We found no significant difference between Green and Not-green academics in total air travel emissions, or in the types of emissions that might be easiest to avoid

Academic air travel has a limited influence on professional success. Seth Wynes et al. Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 226, 20 July 2019, Pages 959-967. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.04.109

Abstract: Lowering the growth in greenhouse gas emissions from air travel may be critical for avoiding dangerous levels of climate change, and yet some individuals perceive frequent air travel to be critical to their professional success. Using a sample of 705 travellers at the University of British Columbia, we investigated the influence of career stage, research productivity, field of expertise, and other variables on academic air travel and the associated emissions. This is the first time that research has evaluated the link between observed air travel and academic success. First, we compared air travel behaviour at different career stages and found that individuals at the start of their careers were responsible for fewer emissions from air travel than senior academics. Second, since career advancement may depend on an academic’s ability to form partnerships and disseminate their research abroad, we investigated the relationship between air travel emissions and publicly available bibliometric measurements. We found no relationship between air travel emissions and metrics of academic productivity including hIa (h-index adjusted for academic age and discipline). There was, however, a relationship between emissions and salary that remains significant even when controlling for seniority. Finally, based on the premise that academics studying topics related to sustainability may have greater responsibility or motivation to reduce their emissions, we coded 165 researchers in our sample as either “Green” or “Not-green.” We found no significant difference between Green and Not-green academics in total air travel emissions, or in the types of emissions that might be easiest to avoid. Taken together, this preliminary evidence suggests that there may be opportunities, especially for academics who study topics related to climate and sustainability, to reduce their emissions from air travel while maintaining productive careers.

---
Check also The Behavior of Ethicists.  Eric Schwitzgebel and Joshua Rust. In A Companion to Experimental Philosophy, edited by Justin Sytsma and Wesley Buckwalter. Aug 2017. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2017/08/the-behavior-of-ethicists-ch-15-of.html

From 2012: Men rated freedom of speech more important than did women; the perceived harm of hate speech was positively related to intellect & liberalism; women perceived a greater harm of hate speech

Predicting the Importance of Freedom of Speech and the Perceived Harm of Hate Speech. Daniel M Downs, Gloria Cowan. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Volume42, Issue6, June 2012, Pages 1353-1375. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2012.00902.x

Abstract: Although freedom of speech is a fundamental value in the United States, individuals vary in the importance they place on it. The purpose of this study was to examine personality and attitudinal factors that may influence an individual's judgments of the importance of freedom of speech and, secondarily, the harm of hate speech. As expected, the importance of freedom of speech was positively related to intellect, individualism, separate knowing, and negatively related to right‐wing authoritarianism. Men rated freedom of speech more important than did women. The perceived harm of hate speech was positively related to intellect and liberalism, and women perceived a greater harm of hate speech than did men.

---
Check also Foodie Calls, Or When Women Date Men for a Free Meal (Rather Than a Relationship): 23–33% of women surveyed had engaged in a foodie call; related to the the dark triad traits
 
Foodie Calls: When Women Date Men for a Free Meal (Rather Than a Relationship). Brian Collisson, Jennifer L. Howell, Trista Harig. Social Psychological and Personality Science, June 20, 2019. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/06/foodie-calls-or-when-women-date-men-for.html

Failed to replicate previous nonrandomized observational studies, which had suggested that ratings of female physical attractiveness by males are sensitive to the levels of hunger

No impact of hunger on male perception of female physical attractiveness in relation to adiposity: a randomized controlled trial. Z. Jin, G. Wang, S. Hu & J. R. Speakman . International Journal of Obesity (2019), June 17 2019. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41366-019-0392-2

Abstract
Background: Female physical attractiveness is strongly related to body mass index (BMI). Females with lower BMI are on average more attractive down to at least BMI = 18. Previous correlational studies have indicated that this effect may be modulated by the hunger of the rater, with more hungry raters preferring images of subjects with greater adiposity. This prior work, however, was correlational and so we wished to explore this phenomenon further using a randomized controlled trial.

Methods and subjects: Two studies are presented. In the first, 52 male participants were recruited and after an overnight fast were randomly allocated to either fed or starved treatments. Starved individuals continued not to feed, while fed individuals were given ad libitum access to foods and were encouraged to eat to full satiation. Their hunger levels were monitored using visual analog scales (VAS) and levels of circulating glucose. Four hours later, they were asked to complete a previously used female attractiveness rating test, a standard IQ test, and a memory recall test. In the second study, which was a double-blind experiment, 32 individuals were recruited to evaluate if the original effect was due to a confounding impact of alcohol consumption when dining. Blinded individuals consumed drinks with or without alcohol. Their circulating alcohol levels were quantified by a breath test, and they repeated the tests matched with the first study excluding the IQ test.

Results: Hunger resulted in lower performance on the memory recall test, but had no effect on the IQ score, and contrasting previous results had no effect on the ratings of female physical attractiveness. Circulating alcohol levels had no effect on the memory recall test, but there was a significant negative relationship between circulating alcohol and the mean adiposity of the five individuals rated as least attractive.

Conclusions: This randomized controlled trial failed to replicate previous nonrandomized observational studies, which had suggested that ratings of female physical attractiveness by males are sensitive to the levels of hunger. The reason for the difference was possibly because in previous studies, levels of hunger were confounded by alcohol consumption.

Rats can use imagery to fill in missing details of the world that are expected but hidden from perception; they make use of an active expectation (i.e., an image) of a hidden visual event

Mental imagery in animals: Learning, memory, and decision-making in the face of missing information. Aaron P. Blaisdell. Learning & Behavior, June 21 2019. https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13420-019-00386-5

Abstract: When we open our eyes, we see a world filled with objects and events. Yet, due to occlusion of some objects by others, we only have partial perceptual access to the events that transpire around us. I discuss the body of research on mental imagery in animals. I first cover prior studies of mental rotation in pigeons and imagery using working memory procedures first developed for human studies. Next, I discuss the seminal work on a type of learning called mediated conditioning in rats. I then provide more in-depth coverage of work from my lab suggesting that rats can use imagery to fill in missing details of the world that are expected but hidden from perception. We have found that rats make use of an active expectation (i.e., an image) of a hidden visual event. I describe the behavioral and neurobiological studies investigating the use of a mental image, its theoretical basis, and its connections to current human cognitive neuroscience research on episodic memory, imagination, and mental simulations. Collectively, the reviewed literature provides insight into the mechanisms that mediate the flexible use of an image during ambiguous situations. I position this work in the broader scientific and philosophical context surrounding the concept of mental imagery in human and nonhuman animals.

Keywords: Mental imagery Associative learning Comparative cognition Rat Pigeon

Beauty, elegance, grace, and sexiness compared

Beauty, elegance, grace, and sexiness compared. Winfried Menninghaus, Valentin Wagner, Vanessa Kegel, Christine A. Knoop, Wolff Schlotz. PLOS, June 21, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0218728

Abstract: Beauty is the single most frequently and most broadly used aesthetic virtue term. The present study aimed at providing higher conceptual resolution to the broader notion of beauty by comparing it with three closely related aesthetically evaluative concepts which are likewise lexicalized across many languages: elegance, grace(fulness), and sexiness. We administered a variety of questionnaires that targeted perceptual qualia, cognitive and affective evaluations, as well as specific object properties that are associated with beauty, elegance, grace, and sexiness in personal looks, movements, objects of design, and other domains. This allowed us to reveal distinct and highly nuanced profiles of how a beautiful, elegant, graceful, and sexy appearance is subjectively perceived. As aesthetics is all about nuances, the fine-grained conceptual analysis of the four target concepts of our study provides crucial distinctions for future research.

Introduction

Both in lay concepts of aesthetic perception and evaluation [1–3] and in empirical research, beauty is by far the single most important aesthetic virtue term. To be sure, already 18th century aesthetics knew of several other target virtues, such as the sublime ([4–6]; see also [7–9]) and the interesting ([10,11]; see also [12–14]). Today, the overall picture is far more diversified (for a survey of several dozens of relevant terms, see [2] and [15]). Still, beauty ratings remain the prime currency of empirical studies in aesthetics. Supporting this tendency, theoretical accounts of aesthetic appeal and concomitant pleasure and liking––such as the processing fluency hypothesis cf. [16–21]––also show a bias towards explaining attributions of beauty rather than of the sublime or of other aesthetic virtues.
The present article does not challenge this primacy of beauty. Rather, it is aimed at an inner diversification of the beauty pole of aesthetics. It is distinctive of the concept of beauty that is used in a very broad way, at least so in the Western tradition since Greek antiquity. On the one hand, it encompasses the sexual beauty of bodily looks and natural beauty in general (landscapes, animals, etc.); on the other hand, beauty is also attributed to a great variety of cultural artefacts, including classical artworks and numerous objects of design. In the present study, we focus on three concepts each of which we expected to show great semantic overlap with the broader concept of beauty, while at the same time distinctly capturing special facets of beauty on the nature-culture continuum.

1. For the cultural beauty pole, we selected “elegance.” In Latin, “elegantia” meant refinement, tasteful correctness, and decorousness, with a specific focus on carefully choosing––lat. eligere, to elect––one’s words [22]. Starting in the 14^th century, the concept has increasingly come to be applied to multiple domains, including refined personal looks, many objects of design (evening wear, jewelry, hairstyles, furniture, cars––specifically, cabriolets and limousines––, yachts, villas, restaurants, bridges, skyscrapers, etc.), movements, verbal articulation and argumentation, and to unexpectedly smooth solutions to difficult cognitive or technical problems (see S1 Text). Compared to beauty, elegance is far less frequently and far more selectively applied to natural objects, with tigers, leopards and other cats being among the exceptions (not least by virtue of their elegance in movement).
2. For the natural (sexual) beauty pole, we selected the modern term “sexy.” To be sure, this term is not exclusively applied to natural bodily looks, but also to clothing and self-styling and hence to cultural ways of enhancing or highlighting physical sexual attractiveness. The term “sexy” has no tradition in modern philosophical aesthetics, as many, though by no means all authors (see, for instance, Edmund Burke, [4], p. 115) programmatically tried to purge aesthetics and even the theory of beauty of all reminders of sexual desire and biological functions. At the same time, a sexual dimension of beauty attributions to individuals plays an important role in the cultural record from antiquity through modernity, and Charles Darwin’s account of competitive beauty displays throughout nature and human cultures lends much credit to this rich tradition [23].
3. As a third term closely related to beauty, we included the concept of “grace.” Schiller defined grace (German Anmut) as “beauty in motion” ([24]; see also Burke [4], p. 119 and [25]), whereas Lord Kames defined it as “elegance in movement” ([26], p. 364). Today, too, grace is nearly exclusively attributed to the movements of people (and some animals), but barely ever to inanimate objects. Regarding the nature-culture-continuum of beauty, grace, for all its overlap with elegance and hence cultural sophistication, appears to lean more towards the natural pole in that graceful movements can well be found in young children and animals and hence are less dependent on cultural sophistication than typical forms of elegance in movement, such as in ballet and other forms of dance. Still, in accordance with the classical definitions, we expected that grace should show far greater overlap with elegance and beauty than with sexiness.

Remarkably, across all major Germanic, Romance and Slavic languages, the Finno-Ugric languages, many Asian languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean), and potentially beyond, words for “elegance” are lexicalized in phonologically convergent form, i.e., based on the Latin word “elegantia.” For “grace” and “sexy,” a similar adoption of the Latin words “gratia” and “sexus” applies across many languages, albeit not to the same degree. The successful migration of these terms into many other languages suggests that they capture special facets of aesthetic appeal that are salient, in however culturally varying form, across centuries and cultures.

Our study is the first to comparatively analyze the four categories under scrutiny––beauty, elegance, grace, and sexiness––for their distinct perceptual, cognitive and affective implications that together make up their meaning. Specifically, it is aimed at elucidating, with high granularity, the mental constructs which individuals have acquired regarding beauty, elegance, grace, and sexiness. Linguistic concepts are reflective of mental constructs largely shared across linguistic communities, in some cases also across different languages and cultures. Our study tapped into these mental constructs using a variety of methods, including free associations, questionnaires and semantic differentials. We did not present any beautiful, elegant, graceful, and/or sexy stimuli in rating tasks. Rather, we exclusively targeted the very constructs that guide individuals when they end up perceiving and categorizing specific phenomena as beautiful, elegant, graceful, or sexy.

Do conservatives react with higher levels of electrodermal activity to threatening stimuli than liberals? Overall, we find little empirical support for the claim

Osmundsen, Mathias, David Hendry, Lasse Laustsen, Kevin Smith, and Michael Bang Petersen. 2019. “The Psychophysiology of Political Ideology: Replications, Reanalysis and Recommendations.” PsyArXiv. June 21. doi:10.31234/osf.io/49hfg

Abstract: This manuscript presents a large-scale, empirical evaluation of the psychophysiological correlates of political ideology and, in particular, the claim that conservatives react with higher levels of electrodermal activity to threatening stimuli than liberals. We (1) conduct two large replications of this claim, using locally representative samples of Danes and Americans; (2) re-analyze all published studies and evaluate their reliability and validity; and (3) test several features to enhance the validity of psychophysiological measures and offer a number of recommendations. Overall, we find little empirical support for the claim. This is caused by significant reliability and validity problems related to measuring threat-sensitivity using electrodermal activity. When assesed reliably, electrodermal activity in the replications and published studies captures individual differences in the physiological changes associated with attention shifts, which are unrelated to ideology. In contrast to psychophysiological reactions, self-reported emotional reactions to threatening stimuli are reliably associated with ideology.

Structural changes in labor markets are more likely to be sustained, in contrast to unemployment rates, which fluctuate with cycles; unemployment reductions are unlikely to reverse declining fertility trends

Beyond the Great Recession: Labor Market Polarization and Ongoing Fertility Decline in the United States. Nathan Seltzer. Demography, June 18 2019. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13524-019-00790-6

Abstract: In the years since the Great Recession, social scientists have anticipated that economic recovery in the United States, characterized by gains in employment and median household income, would augur a reversal of declining fertility trends. However, the expected post-recession rebound in fertility rates has yet to materialize. In this study, I propose an economic explanation for why fertility rates have continued to decline regardless of improvements in conventional economic indicators. I argue that ongoing structural changes in U.S. labor markets have prolonged the financial uncertainty that leads women and couples to delay or forgo childbearing. Combining statistical and survey data with restricted-use vital registration records, I examine how cyclical and structural changes in metropolitan-area labor markets were associated with changes in total fertility rates (TFRs) across racial/ethnic groups from the early 1990s to the present day, with a particular focus on the 2006–2014 period. The findings suggest that changes in industry composition—specifically, the loss of manufacturing and other goods-producing businesses—have a larger effect on TFRs than changes in the unemployment rate for all racial/ethnic groups. Because structural changes in labor markets are more likely to be sustained over time—in contrast to unemployment rates, which fluctuate with economic cycles—further reductions in unemployment are unlikely to reverse declining fertility trends.

Keywords: Fertility Great recession Labor market polarization Unemployment

Markets maintain institutions to support property rights & trade not in the absence of government, but rather in response to active government interference (predatory officials)

The politics of order in informal markets: Evidence from Lagos. Shelby Grossman. June 18, 2019. Forthcoming at World Politics. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rzH2g4MEch3D_ff_A3kA8WJl4wdTPi2P/view

Abstract: Property rights are important for economic exchange, but in much of the world they are not publicly guaranteed. Private market associations can fill this gap by providing an institutional structure to enforce agreements, but with this power comes the ability to extort from group members. Under what circumstances do private associations provide a stable environment for economic activity? Using survey data collected from 1,179 randomly sampled traders across 199 markets in Lagos, I find that markets maintain institutions to support trade not in the absence of government, but rather in response to active government interference. I argue that associations develop pro-trade institutions when threatened by politicians they perceive to be predatory, and when the organization can respond with threats of its own; the latter is easier when traders are not competing with each other. In order to maintain this balance of power, the association will not extort because it needs trader support to maintain the credibility of its threats to mobilize against predatory politicians.

---
1 Introduction
Outside of agriculture, more than half of workers in low-income countries are informally employed (Jütting, de Laiglesia and Jütting, 2009): they work in enterprises that are less regulated than similar activities in the same environment. Indeed, the informal sector accounts for an estimated 41% of developing countries’ GDP (Schneider, 2005). Yet public institutions rarely serve the needs of informal workers. For instance, informal entrepreneurs do not rely on courts for protection. Courts are often seen as biased, inefficient, and ill equipped to regulate off-the-book transactions – i.e., not worth the effort. Thus informal traders have no recourse to formal institutions if they are cheated. For example, the legal system would be of little help to a trader who buys what she thought were new smartphones, only to discover that they were refurbished and must be sold at a loss. A large body of work argues that private associations can step in to fill this regulatory gap by enforcing contracts,1 but this is not always the case. Although informal trade all over the world is organized into associations (Cross, 1998; Hummel, 2017), not all such groups promote trade. Indeed, many association leaders extort from their own traders. Markets in Lagos, Nigeria provide examples of both types of associations.

Some market association leaders in Lagos are a model of good governance and support a wide variety of policies that promote trade. For example, they impartially investigate customer complaints and organize market-wide boycotts of suppliers who cheat traders. By contrast, other market leaders extort from their traders, pocketing fees that they say will be used for services like market security. These leaders rarely intervene if a supplier wrongs a trader.

The ability to recognise others’ emotions from nonverbal cues is correlated with intelligence types (crystallized, fluid, spatial, memory, information processing speed & efficiency); academic achievement measures were unrelated

A meta-analysis of the relationship between emotion recognition ability and intelligence. Katja Schlegel, Tristan Palese, Marianne Schmid Mast, Thomas H. Rammsayer ORCID Icon, Judith A. Hall & Nora A. Murphy. Cognition and Emotion, Jun 21 2019, https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2019.1632801

ABSTRACT: The ability to recognise others’ emotions from nonverbal cues (emotion recognition ability, ERA) is measured with performance-based tests and has many positive correlates. Although researchers have long proposed that ERA is related to general mental ability or intelligence, a comprehensive analysis of this relationship is lacking. For instance, it remains unknown whether the magnitude of the association varies by intelligence type, ERA test features, as well as demographic variables. The present meta-analysis examined the relationship between ERA and intelligence based on 471 effect sizes from 133 samples and found a significant mean effect size (controlled for nesting within samples) of r = .19. Different intelligence types (crystallized, fluid, spatial, memory, information processing speed and efficiency) yielded similar effect sizes, whereas academic achievement measures (e.g. SAT scores) were unrelated to ERA. Effect sizes were higher for ERA tests that simultaneously present facial, vocal, and bodily cues (as compared to tests using static pictures) and for tests with higher reliability and more emotions. Results were unaffected by most study and sample characteristics, but effect size increased with higher mean age of the sample. These findings establish ERA as sensory-cognitive ability that is distinct from, yet related to, intelligence.

KEYWORDS: Emotion recognition ability, intelligence, meta-analysis, emotional intelligence, interpersonal accuracy

When outgroup negativity trumps ingroup positivity: Fans of the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees place greater value on rival losses than own-team gains; effect more strong when one’s own team was behind in the rivalry

When outgroup negativity trumps ingroup positivity: Fans of the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees place greater value on rival losses than own-team gains. Steven A. Lehr, Meghan L. Ferreira, Mahzarin R. Banaji. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, July 19, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430217712834

Abstract: Much research suggests that ingroup positivity is more central than outgroup negativity. We argue that this conclusion is incomplete as a description of the totality of intergroup emotions. In 4 studies, we use a novel measure of willingness to pay for intergroup gains and losses to examine the intergroup emotions of fans of the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. Results indicate that pleasure from a powerful rival’s losses can outstrip that from gains of one’s own group (Studies 1–2), and these patterns extend into domains not immediately relevant to the competition (Studies 3–4). A reversal in the competitive position of the two teams in the 2012–2013 season allowed us to examine whether fluctuations in competitive status moderated this pattern (Studies 3–4). Indeed, fans of the rival teams frequently valued outgroup losses more than ingroup gains, and this effect was particularly strong when one’s own team was behind in the rivalry.

Keywords: attitudes, intergroup processes, outgroup hate, Schadenfreude, sports rivalry

Honesty in 355 cities, 40 countries: In virtually all countries citizens were more likely to return wallets that contained more money

Civic honesty around the globe. Alain Cohn et al. Science Jun 20 2019:eaau8712. DOI: 10.1126/science.aau8712

Abstract: Civic honesty is essential to social capital and economic development, but is often in conflict with material self-interest. We examine the trade-off between honesty and self-interest using field experiments in 355 cities spanning 40 countries around the globe. We turned in over 17,000 lost wallets with varying amounts of money at public and private institutions, and measured whether recipients contacted the owner to return the wallets. In virtually all countries citizens were more likely to return wallets that contained more money. Both non-experts and professional economists were unable to predict this result. Additional data suggest our main findings can be explained by a combination of altruistic concerns and an aversion to viewing oneself as a thief, which increase with the material benefits of dishonesty.