We find that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, lawyers are not particularly unhappy; indeed, they suffer rates of mental illness much lower than the general population

Measuring Lawyer Well‐Being Systematically: Evidence from the National Health Interview Survey. Yair Listokin  Raymond Noonan. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, March 4 2021. https://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12274

Abstract: Conventional wisdom says that lawyers are uniquely unhappy. Unfortunately, this conventional wisdom rests on a weak empirical foundation. The “unhappy lawyers” narrative relies on nonrandom survey data collected from volunteer respondents. Instead of depending on such data, researchers should study lawyer mental health by relying on large microdatasets of public health data, such as the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) administered by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. The NHIS includes data from 100–200 lawyers per year. By aggregating years, an adequate sample size of lawyers can readily be obtained, with much greater confidence that the lawyers in the sample resemble the true population of U.S. lawyers. When we examine the NHIS data, we find that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, lawyers are not particularly unhappy. Indeed, they suffer rates of mental illness much lower than the general population. Lawyer mental health is not significantly different than the mental health of similarly educated professionals, such as doctors and dentists. Rates of problematic alcohol use among lawyers, however, are high, even when compared to the general population. Moreover, problematic use of alcohol among lawyers has grown increasingly common over the last 15 years. These sometimes surprising and nuanced findings demonstrate the value of relying on more reliable data such as the NHIS.

We find little evidence that teachers have worse health and wellbeing outcomes than other occupational groups

How does the mental health and wellbeing of teachers compare to other professions? Evidence from eleven survey datasets. John Jerrim, Sam Sims, Hannah Taylor and Rebecca Allen. Review of Education, Vol. 8, No. 3, October 2020, pp. 659–689. DOI: 10.1002/rev3.3228

There is growing concern about the mental health and wellbeing of teachers globally, with the stress caused by the job thought to be a key factor driving many to leave the profession. It is often claimed that teachers have worse mental health and wellbeing outcomes than other occupational groups. Yet academic evidence on this matter remains limited, with some studies supporting this notion, while a handful of others do not. We contribute to this debate by providing the largest, most comprehensive analysis of differences in mental health and wellbeing between teachers and other professional workers to date. Drawing upon data from across 11 social surveys, we find little evidence that teachers have worse health and wellbeing outcomes than other occupational groups. Research in this area must now shift away from whether teachers are disproportionately affected by such issues towards strengthening the evidence on the likely drivers of mental ill-health within the education profession.

Keywords: mental health, occupational comparisons, teachers, wellbeing.

Conclusions

There is widespread global concern about the mental health and wellbeing of the teaching profession. Reports are now widespread in the international media about the stresses and strains of working as a teacher (Brennan & Henton, 2017; Asthana & Boycott-Owen, 2018), with particular pressure stemming from the long term-time working hours and due to the scrutiny teachers are placed under from high-stakes testing and school accountability. It has been suggested that this is a key reason why many individuals are deciding to leave teaching for alternative employment (CooperGibson Research, 2018), with a view that levels of stress, anxiety, depression and other aspects of poor wellbeing are not as prevalent amongst workers in other jobs. Several previous papers and research reports have suggested that mental health and wellbeing outcomes may indeed be worse amongst teachers than other professional groups (Travers & Cooper, 1993; Johnson et al., 2005; Ofsted, 2019; Worth & Van den Brande, 2019). At the same time, a handful of other studies have questioned whether this is really the case, presenting alternative empirical evidence to suggest that teachers have similar (and sometimes even better) wellbeing outcomes than professional employees in general. It hence remains an open question as to whether teachers are at a uniquely high-risk of suffering from low levels of wellbeing and of developing mental health problems.

Given the conflicts in the existing evidence base, this paper has sought to conduct the largest and most comprehensive analysis to date of the mental health and wellbeing of teachers in comparison to other professional groups. Drawing evidence from across 11 separate datasets, which together cover a wide array of mental health and wellbeing constructs and measures, the paper has presented detailed new evidence on this important policy issue. Our headline conclusion is that teachers actually seem to have very similar mental health and wellbeing outcomes to other professionals. There is little robust evidence to suggest that, on the whole, teachers are particularly anxious, depressed, have lower-levels of life-satisfaction or have poorer wellbeing outcomes than demographically similar individuals in other forms of professional employment. Although there are some exceptions amongst certain subgroups (e.g. SEN teachers tend to have somewhat lower levels of mental wellbeing, while the wellbeing of headteachers, on certain measures, is somewhat higher) and for certain outcomes (e.g. comparatively few teachers suffer from feelings of low self-worth) differences between teachers and other professionals are, on the whole, relatively small. These findings do, of course, need to be interpreted in light of the limitations of this study. First, although we have ‘matched’ teachers to demographically comparable professionals in other jobs, the number of potential confounders included within our matching models is a limitation. For instance, we have not been able to control for the wellbeing of study participants before they made their occupational choices. It could therefore be that those who choose to enter teaching start out with very high levels of wellbeing and mental health, which then rapidly decline to around the national average once they start working as a teacher. Such a situation would get masked within our analysis due to our lack of sufficient prior (pre-occupational selection) mental health and wellbeing controls. This is of course part of a much more general caveat that this paper has not been designed to measure the causal effect of choosing teaching as a career. Rather, we have presented a descriptive analysis attempting to establish whether mental health and wellbeing outcomes are worse amongst teachers than other professional groups—and not whether teaching leads to worse outcomes per se.

Second, and relatedly, one interpretation of our findings is that they are the result of individuals with mental health problems selecting out of teaching. For instance, those individuals who were working as teachers—but who struggled with their mental health and wellbeing—may have chosen to quit teaching for alternative employment. It is therefore possible that the teachers within our datasets are hence, on average, found to have similar outcomes to other professionals due to all those with mental health problems having chosen to leave. This again is an important caveat that needs to be remembered when interpreting our results—all the analyses are cross-sectional and are in reference to the population of individuals currently employed as teachers at the time of the surveys.

Third, to some extent all the data analysed in this paper are based upon information that has been self-reported by survey respondents. Although we have considered both responses to widely used and validated instruments and a selection of more objective outcome measures (e.g. prescription of anti-depressants) such indicators are not entirely free from such problems. Indeed, although the stigma attached to mental ill-health may be on the decline, it is possible that this leads some individuals to miss-report. While this issue is unlikely to undermine our substantive conclusions, future work using other measures (possibly including biomarkers and administrative primary care records) would help to strengthen the evidence base still further. Finally, some of the datasets we analysed included questions that asked specifically about wellbeing related to work, while others were about wellbeing and mental health in general. While there was no obvious difference in the pattern of the results, further research into occupational differences in work-related mental ill-health would be beneficial. For instance, the APMS dataset includes 15 questions specifically about work-related stress, which could provide a much more detailed insight into how this problem compares across occupations. Unfortunately, the sample size for each SOC group in the APMS is too small—and the occupational data made available too coarsely coded—to robustly investigate this issue. Our advice would be that at least a subset of these 15 work-related stress questions are asked within one of the UK’s large, flagship surveys (e.g. the LFS or APS) to facilitate such detailed occupational comparisons.

What then are the key directions for future work in this area? In our view, the evidence presented here makes it very hard to sustain the position that wellbeing and mental health outcomes of teachers are worse than for other occupational groups. For researchers in this area, the focus should now shift to better understanding the drivers of poor mental health outcomes amongst teachers, including whether these are indeed mainly work-related, or are actually mainly due to issues outside of their job (e.g. their personal life). Relatedly, we need better evidence on what system and school leaders can do to support their staff. There are, after all, a non-trivial number of school staff facing mental health issues, some of which may be caused or aggravated by their work. Understanding what can be done to help these individuals through this difficult period is key to teaching becoming a happier and healthier profession.

Lilliputian hallucinations concern hallucinated human, animal or fantasy entities of minute size

Leroy’s elusive little people: A systematic review on lilliputian hallucinations. Jan Dirk Blom. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, March 4 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.03.002

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1367705194562265090

Highlights

• Lilliputian hallucinations are not as harmless as traditionally assumed.

• Their etiology is diverse, with CNS pathology accounting for a third of the cases.

• Therefore, in most cases auxiliary investigations are advisable.

• Treatment is directed at the underlying cause.

• A failure of size constancy may explain part of the underlying mechanism.

Abstract: Lilliputian hallucinations concern hallucinated human, animal or fantasy entities of minute size. Having been famously described by the French psychiatrist Raoul Leroy in 1909, who wrote from personal experience, to date they are mentioned almost routinely in textbooks of psychiatry, albeit with little in-depth knowledge. I therefore systematically reviewed 145 case reports and case series comprising 226 case descriptions, concluding that lilliputian hallucinations are visual (61%) or multimodal (39%) in nature. In 97% of the cases, they are perceived as grounded in the actual environment, thus indicating involvement of higher-level regions of the perceptual network subserving the fusion of sensory and hallucinatory content. Perceptual release and deafferentiation are the most likely underlying mechanisms. Etiology is extremely diverse, with schizophrenia spectrum disorder, alcohol use disorder and loss of vision accounting for 50% of the cases and neurological disease for 36%. Recovery was obtained in 62% of the cases, whereas 18% of the cases ended in chronicity and 8% in death. Recommendations are made for clinical practice and future research.

Keywords: Alcohol hallucinosisCharles Bonnet syndromeentity experienceintoxicationmultimodal hallucinationpsychedelicssize constancy

4.6. Pathophysiology

MRI scans of patients experiencing lilliputian hallucinations indicate the involvement of primary and secondary visual cortex in their mediation (Chen and Liu, 2011; Vacchiano et al., 2019). Since systematic localizing studies are lacking and other MRI studies have, moreover, shown involvement of frontal, parietal and mesencephalic regions (Walterfang et al., 2012; Hirakawa et al., 2016), it is hard to tell which parts of the visual network are of primary importance. Nonetheless, a special role would seem to be reserved for visual association cortex and - especially in compound hallucinations - higher-level cortical association networks. This follows from the complexity and remarkable embeddedness of the hallucinations in the observer’s surroundings. Individual phenomenological characteristics also hint at a role for lower levels of the visual network, even down to V4 in color perception and V5 in motion perception. Although much remains to be elucidated here, a case can also be made for the applicability of two different pathophysiological mechanisms, i.e. deafferentiation and perceptual release. It should be noted, though, that neither of these mechanisms are likely to produce lilliputian hallucinations without the involvement of higher-level perceptual networks.

4.6.1. Deafferentiation

The deafferentiation model states that loss of peripheral sensory input can lead to spurious activity of central networks normally involved in processing that input. It is thus applicable to closed-eye hallucinations, hypnagogic hallucinations and Charles Bonnet syndrome (ffytche et al., 1998), including cases of hemi- and quadrantanopsia. Moreover, this mechanism has been described in Parkinson’s disease, with the lilliputian hallucinations appearing at dusk (i.e., crepuscular hallucinations) (Montassut & Sauguet, 1943). A special case, and an exception in fact, is one involving a patient with blindness of the right eye and hemianopia of the left eye, who experienced lilliputian hallucinations in the one remaining hemifield, seeing ‘little men’ populating the world that he could still actually see (Camus, 1911), which is thus exemplary of perceptual release.

4.6.2. Perceptual release

The perceptual release model states that endogenously mediated perceptual material, which during our waking hours normally remains below the threshold of consciousness, can break through the surface and be projected into the outside world. Also referred to as ‘dream intrusion’, the model characterizes lilliputian hallucinations as a matter of ‘dreaming while awake’. A crucial difference with dreaming though, is that in this case only part of the perceived environment is replaced by hallucinatory content. The model is not only applicable to hypnopompic hallucinations (Trénel, 1926), but also to the majority of other cases falling outside the ‘sensory deprivation’ category (Table 1). Here, the term peduncular hallucinosis refers to a concept developed by Lhermitte and van Bogaert regarding the alleged involvement of the midbrain and pons (Kosty et al., 2019). However, whether these mesencephalic regions are indeed responsible for (all instances of) perceptual release is as yet uncertain. What is more, the phenomenological characteristics of peduncular hallucinosis far transcend those of lilliputian hallucinations.

4.6.3. Adjuvant models

Four other models likely play minor roles in the mediation of lilliputian hallucinations. The first is the peripheral model, in which peripheral hallucinations are attributed to intraocular pathology such as glaucoma, cataract and entoptic phenomena. Glaucoma and cataract are thought to act via the intermediate process of visual loss and hence deafferentiation, whereas entoptic phenomena (e.g., floaters, vitreous opacities) serve as points de repères for the development of lilliputian hallucinations, much in the way of visual pareidolia. With eyes closed, simple visual phenomena such as photopsia and Eigengrau are thought to fulfill similar catalytic functions (Ahlenstiel, 1954). All such entoptic phenomena result in hallucinations of the swiveling projective type, i.e. those moving along with the observer’s gaze, which were reported in 2% of the cases only. The second adjuvant model is the reperception model, which holds that hallucinations may borrow their content from memory. In the literature reviewed, I found a rare example concerning a 54-year-old woman who saw faithful miniature versions of people she had known at school, who were moreover saying things that made perfect sense in the light of her memories (Jacome, 1999). Then there is the irritation model, which states that epileptic activity may selectively stimulate brain regions responsible for hallucinatory activity. As we saw, epilepsy was diagnosed in only 7% of the cases. Moreover, the complex (and sometimes compound) nature of lilliputian hallucinations suggests that even in epilepsy, these phenomena are probably mediated via the intermediate process of perceptual release. Finally, the psychodynamic model needs mention. It suggests that lilliputian hallucinations are typically experienced by people with playful, imaginative or regressive personalities. In exceptional cases, the model may perhaps help to explain the appreciation or even the content of hallucinations, but I ask myself how the observations might contribute to our understanding of their mediation.

4.7. Size constancy

An intriguing and as yet little understood aspect of lilliputian hallucinations is the minute size of the beings featuring in them. In 1922 a crucial role was already suggested for failed size constancy in their mediation (Salomon, 1922), where size constancy is the capacity to assess the size of objects as uniform at different ranges. Emmert’s law states that this ability depends on depth cues and on the size of the retinal image (Millard et al., 2020). It was thus proposed that, in lilliputian hallucinations, this mechanism goes awry when hallucinated material is ‘projected’ on surfaces in confined spaces, making the ensuing image appear unnaturally small (Salomon, 1922). Even if correct, though, that explanation would only be applicable to hallucinations of the cinematic projective type, which make up a mere 1% of all cases. Only recently, lesion studies and electrophysiological studies have started to shed light on the neural correlates of size constancy. Drawing on two cases of brain infarction, it has been suggested that size constancy is a function of (the forceps major of) the dominant side of the brain (Hong et al., 2010). In an animal study with macaques, tungsten microelectrodes have been inserted into single neurons located in V4, leading to the identification of object-size coding neurons, i.e. neurons that compute object size independently of retinal size (Tanaka & Fujita, 2015). Similar experiments with cats yielded evidence for the involvement of specialized neurons in V1 (Pigarev & Levichkina, 2016), while a study in humans with steady-state visually evoked potentials found even more robust results for the latter region (Chen et al., 2019). While the exact mechanisms subserving size constancy remain to be elucidated, evidence is thus accumulating that specific neurons in early visual cortex play a role in the process, perhaps even without having to rely on retinal size, as was indicated by one study (Tanaka & Fujita, 2015), which is obviously also the case in lilliputian hallucinations.

4.8. Limitations

The number of published case descriptions of lilliputian hallucinations is small and most stem from historical sources. Even though I summarized the original case descriptions as faithfully as possible, it was not always clear whether they had been complete in the first place, and whether neurological patients were not also alcoholics, for instance, or vice versa. As a consequence, there is room for doubt about the accuracy of several of the conclusions drawn in this review. Moreover, since reports on lilliputian hallucinations were sometimes buried in the literature on Charles Bonnet syndrome, where they often serve as examples of the syndrome’s characteristic complex visual hallucinations, I may have missed an unknown number of case descriptions for my systematic review.

Self-regulation composite (preschool & ages 17-37) predicts capital formation at 46, but preschool delay of gratification alone does not predict such capital formation

Predicting mid-life capital formation with pre-school delay of gratification and life-course measures of self-regulation. Daniel J.Benjamin et al. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 179, November 2020, Pages 743-756. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2019.08.016

Rolf Degen's take: The renowned marshmallow test goes belly-up, failing to forecast individuals' future

Highlights

• Self-regulation composite (preschool & ages 17-37) predicts capital formation at 46.

• Preschool delay of gratification alone does not predict capital formation at 46.

• The composite is more predictive partly because it consists of many items.

• No evidence of more predictive power for self-regulation reported later in life.

Abstract: How well do pre-school delay of gratification and life-course measures of self-regulation predict mid-life capital formation? We surveyed 113 participants of the 1967–1973 Bing pre-school studies on delay of gratification when they were in their late 40’s. They reported 11 mid-life capital formation outcomes, including net worth, permanent income, absence of high-interest debt, forward-looking behaviors, and educational attainment. To address multiple hypothesis testing and our small sample, we pre-registered an analysis plan of well–powered tests. As predicted, a newly constructed and pre-registered measure derived from preschool delay of gratification does not predict the 11 capital formation variables (i.e., the sign-adjusted average correlation was 0.02). A pre-registered composite self-regulation index, combining preschool delay of gratification with survey measures of self-regulation collected at ages 17, 27, and 37, does predict 10 of the 11 capital formation variables in the expected direction, with an average correlation of 0.19. The inclusion of the preschool delay of gratification measure in this composite index does not affect the index’s predictive power. We tested several hypothesized reasons that preschool delay of gratification does not have predictive power for our mid-life capital formation variables.

Keywords: Self-regulationDelay of gratificationMid-life capital formation

JEL: D910D140I310I210I120

6. Concluding remarks

We have reported pre-registered analysis of the latest survey wave of the Bing pre-school study on delay of gratification. Respondents were in their late 40’s at the time of this latest wave and were asked to report 11 mid-life capital formation outcomes (e.g., net worth and permanent income). Our analysis plan both described our methods and predicted what we would find. As predicted, a newly constructed measure derived from preschool delay of gratification does not predict the 11 capital formation variables (i.e., the sign-adjusted average correlation was 0.02). By contrast a composite self-regulation index, combining preschool delay of gratification with survey measures of self-regulation collected at ages 17, 27, and 37, does predict 10 of the 11 capital formation variables in the expected direction, with an average correlation of 0.19. The inclusion of the preschool delay of gratification measure in this composite index does not affect the index’s predictive power for two reasons. Most importantly, the index of self-regulatory measures is comprised of 86 responses per participant, whereas the preschool delay of gratification task is a single behavioral task. In addition, the preschool delay of gratification task is measured using a diagnostic variant of the task for 34 of our 113 participants; the remaining 79 participants experienced a non-diagnostic variant of the pre-school delay of gratification task.

The data we have analyzed is unique because the Bing cohort is the only sample where preschool delay of gratification has been studied long enough to examine relationships with mid-life outcomes. While the tests of our primary hypotheses were well powered, we caution that our sample is relatively small and not representative of the overall population—e.g., 97% of our sample has a four-year college degree (the exceptions are one participant who has a two-year college degree and two who have some college but no degree)—limiting the generalizability of the results.

However, we can compare our results to the small set of overlapping analyses that have been conducted using the Dunedin cohort, which began collecting data in 1972–1973 and has childhood self-regulation measures but no preschool delay of gratification measure.11 The cohort is from a small town in New Zealand with much lower levels of educational attainment (Moffitt et al., 2011). Specifically, 29% of the Dunedin sample is college educated (Belsky et al., 2016). Despite the stark socioeconomic differences, the self-regulation measures used in the Dunedin study have similar predictive power to the self-regulation measures in the Bing sample. For example, Moffitt et al. (2011) found that a 1 SD increase in childhood self-control as measured in the Dunedin study predicts a 0.24 SD increase in income at age 32. In the Bing sample, a 1 SD increase in RNSRI predicts a 0.32 SD increase in rank-normalized permanent income. Similarly, a 1 SD increase in the Dunedin self-control measure predicts a 0.12 SD decrease in credit card problems, while a 1 SD increase in the Bing RNSRI predicts a 0.18 SD decrease in rank-normalized credit card misuse. A 1 SD increase in the Dunedin self-control measure predicts a 0.14 SD decrease in money management difficulties, while a 1 SD increase in the Bing RNSRI predicts a 0.24 SD increase in financial health.12 Despite these intriguing similarities across the two samples, the issue of generalizability remains an important question to be addressed in future research as mid-life data becomes available in more childhood longitudinal cohorts.

Can Researchers’ Personal Characteristics Shape Their Statistical Inferences?

Can Researchers’ Personal Characteristics Shape Their Statistical Inferences? Elizabeth W. Dunn, Lihan Chen et al. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, August 31, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167220950522

Abstract: Researchers’ subjective judgments may affect the statistical results they obtain. This possibility is particularly stark in Bayesian hypothesis testing: To use this increasingly popular approach, researchers specify the effect size they are expecting (the “prior mean”), which is then incorporated into the final statistical results. Because the prior mean represents an expression of confidence that one is studying a large effect, we reasoned that scientists who are more confident in their research skills may be inclined to select larger prior means. Across two preregistered studies with more than 900 active researchers in psychology, we showed that more self-confident researchers selected larger prior means. We also found suggestive but somewhat inconsistent evidence that men may choose larger prior means than women, due in part to gender differences in researcher self-confidence. Our findings provide the first evidence that researchers’ personal characteristics might shape the statistical results they obtain with Bayesian hypothesis testing.

Keywords: confidence, gender, Bayesian inference, hypothesis testing

Body dissatisfaction is highest in heterosexual women and lowest in heterosexual men

Malillos, Monica H., Elena Theofanous, Keith R. Laws, and Paul Jenkinson. 2021. “Gender, Sexual Orientation and Body Dissatisfaction: A Meta-analysis Covering Four Decades of Research.” PsyArXiv. March 4. doi:10.31234/osf.io/5hdkr

Abstract

Background: Four decades of research has assessed how gender and/or sexual orientation contribute to levels of body dissatisfaction (BD). The findings have proven somewhat equivocal and little attention has been paid to potential moderators. Method: The current meta-analysis compared BD in gay and heterosexual men (38 overall effects), and lesbian and heterosexual women (25 overall effects). Additional pairwise comparisons explored differences between heterosexual men and heterosexual women, gay men and lesbians, gay men and heterosexual women, and heterosexual men and lesbian women.

Results: Random effects model meta-analyses revealed greater levels of BD in gay men compared to heterosexual men (g = -0.36, 95% CI -0.43, -0.29). By contrast, BD was greater in heterosexual women than lesbians (g = 0.09 95% CI 0.03, 0.15). Year of publication and mean difference in age between gay and heterosexual samples moderated the relationship between BD and sexual orientation, but only for men. Pairwise comparisons indicated that BD is highest in heterosexual women and lowest in heterosexual men.

Conclusions: Findings indicate that both gender and sexual orientation influence BD. We identified a number of limitations in the existing research base, and make recommendations for future research.

Conservative (vs. liberal) providers enhance consumer experience because conservative providers are higher on trait‐conscientiousness; consumers expect to receive better service from liberals due to their higher openness

How Consumer Experience Is Shaped by the Political Orientation of Service Providers. Alexander Davidson  Derek A. Theriault. Journal of Consumer Psychology, March 3 2021. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcpy.1233

Abstract: This research documents the counterintuitive effect that consumers actually have better service experiences with politically conservative service providers, but expect to have better experiences with politically liberal service providers. First, we document the effect in actual consumer service experience across three different contexts (Airbnb hosts, Uber drivers, waiters), and demonstrate that conservative (vs. liberal) providers enhance consumer experience (studies 1, 2a, 2b), because conservative providers are higher on trait‐conscientiousness (study 3). Second, in an experiment (study 4), we document expectations about service experience and demonstrate that consumers expect to receive better service from liberals (vs. conservatives). We explain that this effect emerges because consumers do not perceive that conservatives (vs. liberals) are more conscientious, but do perceive that they are less open. Overall, our theoretical framework outlines how conservative providers possess an unknown strength (higher conscientiousness) and a known weakness (lower openness), which leads to different actual and expected consumer service experiences. These novel findings provide valuable contributions to our understanding of how consumers are impacted by the political orientation of marketplace providers.

The perception of odor pleasantness is shared across cultures

The perception of odor pleasantness is shared across cultures. Artin Arshamian et al. bioRxiv, Mar 2 2021. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.03.01.433367

Abstract: Human sensory experience varies across the globe. Nonetheless, all humans share sensory systems with a common anatomical blueprint. In olfaction, it is unknown to what degree sensory perception, in particular the perception of odor pleasantness, is dictated by universal biological principles versus sculpted by culture. To address this issue, we asked 235 individuals from 9 diverse non-western cultures to rank the hedonic value of monomolecular odorants. We observed substantial global consistency, with molecular identity explaining 41% of the variance in individual pleasantness rankings, while culture explained only 6%. These rankings were predicted by the physicochemical properties of out-of-sample molecules and out-of-sample pleasantness ratings given by a separate group of industrialized western urbanites, indicating human olfactory perception is strongly constrained by universal principles.

The intellectual tools that are needed for the eliciting of nature's secrets may have derived from the Stone Age art of reading tracks

Tracking Science: An Alternative for Those Excluded by Citizen Science. Louis Liebenberg et al. Citizen Science, Mar 3 2021. http://doi.org/10.5334/cstp.284

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1367182399658995720

Abstract: In response to recent discussion about terminology, we propose “tracking science” as a term that is more inclusive than citizen science. Our suggestion is set against a post-colonial political background and large-scale migrations, in which “citizen” is becoming an increasingly contentious term. As a diverse group of authors from several continents, our priority is to deliberate a term that is all-inclusive, so that it could be adopted by everyone who participates in science or contributes to scientific knowledge, regardless of socio-cultural background. For example, current citizen science terms used for Indigenous knowledge imply that such practitioners belong to a sub-group that is other, and therefore marginalized. Our definition for “tracking science” does not exclude Indigenous peoples and their knowledge contributions and may provide a space for those who currently participate in citizen science, but want to contribute, explore, and/or operate beyond its confinements. Our suggestion is not that of an immediate or complete replacement of terminology, but that the notion of tracking science can be used to complement the practice and discussion of citizen science where it is contextually appropriate or needed. This may provide a breathing space, not only to explore alternative terms, but also to engage in robust, inclusive discussion on what it means to do science or create scientific knowledge. In our view, tracking science serves as a metaphor that applies broadly to the scientific community—from modern theoretical physics to ancient Indigenous knowledge.

Keywords: citizen science, tracking science, Indigenous communities, citizenship, immigration, inclusive

Examples of Tracking Science

The definition of tracking science describes, among other things, what Indigenous communities in Africa have been doing for more than 100,000 years (Liebenberg 1990, 2013a, 2013b). Tracking science does not propose a relativist version of Indigenous knowledge that fails to make distinctions between evidence-based scientific knowledge and mythology. Instead, it attends to the empirical elements of knowledge production across diverse sets of people that, in practice, may contribute to the larger body of scientific knowledge about the world. For example, we do not think that we should “abolish the distinction between science and fiction” (Woolgar 1988, p. 166), but should consider the politics and power involved in determining what scientific facts come to be accepted, much as science studies scholar Bruno Latour suggests (Latour 2003, 2005, p. 87–93). Tracking science addresses this issue by recognizing diverse epistemological traditions without reducing them to the stale knowledge-belief binary opposition. In this context, Hansson (2018, p. 518) explains that:

“the discussion is often couched in terms of comparisons between ‘indigenous belief systems’ and modern science. This is a misguided and unfair comparison. In particular, the common comparison between modern science and the magical and religious thinking in indigenous societies is remarkably misconceived. Religious and spiritual thinking in traditional societies should be compared to religious and spiritual thinking in modern societies. Similarly, modern science should be compared to those elements in traditional societies that are most similar to modern science.”

We do not seek to reproduce the bifurcation Hansson describes, and acknowledge that the lines between scientific and religious thinking are often not as clear as this characterization. Nevertheless, we insist that similar elements of knowledge can be commensurable across societies. Tracking science is what Indigenous communities depended on for their survival for millennia—evidence-based scientific knowledge that had an objective correlation with the real world. Furthermore, in contemporary times, Indigenous communities have been involved in scientific research as well as biodiversity and environmental monitoring in as far afield as the Kalahari in Africa (Stander et al. 1997; Liebenberg et al. 2017; Keeping et al. 2018), the Arctic (Danielsen et al. 2014; Johnson et al. 2015), and Australia (Ansell and Koening 2011; Ens 2012), to name but a few examples. See also the video and article by Cross and Page (2020): Indigenous trackers are teaching scientists about wildlife https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/09/africa/louis-liebenberg-c2e-spc-int/index.html. In today’s world, Indigenous farmers who follow ancient traditions in performing advanced plant breeding and agricultural experiments maintain crop biodiversity by in situ conservation, which is much more efficient than storage of seeds (Altieri and Merrick 1987; Hanson 2019). Other examples include Aboriginal burning practices offering alternative fire regimes that have been incorporated into rangeland management in Australia (Verran 2002; Cook et al. 2012), the use of fire to manage natural resources by the Kalahari San (Humphrey et al. 2021), and local farmers contributing to soil science in the Philippines (Richelle et al. 2018).

Within the modern urban and rural context, tracking science could become the contemporary equivalent of Indigenous knowledge, local knowledge, or even vernacular knowledge (see Richelle et al. 2018), where urban and rural communities discover and develop their own scientific understanding of their environment—without the constraints of citizenship. This has been happening in the United Kingdom, and probably other parts of the world, for more than a century (Pocock et al. 2015). The Biological Records Centre, established in 1964 in the United Kingdom, is volunteer led and involves an estimated 70,000 people. Their datasets are long-term, have large geographic extent, and are taxonomically diverse. Significantly, many recorders undertake individual research projects on their own or with others, or make observations on novel interactions or behavior. They publish these in various journals and newsletters. We suggest that what the Biological Records Centre has been doing is closer to the definition of tracking science than the dominant, but not only, participatory models of citizen science, in which it is presumed that the research endeavors in which community members participate should be planned and led by professional scientists.

Perhaps one of the most inspirational scientific papers was published by The Royal Society in the journal Biology Letters. This paper, “Blackawton Bees,” describing an original discovery on the vision of bumblebees, was designed, conducted, and written by a group of 8-10-year-old children outside of London, UK. The children asked the questions, hypothesized the answers, designed the games (the experiments) to test these hypotheses, and analyzed the data. They also drew the figures (in color pencil) and wrote the paper. The paper was inspired not by the scientific literature, but by their own observations of the world. In a sense it reveals science in its truest (most pure) form (Blackawton et al., 2010).

Our definition of tracking science would also incorporate the work of eminent independent scientists who changed how we think about the world in which we live, and produced groundbreaking scientific innovations working outside the domain of institutionalized science. These would include the 19th-century naturalists Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, co-discoverers of natural selection, along with 20th-century giants such as Rachel Carson, Jane Goodall, and Albert Einstein. Tracking science therefore provides both opportunities and role models for young people who want to go beyond the confines of participatory citizen science. It has the potential to generate a recognized knowledge network wherein their aspirations and explorations may result in unexpected innovations in science and technology. 

Anticipating Peer Ranking Causes Hormonal Adaptations That Benefit Cognitive Performance

Anticipating Peer Ranking Causes Hormonal Adaptations That Benefit Cognitive Performance. Carsten K. W. De Dreu, Klarita Gërxhani, Arthur Schram. American Behavioral Scientist, March 3, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764221996749

Rolf Degen's take: The mere anticipation that ones performance will be ranked by a peer decreases testosterone and increases cortisol, enhancing cognitive achievement

Abstract: Performance ranking is common across a range of professional and recreational domains. Even when it has no economic consequences but does order people in terms of their social standing, anticipating such performance ranking may affect how people feel and perform. We examined this possibility by asking human subjects to execute a simple cognitive task while anticipating their performance being ranked by an outside evaluator. We measured baseline and postperformance levels of testosterone and cortisol. We find that (1) anticipating performance ranking reduces testosterone and increases cortisol, (2) both these hormonal responses benefit cognitive performance, which explains why (3) anticipation of being ranked by a peer increases cognitive performance.

Keywords: performance ranking, testosterone, cortisol, hormonal response, cognitive performance

Men and women’s perception of difficulty in identifying fake news is similar, while women are more concerned than men about the pernicious effects of misinformation on society

Gender Differences in Tackling Fake News: Different Degrees of Concern, but Same Problems. Ester Almenar et al. Media and Communication, Vol 9, No 1 (2021), Mar 3 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.17645/mac.v9i1.3523

Abstract: In the current media ecosystem, in which the traditional media coexists with new players who are able to produce information and spread it widely, there is growing concern about the increasing prominence of fake news. Despite some significant efforts to determine the effects of misinformation, the results are so far inconclusive. Previous research has sought to analyze how the public perceive the effects of disinformation. This article is set in this context, and its main objective is to investigate users’ perception of fake news, as well as identify the criteria on which their recognition strategies are based. The research pays particular attention to determining whether there are gender differences in the concern about the effects of fake news, the degree of difficulty in detecting fake news and the most common topics it covers. The results are based on the analysis of a representative survey of the Spanish population (N = 1,001) where participants were asked about their relationship with fake news and their competence in determining the veracity of the information, and their ability to identify false content were assessed. The findings show that men and women’s perception of difficulty in identifying fake news is similar, while women are more concerned than men about the pernicious effects of misinformation on society. Gender differences are also found in the topics of the false information received. A greater proportion of men receive false news on political issues, while women tend to more frequently receive fake news about celebrities.

Keywords  disinformation; fake news; gender; misinformation; perception; Spain

Check also... From 2012: 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://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/06/from-2012-men-rated-freedom-of-speech.html

And De Keersmaecker, Jonas, Dries H. Bostyn, Alain Van Hiel, and Arne Roets. 2020. “Disliked but Free to Speak: Cognitive Ability Is Related to Supporting Freedom of Speech for Groups Across the Ideological Spectrum.” PsyArXiv. March 9. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2020/03/cognitive-ability-was-related-to-more.html

Menarche downward trend, from more than 16 years in the mid-1800s to below 13 years by the 1980s, has been observed worldwide, irrespective of socioeconomic status, race or ethnicity

Trends in age at menarche in low- and middle-income countries. Tiziana Leone, Laura Brown. N-IUSSP, Mar 1 2021. https://www.niussp.org/article/trends-in-age-at-menarche-in-low-and-middle-income-countries-evolution-de-lage-a-la-menarche-dans-les-pays-a-revenu-faible-et-intermediaire/

Introduction

Menarche (first menstrual bleeding) serves as a critical marker of puberty, and the associated physiological and social changes that collectively symbolise sexual maturation, adulthood and fertility. From the adoption of adult behaviours and the beginning of sexual life to the shame and stigma which could lead to dropping out of school, the process and timing of puberty can have dramatic consequences in girls’ lives (Coast, Lattof and Strong 2019, Šaffa et al. 2019).

Average age at menarche has been recorded in some European countries and the United States since the mid-1800s. Evidence suggests a downward trend from more than 16 years in the mid-1800s to below 13 years by the 1980s (Euling et al. 2008). This trend has been observed worldwide, irrespective of socioeconomic status, race or ethnicity (Wronka 2010, Buttke, Sircar and Martin 2012). A study describing the mean age at menarche using World Fertility Survey (WFS) data from 1950 to 1980 in Sub-Saharan African countries showed that age at menarche was undergoing a transition similar to that of European countries in the nineteenth century and was generally linked to an improvement in young women’s nutrition and health (Garenne 2020).

Age at menarche is influenced by a unique set of genetic, socioeconomic, and environmental factors (Buttke, Sircar and Martin 2012). However, its implications on subsequent health outcomes are poorly understood. Much less is known about changes in the timing and determinants of age at menarche in low- and middle-income countries. Until recently, this has been due to a lack of suitable data.

Timing and determinants of the age at menarche are key to understanding the potential linkages with health outcomes later in life and also important because of the repercussions on sexual initiation and age at marriage, and consequently on fertility. Research in high-income countries shows that early menarche has been linked to an increased risk of several adverse reproductive health outcomes, including breast cancer, endometrial cancer, and miscarriage (Buttke, Sircar and Martin 2012). Early puberty has also been associated with mental health problems in middle adolescence, with the longer-term impact unknown (Coast, Lattof and Strong 2019). Eating disorders, lack of self-esteem and mental health problems in general are often associated with an early age at menarche. All these factors have implications for health at older ages.

People avoid at all costs comparing themselves with others who are morally better off than they are

Fleischmann, A., Lammers, J., Diel, K., Hofmann, W., & Galinsky, A. D. (2021). More threatening and more diagnostic: How moral comparisons differ from social comparisons. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Mar 2021. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000361

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1366772389279842304

Abstract: The current research tests how comparisons in the moral domain differ from other social comparisons in three ways. First, an initial experience-sampling study shows that people compare downward more strongly in the moral domain than in most other domains (Study 1, N = 454), because people like to feel moral and present themselves as moral. Second, the classic threat principle of social comparison holds that people choose downward comparisons to improve their well-being after a threat to their self-esteem. We propose that in the moral domain the threat principle is intensified because morality is a uniquely important and central comparison domain. Across seven experiments (Experiments 2a and 2b, 3a–3c, 4a and 4b), we find that people search for downward comparisons much more than in other domains. This effect is so strong that people are willing to forgo money and incur time costs to avoid upward moral comparisons when threatened. Third, another classic principle of social comparison holds that people only consider comparisons that are diagnostic (i.e., close or similar) and therefore self-relevant, while dismissing extreme or dissimilar comparisons as irrelevant. We propose that this diagnosticity principle is attenuated because morality is a binding code that applies equally to all humans. Across four experiments (Experiments 5a and 5b, 6a and 6b), we find that even the most extreme and dissimilar moral (but not other) comparisons are deemed relevant and potentially threatening. Together, these twelve studies (total N = 5,543) demonstrate how moral comparisons are a ubiquitous but fundamentally distinct form of social comparison with altered basic principles.

Among young women, drinking less alcohol, & in men declines in drinking frequency, an increase in computer gaming, & the growing percentage who coreside with their parents, all contribute to the decline in casual sex

Why Are Fewer Young Adults Having Casual Sex? Scott J. South, Lei Lei.  Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, March 1, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023121996854

Abstract: Fewer young adults are engaging in casual sexual intercourse now than in the past, but the reasons for this decline are unknown. The authors use data from the 2007 through 2017 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics Transition into Adulthood Supplement to quantify some of the proximate sources of the decline in the likelihood that unpartnered young adults ages 18 to 23 have recently had sexual intercourse. Among young women, the decline in the frequency of drinking alcohol explains about one quarter of the drop in the propensity to have casual sex. Among young men, declines in drinking frequency, an increase in computer gaming, and the growing percentage who coreside with their parents all contribute significantly to the decline in casual sex. The authors find no evidence that trends in young adults’ economic circumstances, internet use, or television watching explain the recent decline in casual sexual activity.

Keywords: casual sex, young adults, emerging adulthood

Discussion and Conclusion

Adolescents and young adults are increasingly less likely to have sexual intercourse outside of a romantic relationship, but the causes of this decline in casual sex have not been rigorously evaluated. We use data from the PSID-TAS to quantify the sources of the decrease in young adult casual sexual activity between 2007 and 2017. We find that about one quarter of the drop in young women’s propensity to have casual sex is attributable to a decline in their frequency of drinking alcohol. Of the various sources of the decline in sexual activity considered in this analysis, the decline in alcohol consumption is the only factor that explains a significant portion of the decline in young women’s probability of engaging in casual sex.

A somewhat different story emerges for young men. As with young women, a decline in the frequency of drinking alcohol is an important source of young men’s diminished likelihood of having casual sex. But unlike for young women, among young men increases in the frequency of playing computer games and in the tendency to reside in the parental home also play important roles. Although both young women and young men play computer games more frequently now than in the past, gaming inhibits only young men’s casual sex behavior. The factors hypothesized to explain the decline in casual sexual intercourse explain a greater portion of the decline in young men’s than in young women’s propensity to engage in casual sex.

We find no evidence that some other transformations in the lives of emerging young adults can explain the decline in their casual sexual activity. Trends in young adults’ financial insecurity, including their student debt load, do not appear to underlie their change in casual sexual activity. Nor does an increase in time spent watching television. And among young women the increase in the use of the Internet appears to actually suppress what would otherwise have been a larger drop in the propensity to engage in sex with someone who is not a romantic partner.

We acknowledge that our findings raise questions as to what factors are driving changes in these proximate sources of the decline in young adult casual sexual activity. Further research is needed to identify the causes of trends in young adult alcohol consumption, computer gaming, and parental coresidence. Although changes in each behavior may have unique determinants, it is possible that some hard-to-quantify change in the young adult cultural zeitgeist is driving changes in these proximate determinants of casual sexual activity, as well as trends in casual sex. Growing individualism and reduced sociability might lead to less partying (and hence less drinking), more computer gaming, and less autonomous living, while also diminishing the desire for sexual intercourse—at least the type of casual encounters captured in this analysis. Causation could also run in the reverse direction if a diminished desire for casual sex leads youth to party, and drink, less frequently and to play more computer games, perhaps all the while living in the proverbial parents’ basement. Quantifying these potentially distal sources of change in young adults’ causal sexual activity is likely to be difficult, so qualitative studies may have much to offer here.

Future research might also profit by redressing some of the limitations of this analysis. The small sample size makes it difficult to detect significant associations or subgroup differences. Our measure of casual sexual activity is rather crude and could both undercount and overcount the nonromantic sexual encounters considered to be casual sex. The measure is also insensitive to heterogeneity in the types of these encounters. Trends in, and determinants of, one-time sex with strangers might differ substantially from sexual encounters between friends or former romantic partners and from encounters that one or both participants hope will lead to a more serious romantic relationship. College “hookups” might be a unique subtype of casual sexual encounters driven by a distinct set of factors (Allison 2016; England and Ronen 2015).

We note as well that our analysis leaves unexplained a substantial portion of the decline in young adults’ casual sexual behavior, particularly among young women. Trends in the hypothesized mediating factors included in this analysis explain more than half of the decline in young men’s odds of engaging in casual sex but account for only about one quarter of the decline in young women’s probability of having a nonromantic sexual encounter. Further research is needed to identify additional causes of the decline in casual sexual activity among young adults. Perhaps the intensifying concern with interpersonal sexual violence and sexual coercion as exemplified in the #MeToo movement has begun inhibiting presumably voluntary casual sexual encounters between young women and men. The impact of this and other broad cultural shifts will also likely be difficult to measure but may well require consideration in order to develop a comprehensive assessment of the decline in young adults’ casual sexual activity.

Over 14,000 individuals from 45 countries were asked whether they embraced, stroked, kissed, or hugged their partner, friends, and youngest child during the week preceding the study

Affective Interpersonal Touch in Close Relationships: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Agnieszka Sorokowska et al. Pers Soc Psychol Bull, Feb 22 2021, doi: 10.1177/0146167220988373

Abstract: Interpersonal touch behavior differs across cultures, yet no study to date has systematically tested for cultural variation in affective touch, nor examined the factors that might account for this variability. Here, over 14,000 individuals from 45 countries were asked whether they embraced, stroked, kissed, or hugged their partner, friends, and youngest child during the week preceding the study. We then examined a range of hypothesized individual-level factors (sex, age, parasitic history, conservatism, religiosity, and preferred interpersonal distance) and cultural-level factors (regional temperature, parasite stress, regional conservatism, collectivism, and religiosity) in predicting these affective-touching behaviors. Our results indicate that affective touch was most prevalent in relationships with partners and children, and its diversity was relatively higher in warmer, less conservative, and religious countries, and among younger, female, and liberal people. This research allows for a broad and integrated view of the bases of cross-cultural variability in affective touch.

Keywords: affective touch; cross-cultural psychology; interpersonal behaviors; touch behaviors.

From 2010... A central feature of patriarchy has been the construction of ‘moral’ ideologies that inhibit women from exploiting their erotic capital to achieve benefits; women have more erotic capital because they work harder at it

From 2010... Erotic Capital. Catherine Hakim. European Sociological Review, Volume 26, Issue 5, October 2010, Pages 499–518, https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcq014

Abstract: We present a new theory of erotic capital as a fourth personal asset, an important addition to economic, cultural, and social capital. Erotic capital has six, or possibly seven, distinct elements, one of which has been characterized as ‘emotional labour’. Erotic capital is increasingly important in the sexualized culture of affluent modern societies. Erotic capital is not only a major asset in mating and marriage markets, but can also be important in labour markets, the media, politics, advertising, sports, the arts, and in everyday social interaction. Women generally have more erotic capital than men because they work harder at it. Given the large imbalance between men and women in sexual interest over the life course, women are well placed to exploit their erotic capital. A central feature of patriarchy has been the construction of ‘moral’ ideologies that inhibit women from exploiting their erotic capital to achieve economic and social benefits. Feminist theory has been unable to extricate itself from this patriarchal perspective and reinforces ‘moral’ prohibitions on women's sexual, social, and economic activities and women’s exploitation of their erotic capital.

Denial of Erotic Capital

The Male Bias in Perspectives

Why has erotic capital been overlooked by social scientists? This failure of Bourdieu and other researchers is testimony to the continuing dominance of male perspectives in sociology and economics, even in the 21st century. Bourdieu's failure is all the more remarkable because he analysed relationships between men and women, and was sensitive to the competition for control and power in relationships (Bourdieu, 1998). However, like many others, Bourdieu was only interested in the three class-related and inheritable assets that are convertible into each other. Erotic capital is distinctive in not being controlled by social class and status,21 and has a subversive character.

Erotic capital has been overlooked because it is held mostly by women, and the social sciences have generally overlooked or disregarded women in their focus on male activities, values and interests. The patriarchal bias in the social sciences reflects the male hegemony in society as a whole. Men have taken steps to prevent women exploiting their one major advantage over men, starting with the idea that erotic capital is worthless.22 Women who parade their beauty or sexuality are belittled as stupid, lacking in intellect, and other 'meaningful' social attributes. The Christian religion has been particularly vigorous in deprecating and disdaining everything to do with sex and sexuality as base and impure, shameful, belonging to a lower aspect of humanity. Laws are devised to prevent women from exploiting their erotic capital. For example, female dancers in Britain are debased by classifying lapdancing clubs as ‘sexual encounter’ venues, later amended to the marginally less stigmatizing ‘sexual entertainment’ venues in the new Crime and Policing law debated in Parliament in 2009. They are prohibited from charging commercial fees for surrogate pregnancies, a job that is exclusively and peculiarly female. If men could produce babies, it seems likely that it would be one of the highest paid occupations, but men use ‘moral’ arguments to ensure that women are not allowed to exploit any advantage.

The most powerful and effective weapon deployed by men to curtail women's use of erotic capital is the disdain and contempt heaped on female sex workers. Sex surveys in Europe show that few people regard commercial sex jobs as an occupation just like any other. Women working in the commercial sex industry are regarded as victims, drug addicts, losers, incompetents, or as people you would not wish to meet socially (Shrage, 1994, pp. 88). The patriarchal nature of these stereotypes is exposed by quite different attitudes to male prostitutes: attitudes here are ambivalent, conflicted, and unsure (Malo de Molina, 1992, pp. 203). Commercial sex is often classified as a criminal activity so that it is forced underground, as in the USA, and women working in the industry are harassed by the police and criminal justice system. Even in countries where selling sex is legal, such as Britain, Finland, or Kenya, everything connected with the work is stigmatized and criminalized, with the same effect.

Male control of female erotic capital is primarily ideological. The ‘moral’ opprobrium that enfolds the commercial sale of sexual performance and sexual services extends to all contexts where there is any exchange of erotic capital for money or status. Occupations, such as stripper or lapdancer, are stigmatized as lewd, salacious, sleazy, meretricious, and prurient (Frank, 2002). An attractive young woman who seeks to marry a wealthy man is branded a ‘gold-digger’, criticized for ‘taking advantage of’ men unfairly and immorally. The underlying logic is that men should get what they want from women for free, especially sex. Surprisingly, feminists have supported this ideology instead of seeking to challenge and overturn it. Even the participants in beauty contests are criticized by women.23

The patriarchal ‘morality’ that denies the economic value of erotic capital operates in a similar way to downplay the economic value of other personal services and care work. England and Folbre (1999: pp. 46) point out that the principle that money cannot buy love has the unintended and perverse consequence of justifying low pay for personal service and care work, a conclusion reiterated by Zelizer (2005, pp. 302).

The Failure of Feminist Theory

Why have women, and feminists more particularly, failed to identify and valorize erotic capital? In essence, because feminist theory has proven unable to shed the patriarchal perspective, reinforcing it while ostensibly challenging it. Strictly speaking, this position is a feature of radical Anglo-Saxon feminism more specifically, but the international prominence of the English language (and of the USA) makes this the dominant feminist perspective today.24

Feminist theory erects a false dichotomy: either a woman is valued for her human capital (her brains, education, work experience, and dedication to her career) or she is valued for her erotic capital (her beauty, elegant figure, dress style, sexuality, grace, and charm). Women with brains and beauty are not allowed to use both—to ‘walk on two legs’ as Chairman Mao put it.

Any scholar who argues that women have unique skills or special assets of any kind is instantly outlawed by being branded an ‘essentialist’. In principle, biological essentialism refers to an outdated theory that there are important and unalterable biological differences between men and women, which assign them to separate life courses. At present, it is often used to refer to the evolutionary psychology thesis that men focus on the sexual selection of the best women with whom to breed, while women invest heavily in their offspring. Put crudely, ‘sexuality for men and reproduction for women' are treated as the root cause of all social and economic differences between men and women. In practice, the ‘essentialist’ label has become an easy term of abuse among feminists, being applied to any theory or idea regarded as unacceptable or unwelcome (Campbell, 2002). This has the advantage of avoiding the need to address the research evidence for inconvenient ideas and theories. This approach is displayed in books that seek to summarize current feminist debates on sex/gender, in the process demonstrating that these discussions are so ideological, and so divorced from empirical research, that they have become theological debates (Browne, 2007).

A key failure of feminist scholarship is the way it has maintained the male hegemony in theory, although it has been more innovative and fruitful in empirical research. Feminists insist that women's position in society should depend exclusively on their economic and social capital. Cultural capital (where women can have the edge over men) is rarely pulled into the picture. It follows that women should invest in educational qualifications and employment careers in preference to developing their erotic capital and investing in marriage careers. The European Commission has adopted feminist ideology wholesale, and insists that ‘gender equality’ is to be measured exclusively by employment rates, occupational segregation, access to the top jobs, personal incomes, and the pay gap,25 treating women without paid jobs as ‘unequal’ to men.

Female social scientists repeatedly dismiss the idea that physical attractiveness and sexuality are power assets for women vis-à-vis men. For example, Lipman-Blumen (1984, pp. 89–90) lists this as just one in a series of 'control myths' adopted by men to justify the status quo; she claims that male vested interests necessarily bias any argument offered by men, even if they are social scientists. Feminist theory has so far failed to explain why men with high incomes and status regularly choose trophy (second) wives and arm-candy mistresses, while women who have achieved career success and high incomes generally prefer to marry alpha males rather than seeking toyboys and impecunious men who would make good househusbands and fathers (Hakim, 2000, pp. 153, 201).

Sylvia Walby (1990, pp. 79) admits in passing that the power to create children is one of women's few power bases, but she never states what the others might be. Mary Evans admits that Anglo-Saxon feminism is profoundly uncomfortable with sexuality, and frames it in a relentlessly negative perspective (Evans, 2003, pp. 99; see also Walby, 1990, pp. 110). Feminists argue that there is no real distinction between marriage and prostitution; that (hetero)sexuality is central to women's subordination by men; that patriarchal men seek to establish what Carole Pateman (1988, pp. 194, 205) calls ‘male sex-right’—male control of men's sexual access to women. Marriage and prostitution are portrayed as forms of slavery (Pateman, 1988, pp. 230; Wittig, 1992). Sexuality is the setting for every kind of male violence against women, overlooking women's use of sexuality to control men—a very one-sided perspective.26 Feminist theory and debate also display ambivalence about the idea of sex and gender, which is presented as a patriarchal cultural imposition, with no link to the human body and motherhood (Wittig, 1992; Browne, 2007). With heterosexuality (and motherhood) presented as the root cause of women’s oppression, feminist solutions include celibacy, autoeroticism, lesbianism, and androgyny (Coppock et al., 1995). Paradoxically, these solutions reduce the supply of female sexuality to men, and thus raise the value of erotic capital among heterosexual women.

Feminist discourse comes in many colours and flavours, and is constantly changing, but the common theme is that women are the victims of male oppression and patriarchy, so that heterosexuality becomes suspect, a case of sleeping with the enemy, and the deployment of erotic capital becomes an act of treason. Post-feminism seems at first to avoid this perspective. Post-feminism is a mixed bag of literature, by novelists and journalists as well as social scientists (Coppock et al., 1995; Whelehan, 1995). There is no single theme or thesis, although men are less likely to be treated as the source of all women’s problems. However post-feminism is unable to escape from the puritan Anglo-Saxon asceticism and its unwavering antipathy towards beauty and sexuality. Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth, a diatribe against the rising value and importance of beauty and sexual attractiveness, is reinforced by feminists (Jeffreys, 2005). Lookism encapsulates the puritan Anglo-Saxon antipathy to beauty and sexuality, arguing that taking any account of someone’s appearance should be outlawed, effectively making the valorization of erotic capital unlawful (Chancer, 1998, pp. 82–172).

One stream of feminist theory presents men as violent sexual predators who exploit women. Another theoretical stream dismantles the concepts of sex and gender, so there are no fixed ‘opposites’ for mutual attraction anyway. A third theme treats beauty and pleasure as dangerous traps. Between these three themes, ideas of exuberant sexuality and women’s erotic power over men are squeezed out of existence. Feminist perspectives are so infused with patriarchal ideology that they seem unable to perceive heterosexuality as a source of pleasure and entertainment, and of women’s power over men.