their appearance and behaviors reflect evolutionary themes regarding mate preferences. Data were collected from the models featured on the homepage of a popular live streaming adult webcam platform. Over seven days, we took screenshots of the first 15 camgirls on the homepage of the site twice a day. We coded their behaviors (ranging from clothed with no stimulation to fully nude with stimulation), facial appearance (e.g., full face shown, partial face shown, face not shown), and body type. Number of views per show were also recorded. Preliminary analysis suggests that camgirls that are clothed and have their face fully shown have a higher number of viewers than those with full nudity or partial face covering.  This may indicate that an appealing aspect of camgirls is related to the viewer engaging in a slow-building ‘courtship’ that ends with a sexual interaction as opposed to viewing the camgirls in mid-performance for a brief sexual release.

Is the global prevalence rate of adult mental illness increasing? Systematic review and meta‐analysis says no.

Is the global prevalence rate of adult mental illness increasing? Systematic review and meta‐analysis. Dirk Richter, Abbie Wall, Ashley Bruen, Richard Whittington. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, August 8 2019. https://doi.org/10.1111/acps.13083

Abstract
Objectives: The question whether mental illness prevalence rates are increasing is a controversially debated topic. Epidemiological articles and review publications that look into this research issue are often compromised by methodological problems. The present study aimed at using a meta‐analysis technique that is usually applied for the analysis of intervention studies to achieve more transparency and statistical precision.

Methods: We searched Pubmed, PsycInfo, CINAHL, Google Scholar and reference lists for repeated cross‐sectional population studies on prevalence rates of adult mental illness based on ICD‐ or DSM‐based diagnoses, symptom scales and distress scales that used the same methodological approach at least twice in the same geographical region. The study is registered with PROSPERO (CRD42018090959).

Results: We included 44 samples from 42 publications, representing 1,035,697 primary observations for the first time point and 783,897 primary observations for the second and last time point. Studies were conducted between 1978 and 2015. Controlling for a hierarchical data structure, we found an overall global prevalence increase odds ratio of 1.179 (95%‐CI: 1.065 – 1.305). A multivariate meta‐regression suggested relevant associations with methodological characteristics of included studies.

Conclusions: We conclude that the prevalence increase of adult mental illness is small and we assume that this increase is mainly related to demographic changes.

Compared to fictional agents, religious agents were ascribed a higher proportion of abilities that violated folk psychology & fewer abilities that violated folk physics and biology

The Mickey Mouse problem: Distinguishing religious and fictional counterintuitive agents. Thomas Swan, Jamin Halberstadt. PLOS, August 8, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0220886

Abstract: The Mickey Mouse problem refers to the difficulty in predicting which supernatural agents are capable of eliciting belief and religious devotion. We approached the problem directly by asking participants to invent a “religious” or a “fictional” agent with five supernatural abilities. Compared to fictional agents, religious agents were ascribed a higher proportion of abilities that violated folk psychology or that were ambiguous–violating nonspecific or multiple domains of folk knowledge–and fewer abilities that violated folk physics and biology. Similarly, participants rated folk psychology violations provided by the experimenter as more characteristic of religious agents than were violations of folk physics or folk biology, while fictional agents showed no clear pattern. Religious agents were also judged as more potentially beneficial, and more ambivalent (i.e., similar ratings of benefit and harm), than fictional agents, regardless of whether the agents were invented or well-known to participants. Together, the results support a motivational account of religious belief formation that is facilitated by these biases.

---

Discussion

Cognitive scientists of religion still don’t know why only some counterintuitive agents are believable and worthy of devotion. We examined the characteristics of religious and nonreligious supernatural agents directly and found four ways in which they differ. First, counterintuitive abilities that violate folk psychology were more salient for participant-invented religious agents than for nonreligious agents and were more closely associated with religious agents than other types of violations. Second, counterintuitive abilities that were ambiguous–violating nonspecific or multiple folk domains–were more salient for invented religious agents than for nonreligious agents. Third, both invented and well-known religious agents were rated more of a potential benefit than their nonreligious counterparts. Fourth, both invented and well-known religious agents were more ambivalent (i.e., the difference between a religious agent’s threat and benefit rating was relatively small) than nonreligious agents, which were more valenced towards extremes of heroism (high benefit, low threat) or villainy (low benefit, high threat).
We suggest that these biases collectively provide a template for predicting which counterintuitive agents can become objects of religious devotion. In particular, the biases for more beneficial and less threatening abilities (the latter only for well-known agents) suggest that “successful” agents must also be motivationally compelling: minimally counterintuitive traits make agents memorable, but memorable agents must satisfy psychobiological needs to become gods. Such gods are not necessarily more “powerful” or “fitness relevant” overall; it is the beneficial traits that distinguish religious agents, while threatening traits may often be higher for nonreligious agents.
Religious agents’ tendency to violate folk psychology over other folk beliefs is also consistent with this motivational interpretation. In a previous study, we found that agents with abilities that violate folk psychology were rated more of a potential opportunity (i.e., more beneficial) than agents violating folk physics or biology [35]. We surmised that agents violating folk psychology represent an opportunity to gain access to socially strategic knowledge—an opportunity that is particularly salient given our recent evolutionary history in which social threats have become increasingly costly and ubiquitous [54]. Indeed, the fact that agents have greater scope to violate folk psychology expectations may account for why agents feature prolifically in religious narratives [55], and appear more than other ontological categories (e.g., objects) in statements rated religious [14].
Nevertheless, these data only provide partial support for the motivational hypothesis. A motivation to believe in agents with beneficial abilities would not necessarily culminate in the formation of religious beliefs via motivated reasoning (i.e., biased strategies for accessing, constructing, and evaluating beliefs [28]). Belief formation also likely depends on an individual’s personality, cultural environment, and/or developmental history, among other factors. For example, people with a strong or temporarily elevated “fear of death” might possess a stronger motivation to believe in immortal beings than people with less fear [37, 38]. We consider it likely that at least some people form religious beliefs via a motivational path [37–45], however, widespread belief would depend on the commonality and thresholds of these individual and cultural factors.
The ambiguous traits used to describe religious agents, while not necessarily motivationally compelling in and of themselves, may interact with other motivational states to facilitate belief. When traits are defined ambiguously, abstractly [56], or metaphorically [57, 58] it becomes easier to attribute them in motivationally attractive ways. For example, the “better than average effect,” in which people rate themselves above average on positive traits and below average on negative traits [28, 59], is smaller when traits are precisely defined (e.g., neat, athletic, sarcastic, clumsy) than when they are ambiguous (e.g., idealistic, sophisticated, impractical, insecure) [29, 60], suggesting that ambiguity allows people to reason their way toward favored conclusions more easily. Similarly, the ambiguous content attributed to religious agents may facilitate motivated reasoning, making it easier to reason toward a belief in these agents. Counterintuitive abilities that can be demonstrated in a variety of ways (violating nonspecific or multiple folk domains), might permit gods to influence manifold situations of motivational significance [24], without precluding or disconfirming their involvement in any [26]. A god’s omnipotence, control of nature, magical powers, or “mysterious ways”, for example, can be applied in whatever manner a believer deems necessary.
A common argument against motivation-based theories of religion is that some gods are not comforting–they’re scary–and why would anyone want to believe in a scary god? We suggest that, like ambiguity, ambivalence facilitates the motivated reasoning process. We think anxiety and uncertainty attributed to threat-capable gods [61] can motivate belief-reinforcing behaviors, such as rituals and other deferential practices [45, 46, 62, 63], and that these behaviors become more intuitively compelling if the agent to whom they are directed is ambivalent. For example, rituals and prayers often depict a transaction in which a god is requested to perform a counterintuitive act in return for worship, good behavior, or a tangible offering. An entirely malevolent god would have little interest in accepting requests, just as an entirely benevolent god would have little interest in refusing them. Thus, an ambivalent god is the only god for whom transactional prayers and rituals make sense. Furthermore, an ambivalent god with whom we can communicate and occasionally extract positive outcomes may be more appealing, and more plausible, than a valenced god, or a god that acts capriciously or randomly. Thus, ambivalence should help make rituals and prayers an intuitively compelling avenue through which gods can deliver benefits (see [64] for other intuitively compelling ritual content), facilitating motivated reasoning towards a belief in these gods.
One anomalous finding is that well-known fictional agents were rated more threatening than well-known religious agents, but this wasn’t the case for invented agents. Negative information, such as about threatening agents, is more cognitively attractive than positive information [65]. A cultural unfolding of this negativity bias, constrained by the motivation to disbelieve overly threatening agents, may explain why it was restricted to culturally popular fictional agents. Such agents might share or even surpass the cognitive attractiveness of religious agents, in being counterintuitive and threatening, but may lack motivational attractiveness, resulting in popular but unbelievable beings. In other cases, threat may be lacking while benefit is not, which might result in motivationally attractive beings that don’t demand our attention for long enough to become religiously established (e.g., Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny). The cognitive attractiveness of threat may therefore be an alternative or additional reason why ambivalence appears to be a key feature of religious beings.
Nevertheless, it is adaptive to pay attention to threats, and possibly also to believe the reality of those threats in some contexts. In evolutionary terms, the cost of falsely believing a threatening agent is absent should be greater than falsely believing it is present, and this negative credulity bias [66] may explain why (an apparent minority of) religious agents deviate from ambivalence into malevolence [67]. Some cultural environments may require and activate our agency detection device more than others [68], making malevolent deities more likely.
Although American participants, mostly Christian, provided our data, we would expect similar results in other cultural contexts to the extent that they afford and foster similar motivations that are natural to the human mind (e.g., to avoid negative affective states). Conversely, cultural differences in the characteristics of religious agents may reflect motivations that arise or are more salient as a consequence of particular environments. Similarly, individual differences within cultures may reflect idiosyncratic motivations (e.g., for more social contact) associated with particular traits (e.g., death anxiety). This essentially motivational account of the characteristics of religious agents has the advantage of catering to the existence of atheists: despite observing the same content and contexts as everyone else, they lack belief, presumably because they lack a motivation for which this content is relevant.
Although the current study contributes to the development of a “belief template” that could, eventually, predict which agents are most likely to inspire religious devotion, it is just a start, with several acknowledged limitations. For example, we did not measure levels of belief in the well-known agents cited by participants, which could provide a better understanding of the role of individual differences. In addition, our distinction between religious and fictional entities neglects some counterintuitive agents, such as ghosts and spirits, that many people believe exist, but that are not necessarily objects of religious devotion. Future work might present participants with specific beings, entities, and other paranormal phenomena with a diverse range of a-priori plausibility before measuring belief and their perceived features. Similarly, our request for supernatural abilities restricted the number of intuitive features that participants attributed to their invented agents. Although we found no difference in rated intuitiveness or the number of intuitive abilities listed, the trend was towards religious agents being more intuitive, as found in other work [16, 17]. Finally, our proposed template neglects some religious agents, such as Satan and Loki, that are apparently neither beneficent nor ambivalent. It could be argued that belief in such agents (and polytheism in general) is declining, in line with the template’s proposed optimum, however, in less optimal settings, the ambivalence criterion might also be applied to groupings or entire pantheons of agents. Thus, we acknowledge that cultural and environmental factors may affect the reliability of the template, which is more a measure of cultural evolutionary success than a strict set of exclusionary criteria.
These limitations notwithstanding, we suggest a religious agent template, tentatively comprising beneficent yet ambivalent agents with ambiguous and folk-psychology-violating abilities, goes some way to solving the Mickey Mouse problem. Mickey Mouse lacks the necessary beneficence, ambivalence, and ambiguity, and we therefore lack the motivation and latitude to believe he is real.

Do emotions affect the decision between change and the status quo? Data on more than 870,000 municipal vote outcomes in Switzerland: Rain decreases the share of votes for political change

Rain, Emotions and Voting for the Status Quo. Armando N. Meier, Lukas Schmid, Alois Stutzer. European Economic Review, August 8 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2019.07.014

Abstract: Do emotions affect the decision between change and the status quo? We exploit exogenous variation in emotions caused by rain and analyze data on more than 870,000 municipal vote outcomes in Switzerland to address this question. The empirical tests are based on administrative ballot outcomes and individual postvote survey data. We find that rain decreases the share of votes for political change. Our robustness checks suggest that this finding is not driven by changes in the composition of the electorate and changes in information acquisition. In addition, we provide evidence that rain might have altered the outcome of several high-stake votes. We discuss the psychological mechanism and document that rain reduces the willingness to take risks, a pattern that is consistent with the observed reduction in the support for change.

Suicide by abdominal wounds suggesting seppuku: Case reports from Romania and an international literature review

Suicide by abdominal wounds suggesting seppuku: Case reports from Romania and an international literature review. Claudia Judea-Pusta, Alexandru Rusu, Andreea Camarasan. Aggression and Violent Behavior, Volume 47, July–August 2019, Pages 68-73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2019.03.006

Highlights
•    In Romania this type of suicide is rarely practiced, commonly seen in older males.
•    Frequently the victims suffer from a mental illness, or are alcohol users.
•    The tool used is the knife; the lesions are located in the middle abdominal axis.
•    The mortality rate is higher in cases of abdominal wounds suggesting seppuku.
•    It is important to establish a differential diagnosis between suicide and homicide.

Abstract: Seppuku is a traditional suicide method practiced by honorable Japanese samurai. Today this method of suicide is rarely used in Japan or worldwide and may be exceptionally encountered in patients suffering from psychiatric disorders, the majority of them being older men. It is well known that clinical and cultural factors also play a role in practicing this method of suicide. The mortality rate is significantly higher in cases of abdominal wounds suggesting seppuku, compared to the mortality rate caused by simple stab wounds. Death can occur immediately through massive external or/and internal hemorrhage as well as later on through complications, often septic. In the Romanian forensic literature files, suicide by abdominal stabbing suggesting seppuku is rarely encountered and documented. When investigating violent deaths owing to sharp force, the role of the forensic pathologist is not only to establish the cause of death and the mechanism used for creating the lesions, but also to identify the object used for inflicting the injuries, the type of the injuries, allowing thus to formulate a conclusion from legal perspective upon the act itself: suicide or homicide? The present paper reviews the international literature and presents three cases of suicide by self- inflected abdominal stab wounds suggesting seppuku, autopsied at the Bihor County Forensic Service, Romania, during 2013–2017.

The role of media exposure on relational aggression: Exposure to relational aggression has the strongest effect on subsequent relational aggression; these results support cross-over effect

The role of media exposure on relational aggression: A meta-analysis. Nicole Martins, Andrew Weaver. Aggression and Violent Behavior, Volume 47, July–August 2019, Pages 90-99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2019.03.001

Highlights
•    Exposure to relational aggression has the strongest effect on subsequent relational aggression
•    Exposure to non-specific media content has the weakest effect on relational aggression
•    Exposure to physical aggression fell in the middle of the two content types; supports cross-over effect
•    Future research should study these issues among heterogeneous populations so moderating variables can be further examined.

Abstract: We conducted a meta-analysis of 33 studies that examined the effects of media exposure on relationally aggressive behaviors and cognitions (a total of 66 effect sizes, N = (20,990). Across all types of aggressive content, there was a small positive effect (r = 0.15) on relational aggression. However, a comparison of effects sizes demonstrate that exposure to relational aggression had the strongest effect (r = 0.21), whereas exposure to non-specific media content had the weakest effect (r = 0.08). Exposure to physical aggression fell in the middle of the two content types (r = 0.15). Potential explanations for these effects as well as moderators that could influence the results are considered, and the practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Homicide and suicide appear to be more prevalent in democracies

Government political structure and violent death rates: A longitudinal analysis of forty-three countries, 1960–2008. PhillipMarotta et al. Aggression and Violent Behavior, August 8 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2019.07.008

Abstract
Objectives: Currently, little is known regarding the effect of regime type on mortality on a global level. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of regime type on the rates of violent deaths (homicide, suicide, and combined rates).

Methods: Three measures of democracy were used to quantify regime type, the independent variable. Homicide and suicide rates were obtained from the World Health Organization. Multivariate conditional fixed-effects models were run to examine associations between regime characteristics and logged rates of homicide, suicide, and violent deaths. Models were adjusted for unemployment and economic inequality.

Results: Nations that scored higher on democracy indices, especially emerging democracies, experienced increased mortality due to violence. Homicide and suicide were divergent, showing a different time course and decreasing statistical power as a combined variable. Unemployment and inequality were associated with higher violence-related mortality.

Conclusions: Homicide and suicide appear to be more prevalent in democracies. Future analyses should examine which aspects of democracies lead to higher rates of violent death and should seek to use independently collected mortality data.

From the neuroimaging data, we conclude that we cannot define the content of our thoughts during "mind blanking" because our inner speech system does not work at that time

The neural correlates of “mind blanking”: When the mind goes away. Toshikazu Kawagoe  Keiichi Onoda  Shuhei Yamaguchi. Human Brain Mapping, August 7 2019. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.24748

Abstract: Mind blanking (MB) is the state where our minds are seemingly “nowhere,” and attention calls no perceptual input into conscious awareness. It is little investigated, perhaps partly because it is difficult to detect the mysterious periods of blanking. In this study, we found that our participants could intentionally produce a state of MB whose neural correlates were deactivation of Broca's area and parts of the default mode network (namely, the hippocampus) which would be active during mind wandering (MW), in addition to activity in another region in the default mode network (namely, anterior cingulate cortex). Because the behavioral finding replicates a previous report of ours, we suggest that the simple instructions that we used to induce MB should be effective. From the neuroimaging data, we conclude that we cannot define the content of our thoughts during MB because our inner speech system does not work at that time. Another possibility is that we actually think of nothing in the MB state. Although more sophisticated studies would be needed to uncover the mechanism of such a phenomenon, the present study provides a methodology and clues for understanding MB and related concepts such as MW, awareness, and metacognitive ability.

Death anxiety and death acceptance in atheists and other nonbelievers: The more certainty of Atheism, the less fear of death

Death anxiety and death acceptance in atheists and other nonbelievers. Jacob S. Sawyer, Melanie E. Brewster & Melissa M. Ertl. Death Studies, Aug 7 2019. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2019.1648339

Abstract: This study explores how age, certainty of belief, belief in science and gender is related to death anxiety and death acceptance. Results from a sample of atheists and other nonbelievers (N = 270) in the United States suggested that age and certainty of belief were significantly related to death anxiety and death acceptance, while belief in science was not a significant predictor. In addition, women reported higher levels of death anxiety compared to men. Implications and directions for future research in death perspectives for atheists and other nonbelievers are discussed.

Check also Menzies, Ross G and Menzies, Rachel E. Fear of death: Nature, development and moderating factors [online]. In: Menzies, RE (Editor); Menzies, RG (Editor); Iverach, L (Editor). Curing the Dread of Death Theory, Research and Practice. Samford Valley, QLD: Australian Academic Press, 2018: 21-39. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2018/12/fear-of-death-nature-development-and.html

Also Monastic Tibetan Buddhists showed significantly greater fear of death than any other group. The monastics were also less generous than other groups about the prospect of giving up a slightly longer life in order to extend the life of another:

Nichols, S., Strohminger, N., Rai, A. and Garfield, J. (2018), Death and the Self. Cogn Sci. doi:10.1111/cogs.12590. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2018/01/monastic-tibetan-buddhists-showed.html

Do Relatives With Greater Reproductive Potential Get Help First?: A Test of the Inclusive Fitness Explanation of Kin Altruism

Do Relatives With Greater Reproductive Potential Get Help First?: A Test of the Inclusive Fitness Explanation of Kin Altruism. Jordan Schriver et al. Evolutionary Psychology, August 8, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474704919867094

Abstract: According to inclusive fitness theory, people are more willing to help those they are genetically related to because relatives share a kin altruism gene and are able to pass it along. We tested this theory by examining the effect of reproductive potential on altruism. Participants read hypothetical scenarios and chose between cousins (Studies 1 and 2) and cousins and friends (Study 3) to help with mundane chores or a life-or-death rescue. In life-or-death situations, participants were more willing to help a cousin preparing to conceive rather than adopt a child (Study 1) and a cousin with high rather than low chance of reproducing (Studies 2 and 3). Patterns in the mundane condition were less consistent. Emotional closeness also contributed to helping intentions (Studies 1 and 2). By experimentally manipulating reproductive potential while controlling for genetic relatedness and emotional closeness, we provide a demonstration of the direct causal effects of reproductive potential on helping intentions, supporting the inclusive fitness explanation of kin altruism.

Keywords: altruism, inclusive fitness, reproduction, emotional closeness, family relationships

Aesthetic empowerment through music

Aesthetic empowerment through music. Elvira Brattico, Ulrika Varankaitė. Musicae Scientiae, July 20, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/1029864919850606

Abstract: This article describes how aesthetic enjoyment accompanying musical activities can empower individuals in health and disease. First, we explain the biological determinants of music enjoyment and how they can be studied. In doing so, we distinguish between core sensory pleasure and conscious liking, and we illustrate their respective contributions to aesthetic appreciation and expressive interaction with music. Second, we review findings illustrating the long-term impact of listening to favourite music on the brains of healthy musicians as well as on the brains and behaviour of individuals with pathological symptoms. Based on these findings, we propose a set of putative neural mechanisms underlying aesthetic empowerment through music. We also emphasize the importance of considering individual differences in sensitivity to aesthetic experiences of music, as evidenced, for instance, by neuroimaging and imaging genetics studies, drawing the connections between dopamine neurotransmission and dopaminergic genes with the reactivity of music–brain functions.

Keywords: Aesthetics, neuroaesthetics, liking, pleasure, enjoyment, clinical applications

You’re dead to me! Social estrangements and social transgressions: A high number of estrangements corresponded to high scores on depressive tendencies and anxious attachment as well as low scores on social support

You’re dead to me! The evolutionary psychology of social estrangements and social transgressions. Glenn Geher et al. Current Psychology, August 8 2019. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12144-019-00381-z

Abstract: In our species, social connections with a broad array of individuals are foundational to success. On the flip side, we have evolved so as to not be exploited by others. This dynamic is the focus of the studies described here. Study 1 examined the psychology of social estrangements. The main prediction was that the number of estrangements one has would be predictive of various adverse psychological outcomes. Using a sample of 315 young adults, we found evidence for this prediction: A high number of estrangements corresponded to high scores on depressive tendencies and anxious attachment as well as low scores on social support. In Study 2, using a between-participants methodology, we manipulated transgression intensity, target of the transgression, and whether an apology was included. 288 young adults participated. Each participant was presented with a set of stimuli representing one level of each of the three independent variables and then provided ratings for several dependent variables, such as how angry and betrayed he or she would feel in the situation. Transgression intensity and target of the transgression had consistent significant effects on the dependent variables in the predicted directions. Presence of an apology generally had little effect. In both Studies 1 and 2, high scores on the Dark Triad predicted the outcomes as well: In Study 1, a high number of estrangements corresponded to high scores on the Dark Triad. In Study 2, high scores on the Dark Triad corresponded to strong negative responses to social transgressions. Implications for the evolutionary psychology of interpersonal relationships are discussed.

Keywords: Reciprocal altruism Estrangement Social transgression Apology Forgiveness Positive evolutionary psychology

Abstract information alone is capable of changing a majority of clinicians’ care decisions; when unadjusted analyses or secondary outcomes are given undue attention in abstracts, the overall appraisal of a paper's contents is altered

Jellison S, Roberts W, Bowers A, et al. Evaluation of spin in abstracts of papers in psychiatry and psychology journals. BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine, August 5 2019, DOI: 10.1136/bmjebm-2019-111176

Introduction
Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) serve as the gold standard in psychiatry. Given the importance of such trials to clinical practice, it is imperative that results be reported objectively.

Researchers are encouraged to conduct studies and report findings according to the highest ethical standards.1 2 This standard means reporting results completely, in accordance with a protocol that outlines primary and secondary endpoints and prespecified subgroups and statistical analyses. However, authors are free to choose how to report or interpret study results. In an abstract, authors may include only the results they want to highlight or the conclusions they wish to draw. These results and conclusions, however, may not accurately summarise the findings of the study. When such a misrepresentation of study results occurs, there is said to be spin. Spin has been defined as, ‘the use of specific reporting strategies, from whatever motive, to highlight that the experimental treatment is beneficial, despite a statistically nonsignificant difference for the primary outcome, or to distract the reader from statistically nonsignificant results’.3 Many practices contribute to spin, including the selective reporting of outcomes,4 5 p-hacking,6 7 inappropriate application of statistical measures like relative risk8 and manipulation of figures or graphs.9 10

Spin in abstracts has recently been discussed in a systematic review.11 Evidence suggests that abstract information alone is capable of changing a majority of clinicians’ care decisions.12 For example, when unadjusted analyses or secondary outcomes are given undue attention in abstracts, readers’ overall appraisal of the contents of a manuscript is altered.13 Additionally, a previous systematic review showed there to be a higher rate of favourable conclusions in industry-funded studies compared with other sponsorships.14

We have evaluated the prevalence of spin in abstracts of RCTs with nonsignificant primary endpoints in the psychology and psychiatry literature and have explored the association between spin and industry funding.