Monday, April 9, 2018

The Strengths of Wisdom Provide Unique Contributions to Improved Leadership, Sustainability, Inequality, Gross National Happiness, and Civic Discourse in the Face of Contemporary World Problems

The Strengths of Wisdom Provide Unique Contributions to Improved Leadership, Sustainability, Inequality, Gross National Happiness, and Civic Discourse in the Face of Contemporary World Problems. Igor Grossmann and Justin P. Brienza. J. Intell. 2018, 6(2), 22; doi:10.3390/jintelligence6020022

Abstract: We present evidence for the strengths of the intellectual virtues that philosophers and behavioral scientists characterize as key cognitive elements of wisdom. Wisdom has been of centuries-long interest for philosophical scholarship, but relative to intelligence largely neglected in public discourse on educational science, public policy, and societal well-being. Wise reasoning characteristics include intellectual humility, recognition of uncertainty, consideration of diverse viewpoints, and an attempt to integrate these viewpoints. Emerging scholarship on these features of wisdom suggest that they uniquely contribute to societal well-being, improve leadership, shed light on societal inequality, promote cooperation in Public Goods Games and reduce political polarization and intergroup-hostility. We review empirical evidence about macro-cultural, ecological, situational, and person-level processes facilitating and inhibiting wisdom in daily life. Based on this evidence, we speculate about ways to foster wisdom in education, organizations, and institutions.

Keywords: wisdom; reasoning; virtues; well-being; political polarization; culture; social class; egocentrism; leadership

Check also Grossmann, Igor, and Harrison Oakes. 2017. “Wisdom of Yoda and Mr. Spock: The Role of Emotions and the Self”. PsyArXiv. December 21. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2017/12/wiser-reasoning-appeared-in-conjunction.html
wiser reasoning appeared in conjunction with greater (vs. lower) emotionality, especially the recognition of a greater number of present emotions and greater balance of intensity across experienced emotions.
And: Wisdom and how to cultivate it: Review of emerging evidence for a constructivist model of wise thinking. Igor Grossmann. European Psychologist, in press. Pre-print: http://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2017/08/wisdom-and-how-to-cultivate-it-review.html



Study in Norway: Increasing family wealth was associated with easier family communication, clearer family communication, and higher family support

Study in Norway: Family wealth and parent–child relationships. Mai Emilie Ramdahl et al. Journal of Child and Family Studies, May 2018, Volume 27, Issue 5, pp 1534–1543. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10826-017-1003-2

Abstract: This study examined associations between self-reported family wealth and parent–child relationships, by contrasting three theoretical perspectives on the shape of the association. The study utilized data from the Norwegian part of the “Health behaviour in school-aged children study (HBSC) 2013/2014”, with a sample of 3383 children aged 11–15 years old. The shape of associations between family wealth and parent–child communication were tested using regression spline models with knots at 1 SD below mean family wealth and at 1 SD above mean family wealth. The regression spline models showed that increasing family wealth was associated with easier family communication, clearer family communication, and higher family support. Results revealed that for boys, the association between family wealth and outcomes was stronger for the lower segment of family wealth, than in medium and high segments of family wealth. For girls, the gradient across level of wealth was monotone, with higher parent–child communication and higher family support at higher family wealth. To conclude, the results from this study suggest a nonlinear pattern of inequality in parent–child relationships across the range of family wealth.

What is usual, not just what is objectively permissible, drives moral judgment, even when holding behavior constant and varying descriptive norms

It's not what you do, but what everyone else does: On the role of descriptive norms and subjectivism in moral judgment. Andrew E. Monroe et al. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 77, July 2018, Pages 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2018.03.010

Highlights
•    Five studies tested the impact of descriptive norms on judgments of blame and praise.
•    What is usual, not just what is objectively permissible, drives moral judgments.
•    Effects replicate even when holding behavior constant and varying descriptive norms.
•    Agents had to be aware of a norm for it to impact perceivers' moral judgments.
•    Effects generalize to explain decisions of trust for real monetary stakes.

Abstract: How do people evaluate moral actions, by referencing objective rules or by appealing to subjective, descriptive norms of behavior? Five studies examined whether and how people incorporate subjective, descriptive norms of behavior into their moral evaluations and mental state inferences of an agent's actions. We used experimental norm manipulations (Studies 1–2, 4), cultural differences in tipping norms (Study 3), and behavioral economic games (Study 5). Across studies, people increased the magnitude of their moral judgments when an agent exceeded a descriptive norm and decreased the magnitude when an agent fell below a norm (Studies 1–4). Moreover, this differentiation was partially explained via perceptions of agents' desires (Studies 1–2); it emerged only when the agent was aware of the norm (Study 4); and it generalized to explain decisions of trust for real monetary stakes (Study 5). Together, these findings indicate that moral actions are evaluated in relation to what most other people do rather than solely in relation to morally objective rules.

Keywords: Moral judgment; Norms; Mental state inference; Social cognition; Blame-praise asymmetries

Time in social activities has diminishing returns for subjective well-being: In the US, socializing more than 2.5 hours a day did not predict higher happiness

The Declining Marginal Utility of Social Time for Subjective Well-Being. Kostadin Kushlev et al. Journal of Research in Personality, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2018.04.004

Highlights
•    Time in social activities has diminishing returns for subjective well-being (SWB).
•    Across 166 nations, spending over 3 hours a day with others predicts no higher SWB.
•    In the US, socializing more than 2.5 hours a day did not predict higher happiness.
•    Quadratic effects explain substantial variance over linear effects alone.
•    These diminishing returns are explained by inter- and intra-domain processes.

Abstract: Are people who spend more time with others always happier than those who spend less time in social activities? Across four studies with more than 250,000 participants, we show that social time has declining marginal utility for subjective well-being. In Study 1 (N=243,075), we use the Gallup World Poll with people from 166 countries, and in Study 2 (N=10,387) the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), to show that social time has declining returns for well-being. In Study 3a (N=168) and Study 3b (N=174), we employ the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) to provide initial evidence for both intra-domain (principle of diminishing satisfaction) and inter-domain mechanisms (principle of satisfaction limits). We discuss implications for theory, research methodology, and practice.

Keywords: subjective well-being; social interaction; social relationships; psychological needs; life balance; principle of diminishing satisfaction; principle of satisfaction limits; marginal utility

Examining aggressive play with toy weapons and its relation with crime

Learning to blast a way into crime, or just good clean fun? Examining aggressive play with toy weapons and its relation with crime. Sven Smith, Christopher J Ferguson and Kevin M Beaver. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health (2018), 10.1002/cbm.2070

Abstract
Background: Researchers, such as Bandura, have proposed that children’s mere exposure to the use of play weapons encourages deviant displays of aggression, but there is very little research to support this hypothesis of 20 years.

Aim: To examine the relationship between amount of weapon play and concurrent aggression as well as later violent juvenile crime, while controlling for other variables possibly influencing criminal pathways.

Method; Using longitudinal survey data collected from mothers and children (n = 2019) from age 5, with follow-up at age 15, correlations between children’s play with toy weapons and juvenile criminality were examined. Multivariate regression analyses were employed to determine to what extent early childhood aggression, symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and symptoms of depression were antecedents of juvenile crime.

Results: For bivariate analysis between toy weapon play and juvenile criminality, the effect size was small and not significant. The relationship remained not significant once control variables were introduced into the model.

Conclusions and implications: The act of pretending to be aggressive in childhood thus plays little role in predicting later criminality after other factors, such as gender, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or depression, have been taken into account. Involvement in imaginative play with toy gun use in early childhood is unlikely to be useful as a risk marker for later criminal behaviour. Play fighting and war toy games may even be considered necessary components within the frame of normal development.

Sunday, April 8, 2018

Implicit Theories of Intelligence and Personality: Relations to Intelligence, Motivation and Personality

Zirenko M. (2018) Implitsitnye teorii intellekta i lichnosti: svyazi s intellektom, motivatsiey i lichnostnymi chertami [Implicit Theories of Intelligence and Personality: Relations to Intelligence, Motivation and Personality]. Psychology. Journal of Higher School of Economics 2018, vol. 15, no 1, pp. 39-53 (in Russian). https://psy-journal.hse.ru/en/2018-15-1/217802819.html

Implicit theories (IT) reflect core beliefs about malleability of cognitive and personality human attributes. IT participate in the interpretation of the social world, regulate behaviors (through goal setting, adjustments after failures, learning strategies, etc.), and are valid predictors of achievement (Dweck, 2006). Nevertheless, little is known about the IT’s relationship to the components of the intellectual and personality human potential. The purpose of this research is to examine the extent to which IT are related to cognitive (intelligence) and personality (Big-Five personality traits, motivation) structures. A sample of 307 students completed the intelligence test (ICAR), the Ten-Item Personality Inventory and the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule; additionally, GPA was obtained for 49 students. Results demonstrate similar as well as distinctive correlations between the measurements in men and women. In particular, in both men and women, malleable intelligence beliefs do not depend on intelligence level, fluid or crystallized, but are largely related to personality characteristics: conscientiousness (in both men and women), openness to experience (in women), and intraception motivation (in men). Malleability of personality beliefs correlates negatively with crystallized intelligence (only in women). Mastery goal orientation in both men and women is related to openness; academic achievement is predicted by conscientiousness. The results are discussed from the perspective of the integrated intellectual and personality potential.

Keywords: implicit theories; intelligence; personality; Big Five; motivation; learning goals; self-assessed academic success

The influence of psychological traits, beliefs and taste responsiveness on implicit attitudes toward plant- and animal-based dishes among vegetarians, flexitarians and omnivores

The influence of psychological traits, beliefs and taste responsiveness on implicit attitudes toward plant- and animal-based dishes among vegetarians, flexitarians and omnivores. Danny Cliceri et al. Food Quality and Preference, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2018.03.020

Highlights
•    Implicitly measured attitudes toward plant- and animal-based dishes were studied.
•    Differences between vegetarians, flexitarians and omnivores were investigated.
•    Vegetarians and flexitarians implicitly associate positive emotions to meat-free dishes.
•    PROP responsiveness and sensitivity to disgust were lower in vegetarians.
•    Positive attitudes toward meat-free dishes related to health attitudes and empathy.
•    The segments did not differ in food involvement nor in rewarding value of food.

Summary (after political speech): The aim of this study was therefore to explore the associations among psychological and personality traits, attitudes, beliefs and taste responsiveness in affecting implicitly measured attitudes toward plant-based and animal based-dishes.

These attitudes were measured through three independent Implicit Association Tests (IATs), using images of culinary preparations of plant-based, meat-based and dairy-based dishes and positive/negative emotions. 125 subjects (39 omnivores, 55 flexitarians and 31 vegetarians) participated in each IAT. Questionnaires measuring psychological and personality traits, attitudes toward foods and beliefs about food animals were employed. Moreover, taste responsiveness was measured through the bitter intensity assessment of PROP. A Partial Least Square model was then adopted to study the individual variability in the implicit attitudes toward the plant-based and animal-based dishes in relation to psychological and personality traits, general food attitudes, beliefs on food animals and taste responsiveness measures.

Overall the implicit measures were found to be in line with declared eating habits, with Vegetarians and Flexitarians more inclined to implicitly associate positive emotions to meat-free dishes than Omnivores, and with Vegetarians showing a stronger association than Flexitarians. The results showed that positive attitudes toward plant-based dishes were positively related to the empathic sensitivity toward humans and animals, as well as to attitudes toward healthy and natural products, highlighting an important role of food consciousness in determining the eating habits. On the contrary, food involvement and attitude towards taste did not differ among the considered segments. Responsiveness to PROP and sensitivity to pathogen disgust were found to be lower in Vegetarians compared to Omnivores. The transition from plant-based diet to animal-based diet should therefore embrace multiple aspects, considering taste responsiveness, psychological traits and attitudes towards food.

Keywords: Vegetarian; Flexitarian; Empathy; Attitudes; Beliefs; PROP; Implicit association test

h/t: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf

Placebo analgesia induced prior to sleep reduced pain during sleep as well as subjective sleep disturbances, as evaluated retrospectively on the following morning

Placebo analgesia persists during sleep: An experimental study. Daniele Laverdure-Dupont et al. Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pnpbp.2018.03.027

Highlights
•    Placebo analgesia induced prior to sleep reduced pain during sleep as well as subjective sleep disturbances, as evaluated retrospectively on the following morning.
•    Placebo analgesia reduced EEG arousal responses to acute noxious heat stimuli administered during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.
•    Placebo analgesia induced prior to sleep increased EEG arousal responses to acute noxious heat stimuli administered during slow wave sleep (SWS).
•    Future research should explore the mechanisms underlying the differential placebo effects observed across sleep stages.

Abstract: Although placebo analgesia is a well-recognized phenomenon with important clinical implications, the possibility that placebo effects occur during sleep has received little attention. This experimental study examined whether responsiveness to acute heat pain stimuli applied during sleep could be reduced following a placebo conditioning procedure administered before sleep. Healthy individuals (n = 9) underwent polysomnographic recordings for one habituation night followed by one placebo analgesia night and one control night in counterbalanced order. Conditioning induced robust analgesia expectations before the placebo night. In the morning after the placebo night, participants reported less nocturnal pain, anxiety, and associated sleep disturbance (all p's < 0.05) compared to the control night. Furthermore, placebo induction produced a 10% reduction in brain arousals evoked by noxious stimuli during rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep (p = 0.03), consistent with our previous findings suggesting that analgesia expectations are reprocessed during REM sleep. In contrast, arousals increased by 14% during slow wave sleep (SWS) (p = 0.02). In the morning after the last recording night, placebo testing administered as a manipulation check confirmed that typical placebo analgesic responses were produced during waking (p's < 0.05). These results suggest that analgesia expectations developed before sleep reduced nocturnal pain perception and subjective sleep disturbances and activated brain processes that modulate incoming nociceptive signals differentially according to sleep stage. These results need to be replicated in future studies exploring how analgesia expectations may be reactivated during different sleep stages to modulate nociceptive responses.

h/t: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf

Saturday, April 7, 2018

No evidence that more physically attractive young adult women have higher estradiol or progesterone

No evidence that more physically attractive young adult women have higher estradiol or progesterone. Benedict C. Jones et al. bioRxiv, https://doi.org/10.1101/136515

Abstract: Putative associations between sex hormones and attractive physical characteristics in women are central to many theories of human physical attractiveness and mate choice. Although such theories have become very influential, evidence that physically attractive and unattractive women have different hormonal profiles is equivocal. Consequently, we investigated hypothesized relationships between salivary estradiol and progesterone and two aspects of women's physical attractiveness that are commonly assumed to be correlated with levels of these hormones: facial attractiveness (N=249) and waist-to-hip ratio (N=247). Our analyses revealed no evidence that women with more attractive faces or lower (i.e., more attractive) waist-to-hip ratios had higher levels of estradiol or progesterone. These results do not support the influential hypothesis that between-women differences in physical attractiveness are related to estradiol and/or progesterone.

h/t: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf

Friday, April 6, 2018

Handgrip strength predicts measures of aggression & social dominance, perceived formidability, male-typical body morphology & movement, courtship display, physical attractiveness, & sexual behavior & reproductive fitness

Handgrip Strength as a Darwinian Fitness Indicator in Men. Andrew C. Gallupand Bernhard Fink. Frontiers in Psychology, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00439

Handgrip strength (HGS) is a robust measure of overall muscular strength and function, and has long been predictive of a multitude of health factors and physical outcomes for both men and women. The fact that HGS represents such a ubiquitous measure of health and vitality may reflect the significance of this trait during human evolution. This trait is also highly sexually dimorphic due to influences of androgenic hormones and fat-free body mass, suggesting that it has been further elaborated through sexual selection. Consistent with this view, research within evolutionary psychology and related fields has documented distinct relationships between HGS and measures of social and sexual behavior, especially in men. Here, we review studies across different societies and cultural contexts showing that male HGS predicts measures of aggression and social dominance, perceived formidability, male-typical body morphology and movement, courtship display, physical attractiveness, and sexual behavior and reproductive fitness. These findings underscore the value of including HGS as an independent measure within studies examining human sexual selection, and corroborate existing research suggesting that specific features of physical strength have and continue to be under positive directional selection in men.

h/t: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf

Incomplete physics and the finite representation of computers can induce false instabilities; eliminating instability can lead to computational overstabilization or false stability. Models on ultra-long timescales are dubiously stable. This is referred to as the “climate state.”

Christopher Essex and Anastasios A.Tsonis (2018) Model falsifiability and climate slow modes, Physica A, Volume 502, July 2018, Pages 554-562. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physa.2018.02.090

Highlights
• Climate models do not and cannot employ known physics fully. Thus, they are falsified, a priori.
• Incomplete physics and the finite representation of computers can induce false instabilities.
• Eliminating instability can lead to computational overstabilization or false stability.
• Models on ultra-long timescales are dubiously stable. This is referred to as the “climate state.” Is it real?
• Decadal variability is understandable in terms of a specific class of nonlinear dynamical systems.

Abstract: The most advanced climate models are actually modified meteorological models attempting to capture climate in meteorological terms. This seems a straightforward matter of raw computing power applied to large enough sources of current data. Some believe that models have succeeded in capturing climate in this manner. But have they? This paper outlines difficulties with this picture that derive from the finite representation of our computers, and the fundamental unavailability of future data instead. It suggests that alternative windows onto the multi-decadal timescales are necessary in order to overcome the issues raised for practical problems of prediction.

---
Prof. Essex explains,

“Unlike the stable virtual ‘climates’ seen in computer simulations, corresponding real-world conditions aren’t stable at all. There are perpetual, natural, internal changes in play that take longer than human lifetimes to play out.”

No human will ever fully perceive this change. No one lives long enough.  But some astute people, in their later years, might just be able to make a little of it out.

Prof. Essex adds,

“There is an ultraslow, mysterious, unseen world out there, under our very noses, that we cannot perceive. It’s beyond our measurement capabilities, and beyond the capabilities of our best computers using our very best physical theories. It belongs to a class of problems that we cannot overwhelm with data, or crush with our biggest computers.”

Nevertheless, there is hope. As Professor Tsonis explains, our growing understanding of the nature of natural ocean modes  and how they are linked may open up a whole new field of research into ultra-long timescales taking us beyond the virtual stability of modified meteorological models:

“Ocean modes like the North Atlantic Oscillation and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, known natural internal dynamical features, affect weather patterns globally over years, decades and longer. They are deep structures that are coming to be understood on their own terms. We understand better than ever how they are linked, and we understand the mathematical structures in play in ways that we could not have only a few decades ago. We are on the verge of being able to predict what they will do next. If we succeed, a hitherto invisible world will open to us. We will see new wonders through new eyes.”

Differential relationship of jumping-to-conclusions and incorrigibility with delusion severity

Differential relationship of jumping-to-conclusions and incorrigibility with delusion severity. Christina Andreou, Ruth Veckenstedt, Thies Lüdtke, Vasilis P. Bozikas, Steffen Moritz. Psychiatry Research, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2018.04.014

Highlights
•We investigated trait and state aspects of jumping-to-conclusions and incorrigibility
•The two reasoning biases showed differential associations with delusion severity
•Results suggest different roles of the two biases in delusion formation / maintenance

Abstract: Reasoning biases such as jumping-to-conclusions (JTC) and incorrigibility have been suggested to contribute to the generation and maintenance of delusions. However, it is still debated whether these biases represent stable traits of patients with delusions, or are related to state fluctuations in delusion severity. The present study aimed to elucidate this question by combining a cross-sectional with a longitudinal approach. JTC, incorrigibility and delusion severity were assessed in 79 patients with a history of delusions over a 6-month period. To allow for a differentiated look into effects of time vs. symptom changes, patients were divided into patients with (D+) and without (D-) current delusions at baseline. Significant improvement of delusions was noted in D+ at follow-up. JTC did not differ between the two patient groups either at baseline or over time. In contrast, incorrigibility was significantly higher in D+ than D- at baseline; this difference remained stable throughout the 6-month follow-up period. The two biases did not significantly co-vary over time. Our results suggest a dissociation between incorrigibility and JTC as regards their relation to current presence of delusions, and tentatively support theoretical accounts attributing different roles to the two biases in the generation (JTC) and maintenance (incorrigibility) of delusions.

Keywords: Reasoning biases, Cognitive biases, Jumping-to-conclusions, Belief flexibility, Bias against disconfirmatory evidence, Psychosis

h/t: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf

Niels Bohr suggested that willed actions come with slower movement execution than reactions, and therefore that a film’s hero is able to get the upper hand even though the villain normally draws first. This is due to independent systems for willed (the bad guy's) and reactive (the hero's) movements

Disarming the gunslinger effect: Reaction beats intention for cooperative actions. Lisa Weller, Wilfried Kunde, Roland Pfister. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13423-018-1462-5

Abstract: According to the famous physicist Niels Bohr, gunfights at high noon in Western movies not only captivate the cinema audience but also provide an accurate illustration of a psychophysical law. He suggested that willed actions come with slower movement execution than reactions, and therefore that a film’s hero is able to get the upper hand even though the villain normally draws first. A corresponding “gunslinger effect” has been substantiated by empirical studies. Because these studies used a markedly competitive setting, however, it is currently unclear whether the gunslinger effect indeed reflects structural differences between willed actions and reactive movements, or whether it is a by-product of the competitive setting. To obtain bullet-proof evidence for a true reactive advantage, we investigated willed and reactive movements during a cooperative interaction of two participants. A pronounced reactive advantage emerged, indicating that two independent systems indeed control willed and reactive movements.

Thursday, April 5, 2018

Sexual orientation, competitiveness and income: Gay men compete less than straight men. Lesbians compete as much as straight women

Sexual orientation, competitiveness and income. Thomas Buser, Lydia Geijtenbeek, Erik Plug. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2018.03.017

Highlights
•    We ask whether differences in preferences for competition can explain why gays earn less than other men and lesbians earn more than other women.
•    We conduct an experiment on a Dutch online survey panel to measure the competitive preferences of gay, lesbian and straight panel members.
•    We link our experimental measure of competitiveness to earnings and education data.
•    Gay men compete less than straight men. Lesbians compete as much as straight women.
•    Competitiveness predicts earnings and education levels and differences in competitive preferences can partially explain the gay earnings penalty.

Abstract: Do gays earn less than other men because they are less competitive? Do lesbians earn more than other women because they are more competitive? To answer these questions, we conduct an experiment on a Dutch online survey panel to measure the competitive preferences of gay, lesbian and straight panel members. We find that gay men compete less than straight men, while lesbians compete as much as straight women. Linking our experimental measure of competitiveness to earnings and education data, we find that competitiveness predicts earnings and education levels and that differences in competitive preferences can partially explain the gay earnings penalty but not the lesbian premium.

Of course, a piece about frogs surviving our devilish devices to kill them is not in the front page, but page six or part D: A Few Species of Frogs That Vanished May Be on the Rebound

A Few Species of Frogs That Vanished May Be on the Rebound. Carl Zimmer. The New York Times, March 29, 2018. Full article with photos at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/science/frog-species-panama-fungus-rebound.html

Photo - A healthy variable harlequin frog with golden coloring in the streams of Panama. Credit Cori Richards-Zawacki

In 2013, two biologists named Jamie Voyles and Corinne L. Richards-Zawacki spent weeks slogging up and down mountainsides in Panama. “We were bug-bitten and beat up,” recalled Dr. Voyles, now an assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Near the end of their trek, they came to a stop. In front of them sat the object of their quest: a single gold-and-black frog.

“I can’t tell you what that moment was like,” Dr. Voyles said.

She had feared that variable harlequin frogs had disappeared entirely from Panama. As recently as the early 2000s, they had been easy to find in the country’s high-altitude forests.

“They used to be so abundant that you could barely walk without stepping on them,” Dr. Voyles said.

But in recent years, Dr. Voyles and her colleagues started to encounter sick frogs, and then dead ones. And then they couldn’t find any variable harlequin frogs at all.

Many other species at Dr. Voyles’s research sites in Panama suffered the same grim fate. As had frogs around the world. Dr. Voyles and other frog researchers found that many of the dead frogs were covered with the same aggressive skin fungus, known as Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis or Bd.

As Bd spread from forest to forest, and continent to continent, researchers feared that amphibians might suffer mass extinctions. Today, many species of frogs and toads are still dwindling, and some have disappeared altogether.

But scientists like Dr. Voyles have also found a little cause for hope: a handful of species appear to be coming back. After discovering variable harlequin frogs again, she and her colleagues have returned to their Panama research sites and found a few other species that had previously vanished.

“They’re not in large numbers — their abundances are low,” Dr. Voyles said. “But we think that as more time goes by, we’ll find more species that we thought were lost.”

Now scientists are trying to figure out what accounts for these rebounds. On Thursday, Dr. Voyles and her colleagues published evidence suggesting that the frogs have gained potent defenses in their skin against the fungus.

Photo A Pristamantis frog in Panama. Credit Cori Richards-Zawacki

But other experts are divided about whether the researchers found a cause of the rebound. It’s possible that there are other causes at work. Even climate change — which is posing its own threats to many frog species — may be temporarily helping some frogs withstand the fungus.

When Dr. Voyles rediscovered a few vanished frog species, she initially suspected that the Bd fungus was becoming less deadly. In outbreaks of other pathogens, they have sometimes evolved into milder forms that no longer wipe out the hosts they depend on for their survival.

To test that idea, Dr. Voyles and her colleagues got hold of frozen Bd samples gathered in Panama in 2004, early in the epidemic. They infected frogs with the old fungus, and observed how it compared to new strains of Bd. “It’s still pretty lethal over a decade later,” Dr. Voyles said. “So I was wrong.”

Dr. Voyles was left with the possibility that the frogs themselves had changed. At first she found this idea unlikely, because there hadn’t been much time for the frogs to evolve. While Bd can multiply in a matter of days, it can take many months for a frog to develop into a sexually mature adult.

She tested the hypothesis anyway. Dr. Voyles and her colleagues knew that frogs fight infections with potent skin secretions containing pathogen-killing molecules. Dr. Voyles and other researchers have found that when they add skin secretions to lab-grown Bd, it slows down the fungus’s growth.

Dr. Voyles wondered if frogs had acquired more potent skin secretions, allowing them to rebound. To test that possibility, she and her colleagues collected skin secretions from captive frogs in the Maryland Zoo. The frogs descend from ancestors that had been captured in Panama before the Bd epidemic.

The researchers added skin secretions from captive frogs to petri dishes of growing Bd. They then measured how much the frog’s secretions slowed down the fungus’s growth.

They then carried out the same treatment with skin secretions taken from rebounding populations of wild frogs. The researchers found a big difference between the two trials.

“We had multiple species that were between two and fivefold different in their effectiveness,” said Dr. Voyles, “which is pretty striking.”

Dr. Voyles speculated that some species of frogs included a few mutants with skin secretions that were effective against Bd. While many other frogs died off, the mutants survived and passed down their defensive genes.

James P. Collins, an evolutionary ecologist at Arizona State University, said he found Dr. Voyles’s explanation compelling. “This would be the first candidate I’d put on the table,” he said.
A scientist swabs a glass frog to gather a sample for study. Jamie Voyles

But Karen R. Lips of the University of Maryland wasn’t persuaded that the researchers made a convincing case for skin secretions. “They don’t actually provide data that really supports that,” she said.

To determine how much good skin secretions do, Dr. Lips said, it would be necessary to infect frogs and see whether stronger skin secretions actually keep more frogs alive.

Dr. Lips’s skepticism comes from her own research on frog defenses. In some of her studies, she focuses not on skin secretions, but on the genes involved in the frog immune system.

She and her colleagues have found that some frogs respond to infections by switching on many of these genes and using them to make lots of immune-related proteins. But those frogs all die, along with the frogs that have a weaker genetic response.

“Their genes are going crazy, but it doesn’t matter,” Dr. Lips said.

It’s possible that the immune system of frogs will turn out to be a key to the rebound of some species, or their skin secretions — or both. It’s also possible that other factors matter.

The Bd fungus can grow only in cool temperatures. If some frogs moved down to lower altitudes where it’s warmer, they might be spared.

“You wind up selecting for animals that like to live in some spots as opposed to animals that live in cooler, shady spots,” Dr. Collins said.

In some places, the frogs may not even have to move to gain this protection. In February, a team of Spanish researchers reported that three species of frogs in Spain are growing in numbers, even though Bd is present in the country and it can infect all the species there. They concluded that global warming is raising the temperature where the frogs live, keeping the fungus in check.

In these cases, the frogs may be getting only a temporary reprieve. Their habitats may eventually get too hot not only for the fungus, but for the frogs themselves.

“The skin secretion part of the story is probably not the only thing that’s going on,” Dr. Voyles acknowledged. “There’s probably lots of different reasons why different species have survived and, in some cases, recovered.”

Dr. Voyles also emphasized that the recovery of a few species was no reason to lean back and assume that nature would take care of the Bd crisis.

“I want to put out the message that this is still bad,” she said. The rebound, she argues, “definitely is a glimmer of hope. But it does not mean by any means that everything is back and there is no problem.”


A version of this article appears in print on April 3, 2018, on Page D3 of the New York edition with the headline: Frog Species on the Rebound.


Europe's international edition: page 6, Rebound Offers Hope For Frog Species

Consumption of hard news television programs has a negative effect on the development of mental well-being over time. Soft news consumption, by contrast, has a marginally positive impact on the trend in well-being

Jul 2017: News Consumption and Its Unpleasant Side Effect: Studying the Effect of Hard and Soft News Exposure on Mental Well-Being Over Time. Mark Boukes, Rens Vliegenthart. Journal of Media Psychology Theories Methods and Applications 29(3):137-147, 10.1027/1864-1105/a000224

Abstract: Following the news is generally understood to be crucial for democracy as it allows citizens to politically participate in an informed manner; yet, one may wonder about the unintended side effects it has for the mental well-being of citizens. With news focusing on the negative and worrisome events in the world, framing that evokes a sense of powerlessness, and lack of entertainment value, this study hypothesizes that news consumption decreases mental well-being via negative hedonic experiences; thereby, we differentiate between hard and soft news. Using a panel survey in combination with latent growth curve modeling (n = 2,767), we demonstrate that the consumption of hard news television programs has a negative effect on the development of mental well-being over time. Soft news consumption, by contrast, has a marginally positive impact on the trend in well-being. This can be explained by the differential topic focus, framing and style of soft news vis-à-vis hard news. Investigating the effects of news consumption on mental well-being provides insight into the impact news exposure has on variables other than the political ones, which definitively are not less societally relevant.

Keywords: news consumption, mental well-being, hedonic experiences, negativity, hard versus soft news

h/t: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf

We are positively biased about our personal future while at the same time being negatively biased about the future of our country

Shrikanth, S., Szpunar, P. M., & Szpunar, K. K. (2018). Staying positive in a dystopian future: A novel dissociation between personal and collective cognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Apr 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0000421

Abstract: The future of groups of people is a topic of broad interest in society and academia. Nonetheless, relatively little is known about the manner in which people think about the collective future of groups, and whether personal and collective future thinking represent distinct domains of future-oriented cognition. In the present studies (N = 691), we used an adapted future fluency task to demonstrate a novel domain-by-valence interaction between personal and collective future thinking, such that U.S.-based participants were positively biased about their personal future while at the same time being negatively biased about the future of their country. We further present evidence that this valence-based dissociation extends into the distant future, emerges in a non-U.S. (Canadian) sample, depends on the individual’s relation to the group, and has consequences for how people think about the world around them. Taken together, our findings represent the first behavioral evidence of a dissociation between personal and collective future thinking, and suggest that the study of collective future thinking represents a fruitful endeavor for psychological science.

h/t: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf

Clinton supporters, in contrast, remained below baseline levels of general happiness six months after the election. Moral and political values, and exposure to media inconsistent with those values, predicted lasting change in subjective well-being

Article in press: Lench, H. C., Levine, L. J., Perez, K., Haggenmiller, Z. K., Carlson, S. J., & Tibbett, T. (2018). Changes in subjective well-being following the U.S. Presidential Election of 2016. Emotion. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3bv7f8sd

Abstract: This investigation examined predictors of changes over time in subjective well-being (SWB) after the 2016 United States presidential election. Two indicators of SWB-general happiness and life satisfaction-were assessed three weeks before the election, the week of the election, three weeks later, and six months later. Partisanship predicted both indicators of SWB, with Trump supporters experiencing improved SWB after the election, Clinton supporters experiencing worsened SWB after the election, and those who viewed both candidates as bad also experiencing worsened SWB after the election. The impact of the election on SWB decreased over time, with all participants returning to baseline life satisfaction six months after the election. Trump supporters and those who viewed both candidates as bad for the country also returned to baseline general happiness six months after the election. Clinton supporters, in contrast, remained below baseline levels of general happiness six months after the election. Moral and political values, and exposure to media inconsistent with those values, predicted lasting change in subjective well-being. National events can affect how people perceive the overall quality of their lives and these effects are exacerbated when moral and political values are involved.

h/t:  https://twitter.com/DegenRolf

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Participants more readily verify the grammaticality of a statement when it corresponds to their opinion. These findings may help explain why opinions are sometimes change resistant

That’s My Truth: Evidence for Involuntary Opinion Confirmation. Michael Gilead, Moran Sela, Anat Maril. Social Psychological and Personality Science. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1948550618762300

Abstract: Past research has investigated deliberate mental acts that allow people to remain entrenched in their convictions. The purpose of the current investigation was to examine whether opinion-confirmation processes can occur involuntarily. We conducted experiments wherein participants made speeded judgments of the grammatical accuracy of statements pertaining to various matters of opinion, and subsequently rated their agreement with those statements. The results show that participants more readily verify the grammaticality of a statement when it corresponds to their opinion. These findings may help explain why opinions are sometimes change resistant, in showing that acceptance (rejection) of confirmatory (contradictory) opinions can occur involuntarily. We discuss possible applications of the paradigm described herein.

Keywords: social cognition, motivated cognition, language, attitudes, automatic processes

h/t: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf

The Impact of Health and Health Behavior on the Formation of Intimate Relationships

The Impact of Health and Health Behavior on the Formation of Intimate Relationships. Ingmar Rapp, Jonathan Gruhler. English abstract of Der Einfluss der Gesundheit und des Gesundheitsverhaltens auf die Entstehung von Partnerschaften. In KZfSS Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11577-018-0513-2

Abstract: This paper examines the influence of physical and mental health and health behavior on the formation of intimate relationships. Data were obtained from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) for the years 2002–2014 and contain information about 6071 individuals and 4194 newly formed partnerships. For men, better mental health increasingly accelerates partnership formation in middle and later adulthood. For women, better physical and mental health reduce the transition rate into partnership at a young age and increase the transition rate into partnership at an older age. Physical inactivity and overweight reduce the likelihood of partnership formation for both women and men, whereas smoking is positively associated with partnership formation for women. The findings help to better understand how health and health behavior affect the formation of intimate relationships. Moreover, the results contribute to explaining health disparities between individuals with or without a partner.

Theories of human altruism: Future theoretical models would greatly benefit from being inclusive rather than exclusive in allowing for the possibility of co-existing egoistic and altruistic motivational drives

Theories of human altruism: a systematic review. Svetlana Feigin, Glynn Owens and Felicity Goodyear-Smith. Annals of Neuroscience and Psychology, 2014. http://www.vipoa.org/neuropsychol/1/1

Abstract: The goal of this systematic review was to summarise the social psychological literature on theories of altruism in humans from 1960 to 2014. Material was sourced through online databases, book sections, grey literature and hand searches. All social psychological literature on altruism in humans from 1960 to June 2014 was eligible for inclusion in the review. Items were critically reviewed according to key characteristics and findings. Non-English items and original research papers were excluded. Of 1881 potentially eligible items, 308 were selected for critical appraisal; of these, 97 were included in the review as 'Theory' articles, being separated into pseudo-altruism (selfishly-motivated) and true (selfless) altruism. Within these categories lie a range of models. The influences behind altruism are complex and do not arise from a single source but rather a multitude of sources both within and outside the individual. Future theoretical models would greatly benefit from being inclusive rather than exclusive in allowing for the possibility of co-existing motivational drives (egoistic and altruistic).

Keywords: Altruism, altruistic behaviour, empathy, helping behaviour, pro-social behaviour

h/t: Raphael R

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Beneficial effect of hot spring bathing on stress levels in Japanese macaques

Beneficial effect of hot spring bathing on stress levels in Japanese macaques. Rafaela S. C. Takeshita et al. Primates, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10329-018-0655-x

Abstract: The ability of animals to survive dramatic climates depends on their physiology, morphology and behaviour, but is often influenced by the configuration of their habitat. Along with autonomic responses, thermoregulatory behaviours, including postural adjustments, social aggregation, and use of trees for shelter, help individuals maintain homeostasis across climate variations. Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) are the world’s most northerly species of nonhuman primates and have adapted to extremely cold environments. Given that thermoregulatory stress can increase glucocorticoid concentrations in primates, we hypothesized that by using an available hot spring, Japanese macaques could gain protection against weather-induced cold stress during winter. We studied 12 adult female Japanese macaques living in Jigokudani Monkey Park, Japan, during the spring birth season (April to June) and winter mating season (October to December). We collected faecal samples for determination of faecal glucocorticoid (fGC) metabolite concentrations by enzyme immunoassay, as well as behavioural data to determine time spent in the hot springs, dominance rank, aggression rates, and affiliative behaviours. We used nonparametric statistics to examine seasonal changes in hot spring bathing, and the relationship between rank and air temperature on hot spring bathing. We used general linear mixed-effect models to examine factors impacting hormone concentrations. We found that Japanese macaques use hot spring bathing for thermoregulation during the winter. In the studied troop, the single hot spring is a restricted resource favoured by dominant females. High social rank had both costs and benefits: dominant females sustained high fGC levels, which were associated with high aggression rates in winter, but benefited by priority of access to the hot spring, which was associated with low fGC concentrations and therefore might help reduce energy expenditure and subsequent body heat loss. This unique habit of hot spring bathing by Japanese macaques illustrates how behavioural flexibility can help counter cold climate stress, with likely implications for reproduction and survival.

h/t: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf

While low performers on a political knowledge task are expected to engage in overconfident self‐placement and self‐assessment when reflecting on their performance, I also expect the increased salience of partisan identities to exacerbate this phenomenon

Partisanship, Political Knowledge, and the Dunning‐Kruger Effect. Ian G. Anson. Political Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12490

Abstract: A widely cited finding in social psychology holds that individuals with low levels of competence will judge themselves to be higher achieving than they really are. In the present study, I examine how the so‐called “Dunning‐Kruger effect” conditions citizens' perceptions of political knowledgeability. While low performers on a political knowledge task are expected to engage in overconfident self‐placement and self‐assessment when reflecting on their performance, I also expect the increased salience of partisan identities to exacerbate this phenomenon due to the effects of directional motivated reasoning. Survey experimental results confirm the Dunning‐Kruger effect in the realm of political knowledge. They also show that individuals with moderately low political expertise rate themselves as increasingly politically knowledgeable when partisan identities are made salient. This below‐average group is also likely to rely on partisan source cues to evaluate the political knowledge of peers. In a concluding section, I comment on the meaning of these findings for contemporary debates about rational ignorance, motivated reasoning, and political polarization.

h/t: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf 

A Dual‐Process Motivational Model of Attitudes toward Vegetarians and Vegans

A Dual‐Process Motivational Model of Attitudes toward Vegetarians and Vegans. Madeline Judge, Marc S Wilson. European Journal of Social Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2386

Abstract: Vegetarians and vegans comprise a minority of most western populations. However, relatively little research has investigated the psychological foundations of attitudes towards this minority group. The following study employs a dual process model of intergroup attitudes to explore the motivational basis of non‐vegetarians’ attitudes towards vegetarians and vegans. Participants were 1326 individuals recruited through advertisements in a national newspaper in New Zealand. Non‐vegetarian participants first completed measures of ideological attitudes and social worldviews, and then were randomly assigned to complete a measure of outgroup attitudes towards either vegetarians or vegans. Although non‐vegetarians’ attitudes towards both vegetarians and vegans were generally positive, attitudes towards vegans were significantly less positive than attitudes towards vegetarians, and male participants expressed significantly less positive attitudes towards both outgroups than female participants. The structural equation model predicting attitudes towards vegetarians and vegans fit the data well and explained a significant amount of the variance in attitudes.

 h/t: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf

Situational meaninglessness and state boredom: Cross-sectional and experience-sampling findings

Situational meaninglessness and state boredom: Cross-sectional and experience-sampling findings.
Christian S. Chan et al. Motivation and Emotion, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11031-018-9693-3

Abstract: Theories of boredom assert that boredom is a product of situational meaninglessness. We conducted two studies to test if the perceived meaningfulness of a situation is associated with state boredom, above and beyond sadness, personality traits, and boredom proneness. In Study 1, 105 participants (72.4% female: mean age = 33.9 years, SD = 17.5) described situations in which they experienced boredom, no boredom, engagement, or sadness. They then rated the level of state boredom, sadness, and meaninglessness that they experienced in that situation. As hypothesized, state boredom was associated with situational meaninglessness, before and after controlling for sadness. In Study 2, 148 participants (73.0% female; mean age = 19.2 years, SD = 1.8) first provided baseline data on personality traits and boredom proneness. Through a smartphone app-based experience-sampling method, they then responded to a brief questionnaire multiple times a day, across 7 days. The questionnaire asked about the nature of their current activity, whether the activity was done alone or with other people, and their affective state. Results from multilevel modelling of 3022 entries suggest that perceived meaningfulness of the activity was negatively associated with state boredom, above and beyond sadness, personality, and boredom proneness. We also found that being with others during the activity acted as a moderator; activities lower in perceived meaningfulness were associated with higher ratings of state boredom when done with others than when done alone. These results demonstrate that perceptions of meaninglessness characterize state boredom.

h/t: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf