First detect gender, then attractiveness: Attractiveness follows gender in terms of underlying neural processes; early face attractiveness assessment seems to rely on gender-stereotypes

First gender, then attractiveness: Indications of gender-specific attractiveness processing via ERP onsets. Claus-Christian Carbon e al. Neuroscience Letters
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neulet.2018.09.009


Highlights
•    Facial gender and attractiveness: Key features to study face processes.
•    Processing onsets estimated by LRP- and N200-effects.
•    Attractiveness follows gender in terms of underlying neural processes.
•    Early face attractiveness assessment seems to rely on gender-stereotypes.
•    Used paradigm is promising to further uncover the time course of face perception.

Abstract: We followed an ERP-based approach to gain knowledge on the dependence and temporal order of two essential processes of face perception: attractiveness and gender. By combining a dual-choice task with a go/nogo-paradigm focusing on the LRP and N200-effect, we could estimate the processing times and onsets of both types of face processing. The analyses of the LRP revealed that gender aspects were processed much earlier than attractiveness. Whereas gender was already analysed 243.9 ms post-stimulus onset, attractiveness came into play 58.6 ms later, i.e. after a post-stimulus onset delay of 302.5 ms. This resulting pattern was mirrored by the analyses of the N200-effect, an effect available mainly frontally which is supposed to correlate with the inhibition of inappropriate responses. Taking the onset of the N200 effect as an estimator for the moment at which information has been processed sufficiently for task decision, we could trace the N200 effect at 152.0 ms for go/nogo-decision on gender, while not as early as 206.7 ms on attractiveness. In sum, processing of facial attractiveness seems to be based on gender-specific aesthetic pre-processing, for instance via activating gender-specific attractiveness prototypes which show focused processing of certain facial aspects.

From 2017: Female Waist-to-Hip Ratio (WHR) is correlated to divorce frequency

Chiappa, P., & Singh, S. (2017). Sexual dimorphism in waist-to-hip ratio and divorce frequency in human populations. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 11(3), 221-241. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ebs0000100

Abstract: The current study tests a series of evolutionary predictions about the changing opportunities for human male mate choice and female Waist-to-Hip Ratio (WHR) across populations. We predicted that the divorce frequency (that we used as a reflection of the frequency of male mate choice) would be positively correlated with sexual dimorphism in WHRs across human populations. With published data, we built 2 samples, 1 at the international level and the other at the national level. The results showed that sexual dimorphism in WHR is positively correlated with the divorce-to-married ratio in 68 countries worldwide, as well as in the 32 Mexican states. Taken together, our results suggest that the opportunity for human male mate choice, based on female WHR, varies among human populations. We discuss the possibility of connecting this variation to human diversity in divorce practices. We conclude that human male mate choice is a circumstantially conditioned selective process responsible for such dimorphism and suggest that cultural and social aspects are potentially powerful in examining the factors capable of strengthening or weakening the selective process.

Claim: Conversion To Buddhism Has Brought Literacy, Gender Equality And Well-Being To Dalits (2017)

Conversion To Buddhism Has Brought Literacy, Gender Equality And Well-Being To Dalits. Manu Moudgil, IndiaSpend, July 1, 2017. www.indiaspend.com/cover-story/conversion-to-buddhism-has-brought-literacy-gender-equality-and-well-being-to-dalits-18224

There are more than 8.4 million Buddhists in India and 87% of them are converts from other religions, mostly Dalits who changed religion to escape Hindu caste oppression. The remaining 13% of Buddhists belong to traditional communities of the north-east and northern Himalayan regions.

Today, these converts to Buddhism–also called neo-Buddhists–enjoy better literacy rates, greater work participation and sex ratio than Scheduled Caste Hindus, the group from which most converts emerge, according to an IndiaSpend analysis of 2011 Census data.

Given that converts make for 87% of the Buddhist population in India and most of them are Dalits, our analysis goes with the assumption that the benefits of growth in the community accrue mostly to the Dalits.

Buddhists have a literacy rate of 81.29%, higher than the national average of 72.98%, according to Census data [http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/Religion_PCA.html]. The literacy rate among Hindus is 73.27% while Scheduled Castes have a lower literacy rate of 66.07%.

“Most Dalits at the senior levels of administration are Buddhists,” said Satpal Tanwar, a leader of Bhim Army, the activist organisation accused of the Saharanpur violence of May 5, 2017, and now mulling mass conversion of Dalits to Buddhism. “This is because Buddhism lends them self-confidence as compared to the caste system which tends to rationalise their low social status through vague concepts like bad karma.”


Better literacy rates

It is only in the traditional communities of the northeast, especially in Mizoram (48.11%) and Arunachal Pradesh (57.89%), that Buddhists have a lower literacy rate than the population average.

On the other hand, Chhattisgarh (87.34%), Maharashtra (83.17%) and Jharkhand (80.41%) have the most number of literate Buddhists. The conversion movement has been the strongest in Maharashtra, followed by Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, and Uttar Pradesh.

           [full article with maps and links in the URL above]


h/ t: anonymous contributor

The fallacy of role substitution (the fallacy of differential reasoning): Acceptability of two different lines of reasoning (e.g., one for friends and one for enemies)

The fallacy of role substitution (the fallacy of differential reasoning), in Smart Is asStupid Does: Exploring bases of erroneous reasoning of smart people regarding learning and other disabilities. Elena L. Grigorenko & Donna Lockery, chp 8 in Why smart people can be so stupid, Robert J. Sternberg (ed.). Cambridge, MA: Yale University, 2002.

The fallacy of role substitution (the fallacy of differential reasoning). Excerpt.

This fallacy refers to a type of reasoning, the structure and content of which changes depending on the position from which the arguing is done. The fallacy invokes the acceptability of two different lines of reasoning (e.g., one for friends and one for enemies). As an illustration of this fallacy, consider the following.

The City of Manchester Democratic Party Committee endorsed Peter Leonard, a fifty-three-year-old man with a specific reading disability who had an IQ of 80 and reading skills at a third-grade level (Good Morning America, Mar. 19, 1998). Mr. Leonard had won a seat on the Manchester school board. The city’s Republican leader, Marc Pappas, said that Leonard was a nice man who had the best intentions, but he questioned whether Leonard would be able to represent his constituents adequately. What is noteworthy, however, is that Pappas admitted that if Leonard had been a Republican with this same learning disability, the Republicans would have supported him (Union Leader, Nov. 12, 1999).

Here, while reasoning as a Republican opposing a Democratic Party candidate, Mr. Pappas questioned the quality of the candidate—the concern being not whether Mr. Leonard did or did not have a learning disability, but whether he could represent his constituents adequately. Mr. Pappas’s reasoning changed, however, when he was asked what he and his party colleagues would do were Mr. Leonard a Republican. Put in this conditional position, Mr. Pappas did not bring up the question of Mr. Leonard’s personal qualities but concentrated instead on his group membership. This kind of reasoning, which stresses the importance of being correctly a≈liated politically rather than of making justified and consistent inferences following common sense, is quite e√ective in creating the stereotype according to which people with learning disabilities will be given special considerations.

How Does the World Google the Internet, Anxiety, and Happiness?

How Does the World Google the Internet, Anxiety, and Happiness? Snehasish Banerjee. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, Vol. 21, No. 9, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2018.0206

Abstract: This article investigates how the world uses Google, the most popular search engine, to look for information about the “Internet” as well as two symptoms of emotional well-being, namely “anxiety” and “happiness.” Data corresponding to 202 countries were collected for a period of 5 years from 2013 to 2017 using Google Trends, a free surveillance tool that reports data from the search engine. The search volume of “Internet” was positively correlated with that of “anxiety” as well as “happiness.” Furthermore, the article analyzed if the search volumes correlated with actual emotional well-being measured using the World Happiness Index provided by the United Nations (UN) and the Life Satisfaction Index provided by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The search volume of “anxiety” showed positive correlations with both the indices. The results are discussed, and new directions for future research are identified.

Supernatural agents reliably appear in nightmares & unpleasant dreams in association with diminished agency in the dreamer; diminished agency in an individual may facilitate supernatural agent cognitions

Cognitions in Dreams. Patrick McNamara et al. Journal of Cognition and Culture, Volume 18, Issue 3-4, pages 428 – 450. DOI: 10.1163/15685373-12340038

Purpose: To test the hypothesis that supernatural agents (SAs) appear in nightmares and dreams in association with evidence of diminished agency within the dreamer/dream ego.

Methods: Content analyses of 120 nightmares and 71 unpleasant control dream narratives.

Results: We found that SAs overtly occur in about one quarter of unpleasant dreams and about half of nightmares. When SAs appear in a dream or nightmare they are reliably associated with diminished agency in the dreamer. Diminished agency within the dreamer occurs in over 90% of dreams (whether nightmares or unpleasant dreams) that have overt SAs. In about half of nightmare reports the SA appears suddenly with no clear emergence pattern. In some two thirds of unpleasant dreams, however, the SA emerged from a human character. The SA’s gender was indeterminate in most dreams with SAs but the SA communicated with the dreamer in 24% of nightmares and only 13% of unpleasant dreams. In most nightmares, the SA intended to harm the dreamer and in one third of nightmares the dreamer was the victim of physical agression by the SA. SA intentions in unpleasant dreams were more varied and actually benign in 13% of cases.

Conclusion: Supernatural agents reliably appear in nightmares and unpleasant dreams in association with diminished agency in the dreamer. Diminished agency in an individual may facilitate supernatural agent cognitions.

Keywords: dreams; religious cognition; nightmares; supernatural agents; agency

Size distortions are intrinsic to self-face representation, characterised for a tendency to overestimate its width: The metric map for self-face representation shows larger distortion for the nose, followed by the mouth and the eyes

My true face: Unmasking one's own face representation. Laura Mora et al. Acta Psychologica, Volume 191, November 2018, Pages 63-68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2018.08.014

Highlights
•    Size distortions are intrinsic to self-face representation, characterised for a tendency to overestimate its width.
•    Self-face length perception is compartmentalised into upper and bottom regions.
•    The metric map for self-face representation shows larger distortion for the nose, followed by the mouth and the eyes.
•    There is an asymmetrical representation of the face, with over representation of the right hemispace.
•    Face representation relies on influences from visual experience, typical body posture, frequency of use and functionality.

Abstract: Face recognition has been the focus of multiple studies, but little is still known on how we represent the structure of one's own face. Most of the studies have focused on the topic of visual and haptic face recognition, but the metric representation of different features of one's own face is relatively unknown. We investigated the metric representation of the face in young adults by developing a proprioceptive pointing task to locate face landmarks in the first-person perspective. Our data revealed a large overestimation of width for all face features which resembles, in part, the size in somatosensory cortical representation. In contrast, face length was compartmentalised in two different regions: upper (underestimated) and bottom (overestimated); indicating size differences possibly due to functionality. We also identified shifts of the location judgments, with all face areas perceived closer to the body than they really were, due to a potential influence of the self-frame of reference. More importantly, the representation of the face appeared asymmetrical, with an overrepresentation of right side of the face, due to the influence of lateralization biases for strong right-handers. We suggest that these effects may be due to functionality influences and experience that affect the construction of face structural representation, going beyond the parallel of the somatosensory homunculus.

People’s judgments of morally-significant events were affected by the likelihood of the event: They were more upset about events that were unexpected (a robbery at a clothing store) than events that were more expected (a robbery at a convenience store)

Powell, Derek, and Zachary Horne. 2018. “Expectations Bias Moral Evaluations.” PsyArXiv. September 13. doi:10.31234/osf.io/s7fu2

Abstract: People’s expectations play an important role in their reactions to events. There is often disappointment when events fail to meet expectations and a special thrill to having one’s expectations exceeded. We propose that expectations influence evaluations through information-theoretic principles: less expected events do more to inform us about the state of the world than do more expected events. An implication of this proposal is that people may have inappropriately muted responses to morally significant but expected events. In two preregistered experiments, we found that people’s judgments of morally-significant events were affected by the likelihood of that event. People were more upset about events that were unexpected (e.g., a robbery at a clothing store) than events  that were more expected (e.g., a robbery at a convenience store). We argue that this bias has pernicious moral consequences, including leading to reduced concern for victims in most need of help.

Cross-national gender differences in the enrollment in & completion of science, technology, engineering, & mathematics M. Open Online Courses: Females were less likely than males to enroll in STEM MOOCs, but were equally likely to complete them

Cross-national comparison of gender differences in the enrollment in and completion of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics Massive Open Online Courses. Suhang Jiang et al. PLOS One, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202463

Abstract: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have the potential to democratize education by providing learners with access to high-quality free online courses. However, evidence supporting this democratization across countries is limited. We explored the question of MOOC democratization by conducting cross-national comparisons of gender differences in the enrollment in and completion of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) MOOCs. We found that while females were less likely than males to enroll in STEM MOOCs, they were equally likely to complete them. Further, a higher probability to enroll in STEM MOOCs and smaller gender gaps in STEM MOOC enrollment and completion were found in less gender-equal and less economically developed countries.

Refutation: Some say that too many arguments might lead to counterproductive skepticism & reactance; but a larger number of counterarguments (4-6) led to as much or more belief reduction compared to a smaller number

Refutations of Equivocal Claims: No Evidence for an Ironic Effect of Counterargument Number. K.H.Ecker et al. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2018.07.005

Abstract: This study investigated the refutation of equivocal claims using counterarguments. Common sense suggests that more counterarguments should be more effective at inducing belief change. However, some researchers have argued that in persuasive reasoning, using too many arguments might lead to counterproductive skepticism and reactance. Thus, there have been calls to actively curtail the number of counterarguments used in refutations to avoid risking an “overkill backfire effect”—an ironic strengthening of beliefs from too many counterarguments. In three experiments, we tested whether calls to limit the number of counterarguments are justified. We found that a larger number of counterarguments (between four and six) led to as much or more belief reduction compared to a smaller number of (two) counterarguments. This was not merely an effect arising from a simple numerosity heuristic, as counterarguments had to be relevant to affect beliefs: irrelevant counterarguments failed to reduce beliefs even though perceived as moderately persuasive.

Refutations of Equivocal Claims: No Evidence for an Ironic Effect of Counterargument Number.

People’s interpretation of new evidence is often biased by their previous choices (confirmation bias); choices bias the accumulation process by selectively altering the weighting (gain) of subsequent evidence, akin to selective attention

Confirmation Bias through Selective Overweighting of Choice-Consistent Evidence. Bharath Chandra Talluri et al. Current Biology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.07.052

Highlights
•    People’s interpretation of new evidence is often biased by their previous choices
•    Talluri, Urai et al. developed a new task for probing the underlying mechanisms
•    Evidence consistent with an observer’s initial choice is processed more efficiently
•    This “choice-induced gain change” affects both perceptual and numerical decisions

Summary: People’s assessments of the state of the world often deviate systematically from the information available to them [1]. Such biases can originate from people’s own decisions: committing to a categorical proposition, or a course of action, biases subsequent judgment and decision-making. This phenomenon, called confirmation bias [2], has been explained as suppression of post-decisional dissonance [3, 4]. Here, we provide insights into the underlying mechanism. It is commonly held that decisions result from the accumulation of samples of evidence informing about the state of the world [5, 6, 7, 8]. We hypothesized that choices bias the accumulation process by selectively altering the weighting (gain) of subsequent evidence, akin to selective attention. We developed a novel psychophysical task to test this idea. Participants viewed two successive random dot motion stimuli and made two motion-direction judgments: a categorical discrimination after the first stimulus and a continuous estimation of the overall direction across both stimuli after the second stimulus. Participants’ sensitivity for the second stimulus was selectively enhanced when that stimulus was consistent with the initial choice (compared to both, first stimuli and choice-inconsistent second stimuli). A model entailing choice-dependent selective gain modulation explained this effect better than several alternative mechanisms. Choice-dependent gain modulation was also established in another task entailing averaging of numerical values instead of motion directions. We conclude that intermittent choices direct selective attention during the evaluation of subsequent evidence, possibly due to decision-related feedback in the brain [9]. Our results point to a recurrent interplay between decision-making and selective attention.

People with higher IQs not only being unable to solve problems unresolved, but are in some cases unwilling to address them; higher IQ is not always highly relevant to the problems, and in some cases, may displace other skills that better would apply to the solution of the problems

Why Real-World Problems Go Unresolved and What We Can Do about It: Inferences from a Limited-Resource Model of Successful Intelligence. Robert J. Sternberg. J. Intell. 2018, 6(3), 44; https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence6030044

Abstract: In this article I suggest why a symposium is desirable on the topic of why, despite worldwide increases in IQ since the beginning of the 20th century, there are so many unresolved and dramatic problems in the world. I briefly discuss what some of these problems are, and the paradox of people with higher IQs not only being unable to solve them, but in some cases people being unwilling to address them. I suggest that higher IQ is not always highly relevant to the problems, and in some cases, may displace other skills that better would apply to the solution of the problems. I present a limited-resource model as an adjunct to the augmented theory of successful intelligence. The model suggests that increasing societal emphases on analytical abilities have displaced development and utilization of other skills, especially creative, practical, and wisdom-based ones, that better could be applied to serious world problems. I also discuss the importance of cognitive inoculation against unscrupulous and sometimes malevolent attempts to change belief systems.

Keywords: components; creativity; inoculation; intelligence; limited-resource model; wisdom

Deception detection advances: From observing target persons' nonverbal behavior to analyzing their speech; from differences in levels of arousal to detection of cognitive processes or strategies adopted to be convincing; & from passively observing target persons to actively interviewing them

Deception and truth detection when analyzing nonverbal and verbal cues. Aldert Vrij. Applied Cognitive Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3457

Summary: In this article, I present my view on the significant developments and theoretical/empirical tipping points in nonverbal and verbal deception and lie detection from the last 30 years and on prospects for future research in this domain. I discuss three major shifts in deception detection research: (a) From observing target persons' nonverbal behavior to analyzing their speech; (b) from lie detection based on differences between truth tellers and liars' levels of arousal to lie detection based on the different cognitive processes or strategies adopted to appear convincing; and (c) from passively observing target persons to actively interviewing them to elicit or enhance verbal cues to deceit. Finally, I discuss my ideas for future research, focusing on initiatives from my own lab. Hopefully, this will stimulate other researchers to explore innovative ideas in the verbal deception research domain, which already has seen so much progress in the last decade.

Brain and psychological determinants of placebo pill response in chronic pain patients

Brain and psychological determinants of placebo pill response in chronic pain patients. Etienne Vachon-Presseau, Sara E. Berger, Taha B. Abdullah, Lejian Huang, Guillermo A. Cecchi, James W. Griffith, Thomas J. Schnitzer & A. Vania Apkarian. Nature Communications, volume 9, Article number: 3397 (2018). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05859-1

Abstract: The placebo response is universally observed in clinical trials of pain treatments, yet the individual characteristics rendering a patient a ‘placebo responder’ remain unclear. Here, in chronic back pain patients, we demonstrate using MRI and fMRI that the response to placebo ‘analgesic’ pills depends on brain structure and function. Subcortical limbic volume asymmetry, sensorimotor cortical thickness, and functional coupling of prefrontal regions, anterior cingulate, and periaqueductal gray were predictive of response. These neural traits were present before exposure to the pill and most remained stable across treatment and washout periods. Further, psychological traits, including interoceptive awareness and openness, were also predictive of the magnitude of response. These results shed light on psychological, neuroanatomical, and neurophysiological principles determining placebo response in RCTs in chronic pain patients, and they suggest that the long-term beneficial effects of placebo, as observed in clinical settings, are partially predictable.

Social conformity: Compliance occurs when individuals conform in public, but not in private; acceptance occurs when group influence is internalised, in private and in public; the magnitude of compliance increases as the size of the majority increases

Quantifying compliance and acceptance through public and private social conformity. Sophie Sowden et al. Consciousness and Cognition, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2018.08.009

Highlights
•    Most measures of social conformity conflate compliance and acceptance.
•    Compliance occurs when individuals conform in public, but not in private.
•    Acceptance occurs when group influence is internalised, in private and in public.
•    Our task reveals the presence of compliance and acceptance on a within-subject basis.
•    The magnitude of compliance increases as the size of the majority increases.

Abstract: Social conformity is a class of social influence whereby exposure to the attitudes and beliefs of a group causes an individual to alter their own attitudes and beliefs towards those of the group. Compliance and acceptance are varieties of social influence distinguished on the basis of the attitude change brought about. Compliance involves public, but not private conformity, while acceptance occurs when group norms are internalised and conformity is demonstrated both in public and in private. Most contemporary paradigms measuring conformity conflate compliance and acceptance, while the few studies to have addressed this issue have done so using between-subjects designs, decreasing their sensitivity. Here we present a novel task which measures compliance and acceptance on a within-subjects basis. Data from a small sample reveal that compliance and acceptance can co-occur, that compliance is increased with an increasing majority, and demonstrate the usefulness of the task for future studies of conformity.

The truth about tattoos: The tattooed and non-tattooed are similarly honest in low-and high-stakes tasks

The truth about tattoos. Bradley J. Ruffle, Anne E. Wilson. Economics Letters, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2018.08.024

Highlights
•    The tattooed and non-tattooed are similarly honest in low-and high-stakes tasks.
•    Results are robust to controls for socio-demo and number and placement of tattoos.
•    Few subjects cheat maximally in either the low-or high-stakes task.
•    Strategic cheating is limited to a small minority of subjects.

Abstract: Despite their ubiquity, tattoos continue to be associated with dishonesty. Notwithstanding, we find few differences in the reporting behavior of tattooed and non-tattooed individuals in either a low-stakes or a high-stakes honesty-detection task.

Deceiving participants about the goals or content of a study is permitted in psychological research but is banned in economics journals and subject pools; experiments show that this ban is not necessary

Krasnow, Max, Rhea M. Howard, and Adar Eisenbruch. 2018. “The Importance of Being Honest?.” PsyArXiv. September 12. doi:10.31234/osf.io/9rsth

Abstract: Deceiving participants about the goals or content of a study is permitted in psychological research but is banned in economics journals and subject pools. This ban is intended to protect a public good: if experiencing deception causes participants to be suspicious in future studies, and suspicion influences their behavior, then the entire field suffers. We report a survey on psychologists and economists’ attitudes towards deception (N=568), and a large, non-deceptive multi-site study in which we measured participants’ histories, suspicion levels, and behavior in four common economic tasks (N=636). Economists reported wide ranging negative attitudes towards deceptive methods and support for the deception ban. However, the results of the behavioral study undercut the rationale of the deception ban: participants’ present suspicion unrelated to past experiences of deception, and suspicious participants behaved identically to credulous participants. We conclude that banning deceptive methods cannot be justified as the protection of a public good.

Understanding Changes in Attitudes Toward Suicide Between 1980s and 2010s in the US: largely unaccepting of suicide, except in the case of incurable disease, a greater percentage found suicide to be acceptable in the 2010s

Understanding Changes in Attitudes Toward Suicide Between 1980s and 2010s in the United States. Yi Tong, Julie A. Phillips. Social Science Quarterly, https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12522

Objectives: This study examines individual characteristics associated with suicide acceptability in the United States and how (1) effects of these characteristics on attitudes have changed over time and (2) the degree to which shifts in attitudes are explained by changes in population characteristics.

Methods: We use General Social Survey (GSS) data from the 1980s (n = 4,840) and 2010s (n = 5,607) and conduct an Oaxaca decomposition.

Results: Although Americans remain largely unaccepting of suicide, except in the case of incurable disease, a greater percentage found suicide to be acceptable in 2010s than in 1980s. Individuals who are male, white, more educated, less religious, and more politically liberal find suicide more acceptable. Changes over time in population composition (e.g., rising education levels and declines in religion) account for about 50 percent of the rise in suicide acceptability between 1980s and 2010s.

Conclusions: Results hint at shifting societal patterns, but the causal direction between attitudes and behavior cannot be determined.

Bonobos voluntarily hand food to others but not toys or tools

Bonobos voluntarily hand food to others but not toys or tools. Christopher Krupenye, Jingzhi Tan, Brian Hare. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2018.1536

Abstract: A key feature of human prosociality is direct transfers, the most active form of sharing in which donors voluntarily hand over resources in their possession. Direct transfers buffer hunter-gatherers against foraging shortfalls. The emergence and elaboration of this behaviour thus likely played a key role in human evolution by promoting cooperative interdependence and ensuring that humans' growing energetic needs (e.g. for increasing brain size) were more reliably met. According to the strong prosociality hypothesis, among great apes only humans exhibit sufficiently strong prosocial motivations to directly transfer food. The versatile prosociality hypothesis suggests instead that while other apes may make transfers in constrained settings, only humans share flexibly across food and non-food contexts. In controlled experiments, chimpanzees typically transfer objects but not food, supporting both hypotheses. In this paper, we show in two experiments that bonobos directly transfer food but not non-food items. These findings show that, in some contexts, bonobos exhibit a human-like motivation for direct food transfer. However, humans share across a far wider range of contexts, lending support to the versatile prosociality hypothesis. Our species' unusual prosocial flexibility is likely built on a prosocial foundation we share through common descent with the other apes.

The scent of attractiveness: levels of reproductive hormones explain individual differences in women's body odour

The scent of attractiveness: levels of reproductive hormones explain individual differences in women's body odour. Janek S. Lobmaier, Urs Fischbacher, Urs Wirthmüller, Daria Knoch. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2018.1520

Abstract: Individuals are thought to have their own distinctive body odour which reportedly plays an important role in mate choice. In the present study we investigated individual differences in body odours of women and examined whether some women generally smell more attractive than others or whether odour preferences are a matter of individual taste. We then explored whether levels of reproductive hormones explain women's body odour attractiveness, to test the idea that body odour attractiveness may act as a chemosensory marker of reproductive fitness. Fifty-seven men rated body odours of 28 healthy, naturally cycling women of reproductive age. We collected all odours at peak fertility to control for menstrual cycle effects on body odour attractiveness. Women's salivary oestradiol, progesterone, testosterone and cortisol levels were assessed at the time of odour collection to test whether hormone levels explain body odour attractiveness. We found that the men highly agreed on how attractive they found women's body odours. Interestingly, women's body odour attractiveness was predicted by their oestradiol and progesterone levels: the higher a woman's levels of oestradiol and the lower her levels of progesterone, the more attractive her body odour was rated. In showing that women's body odour attractiveness is explained by levels of female reproductive hormones, but not by levels of cortisol or testosterone, we provide evidence that body odour acts as a valid cue to potential fertility.

Sex differences in personality are larger in gender equal countries: Replicating and extending this effect

Sex differences in personality are larger in gender equal countries: Replicating and extending a surprising finding. Erik Mac Giolla, Petri J. Kajonius. International Journal of Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1002/ijop.12529

Abstract: Sex differences in personality have been shown to be larger in more gender equal countries. We advance this research by using an extensive personality measure, the IPIP‐NEO‐120, with large country samples (N > 1000), from 22 countries. Furthermore, to capture the multidimensionality of personality we measure sex differences with a multivariate effect size (Mahalanobis distance D). Results indicate that past research, using univariate measures of effect size, have underestimated the size of between‐country sex differences in personality. Confirming past research, there was a strong correlation (r = .69) between a country's sex differences in personality and their Gender Equality Index. Additional analyses showed that women typically score higher than men on all five trait factors (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness), and that these relative differences are larger in more gender equal countries. We speculate that as gender equality increases both men and women gravitate towards their traditional gender roles.

Factors of women’s political ambition, affected by the gendered expectations of those around them and the challenges they face balancing life without the resources of elite women, are almost entirely distinct from those shaping men's

Baker, Bus Driver, Babysitter, Candidate? Revealing the Gendered Development of Political Ambition Among Ordinary Americans. Melody Crowder-Meyer. Political Behavior, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-018-9498-9

Abstract: Americans without prestigious educational or professional backgrounds hold offices throughout the American government. Yet we know little about how these ordinary Americans developed political ambition or whether gender differences in ambition are present among this population. This paper uses a national sample of 1240 Americans to fill these gaps, identifying how political ambition develops differently for ordinary men and women, and drawing on this knowledge to help explain the surge in female candidates following the 2016 election. In contrast with elite samples, I show that the factors determining men’s political ambition are almost entirely distinct from those shaping women’s ambition among the mass public. I theorize that ordinary women’s ambition is particularly affected by the gendered expectations of those around them and the challenges they face balancing caregiving, work, and political engagement without the experience and resources possessed by elite women. I find support for this theory; ordinary women’s ambition is particularly dependent on the support of personal and political sources who can help them manage the demands of candidacy. In contrast, ordinary men’s ambition depends far less on encouragement from others, and instead increases with levels of education, political participation, and marriage. These results, and the distribution of the factors shaping ambition among Americans, help explain women’s low descriptive representation among American candidates and elected officials. They also provide a potential explanation for the unusual increase in women’s candidacies in 2017 and 2018.

How innocent defendants become suspects in criminal investigations: Defendant’s race, age, criminal history, relationship to the victim, cognitive/mental status, & whether the victim survived

Origin of Implication: How Do Innocent Individuals Enter the Criminal Justice System? Belen Lowrey-Kinberg et al. Crime & Delinquency, https://doi.org/10.1177/0011128718793618

Abstract: Drawing from the investigative policing literature, we develop a typology for how innocent defendants become suspects in criminal investigations. We use the Preventing Wrongful Convictions Project (PWCP) dataset and multivariate modeling to examine the case and defendant characteristics that predict how an innocent defendant became a suspect. We found that investigators identify suspects in eight primary ways. The most common in the PWCP dataset were victim/eyewitness identification, citizen identification, and intentional misidentification. Defendant’s race, age, criminal history, relationship to the victim, cognitive/mental status, and whether the victim survived were strongly associated with an innocent defendant’s origin of implication. These results illuminate how tunnel vision begins in cases with innocent defendants, and how police practices may prevent innocent individuals from becoming suspects.

Keywords: police investigations, origin of implication, wrongful convictions

Long Term Impacts of Grants on Poverty & 9-Year Evidence from Uganda's Youth Opportunities Program: Lasting impacts on assets, skilled work, & possibly child health, but had little effect on mortality, fertility, health or education

Blattman, Christopher and Fiala, Nathan and Martinez, Sebastian, The Long Term Impacts of Grants on Poverty: 9-Year Evidence from Uganda's Youth Opportunities Program (July 30, 2018). https://ssrn.com/abstract=3223028

Abstract: In 2008, Uganda granted hundreds of small groups $400/person to help members start individual skilled trades. Four years on, an experimental evaluation found grants raised earnings by 38% (Blattman, Fiala, Martinez 2014). We return after 9 years to find these start-up grants acted more as a kick-start than a lift out of poverty. Grantees' investment leveled off; controls eventually increased their incomes through business and casual labor; and so both groups converged in employment, earnings, and consumption. Grants had lasting impacts on assets, skilled work, and possibly child health, but had little effect on mortality, fertility, health or education.

Keywords: Employment, Poverty, Entrepreneurship, Cash Transfers, Occupational Choice, Uganda, Field Experiment, Labor Market Programs, Health, Education, Uganda
JEL Classification: J24, O12, D13, C93