Lizards prefer to defecate on the largest rock in the territory

Where to do number two: Lizards prefer to defecate on the largest rock in the territory. Simon Baeckens et al. Behavioural Processes, August 7 2019, 103937. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2019.103937

Highlights
•    In the lab, we examined defecation behaviour of wild-caught Dalmatian wall lizards
•    Lizards preferred to defecate on the largest rock around
•    Defecation site preference did not differ between sexes and among populations
•    Faecal pellets deposited on large rocks may increase visual detectability of faeces

Abstract: Many animals use their excrements to communicate with others. In order to increase signal efficacy, animals often behaviourally select for specific defecation sites that maximize the detectability of their faecal deposits, such as the tip of rocks by some lizard species. However, the field conditions in which these observations are made make it difficult to reject alternative explanations of defecation site preference; rock tips may also provide better opportunities for thermoregulation, foraging, or escaping predators, and not solely for increasing the detectability of excrements. In addition, we still know little on whether lizard defecation behaviour varies within-species. In this laboratory study, we take an experimental approach to test defecation site preference of Podarcis melisellensis lizards in a standardized setting, and assess whether preferences differ between sexes, and among populations. Our findings show that in an environment where all stones provide equal thermoregulatory advantage, prey availability, and predator pressure, lizards still select for the largest stone in their territory as preferred defecation site. Moreover, we demonstrate that lizards’ defecation preference is a strong conservative behaviour, showing no significant intraspecific variation. Together, these findings corroborate the idea that lizards may defecate on prominent rocky substrates in order to increase (visual) detectability of the deposited faecal pellets.

Despite being frequently classified as a “basic” emotion, full-fledged disgust develops considerably later than all other basic emotions; being disgusting is heavily contingent upon cultural learning

Developing Disgust: Theory, Measurement, and Application. Joshua Rottman, Jasmine DeJesus, Heather Greenebaum. Handbook of Emotional Development pp 283-309, July 5 2019. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-17332-6_12

Abstract: Disgust is a complex and uncharacteristic emotion. Despite being frequently classified as a “basic” emotion, disgust has a wide range of elicitors, many competing functional theories, and a protracted developmental trajectory. This chapter first reviews several ultimate explanations of disgust, highlighting how scholars historically privileged symbolic explanations, while most contemporary researchers believe disgust to be an adaptive pathogen avoidance mechanism. After a brief discussion of techniques for measuring disgust, we describe the current knowledge of the development of disgust, with special attention to the ways in which disgust influences food choice and contributes to contamination sensitivity. While certain aspects of disgust may be universal, its emergence is largely enculturated and its expression is highly variable. We conclude by discussing the ways in which the study of disgust carries practical implications for the diagnosis and treatment of psychopathologies, for nutrition, and for the implementation of public health initiatives. Although scholarly interest in disgust has greatly increased during recent years, there is still much room for further exploration of this enigmatic emotion.

Keywords: Disgust Development Childhood Avoidance Disease Emotion Food

How different type of comments (emotional/factual content, supportive/contradicting content, low/high number of likes) could influence the credibility of the associated information? Seems that nothing at all

Martončik, Marcel, and Matus Adamkovic. 2019. “Comments' Influence on Message Credibility.” PsyArXiv. July 31. doi:10.31234/osf.io/euj9m

Abstract: In the present era full of hoaxes, conspiracies, and fake news, the credibility of information is a necessary and important attribute that internet media, and especially news publishers, strive to achieve. It is natural that readers evaluate the trustworthiness of information they read. According to the previous research, such an evaluation could be influenced by many cues, for example, the presence of discussion comments, likes or shares. In the present article, we examine how different type of comments (emotional/factual content, supportive/contradicting content, low/high number of likes) could influence the credibility of the associated information. The research sample consisted of 924 participants from Slovakia. Using a path analysis and MANCOVA, none of the experimental conditions had a substantial effect on the perceived message credibility. The obtained results contradict the existing empirical evidence. One of the explanations of the null results might dwell in the underpowered design of the existing studies. Many of them have low sensitivity to detect even medium effects or are absenting any form of corrections of the family-wise error rate.

Spider monkeys are more sensitive to the taste of ethanol than rats and humans, and they prefer ecologically relevant suprathreshold concentrations of ethanol over water

Taste responsiveness of spider monkeys to dietary ethanol. Daniel Dausch Ibañez, Laura Teresa Hernandez Salazar, Matthias Laska. Chemical Senses, August 11 2019, bjz049, https://doi.org/10.1093/chemse/bjz049

Abstract: Recent studies suggest that frugivorous primates might display a preference for the ethanol produced by microbia in overripe, fermenting fruit as an additional source of calories. We therefore assessed the taste responsiveness of eight spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) to the range of ethanol concentrations found in overripe, fermenting fruit (0.05-3.0%) and determined taste preference thresholds as well as relative taste preferences for ethanol presented in sucrose solutions and in fruit matrices, respectively. Using a two-bottle preference test of short duration (1 min) we found that spider monkeys are able to detect ethanol concentrations as low as 0.5%, that they prefer ethanol concentrations up to 3% over water, and that they prefer sucrose solutions and pureed fruit spiked with ethanol over equimolar sucrose solutions and pureed fruit without ethanol. However, when presented with an ethanol-spiked sucrose solution and a higher-concentrated sucrose solution without ethanol the animals clearly preferred the latter, even when the sucrose-ethanol mixture contained three times more calories. These results demonstrate that spider monkeys are more sensitive to the taste of ethanol than rats and humans, and that they prefer ecologically relevant suprathreshold concentrations of ethanol over water. Tests with sucrose solutions and pureed fruits that were either spiked with ethanol or not suggest that sweetness may be more important for the preferences displayed by the spider monkeys than the calories provided by ethanol. The present results therefore do not support the notion that dietary ethanol might be used by frugivorous primates as a supplemental source of calories.

Keywords: dietary ethanol, taste preference threshold, relative taste preference, spider monkeys, Ateles geoffroyi

Orgasm, gender, and responses to heterosexual casual sex

Orgasm, gender, and responses to heterosexual casual sex. Jennifer L. Piemonte, Terri D. Conley, Staci Gusakova. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 151, 1 December 2019, 109487. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.06.030

Abstract: There is a persistent gender difference in how positively young adults react to casual sex, with men reporting slightly more positive responses than women. Multiple factors have been studied as possible explanations for the gender difference, but nothing has completely accounted the variance between women and men's responses to casual sex. Although prior research identifies sexual pleasure as a primary factor associated with positive responses, women and men may understand or report on this construct differently due to gendered socialization, making it difficult to compare responses across groups. One measure that is less subject to subjective interpretation or response bias may be whether a person orgasms during a given casual sex encounter. In the present research, we test the relationships between gender, orgasm, and reactions following most recent casual sex encounter across three samples of young adults. Results indicate that orgasm mediates the gender difference in how positively participants respond to casual sex. Specifically, men are more likely to orgasm during casual sex, and people who orgasm during casual sex are more likely to experience positive reactions afterwards. Therefore, while gender may be one way to describe the discrepancy in how positive people feel following casual sex, orgasm explains it.

Keywords: Casual sexGender differencesEmotional reactionsOrgasmEmerging adults

Parrots Voluntarily Help Each Other to Obtain Food Rewards

Brucks, Désirée and von Bayern, Auguste, Parrots Voluntarily Help Each Other to Obtain Food Rewards (July 26, 2019). CURRENT-BIOLOGY-D-19-01163. SSRN: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3427278

Abstract: Helping others to obtain benefits, even at a cost to oneself (altruism), poses an evolutionary puzzle (Clutton-Brock 2009). While kin selection explains such ‘selfless’ acts amongst relatives, only reciprocity (paying back received favours) entails fitness benefits for unrelated individuals (Taborsky et al. 2016). So far, experimental evidence for both altruistic helping and reciprocal altruism has been reported in a few mammals but no avian species (Massen et al. 2015). In order to gain insights into the evolutionary origin of altruistic helping and reciprocity, the capacity for altruism of non-mammalian species needs to be investigated. We tested two parrot species in an instrumental helping paradigm involving ‘token transfer’. Here, actors could provide tokens to their neighbour, who could exchange them with an experimenter for food. To verify whether the parrots understood the task’s contingencies, we systematically varied the presence of a partner and the possibility for exchange. We found that African grey parrots voluntarily and spontaneously transferred tokens to conspecific partners, whereas significantly fewer transfers occurred in the control conditions. Additionally, transfers were affected by the strength of the dyads’ affiliation and partially by the receivers’ attention-getting behaviours. Furthermore, the birds reciprocated the help once the roles were reversed. Blue-headed macaws, in contrast, transferred hardly any tokens. Species differences in social tolerance might explain this discrepancy. These findings show that altruistic helping based on a prosocial attitude, accompanied but not necessarily sustained by reciprocity, is present in parrots, suggesting that this capacity evolved convergently in this avian group and mammals.

Keywords: altruism, altruistic helping, prosociality, parrots, reciprocity, social tolerance

School Enjoyment at Age 6 Predicts Later Educational Achievement as Strongly as Socioeconomic Background and Gender

Morris, Tim, Danny Dorling, Neil M. Davies, and George D. Smith. 2019. “School Enjoyment at Age 6 Predicts Later Educational Achievement as Strongly as Socioeconomic Background and Gender.” SocArXiv. August 10. doi:10.31235/osf.io/e6c37

Abstract: Education is influenced by a broad range of factors including socioeconomic background, cognitive ability, and the school environment. However, there has been limited research into the role that school enjoyment, particularly at the start of schooling, plays in the development of pupil’s education and their final attainment. In this study we used data from a UK cohort, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children to answer three related research questions. Is school enjoyment patterned by gender, socioeconomic background of cognitive ability? How well does school enjoyment explain later educational attainment? Does early school enjoyment at age 6 explain social or gender differences in later educational attainment at age 16? Our results show that school enjoyment measured at age 6 associates with gender and cognitive ability, but not with family socioeconomic background. For example, girls were over two and half times more likely to report enjoying school than boys (OR: 2.62; 95% Confidence Interval: 2.11, 3.24). School enjoyment and later attainment were also associated, whereby pupils who reported enjoying school at both ages scored on average 29.9 (20.2, 39.6) more points, equivalent to a 5-grade increase across all GCSE’s, and were 72% more likely to obtain 5+ A*-C GCSE’s including Maths and English (OR: 1.69; 95% CI: 1.38, 2.08) than those who did not enjoy school. Differences in school enjoyment helped to statistically explain the gender attainment gap, with boys’ GCSE attainment more strongly linked to school enjoyment than girls. These results highlight the importance of school enjoyment for educational attainment. As a potentially more modifiable factor than socioeconomic background, cognitive ability or gender, school enjoyment may represent a promising intervention target for reducing educational inequalities and future experimental designs are required to test causation.

Neural Responses to Sexual Stimuli in Heterosexual and Homosexual Men and Women: Men’s Responses Are More Specific

Neural Responses to Sexual Stimuli in Heterosexual and Homosexual Men and Women: Men’s Responses Are More Specific. Adam Safron et al. August 9 2019. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-01521-z

Abstract: Patterns of genital arousal in response to gendered sexual stimuli (i.e., sexual stimuli presenting members of only one sex at a time) are more predictive of men’s than of women’s sexual orientations. Additional lines of evidence may shed light on the nature of these differences. We measured neural activation in homosexual and heterosexual men and women using fMRI while they viewed three kinds of gendered sexual stimuli: pictures of nude individuals, pictures of same-sex couples interacting, and videos of individuals self-stimulating. The primary neural region of interest was the ventral striatum (VS), an area of central importance for reward processing. For all three kinds of stimuli and for both VS activation and self-report, men’s responses were more closely related to their sexual orientations compared with women’s. Furthermore, men showed a much greater tendency to respond more positively to stimuli featuring one sex than to stimuli featuring the other sex, leading to higher correlations among men’s responses as well as higher correlations between men’s responses and their sexual orientations. Whole-brain analyses identified several other regions showing a similar pattern to the VS, and none showed an opposite pattern. Because fMRI is measured identically in men and women, our results provide the most direct evidence to date that men’s sexual arousal patterns are more gender specific than women’s.

Keywords: Sexual orientation Sexual arousal fMRI Sex differences Ventral striatum Reward Category specificity

Singles of both sexes expedite reproduction: Shifts in sexual-timing strategies before and after the typical age of female menopause

Singles of both sexes expedite reproduction: Shifts in sexual-timing strategies before and after the typical age of female menopause. Samantha E. Cohen et al. Evolution and Human Behavior, August 10 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2019.08.001

Abstract: How do singles' strategies for engaging in sexual activity with a new partner vary across the adult lifespan? Using three large and independent demographically representative cross-sectional samples of heterosexual single adults in the U.S., we found that females approaching the typical age of menopause became less likely to establish relationship exclusivity prior to sexual activity with a new partner. However, after the typical age of menopausal onset, females returned to earlier levels of commitment choosiness. These changes in commitment choosiness surrounding the age of menopause were consistent across two studies (including a larger dataset combining two samples). Findings suggest that single females approaching menopause—a major life history milestone—alter their behavior to achieve reproductively relevant partnering goals but abandon this mating strategy once the typical reproductive period has ended. Males exhibited similar, though attenuated, changes in expected relationship commitment before sexual activity during midlife as well. Age-related changes in commitment corresponded with the amount of stress expressed regarding one's “biological clock”. However, reduced commitment choosiness did not vary with frequency of sexual thoughts, frequency of sexual behaviors, or external pressures to find a romantic partner. Results are discussed in terms of life history theory and sex differences in sexuality.

Keywords: Reproduction expeditingLife history theorySexual behaviorSexual timingMating strategiesMenopause

Mate choice is generally regarded as an independent event; there is a growing evidence that it can be influenced by social information provided by conspecifics, including to copy mate choice or rejection

Factors that affect non-independent mate choice. Ryan C Scauzillo, Michael H Ferkin
Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, blz112, August 6 2019, https://doi.org/10.1093/biolinnean/blz112

Abstract: Mate choice is generally regarded as an independent event, but a growing body of evidence indicates that it can be influenced by social information provided by conspecifics. This is known as non-independent mate choice. Individuals use information gathered by observing interactions between conspecifics to copy or not copy the mate choice of these conspecifics. In this review, we examine the factors that affect non-independent mate choice and mate choice copying and how it is influenced by social and environmental information that is available to the subject or focal individual. Specifically, we discuss how non-independent mate choice and whether individuals copy the choices of conspecifics can be influenced by factors such as habitat and differences in ecology, mating system and parental care. We focus on the social information provided to the focal animal, the model and the audience. Nearly all studies of non-independent mate choice and mate copying have focused on individuals in species that use visual cues as the source of social information. Nevertheless, we highlight studies that indicate that individuals in some species may use chemical cues and signals as sources of social information that may affect non-independent mate choice and mate copying.

Keywords: audience effect context, focal individuals, mate choice copying, non-independent mate choice, social information

Religiosity significantly correlated with self-report measures of prosociality (r = .15), but among samples using a behavioral measure of prosociality, the effect was only marginally significant (r = .04)

A meta-analysis of religious prosociality. Kelly, John Michael. Thesis, Univ of California at Irvine, 2019. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/74r7n99q

Abstract: This meta-analysis explores the longstanding and heavily debated question of whether religiosity is associated with prosocial and antisocial behavior. In an analysis of 179 effects across 89 samples, encompassing 167,508 participants, a significant relationship of r = .10 was found between religiosity and prosociality. However, substantial heterogeneity of methods was identified, and several potential moderators of this relationship were explored. The effect was most powerfully moderated by the type of measurement used to assess prosocial or antisocial behavior. Religiosity significantly correlated with self-report measures of prosociality at r = .15, but among samples using a behavioral measure of prosociality, the effect was only a marginally significant r = .04. Three possible explanations of this moderation are discussed, namely that 1) lab-based methods do not accurately capture religious prosociality; 2) the self-report effect is explained by religious self-enhancement; or 3) both religiosity and self-reported prosociality are explained by self-enhancement. Recommendations for future research are discussed that may help resolve these possible explanations. Other potential moderators are analyzed, including whether religiosity is differently related to prosocial and antisocial behavior.

Users seek to maintain favorable impressions by balancing personal vs public information, maintaining a sense of authenticity; resending inspirational news seems to threaten that in Twitter

Spreading the Good News: Analyzing Socially Shared Inspirational News Content. Qihao Ji et al. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, December 11, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699018813096

Abstract: Past research indicates that people often share awe-inspiring news online. However, little is known about the content of those stories. In this study, more broadly defined “inspirational” articles shared through The New York Times website over a 6-month period were analyzed, with the goals of describing the content and identifying characteristics that might predict inspirationality and measures of retransmission. The results provided a snapshot of content found within inspirational news stories; they also revealed that self-transcendent language use predicted the inspirationality of a news story, as well as how long an article appeared on a most shared list.

Keywords: self-transcendent media experiences, inspirational media, news sharing, news retransmission, content analysis

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Twitter was the least likely platform for inspirational news retransmission [...] users generally seek to maintain favorable impressions by balancing the disclosure of personal versus public information, avoiding certain topics of discussion, and maintaining a sense of authenticity. Many inspirational stories might challenge that balance, perhaps being viewed as “too personal” for broadcasting platforms by some users. Such concerns would seemingly be minimized—or perhaps virtually nonexistent—when private or narrowcast communication means (like email) are used to share such content with specific individuals. Additional studies empirically testing these propositions are encouraged.

Why We Verify a News Report? Lower intent to verify when we believe the headline is not true (because of low trust in the source or because it goes against our politics); we verify to win debates

When Do Audiences Verify? How Perceptions About Message and Source Influence Audience Verification of News Headlines. Stephanie Edgerly et al. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, August 5, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699019864680

Abstract: In today’s media landscape, people are encouraged to verify the news and information they encounter. Using an online experiment, this study explores audience’s intent to verify a news headline by manipulating whether the headline is true or false, from a source that varies in credibility, and perceived to be congruent or incongruent with participants’ partisanship. Results show that participants exhibit a higher intent to verify when they believe the headline is true, which is predicted by perceived congruency with preexisting ideological leanings. We discuss these findings in terms of the normative limitations of audience verification.

Keywords: audience verification, partisanship, news evaluations, motivated reasoning

Côté et al. argue that societies with a higher level of inequality foster a sense of entitlement in high-income individuals, which in turn leads them to be less generous; this last is not reproducible

Does economic inequality moderate the effect of class on prosocial behavior? A large-scale test of a recent hypothesis by Côté et al. Hagen von Hermanni, Andreas Tutić. PLOS, August 9, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0220723

Abstract: Empirical research has provided mixed evidence regarding the question of whether higher social class promotes prosocial behavior. Recently, Côté et al. [1] hypothesized that these conflicting evidences might result from a hitherto neglected interaction between the individual’s level of income and the degree of inequality in one’s society. They argue that societies with a higher level of inequality foster a sense of entitlement in high-income individuals, which in turn leads them to be less generous. We put this reasoning to a large-scale test using observational data from the European Social Survey (ESS) and push the scope of our investigation towards a broader conception of social class, using next to income two additional measures of class. First, we examine whether high-class individuals in societies with high levels of inequality do in fact feel more entitled than their counterparts in more equal societies. While we find that an individual’s class and the disposition towards entitlement are strongly correlated, our results show a negative interaction with inequality, i.e. the effect of class on the personal sense of entitlement is weaker in societies with high levels of inequality. Second, we test whether the effect of class on prosocial behavior is moderated by economic inequality with respect to two real-life acts of prosocial behavior, namely engaging in volunteer work and donating money to a humanitarian organization. Our results indicate a substantial positive effect of class on prosocial behavior throughout, as well as a moderate, yet positive, interaction effect of class and inequality.

One proposed function of imagery is to make thoughts more emotionally evocative through sensory simulations; novel test of this theory utilizing a special population with no visual imagery: Aphantasia

The critical role of mental imagery in human emotion: insights from Aphantasia. Marcus Wicken, Rebecca Keogh, Joel Pearson. bioRxiv, Aug 6 2019. https://doi.org/10.1101/726844

Abstract: One proposed function of imagery is to make thoughts more emotionally evocative through sensory simulations. Here we report a novel test of this theory utilizing a special population with no visual imagery: Aphantasia. After using multi-method verification of aphantasia, we show that this condition, but not the general population, is associated with a flat-line physiological response to frightening written, but not perceptual scenarios, supporting imagery’s critical role in emotion.