Monday, July 22, 2019

The Oxford Handbook of Gossip and Reputation: Women's interest in other women, as seen by Francis T McAndrew

Likelihood of break-up following imagined sexual or emotional infidelity: The contribution of perceived threat, attribution of blame, and forgiveness

Likelihood of break-up following imagined sexual or emotional infidelity: The contribution of perceived threat, attribution of blame, and forgiveness. Trond Viggo Grøntvedt, Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair, Mons Bendixen. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y

Abstract: Infidelity is a major threat to relationships, often resulting in the dissolution of the dyad. Despite this, the process from infidelity to potential break-up is not well understood. In this study we examined factors affecting the likelihood of break-up following partner’s imagined infidelity. Coupled women and men (N = 92 + 92) responded individually to questionnaires concerning hypothetical infidelity scenarios (sexual and emotional). Measurements included relationship quality, threat of transgression to the current relationship, attribution of blame, forgiveness (operationalized as keeping distance and wanting revenge), and likelihood of break-up. SEM analyses of couple data for both sexual and emotional infidelity suggest that for both men and women the level of threat was the main predictor of likelihood of breakup. Following imagined infidelity, this effect was partly mediated by the keeping distance aspect of forgiveness. No such mediation of wanting revenge was found. For emotional infidelity blame was associated with break-up, but fully mediated by keeping distance. Unlike previous studies, we found no associations between relationship quality and forgiveness following hypothetical infidelity. The findings are discussed in relation to the dyadic forgiveness model.

Sunday, July 21, 2019

How group identification distorts beliefs: Identification with a randomly composed group leads to overconfident beliefs about fellow group members’ performance on an intelligence test

How group identification distorts beliefs. Maria Paula Cacault, Manuel Grieder. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 164, August 2019, Pages 63-76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2019.05.027

Abstract: This paper investigates how group identification distorts people’s beliefs about the ability of their peers in social groups. We find that experimentally manipulated identification with a randomly composed group leads to overconfident beliefs about fellow group members’ performance on an intelligence test. This result cannot be explained by individual overconfidence, i.e., participants overconfident in their own skill believing that their group performed better because of them, as this was ruled out by experimental design. Moreover, we find that participants with stronger group identification put more weight on positive signals about their group when updating their beliefs. These in-group biases in beliefs can have important economic consequences when group membership is used to make inference about an individual’s characteristics as, for instance, in hiring decisions.

Inventor CEOs: Firms file a greater number of patents & more valuable patents in technology classes where the CEO's hands-on experience lies, due to superior ability to evaluate, select and execute

Inventor CEOs. Emdad Islam, Jason Zein. Journal of Financial Economics, June 18 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2019.06.009

Abstract: One in five U.S. high-technology firms are led by CEOs with hands-on innovation experience as inventors. Firms led by “Inventor CEOs” are associated with higher quality innovation, especially when the CEO is a high-impact inventor. During an Inventor CEO's tenure, firms file a greater number of patents and more valuable patents in technology classes where the CEO's hands-on experience lies. Utilizing plausibly exogenous CEO turnovers to address the matching of CEOs to firms suggests these effects are causal. The results can be explained by an Inventor CEO's superior ability to evaluate, select, and execute innovative investment projects related to their own hands-on experience.