Group-level cooperation in chimpanzees is shaped by strong social ties

Group-level cooperation in chimpanzees is shaped by strong social ties. Liran Samuni, Catherine Crockford & Roman M. Wittig. Nature Communications volume 12, Article number: 539 (2021), January 2021. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20709-9

h/t: (20) David Schmitt on Twitter: ""the link between strong, enduring social relationships and costly collective acts is not uniquely human" https://t.co/CedOVKTzT6"

Abstract: Humans maintain extensive social ties of varying preferences, providing a range of opportunities for beneficial cooperative exchange that may promote collective action and our unique capacity for large-scale cooperation. Similarly, non-human animals maintain differentiated social relationships that promote dyadic cooperative exchange, but their link to cooperative collective action is little known. Here, we investigate the influence of social relationship properties on male and female chimpanzee participations in a costly form of group action, intergroup encounters. We find that intergroup encounter participation increases with a greater number of other participants as well as when participants are maternal kin or social bond partners, and that these effects are independent from one another and from the likelihood to associate with certain partners. Together, strong social relationships between kin and non-kin facilitate group-level cooperation in one of our closest living relatives, suggesting that social bonds may be integral to the evolution of cooperation in our own species.

Popular version: Chimpanzee friends fight together to battle rivals: Strong social bonds increase the willingness to join others in battle. Eurekalert. https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-01/mpif-cff012221.php

Discussion

Within-group cohesive engagement of males and females, relatedness, and social preference each have a strong, independent influence on the participation of male and female chimpanzee in one of the costliest forms of group actions, hostile intergroup interactions. We found that participation disposition of males and females increased when more other in-group members participated, both same and opposite sex, supporting the hypothesis that ‘strength in numbers’ facilitates participation. Although cohesive engagement of many community members was influential, it was not the only participation driver. Additionally, we found that the decision to contribute to the group act heavily depended on the identity of other participants as maternal kin or social bond partners, types of relationships associated with more predictable reciprocity16,17,42,43.

Both cohesive engagement of many community members and of specific preferred partners likely encompasses the range of social relationships within one’s group, from weakly to strongly bonded, facilitating coordinated contribution to intergroup competitive interactions. These effects were independent from potential energetic and reproductive costs of intergroup encounter participation observed in chimpanzees and other primates, such as old age, low dominance rank, gestation timing, and lactation22,25,26,49. Furthermore, the positive effect of relatedness and social preference on participation tendencies occurred irrespective of another social aspect which may drive interaction likelihood14, spatial proximity (association degree) between participants. This, in addition to using only active intergroup encounters, further indicates the observed pattern is not a byproduct of association tendencies and is independent of the likelihood to be present with others who are at the encounter area. Our results echo findings of studies on hunter-gatherer societies that suggest strong social ties, whether kin or non-kin relations, facilitate the emergence of cooperation14.

The degree of genetic relatedness to other community members is expected to influence individuals’ contribution to acts that are potentially costly, as participants are bound to gain higher indirect fitness benefits with more relatives in the community51. Higher numbers of maternal kin in the community likely increases the probability of acting with adult kin during the intergroup encounter making it difficult to distinguish whether it is overall relatedness or direct interactions with kin that is linked with cooperation emergence. Testing the effect of the presence of adult maternal kin in the encounter while accounting for the number of maternal kin in the community, allows us to examine the mechanisms through which genetic relatedness may operate in this context, whether directly or indirectly. We found that the total number of living maternal kin of all ages in the community had a negative significant effect on female participation tendencies. Since this number mostly comprised non-adult offspring of females, including offspring that are not carried by their mother, this negative effect may reflect increased energetic and/or injury-related participation costs for weaned young offspring, and hence for their mothers. For males, the number of living maternal kin had no significant effect on male participation tendencies, was in line with findings on male chimpanzees’ participation in territorial border patrols in Ngogo22. Conversely, the presence of adult maternal kin in the encounter increased participation of both sexes. For all males, the adult maternal kin present in intergroup encounters were females, predominantly their mothers (one male’s maternal kinship was solely his sister), whereas for females, the adult maternal kin present in the intergroup encounter were mainly their sons (two females had both adult daughter and son in the community). Congruent with studies on humans52, our results suggest that it is the coordination with adult kin, rather than the overall degree of relatedness with community members, that promotes cooperation.

Chimpanzee intergroup encounters are energetically demanding, and contact intergroup encounters are riskier and associated with elevated cortisol levels in comparison with vocal ones53. In support of potential energetic costs, time into gestation reduced female likelihood to participate in intergroup encounters. Also, although contact intergroup encounters involve higher risk of injury, we found that they were positively associated with female participation. These results are in line with a previous finding in mountain gorillas, that more aggressive intergroup encounters included a higher proportion of participating in-group members25. Across all intergroup encounters, males participated at high rates (86%). Thus, increased female participation translates to more collective engagement of the community as a whole23. As cohesive engagement is a key component of both successful intergroup encounter outcome and reduced risk of severe injury37,41, contact intergroup encounters have a higher likelihood to occur at times of heightened female involvement (indicating heightened overall community involvement) because the odds to prevail are higher and chances to suffer costs are reduced.

Due to the female-dispersal male-philopatry society of chimpanzees, mother–daughter associations at adulthood are rare, and mothers have no direct influence on their daughters’ fitness post dispersal. This is not the case for male offspring. Mother–son cohabitation during reproductive ages of sons has the potential to improve the reproductive success of sons, for instance in bonobos54 and in this population of chimpanzees55. Here, we showed that females with sons approaching reproductive age in the community were more likely to participate in intergroup encounters in comparison to females with no such sons in the community. If joint participation increases the chance of gaining improved access to mating opportunities for male community members22,35, then mothers who participate in intergroup encounters have the potential to provide future benefits to their sons. We cannot rule out that increased participation of mothers is driven by their sons’ increased motivation to participate rather than their own. Nevertheless, regardless of mothers’ motivation to participate, the potential benefits of improved future access to mating opportunities to sons remain the same.

Following male biased predisposition for intergroup conflict participation in some primate species, including chimpanzees and humans23,24,25,44,56, we observed clear sex-specific differences in participation frequencies. In comparison with males, females showed lower participation rates with larger variation. Further, in accord with homophily predictions for cooperation appearance (i.e., similarity of individuals’ attributes, such as sex, increases the likelihood of tie formation14), the number of other female or male participants more strongly affected same sex participation. Despite differences in participation rates, similar mechanisms appear to regulate participation of both sexes in territorial defense.

The importance of maintaining strong social networks that encompass a range of relationships for the emergence of cooperation is evident in humans14,15. Intergroup competition is known to shape human social group dynamics and cooperative capacities34,57. This relationship likely stems from the high stakes associated with participation in intergroup encounters, together with the benefits that one may gain in case of success, where success rests upon the number and value of cooperators. Here we demonstrated the link between intergroup competition, group social dynamics and cooperation in male and female chimpanzees. It may be that the access to and maintenance of differentiated social relationships between kin and non-kin also supports other group-level activities or even energetic demands, as suggested for humans15,58. For instance, the maintenance of a range of social ties in humans is thought to support our costly life history and demanding foraging niche15,58. Therefore, future research into the effect of differentiated social relationships on chimpanzee capacity for coordinated hunting59,60 or support of life history trajectories could have an immense potential in revealing the evolutionary processes leading to distinctively human large-scale cooperation that extends beyond borders.

To conclude, cohesive group engagement, interactions with kin, spatial proximity, and social preference all independently contributed to chimpanzee intergroup encounter participation, a risky group act. By choosing to act with maternal kin and social bond partners, and when more in-group members are present, individuals are likely to minimize the costs and maximize the benefits associated with intergroup encounter participation. This emphasizes the importance of chimpanzee social relationship properties and partner choice in driving not only dyadic cooperation, but as well cooperation on the group-level. Our results suggest that the link between strong and enduring social relationships and costly collective acts is not uniquely human.

Most people do not have accurate knowledge about the concept of heritability: Fewer than 25% of the participants selected the correct description of the heritability of insomnia

What Do People Know About the Heritability of Sleep? Juan J. Madrid-Valero, Robert Chapman, Evangelina Bailo, Juan R. Ordoñana, Fatos Selita, Yulia Kovas & Alice M. Gregory. Behavior Genetics, Jan 23 2021. https://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10519-021-10041-3

Abstract

Study Objectives: Twin studies have provided data about the relative weight of genetic and environmental factors on sleep variables over the last few decades. However, heritability is a non-intuitive concept and it is often misunderstood even amongst the scientific community. This study aimed to analyze: (1) understanding of the meaning of heritability of insomnia; (2) the accuracy of estimations of heritability in the general population regarding three sleep traits (sleep duration, sleep quality and insomnia); (3) perceptions of the effectiveness of different treatments for insomnia depending on how the disorder is presented (i.e. having an environmental or genetic etiology) and whether the subject’s estimate of genetic influence on sleep traits impacted beliefs about the effectiveness of different treatments.

Methods: Participants (N = 3658) completed a survey which included: questions about general genetic knowledge; a specific question about the meaning of heritability; estimates of heritability of three different sleep traits; and the effectiveness of different treatments for insomnia depending on how the etiology of this condition was presented.

Results: Fewer than 25% of the participants selected the correct description of the heritability of insomnia. Almost half of the sample incorrectly believed that heritability refers to the chance of passing a disorder onto their children. We also found that participants provided different estimates for the effectiveness of different treatments depending on the presumed etiology of the disorder.

Conclusion: Most people do not have accurate knowledge about the concept of heritability. People’s assumptions about the etiology of a disorder may influence which treatments they consider most effective.

Reasoning under Rawls' veil-of-ignorance mitigates self-serving bias in resource allocation during the COVID-19 crisis

Veil-of-ignorance reasoning mitigates self-serving bias in resource allocation during the COVID-19 crisis. Karen Huanga   Regan M. Bernhardb   Netta Barak-Correnc   Max H. Bazermand   Joshua D. Greenee. Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 16, No. 1, January 2021, pp. 1-19. http://journal.sjdm.org/20/201205/jdm201205.html

Abstract: The COVID-19 crisis has forced healthcare professionals to make tragic decisions concerning which patients to save. Furthermore, The COVID-19 crisis has foregrounded the influence of self-serving bias in debates on how to allocate scarce resources. A utilitarian principle favors allocating scarce resources such as ventilators toward younger patients, as this is expected to save more years of life. Some view this as ageist, instead favoring age-neutral principles, such as “first come, first served”. Which approach is fairer? The “veil of ignorance” is a moral reasoning device designed to promote impartial decision-making by reducing decision-makers’ use of potentially biasing information about who will benefit most or least from the available options. Veil-of-ignorance reasoning was originally applied by philosophers and economists to foundational questions concerning the overall organization of society. Here we apply veil-of-ignorance reasoning to the COVID-19 ventilator dilemma, asking participants which policy they would prefer if they did not know whether they were younger or older. Two studies (pre-registered; online samples; Study 1, N=414; Study 2 replication, N=1,276) show that veil-of-ignorance reasoning shifts preferences toward saving younger patients. The effect on older participants is dramatic, reversing their opposition toward favoring the young, thereby eliminating self-serving bias. These findings provide guidance on how to remove self-serving biases to healthcare policymakers and frontline personnel charged with allocating scarce medical resources during times of crisis.

Keywords: fairness; self-serving bias; procedural justice; bioethics; COVID-19

4  General Discussion

In two pre-registered studies, we show that veil-of-ignorance reasoning favors allocating scarce medical resources to younger patients in response to the COVID-19 ventilator dilemma. Participants who first engaged in veil-of-ignorance reasoning, compared to participants who did not engage in veil-of-ignorance reasoning, were subsequently more likely to approve of a utilitarian policy that maximizes the number of life-years saved. These findings, predicted based on prior research (Huang, Greene & Bazerman, 2019), make three further contributions.

First, and most straightforwardly, these results apply directly to an ongoing crisis in which competing claims to fairness must be resolved. While the ventilator shortage in the developed world is currently less acute than many feared, it is likely that the COVID-19 crisis will continue to generate moral dilemmas of a similar form. These may be due to limited resources of other kinds such as medical personnel (Bernstein, 2020), the further spread of the disease in the developing world (Woodyatt, 2020), or structurally similar dilemmas arising from the distribution of vaccines (Emanuel, 2020b; Sun, 2020b; Ahuja, 2020). Moreover, it is likely that bioethical dilemmas of this general form will arise in future public health crises. The present research indicates that VOI reasoning can be a useful tool, grounded in a principle of impartiality, for decision-makers confronting difficult decisions during such crises.

Second, the present results underscore the power of VOI reasoning to eliminate self-serving bias. Self-serving bias is pervasive, and few interventions have been shown to effectively mitigate it. We demonstrate an effective intervention to mitigate self-serving bias in moral dilemmas. In Study 2, few older participants (33%) in the control condition favored prioritizing younger patients. But after engaging in veil-of-ignorance reasoning, most older participants (62%) favored doing so, just like younger participants. Indeed, the VOI manipulation completely eliminated self-serving bias among older participants, despite a sizable effect in the control condition.

Third, the present results demonstrate that VOI reasoning can be applied not only to dilemmas varying numbers of lives saved (Huang, Greene & Bazerman, 2019), but also to dilemmas varying numbers of life-years saved. As noted previously, this is important for bioethical decision-making, in which QALYs are commonly – but controversially – regarded as a legitimate factor in the allocation of medical resources (Cropper, Aydede & Portney, 1994; Johannesson & Johansson, 1997; Rodriguez & Pinto, 2000; Busschbach, Hessing & Charro, 1993; Tsuchiya, Dolan & Shaw, 2003; Lewis & Charny, 1989). Likewise, age may also prove to be an important and contentious factor for decisions involving new technologies, such as AVs (Awad et. al., 2018), which may access information about age in new ways. Of course, the “quality” in QALYs depends on who makes those judgments, for what purposes, and under what circumstances (e.g., Ubel, Loewenstein & Jepson, 2003; Loewenstein & Ubel, 2008; Ne’eman, 2020).

The present experiments use a simple control condition, as in Experiments 1–3 of Huang, Greene and Bazerman (2019). In that prior work, Experiments 4–7 employed more sophisticated controls aimed at distinguishing the distinctive effects of veil-of-ignorance reasoning from component factors such as perspective taking, numerical reasoning, and anchoring. That work showed that the veil-of-ignorance effect depends critically on assigning probabilities that align with principles of impartiality. Here we employ a simple control because our aim is to assess the net effect of veil-of-ignorance reasoning, not to distinguish it from its components. For present purposes, we assume that the mechanisms behind the present results are comparable to those responsible for our prior results, which were the bases for our pre-registered hypotheses.

The empirical findings, of course, cannot provide definite answers for the normative questions raised by this dilemma. Nevertheless, healthcare professionals confronting distributional dilemmas must adjudicate between competing claims of fairness in the absence of definitive answers. Our starting point is neither that policies should favor the young over the old, nor that physicians should generalize freely from our findings to prioritize patients based on specific features such as identity, ability, or socioeconomic status (Ne’eman, 2020). Rather, we show that veil-of-ignorance reasoning could provide a widely respected and transparent standard for adjudicating claims of fairness. This procedure will result in different policies — some of those policies may favor the young, while other policies may favor others — depending on the specific context and circumstances of the dilemma involved. Insofar as one respects the veil-of-ignorance standard for impartiality, our findings provide concrete guidance on how to remove self-serving biases from decisions made by policy-makers and front-line professionals charged with allocating scarce resources during this crisis, and others that may follow.

Those of higher agreeableness, women and the old see time flowing speedier

Age, Personal Characteristics, and the Speed of Psychological Time. Audrey-Anne Gagnon-Harvey, Jamie McArthur, Émie Tétreault, Daniel Fortin-Guichard, and Simon Grondin. Timing & Time Perception, Jan 19 2021. https://doi.org/10.1163/22134468-bja10024

Rolf Degen's take: (20) Rolf Degen on Twitter: "For women and for people with nice personality traits, time passes even more quickly as they age. https://t.co/0EC6pZdcsh https://t.co/sOVCxLUS88"

Abstract: Adults often report the impression that time seems to pass more and more quickly as they get older. The purpose of this study is to identify how individual characteristics relate to this impression of acceleration. To do so, 894 participants aged 15 to 97 completed a questionnaire that surveyed sociodemographic characteristics, impulsivity, anxiety, personality, and relation to time. They also indicated how fast different lapses of time seemed to have passed: yesterday, the past week, the past month, the past year, the past three years, the past five years, and the past 10 years. For each period, except for one year, adolescents found that time passes more slowly than participants from older groups (18–29 years, 30–59 years, and 60 years and over). A composite score for all these periods also indicates that female participants found that time passes more rapidly than males. However, a multiple linear regression analysis reveals that the variables that best predict the impression that time passes faster as we get older are high anxiety, the belief in the phenomenon of temporal compression, as well as conscientiousness and agreeableness personality traits, with other factors explaining little variance. These results add further weight to the impression that time seems to pass more quickly as we age, but also indicate that other variables than age play a critical role in explaining this impression.

Keywords: Speed of psychological time; time perception; individual differences; aging

An updated review of the efficacy of dolphin‐assisted therapy for autism and developmental disabilities... It seems it has no therapeutic value

Third time's the charm or three strikes you're out? An updated review of the efficacy of dolphin‐assisted therapy for autism and developmental disabilities. Lori Marino  Scott O. Lilienfeld. Journal of Clinical Psychology, January 22 2021. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.23110

Abstract

Context: Dolphin‐assisted therapy (DAT) is a popular form of animal‐assisted therapy for autism spectrum disorders and other psychological conditions.

Objective: In this review, our third, we analyze the most recent DAT studies in terms of construct and internal validity criteria to determine if there is empirical support for DAT.

Method: To ensure a systematic review, we searched for peer‐reviewed studies on DAT by submitting relevant search terms to Google Scholar from 2007 to 2020, conducted a further search of all DAT papers in several peer‐reviewed journals, and reviewed reference sections of DAT articles to ensure a thorough review of the literature between 2007 and the present.

Results: The DAT literature continues to be marked by several weaknesses in both internal and construct validity that preclude confident inferences regarding the intervention's efficacy.

Conclusion: There is still insufficient evidence that DAT has therapeutic value.

East German unhappiness: Churchliness and satisfaction with democracy are important explanations of the unhappiness rooted in the mentality gap between West Germans and East Germans

An anatomy of East German unhappiness: The role of circumstances and mentality, 1990–2018. Philipp Biermann, Heinz Welsch. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 181, January 2021, Pages 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2020.11.027

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1352962608777846784

Highlights

• We decompose the satisfaction gap between East and West Germany into objective circumstances and subjective mentality.

• We use about 419,000 observations from the German socio-economic Panel, 1990–2018.

• Circumstances and mentality contribute in the proportion 55: 45%.

• The mentality gap is driven by birth cohorts socialized under different political regimes.

• Churchliness and satisfaction with democracy mediate the mentality-related gap.

• Within-person preference/mentality changes occur as individuals adjust to politico-economic shocks.

Abstract: We decompose the satisfaction gap between East and West Germany into objective circumstances and subjective mentality, the latter capturing the way circumstances are being evaluated. Using the methodology proposed by Senik (2014) we find circumstances and mentality to contribute in the proportion 55: 45%. The mentality-related gap is driven by birth cohorts socialized under different political regimes – communist and liberal-capitalist – and disappears for the youngest cohort group. Results point towards churchliness and satisfaction with democracy being important explanations of the mentality gap. Within-person changes of the mentality gap occurred as aspirations or worries concerning politico-economic shocks were adjusted.

Keywords: GermanyHappinessLife satisfactionReunificationMentalityCommunism

US Data: There is little evidence that psychological distress is worsening over time; yet, treatment seeking has increased over the past 20 years

Changes in Mental Health and Treatment, 1997–2017. Amy L. Johnson. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, January 22, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022146520984136

Abstract: Mental health outcomes have shown dramatic changes over the past half-century, yet these trends are still underexplored. I utilize an age-period-cohort analysis of the National Health Interview Survey from 1997 to 2017 (N = 627,058) to disentangle trends in mental health outcomes in the United States over time. Specifically, I leverage the contrast between reported psychological distress and rates of mental health treatment to isolate which has changed, how, and for whom. There is little evidence that psychological distress is worsening over time. Yet, treatment seeking has increased over the past 20 years. The increase in treatment seeking is best modeled as a period effect, providing initial evidence that the historical context has influenced responses to mental health over time for Americans of all ages and birth cohorts. I conclude with potential mechanisms and implications for future mental health research.

Keywords: APC analysis, medicalization, mental health treatment, psychological distress, sociology of mental health

Women are significantly more often classified as conditionally cooperative than men, while men are more likely to be free riders

Gender and cooperative preferences. Nadja C. Furtner et al. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 181, January 2021, Pages 39-48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2020.11.030

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1352945444024946690

Abstract: Evidence of gender differences in cooperation in social dilemmas is inconclusive. This paper experimentally elicits unconditional contributions, a contribution vector (cooperative preferences), and beliefs about the level of others’ contributions in variants of the public goods game. We show that existing inconclusive results can be understood when controlling for beliefs and underlying cooperative preferences. Robustness checks of our original data from Germany, based on data from six countries around the world, confirm our main empirical results: Women are significantly more often classified as conditionally cooperative than men, while men are more likely to be free riders. Beliefs play an important role in shaping unconditional contributions, supporting the view that these are more malleable or sensitive to subtle cues in women than in men.

Keywords: Public goodsConditional cooperationGenderExperiment

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Men are more likely to be either perfectly selfish or perfectly selfless, whereas women are more likely to be in-between.

Those who experience schadenfreude about politics are more likely to express an intention to vote for candidates who promise to pass policies that “disproportionately harm” supporters of the opposing political party

Partisan Schadenfreude and the Demand for Candidate Cruelty. Steven W. Webster Adam N. Glynn Matthew P. Motta. January 6, 2021. http://stevenwwebster.com/research/schad.pdf

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1352862610534912003

Abstract: Americans are increasingly and durably divided along partisan lines. Yet, little is known about how partisan conflict influences extreme attitudes and behaviors. In this study, we examine whether Americans experience partisan schadenfreude—that is, taking “joy in the suffering” of partisan others—when bad things happen to those with whom they disagree politically. Analyzing attitudes on climate change, health care, taxation, and the coronavirus pandemic, we find that a sizable portion of the mass public engages in partisan schadenfreude and that these attitudes are most likely to be expressed by the most ideologically extreme Americans. Finally, we demonstrate that partisan schadenfreude is predictive of the demand for candidate cruelty: those who experience schadenfreude about politics are more likely to express an intention to vote for candidates who promise to pass policies that “disproportionately harm” supporters of the opposing political party. In sum, our results suggest that partisan schadenfreude is both widespread and consequential for American political behavior.

More adolescents with browsing-induced envy experienced negative effects on well-being than adolescents with no browsing-induced envy

Valkenburg, Patti M., Ine Beyens, J. Loes Pouwels, Irene I. van Driel, and Loes Keijsers. 2021. “Social Media Browsing and Adolescent Well-being: Challenging the “passive Social Media Use Hypothesis”” PsyArXiv. January 8. doi:10.31234/osf.io/gzu3y

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1352852621418233856

Abstract: A recurring hypothesis in the literature is that “passive” social media use (browsing) leads to negative effects on well-being. This preregistered study investigated a rival hypothesis, which states that the effects of browsing on well-being depend on person-specific susceptibilities to envy, inspiration, and enjoyment. We conducted a three-week experience sampling study among 353 adolescents (13-15 years, 126 assessments per adolescent). Using a novel, N=1 method of analysis, we found sizeable heterogeneity in the associations of browsing with envy, inspiration, and enjoyment (e.g., for envy ranging from β = -.44 to β = +.71). The passivity hypothesis was confirmed for 20% of adolescents and rejected for 80%. More adolescents with browsing-induced envy experienced negative effects on well-being (25%) than adolescents with no browsing-induced envy (13%). Conversely, more adolescents with browsing-induced enjoyment experienced positive effects on well-being (47%) than adolescents with no browsing-induced enjoyment (9%).

Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,000 per year

Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,000 per year. Matthew A. Killingsworth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, January 26, 2021 118 (4) e2016976118; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2016976118

Significance: Past research has found that experienced well-being does not increase above incomes of $75,000/y. This finding has been the focus of substantial attention from researchers and the general public, yet is based on a dataset with a measure of experienced well-being that may or may not be indicative of actual emotional experience (retrospective, dichotomous reports). Here, over one million real-time reports of experienced well-being from a large US sample show evidence that experienced well-being rises linearly with log income, with an equally steep slope above $80,000 as below it. This suggests that higher incomes may still have potential to improve people’s day-to-day well-being, rather than having already reached a plateau for many people in wealthy countries.

Abstract: What is the relationship between money and well-being? Research distinguishes between two forms of well-being: people’s feelings during the moments of life (experienced well-being) and people’s evaluation of their lives when they pause and reflect (evaluative well-being). Drawing on 1,725,994 experience-sampling reports from 33,391 employed US adults, the present results show that both experienced and evaluative well-being increased linearly with log(income), with an equally steep slope for higher earners as for lower earners. There was no evidence for an experienced well-being plateau above $75,000/y, contrary to some influential past research. There was also no evidence of an income threshold at which experienced and evaluative well-being diverged, suggesting that higher incomes are associated with both feeling better day-to-day and being more satisfied with life overall.

Keywords: well-beinghappinessincomesatiationexperience sampling

One way to assess the extent to which results from the current sample are generalizable is to assess the degree to which the current sample of people “behave like” a representative sample in terms of key variables that are shared across the current study and previous studies of representative samples. One such variable is evaluative well-being, which can be effectively measured without experience sampling and whose relationship with income has been widely studied in representative samples. Results from representative samples in the United States and around the world generally find that evaluative well-being rises approximately linearly with log(income), without a plateau (10). The 2010 study finding a plateau in experienced well-being likewise found that evaluative well-being rose linearly with log(income), without a plateau (11). In the current study, evaluative well-being rose linearly with log(income), without a plateau (Fig. 1 and SI Appendix, Fig. S1), following the same trajectory that has been repeatedly observed in representative samples [although see one recent exception (12)]. This suggests that the general form of the relationship between well-being and income found here matches the population as a whole, and offers a reason to expect results for experienced well-being to generalize as well. Additionally, while the sample was not recruited with the intent of being representative, the actual distribution of incomes values is a close match to the US census distribution (SI Appendix, Table S8). Finally, after controlling for other demographic variables, including age, gender, marriage, and education level, the relationship between income and experienced well-being remains statistically significant and with a majority of the effect intact, including when analyzed across all income levels, below and up to $80,000, and above $80,000 (all values of P < 0.00001; SI Appendix, Table S9). A concern that sample bias might explain the current results seems even less plausible after a close inspection of the relationship between well-being and income. If the sample just happened to include some unusually happy people with large incomes, there are many possible patterns of results that this could generate, most of which would be noisy patterns even if they did trend upward overall. The actual results from this study, however, show an almost perfectly linear relationship between well-being and log(income), as shown in Fig. 1 and SI Appendix, Fig. S1. Accordingly, if sample bias were the explanation for this study’s results, the sample would have to be biased in exactly the way necessary to produce the linear relationship that is observed between well-being and log(income). This is not strictly impossible, but it seems highly improbable.

Do the present data offer any insight into why income is correlated with well-being? The answer to this question is necessarily speculative, since the factors linking well-being to income are likely numerous, complex, and interrelated. One possibility is that people spend money to reduce suffering and increase enjoyment, and that marginal dollars are differentially deployed against these aims depending on one’s income. The difference between positive and negative feelings described above provides some evidence in favor of this: Compared to variation in incomes above $80,000, larger incomes below $80,000 had a stronger association with reduced negative feelings, consistent with the possibility that moving from low to moderate income might be especially useful in avoiding (or mitigating) causes of suffering. Perhaps low earners have many avoidable sources of suffering, but as one earns more, there are fewer sources of suffering whose avoidance can be purchased. In contrast, positive feelings rose more evenly across the entire income range, and even had a directionally steeper association with income above $80,000. Another possibility, not incompatible with the first, is that larger incomes give people more control over their lives. People’s sense of control, measured with the question “To what extent do you feel in control of your life?,” was able to account for 74% of the association between income and experienced well-being (b = 0.105 with no covariates vs. b = 0.027 with sense of control over one’s life as a covariate, in the same participants, Pmediation < 0.00001). Financial insecurity, measured with the question “Did you have trouble coping with regular bills during the last 15 days?,” also played a role and was able to account for 38% of the association between income and experienced well-being (Pmediation < 0.00001). Although higher incomes could hypothetically allow a person to “buy” more time and feel less rushed (22), time poverty, measured with the question, “Do you have too little time to do what you’re currently doing?,” actually increased with income (P < 0.00001). It was a small but significantly negative mediator of the association between income and experienced well-being (Pmediation < 0.00001), such that the association between income and experienced well-being was significantly steeper when time poverty was held constant.

There was also evidence that the strength of the association between income and experienced well-being was systematically larger for some people and smaller for others. The importance of money, measured with the question “To what extent is money important to you?,” was only modestly related to income (r = 0.12, P < 0.00001) yet had a sizable statistical interaction with income in predicting experienced well-being (P < 0.00001). Based on the size of the interaction term, results estimate that the association between income and experienced well-being was over four times as steep when comparing people 1 SD above vs. 1 SD below the mean in money importance (b+1SD = 0.149 vs. b−1SD = 0.035). Whether people who rate money as relatively unimportant simply do not care about money, have found that “the best things in life are free,” or have tried and failed to spend money to improve their lives is unclear, but this result shows that there is something systematic causing income to matter more for some people’s well-being than for others. The importance of money on its own was virtually unrelated to experienced well-being (r = 0.02, P = 0.06), so it was not better or worse overall to think money was important; instead, low earners were happier if they thought money was unimportant and high earners were happier if they thought money was important. A question that asked participants “To what extent do you think money is indicative of success in life?” similarly showed that the association between income and well-being was steeper for people who equated money and success (P < 0.00001). Unlike money importance, however, the more people equated money and success, the lower their experienced well-being was on average (P < 0.00001), and there did not appear to be any income level at which equating money and success was associated with greater experienced well-being. Detailed results for these and other mediators and moderators are available in SI Appendix, including SI Appendix, Tables S5 and S6.

When interpreting these results, it bears repeating that well-being rose approximately linearly with log(income), not raw income. This means that two households earning $20,000 and $60,000, respectively, would be expected to exhibit the same difference in well-being as two households earning $60,000 and $180,000, respectively. The logarithmic relationship implies that marginal dollars do matter less the more one earns, while proportional differences in income have a constant association with well-being regardless of income.

Taken together, the current results show that larger incomes were robustly associated with greater well-being. Contrary to past research, there was no evidence for a plateau around $75,000, with experienced well-being instead continuing to climb across the income range. There was also no income threshold at which experienced and evaluative well-being diverged; instead, higher incomes were associated with both feeling better moment-to-moment and being more satisfied with life overall. While there may be some point beyond which money loses its power to improve well-being, the current results suggest that point may lie higher than previously thought.

Having Children Speeds up the Subjective Passage of Lifetime in Parents

Having Children Speeds up the Subjective Passage of Lifetime in Parents. Marc Wittmann and Nathalie Mella. Timing & Time Perception, Jan 13 2021. https://doi.org/10.1163/22134468-bja10023

Abstract: A widely reproduced finding across numerous studies of different cultures is that adults perceive the most recent 10 years of their lives to have passed particularly fast, and that this perceived speed increases as they grow older. Potential explanatory factors for this effect are believed to be more routines in life as we age as well as an increase in time pressure during middle adult age, both factors that would lead to a reduced autobiographical memory load. Fewer contextual changes in life are known to cause the passage of time to be perceived as faster. Taking advantage of the database created for the study that first captured this age effect on subjective time (), we investigated the role that having children plays in the subjective speeding of time. Adults aged between 20 and 59 who had children reported that time over the last 10 years passed subjectively more quickly than adults of the same age group without children. Factors such as education or gender did not influence subjective time. A small correlation effect could be seen in the fact that parents with more children reported that time passed more quickly. Experienced time pressure was not a differentiating factor between the two groups, as time pressure was associated with a faster passage of time in all adults. Future systematic studies will have to reveal what factors on autobiographical memory and time might be accountable for this clear effect that raising children has on perceived time.

Keywords: Passage of time judgement (PTJ); ageing; routine; time pressure; retrospective time

I will defend your right to free speech, provided I agree with you: Users protest against a social network ban only when this affects an in‐group user; the effect is smaller when an in‐group aggressor targets a high warmth out‐group user

“I will defend your right to free speech, provided I agree with you”: How social media users react (or not) to online out‐group aggression. Paolo Antonetti  Benedetta Crisafulli. Psychology & Marketing, January 22 2021. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21447

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1352661538621022212

Abstract: Social networking sites (SNS) routinely ban aggressive users. Such bans are sometimes perceived as a limitation to the right to free speech. While research has examined SNS users' perceptions of online aggression, little is known about how observers make trade‐offs between free speech and the desire to punish aggression. By focusing on reactions to an SNS ban, this study explores under what circumstances users consider the protection of the right to free speech as more important than the suppression of aggression. We propose a model of moderated mediation that explains under what circumstances online aggression increases the acceptance of a ban. When posts display aggression, the ban is less likely to be perceived as violating free speech and as unfair. Consequently, aggression reduces the likelihood that users will protest through negative word of mouth. Moreover, users protest against an SNS ban only when this affects an in‐group user (rather than an out‐group user). This in‐group bias, however, diminishes when an in‐group aggressor targets a high warmth out‐group user. The study raises managerial implications for the effective management of aggressive interactions on SNS and for the persuasive communication of a decision to ban a user engaging in aggressive behavior.

Preferences for pink & blue were tested in children aged 4–11 years in three small‐scale societies; pairing of female & ping seems a cultural phenomenon & is not driven by an essential preference for pink in girls

Cultural Components of Sex Differences in Color Preference. Jac T. M. Davis  Ellen Robertson  Sheina Lew‐Levy  Karri Neldner  Rohan Kapitany  Mark Nielsen  Melissa Hines. Child Development, January 21 2021. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13528

Abstract: Preferences for pink and blue were tested in children aged 4–11 years in three small‐scale societies: Shipibo villages in the Peruvian Amazon, kastom villages in the highlands of Tanna Island, Vanuatu, and BaYaka foragers in the northern Republic of Congo; and compared to children from an Australian global city (total N = 232). No sex differences were found in preference for pink in any of the three societies not influenced by global culture (ds − 0.31–0.23), in contrast to a female preference for pink in the global city (d = 1.24). Results suggest that the pairing of female and pink is a cultural phenomenon and is not driven by an essential preference for pink in girls.

3 Discussion

We found no significant differences between boys’ and girls’ preference for pink in three small‐scale societies in Peru, Vanuatu, and the northern Congo. We found that girls liked pink more than boys did in a global city, confirming earlier research (Jonauskaite et al., 2019; Mohebbi, 2014; Weisgram et al., 2014; Yeung & Wong, 2018). These results support theories that link color preferences to individual experience (Palmer & Schloss, 2010) and gender cognitions (Bem, 1981; Carter & Levy, 1988; Liben & Bigler, 2002; Martin & Halverson, 1981). That is, culture, not inherent biological dispositions, influences the gender difference in children’s preference for pink.

Our findings contradict essentialist positions that pink is linked to female gender through neural color processing or through evolved preferences linked to foraging or mate choices (Alexander, 2003; Ellis & Ficek, 2001; Hurlbert & Owen, 2015). Supporting our findings, other research indicates that children are not born with sex differences in their color preferences, and that infants show no sex differences in preference for pink until they reach at least 2.5 years of age (Franklin, Gibbons, Chittenden, Alvarez, & Taylor, 2012; Jadva et al., 2010; LoBue & DeLoache, 2011; Wong & Hines, 2015; Zemach et al., 2007). Additionally, some studies of adults in societies with limited access to global culture have found no female preference for pink (Groyecka et al., 2019; Sorokowski et al., 2014), although, as noted before, the female preference for pink over blue may be characteristic of children, rather than adults. Thus, our findings provide additional evidence that the pairing of female and pink is a cultural phenomenon and is not innate.

Results suggest that color preferences are the behavioral expression of a complex interaction between underlying biology and cultural context. Genetic, hormonal, and neural indications may predispose children to display gendered behaviors and preferences, such as color preferences (Arnold, 2009; De Vries & Simerly, 2002; Hines, 2010), but the specific expression of these preferences, such as a female preference for pink, may be learned from cultural setting and individual experience (Bandura, 2002; Carter & Levy, 1988; Martin & Ruble, 2004; Palmer & Schloss, 2010). Children in all cultures are exposed to gender role information that influences their preferences and behavior, but not all cultures include information about the color pink. In our study, male and female roles were well defined and separate in the Vanuatu kastom culture (Douglas, 2002; Lindstrom, 2008), while BaYaka (Lewis, 2017) and Shipibo (Hern, 1992) villages were traditionally egalitarian for men and women, although still with typical male and female activities (Ember & Ember, 2003). However, pink was not used in these societies as a marker for female gender. In contrast, in many industrialized settings, boys and girls grow up surrounded by gender color‐coding in marketing, toys, clothing, room decorations, and online (Auster & Mansbach, 2012; Black, Tomlinson, & Korobkova, 2016; Cunningham & Macrae, 2011; Koller, 2008; LoBue & DeLoache, 2011; Pomerleau et al., 1990; Weisgram et al., 2014). Social and cognitive theories would predict that children absorb and integrate this gender color‐coding with a wealth of other gender role information that influences them to show gender differences in color preferences. Indeed, our results suggest that it is cultural norms that influence children’s adoption of gendered preferences and behaviors, such as a female preference for pink.

The specific patterns of color preference seen in our study further suggest that global culture, as well as influencing girls to prefer pink, may influence boys to avoid it. We found that in three small‐scale societies, boys and girls were equally likely to choose a pink option over a blue one. But we found that, like boys in other large industrialized cities (Chiu et al., 2006; Jonauskaite et al., 2019; Mohebbi, 2014; Weisgram et al., 2014; Zentner, 2001), in a large Australian city, boys avoided pink options. This finding supports previous reports that children avoid culturally defined opposite‐sex behaviors (Golombok et al., 2008; Ruble, Martin, & Berenbaum, 2007). Previous research additionally finds that boys increasingly avoid pink choices with age (LoBue & DeLoache, 2011; Wong & Hines, 2015), and this pattern appeared in the boys from our City sample but not in any small‐scale samples, supporting the view that culture may influence boys to avoid girl‐type activities in general and pink specifically. Thus, our findings, in combination with previous research, suggest that the pairing of pink with female gender in global culture might influence boys to avoid options that are colored pink.

It is important to address the cultural bias of color‐coding items for boys and girls. Multiple researchers have suggested that gender‐coding toys by color may affect child development (Martin & Halverson, 1981; Weisgram et al., 2014; Wong & Hines, 2015; Yeung & Wong, 2018). For example, differences in boys’ and girls’ play with toys, that are usually color coded, have been hypothesized to cause sex differences in adult social and spatial skills (Auster & Mansbach, 2012; Martin & Halverson, 1981; Pomerleau et al., 1990). Additionally, cross‐cultural research suggests that sex differences in adult social and spatial skills may also relate to culture (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010; Henrich et al., 2012; Trumble, Gaulin, Dunbar, Kaplan, & Gurven, 2016; Vashro & Cashdan, 2015). Together, this evidence suggests that color‐coding items for boys and girls are not only unnecessary, but may be constraining, as children use these cues to signal what they may be interested in, and what they may want to avoid.

Our study combined children’s responses to red and pink. This choice followed essentialist research that tends to group red with pink as “reddish hues” when explaining sex differences in color preference (Hurlbert & Owen, 2015). Yet, as described in non‐essentialist research (Javda et al., 2010), toys marketed to boys tend to be blue and red, and those marketed to girls tend to be pink, so there may be a cultural reason to consider pink separately from more general “reddish hues.” Our study’s results indicated that sex differences are likely related to the specific color pink, and not to reddish hues in general. Although essentialist viewpoints tend to group pink with red according to hue, our results suggest instead that pink is a separate color that functions as a cultural marker for female gender.

This research investigated children’s preference for pink in small‐scale societies with limited access to global culture via mass media, mass communication, and mass‐produced children’s toys. Results suggested that the pairing of female and pink is a cultural phenomenon and is not driven by an essential preference for pink in girls. Instead, children showed a diversity of preferences with culture. This diversity points to the complex flexibility of underlying biology to drive the development of sex‐typed color preferences in non‐essential, context‐appropriate ways.