Across a variety of economic decision-making situations, we were able to show a more generous attitude towards attractive people; this bias has been shown to be stronger for women, especially when men are the favoring subjects

Voit, M., Weiß, M. & Hewig, J. The benefits of beauty – Individual differences in the pro-attractiveness bias in social decision making. Curr Psychol (2021). Oct 28 2001. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-02366-3

Abstract: While there already is a huge body of research examining the advantages and disadvantages of physical attractiveness in social and economic decisions, little research has been made to explore the role of individual differences in social decision-making with regard to beauty. To close this scientific gap, we conducted a multiparadigm online study (N = 210; 52% females) in which participants were asked to make decisions in four different economic games facing differently attractive counterparts. Additionally, the personality trait agreeableness was assessed to test for individual differences in decision-making. In exploratory analyses, we also assessed which facet of agreeableness is the most appropriate to predict individual differences in the various economic games. In the study, we were able to replicate the finding of a beauty premium and a plainness penalty but did not find any support for the idea of a beauty penalty. Furthermore, evidence for an opposite-sex advantage was found, which was greater when men were facing women than the other way around. While agreeableness as an overall trait influenced decision making across various paradigms, interactions of distinct facets of agreeableness with the partners’ attractiveness remain heterogeneous and ambiguous. This underlines the importance of integrating the specificity of certain traits in experimental research and the necessity of combining them with different social situations.

Discussion

We investigated how attractiveness and the sex of a social interaction partner affects decision making in four different social and economic paradigms depending on the participants’ sex. To evaluate different aspects of a social interaction, we have chosen the Dictator Game, Trust Game, Ultimatum Game, and Prisoner's Dilemma. Moreover, we examined how the Big Five personality factor agreeableness interacts with decision-making and which particular facet of agreeableness is predictive in the different paradigms.

As expected, participants perceived the attractiveness of their counterparts in line with the intended attractiveness category. Moreover, men rated the range of opposite-sex counterparts’ attractiveness as broader than the range of same-sex partners’ attractiveness. Men thus rated unattractive females as less attractive than unattractive males, whereas attractive females were rated as more attractive than attractive males. Women made no such sex distinctions in the category of attractive and unattractive partners. Hence, men seem to be more judgmental than women towards the partner’s attractiveness when facing a different-sex partner compared to same-sex partners. This is consistent with previous findings (Levy et al., 2008), where men (contrary to women) rated beautiful women as more attractive than beautiful men, which also correlated with enhanced motivational effort for viewing attractive females.

In line with our first hypothesis, we were able to show that in the TG, DG and PD, there was both a clear beauty premium and a plainness penalty, as attractive individuals received more money and higher cooperation rates, whereas unattractive individuals received less money and lower cooperation rates in comparison with moderately attractive individuals. Even in the UG, both a beauty premium and a plainness penalty could be observed for female proposers, when the receiver was male. These findings strengthen the concept of a beauty premium and a plainness penalty, which were firstly described by Hamermesh and Biddle (1993) and further supported by a large body of evidence (e. g., Ma & Hu, 2015; Solnick & Schweitzer, 1999; Wilson & Eckel, 2006). It may be hypothesized that participants show more beneficial economic decisions towards more attractive individuals of both sexes in order to promote positive social relations with them due to their expected qualities (Andreoni & Petrie, 2008; Boyatzis et al., 1998; Dion et al., 1972; Eagly et al., 1991; Feingold, 1992; Langlois et al., 2000; Shinada & Yamagishi, 2014b; Wilson & Eckel, 2006). Accordingly, participants are supposedly less interested in positive interactions and exhibit a lower monetary investment if the social counterpart is of low attractiveness. However, unfair offers from attractive individuals were not rejected more often than unfair offers from less attractive individuals, thus no evidence for a beauty penalty was found. This contradicts our second hypothesis, which was based on the previous findings of Eckel & Wilson (2004) and Andreoni and Petrie (2008) who found attractive individuals who disappointed the participants expectations to be punished harder in a TG and a public goods dilemma, respectively. One has to take into account, though, that in the UG, attractiveness in general seemed to be far less relevant than the size of offer when it comes to decision making. We found no main effect of attractiveness (and only minor advantages for attractive women compared to moderately attractive ones and moderately attractive women compared to unattractive women, when the participant was male) which could explain the absence of a beauty penalty as well. Having identified attractiveness as an important impact factor on social and economic decisions, further research should focus on means to overcome this beauty gap. Moreover, as the beauty gap appears to be greater for women compared to men, unattractive women face a twofold discrimination. Spending so much (well invested) time and energy on discussions of how to overcome the gender gap, society needs to discuss how to deal with this kind of discrimination in everyday and work life. In a recent study placing participants in a hiring position, Tu et al. (2021) found a means to level the gap in an economic context. By asking unattractive individuals to take a powerful body posture, they were rated as being more nonverbally present and the initially found disadvantage in hireability diminished. However, this is not an overarching resolution and may not pay off in social encounters.

Delving into the influence of personality, we could show participants scoring higher on agreeableness as an overall trait tended to be more altruistic, trusting and cooperative. This is consistent with a variety of previous studies who found agreeableness positively linked to cooperation and generosity (e.g., Kagel & McGee, 2014; Koole et al., 2001; Volk et al., 2011; Zhao & Smillie, 2015). Surprisingly and contrary to our third hypothesis, agreeableness did not lead to an increase in decisions in favor of attractive individuals, but even downsized the payment gap between the most and least attractive partners in the DG. As agreeableness was found to play an important role in the inhibition of affect and emotion control (Ode et al., 2008; Robinson, 2007) and the suppression of hostile thoughts (Meier et al., 2006), more agreeable participants may inhibit the urge to favor or discriminate counterparts exclusively based on their (un)attractiveness. However, high levels of agreeableness did not affect the payment and cooperation gap in three out of the four games, but solely led to higher rates of cooperation and payment for all counterparts, regardless of their attractiveness. The abovementioned explanatory approach is thus not completely satisfactory and further research is required. Interestingly, increasing agreeableness scores in women led to decreasing acceptance rates of high and medium offers in the UG. This was not the case for men, who were more likely to accept high offers when scoring high in agreeableness. Further research is needed to determine whether this interaction follows a systematic mechanism or appeared incidentally in our paradigm.

As hypothesized, women benefited more from their attractiveness than men most of the time, contributing to a large body of evidence (Busetta et al., 2013; French, 2002; Kahn et al., 1971; Maestripieri et al., 2017). However, as women were also perceived as more attractive, the origin of this pro-femaleness bias may rather lay in their attractiveness than in their sex. In addition to the pro-femaleness bias, we found evidence for the predicted opposite-sex bias in ratings. The opposite-sex bias was especially large for male participants who preferred attractive female counterparts over attractive male counterparts. This sex difference has already been described in similar studies (e.g., Bhogal et al., 2016) and has also been explained from an evolutionary perspective. While men prefer female mates that show high reproductive value, and thus attractiveness, women emphasize males that present themselves as cooperative and altruistic (see Buss, 1989, for a more detailed discussion). It thus makes sense that males behave in ways that signal resource acquisition, e.g., altruism, generosity, and cooperation when facing highly attractive females. However, in our economic games an opposite-sex bias that depends on attractiveness was only found in DG and PD as evidenced by the three-way interaction of attractiveness, partner sex and participant sex. In these cases, both men and women showed relatively more beneficial economic decisions towards more attractive opposite-sex counterparts. This may be linked to mechanisms of mating behavior in both gender groups and could have an evolutionary background with attractiveness signaling health and fertility for the opposite sex (Maestripieri et al., 2017).

In a recent review, Kou et al. (2020) discuss the underlying cognitive mechanisms influencing the processing of facial attractiveness. They also argue that evolutionary processes may play an important role in both the opposite-sex bias and the femaleness bias when processing differently attractive faces. However, they could not fully discover whether the “female beauty captures attention” or the “opposite-sex beauty captures attention” hypothesis is more likely.

Interestingly, while unattractive women received more money than unattractive men in the DG and in the TG, they faced disadvantages in the PD, where participants cooperated less often with them than with their male counterparts. The reason for these dissimilarities may lay in the differences in the paradigms. Only in the PD, participants rely on their partner’s willingness to cooperate. As they have no other cue than their counterpart’s physical appearance when deciding whether or not to cooperate, the detrimental biases of unattractive counterparts seems to be stronger when facing women than men. In the other paradigms, participants were more generous towards unattractive women than men.

In our explorative analyses we examined which specific facets are especially predictive for decision making in the different paradigms. Concerning the UG and the PD, the facet trust predicted cooperation and acceptance rates to the highest degree. In the TG, increasing scores on the facet of sympathy led to higher amounts of entrusted money. This is counterintuitive as in both the TG and the subscale of trust are supposed to measure trust as a construct and should thus highly correlate. Respectively, in the PD and the UG, one would intuitively expect cooperation to have a stronger influence on decision making than trust. This begs the question whether the subscales of agreeableness do measure distinguishable facets or if the intercorrelation is too high to actually differ between the constructs. It does also underline the importance to include several paradigms and subscales to explore the mechanisms underlying the interaction of attractiveness, the facets of agreeableness and the decision to behave in cooperative, trusting, and altruistic ways.

Taking all the results presented above into account, we found strong support for both a beauty premium and a plainness penalty whereas a beauty penalty could not be observed. Evidence was also found for a stronger pro attractiveness bias for women compared to men, which is in line with a variety of studies. Interestingly, increasing agreeableness did not lead to stronger benefits for attractive counterparts, but rather reduced the beauty gap. Furthermore, in differing economic games, different facets of agreeableness seemed especially predictive. Including multiple games and multiple facets of agreeableness in our study led to a more differentiated and sounder outcome than we would have found with only one specific paradigm.

As a limitation we want to point out the attractiveness differences concerning our counterparts. Both women and men rated moderately attractive females as more attractive than moderately attractive males. This could bias the effects in favor for women and lead to a diminished generalizability. While the reliabilities of the faces were particularly high in the TG and DG (all values of α ≥ 0.85), and acceptable in the UG (most values of α > 0.7), in the PD, however, most reliabilities fell below the critical value of 0.7, as participants differed more severely in their decisions whether or not to cooperate with the different attractive counterparts. Thus, the results for the PD should be taken with caution due to their limited consistency.

To simplify our paradigm, we only included pictures of white, young to middle-aged faces. Future studies should include other races and ages (in both counterparts and participants) to increase the generalizability, as social proximity was found to influence social decisions (Balliet et al., 2014). Moreover, further research is necessary to examine whether the effects are transferable into face-to-face situations.

After a third of houses in a town were covered by lava., people living in them were much more likely to move away permanently; for the children, being induced to move by the “lava shock” dramatically raised lifetime earnings & education

The Gift of Moving: Intergenerational Consequences of a Mobility Shock. Emi Nakamura, Jósef Sigurdsson, Jón Steinsson. The Review of Economic Studies, rdab062, September 20 2021. https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdab062

Abstract: We exploit a volcanic “experiment” to study the costs and benefits of geographic mobility. In our experiment, a third of the houses in a town were covered by lava. People living in these houses were much more likely to move away permanently. For the dependents in a household (children), our estimates suggest that being induced to move by the “lava shock” dramatically raised lifetime earnings and education. While large, these estimates come with a substantial amount of statistical uncertainty. The benefits of moving were very unequally distributed across generations: the household heads (parents) were made slightly worse off by the shock. These results suggest large barriers to moving for the children, which imply that labour does not flow to locations where it earns the highest returns. The large gains from moving for the young are surprising in light of the fact that the town affected by our volcanic experiment was (and is) a relatively high income town. We interpret our findings as evidence of the importance of comparative advantage: the gains to moving may be very large for those badly matched to the location they happened to be born in, even if differences in average income are small.

Stability of rejection: Heterosexual men were more likely to report engaging in anti-gay behavior, wanting to avoid contact with gay men; heterosexual women reported a stronger desire to avoid contact with lesbians than did heterosexual men

Gender Differences in Anti-Gay Prejudice: Evidence for Stability and Change. Mary E. Kite, Bernard. E. Whitley, Jr., Kim Buxton & Hannah Ballas. Sex Roles, Oct 28 2021. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-021-01227-4

Abstract: In recent years, there has been remarkable change in societal acceptance of lesbians and gay men. This meta-analysis explored whether this positive shift has reduced the gender difference in these attitudes. We tested Kite and Whitley’s (1996) gender belief system model and replicated their finding that heterosexual men held more negative attitudes toward gay people (g. = 0.37, k = 245, N = 98,295), gay behavior (g. = 0.22, k = 68, N = 98,734), and gay civil rights (g. = 0.16, k = 80, N = 89,187). We also found that heterosexual men were more likely to report engaging in anti-gay behavior (g. = 0.53, k = 7, N = 2,509), endorsing gay stereotypes (g. = 0.17, k = 17, N = 6,936), and wanting to avoid contact with gay men (g. = 0.49, k = 7, N = 2,178). However, heterosexual women reported a stronger desire to avoid contact with lesbians than did heterosexual men (g. = -0.36, k = 5, N = 1,339). For the most part, gender differences remained stable over time; the exceptions were attitudes toward same-gender sexual behavior and attitudes toward lesbian and gay civil rights, which showed small increases. Gender differences in anti-gay prejudice were mediated by gender differences in traditional gender-role beliefs. Moderator variables included participant group, type of measure, and target group.

Romantic dealbreaker factors: Hostile, Unattractive, Unambitious, Filthy, Arrogant, Clingy, and Abusive

Seven deadly sins of potential romantic partners: The dealbreakers of mate choice. Zsófia Csajbók, Mihály Berkics. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 186, Part B, February 2022, 111334. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.111334

Highlights

• Previous research focused on positive factors of mate preferences.

• Undesirable characteristics of a potential partner may weigh more in mate choice.

• Negative, dealbreaker characteristics loaded on seven factors.

• Dealbreakers complement dealmakers in mate choice.

Abstract: Mate preference research predominantly focused on what people desire in a romantic partner, i.e., dealmakers. It was demonstrated that undesirable traits (dealbreakers) may weigh more in mate choice decisions than desirable traits. We conducted four studies to investigate the key dimensions on which these aversive traits are measured, how the dealbreaker factors complement the dealmaker factors in perceptions of a potential partner, and whether dealbreakers indeed weigh more in mate choice decisions than dealmakers. In Study 1, N = 155 participants reported 96 undesirable characteristics in a potential partner. In Study 2, N = 2445 participants rated these undesirable characteristics according to how much each would make them reject a potential partner. Seven dealbreaker factors were extracted: Hostile, Unattractive, Unambitious, Filthy, Arrogant, Clingy, and Abusive. Study 3 employed the budget-allocation method (N = 1175) and found some consistencies and inconsistencies in the most crucial necessities when measured by dealbreakers vs dealmakers. Lastly, Study 4 found (N = 442) participants were more interested in knowing first their potential partner's dealmaker vs dealbreaker characteristics under constraints. In contrast to previous research, we could not demonstrate the higher importance of relationship dealbreakers when compared to dealmakers, but the two concepts were shown to well complement each other in mate preference research.

Keywords: Mate preferencesMate choiceDealbreakersDealmakersError management theory

Mere Ownership Effect Is Equally Pronounced in Material and Immaterial Objects

Bialek, Michal, Michał Stefańczyk, and Marta Rokosz. 2021. “Mere Ownership Effect Is Equally Pronounced in Material and Immaterial Objects.” PsyArXiv. October 27. doi:10.31234/osf.io/c9sbm

Abstract: The mere ownership effect is an increase in the subjective value of owned objects compared to identical but non-owned objects. We tested whether the effect differs in magnitude between material and immaterial objects (e.g., information). Three hundred participants played an incentivized detective game in which they had to connect clues to identify a murderer. Their task was to evaluate the usefulness of the clues they or their partners were endowed with. Despite the fact that the immaterial clues were rated as more useful than the material ones, we found the mere ownership effect to be similarly strong for the material and the immaterial clues.

Mock jurors rendered more proprosecution case judgments when the victim was cisgender vs trans; when the victim was cisgender vs trans, mock jurors were more likely to convict, rated the defendant less credible, and rated the victim more credible

Miller, Q. C., & London, K. (2021). Mock jurors’ perceptions of child sexual abuse cases involving sexual and gender minority victims. Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, Oct 2021. https://doi.org/10.1037/sgd0000541

Abstract: Sexual and gender minority youth are at high risk of maltreatment and subsequent criminal justice system involvement, yet jurors’ perceptions of these individuals have yet to be investigated. In the current research, we examined mock jurors’ decisions after reading a case summary manipulating victim gender (boy, girl), gender identity (cisgender, transgender), and sexual orientation (straight, gay). Jury-eligible community member participants (N = 368) read a case summary describing an alleged incident of child sexual abuse between a male teacher and an adolescent victim then rendered various case judgments. Mock jurors rendered more proprosecution case judgments when the victim was cisgender versus transgender. When the victim was cisgender versus transgender, mock jurors were more likely to convict, rated the defendant less credible, and rated the victim more credible. Effects of victim gender identity varied as a function of gender, but only when the victim was transgender. When the victim was a transgender boy versus girl, jurors were more likely to convict, rendered higher ratings of defendant degree of guilt, rated the defendant less credible, and rated the victim more credible. Findings have implications for jury instructions and voir dire processes when gender minority individuals encounter the justice system.

Boys to STEM occupation, girls to people-oriented occ.: Women's empowerment is associated with relatively high levels of national wealth & this wealth allows more students to aspire to occupations they are intrinsically interested in

Stoet, Gijsbert, and David C. Geary. 2021. “Sex Differences in Adolescents’ Occupational Aspirations: Variations Across Time and Place.” PsyArXiv. October 20. doi:10.31234/osf.io/zhvre

Abstract: We investigated sex differences in 473,260 adolescents’ aspirations to work in things-oriented (e.g., mechanic), people-oriented (e.g., nurse), and STEM (e.g., mathematician) careers across 80 countries and economic regions using the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). We analyzed student career aspirations in combination with student achievement in mathematics, reading, and science, as well as parental occupations and family wealth. In each country and region, more boys than girls aspired to a things-oriented or STEM occupation and more girls than boys to a people-oriented occupation. These sex differences were larger in countries with a higher level of women's empowerment. We explain this counter-intuitive finding through the indirect effect of wealth. Women's empowerment is associated with relatively high levels of national wealth and this wealth allows more students to aspire to occupations they are intrinsically interested in. Implications for better understanding the sources of sex differences in career aspirations and associated policy are discussed.

There was no evidence whatsoever that older adults of today have more favorable views on how they age than older adults did two decades ago

Wahl, H.-W., Drewelies, J., Duezel, S., Lachman, M. E., Smith, J., Eibich, P., Steinhagen-Thiessen, E., Demuth, I., Lindenberger, U., Wagner, G. G., Ram, N., & Gerstorf, D. (2021). Subjective age and attitudes toward own aging across two decades of historical time. Psychology and Aging, Oct 2021. https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000649

Abstract: A large body of empirical evidence has accumulated showing that the experience of old age is “younger,” more “agentic,” and “happier” than ever before. However, it is not yet known whether historical improvements in well-being, control beliefs, cognitive functioning, and other outcomes generalize to individuals’ views on their own aging process. To examine historical changes in such views on aging, we compared matched cohorts of older adults within two independent studies that assessed differences across a two-decade interval, the Berlin Aging Studies (BASE; 1990/1993 vs. 2017/2018, each n = 256, Mage = 77) and the Midlife in the United States Study (MIDUS; 1995/1996 vs. 2013/14, each n = 848, Mage = 67). Consistent across four different dimensions of individuals’ subjective views on aging (age felt, age appeared, desired age, and attitudes toward own aging) in the BASE and corroborated with subjective age felt and subjective age desired in the MIDUS, there was no evidence whatsoever that older adults of today have more favorable views on how they age than older adults did two decades ago. Further, heterogeneity in views on aging increased across two decades in the MIDUS but decreased in BASE. Also consistent across studies, associations of views on aging with sociodemographic, health, cognitive, and psychosocial correlates did not change across historical times. We discuss possible reasons for our findings, including the possibility that individual age views may have become increasingly decoupled from societal age views.

Physically strong men were consistently perceived as more conservative; inferences from strength cues were moderated neither by type of conservatism (i.e., fiscal versus social) nor presence of wealth cues

Brown, Mitch, Donald F. Sacco, and Aaron Lukaszewski. 2021. “Physical Strength as a Heuristic Cue of Political Conservatism.” PsyArXiv. October 26. doi:10.31234/osf.io/g5f87

Abstract: Social bargaining models posit physically formidable men tend to pursue strategies for acquiring resources and status through direct competition and promoting hierarchical social organization. Previous research indicates that formidable men espouse more conservative political viewpoints, as a means of advancing social policies favoring use of aggressive bargaining and hierarchy-maintenance strategies. If the mind is designed to utilize probabilistic cues of behavioral strategies, physical strength may function as a heuristic cue of political conservatism. Participants in three studies inferred conservatism of physically strong and weak men. Physically strong men were consistently perceived as more conservative (Studies 1 and 2). Inferences from strength cues were moderated neither by type of conservatism (i.e., fiscal versus social) nor presence of wealth cues. Inferences further extended to tradition-based and libertarian moral foundations domains (Study 3). We frame results using an affordance management framework, suggesting individuals utilize cues to formidability as heuristics to infer political attitudes.

Opium Wars' impact on China’s economy during the 19th century: They brought down local interest rates, & regions under Western influence exhibited both higher rates of industry growth and technology adoption

The Economic Consequences of the Opium War. Wolfgang Keller & Carol H. Shiue. NBER Working Paper 29404, Oct 2021. https://www.nber.org/papers/w29404

Abstract: This paper studies the economic consequences of the West’s foray into China after the Opium War (1839-42), when Western colonial influence was introduced in dozens of so-called treaty ports. We document a turnaround during the 19th century in the nature of China’s capital markets. Whereas before the Opium War, coastal cities were of relatively minor importance, the treaty port system of the West transformed China into an economy focused on coastal areas and on international trade that aligned with the trading interests of the West. We show, first, that the West had a positive impact on China’s economy during the 19th century. It brought down local interest rates, and regions under Western influence exhibited both higher rates of industry growth and technology adoption. Second, the geographic scope of influence went far beyond the ports, impacting most of China. Interest rates fell by more than a quarter in the immediate vicinity of the ports and still by almost ten percent at distances of 450 kilometers from treaty ports. The development of China was not simply propelled by its own pre-1800 history, or by post-1978 reforms. The nearly 100 years of semi-colonization have shaped China’s economy today as one focused on the coastal areas. 

Six-year-olds appear to more flexibly use multiple sources of information than younger children & adults; in their development, children are able to weigh information before they are too biased toward individuating information

Gualtieri, S., & Denison, S. (2021). Developmental change in the use of base-rates and individuating information. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Oct 2021. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001121

Abstract: Adults tend to make biased inferences when they are given base-rates (i.e., prior probabilities) that conflict with individuating information (i.e., a personality description), relying heavily on individuating information. Recent work has shown that six-year-olds do the same, whereas four-year-olds rely more on prior probabilities. In the present article, we revisit the argument that producing responses that align closely with base-rates should necessarily be seen as normative. We instead posit that rational inferences should be sensitive to all relevant information and should depend on its strength. In three experiments, we explored four-year-olds’, six-year-olds’ (N = 200), and adults’ (N = 196) information use by manipulating the strength of individuating and base-rate information. Across base-rate manipulations, adults showed a bias for individuating information regardless of its strength. In contrast, six-year-olds appeared to use each type of information flexibly, depending on which was more informative. Four-year-olds’ performance was less clear: Although they relied on base-rates when they were informative, they struggled to use the individuating information in their inferences and did not appreciate the manipulation of the strength of individuating information. Thus, six-year-olds appear to more flexibly use multiple sources of information than both younger children and adults, suggesting a period in development where children are able to weigh information before they are too biased toward individuating information.

Analyzing language on Reddit, we tracked people’s social, cognitive, and emotional lives as they dealt with the breakup of a close intimate relationship; impending relationship breakups can be detected up to 3 months before they occur

Language left behind on social media exposes the emotional and cognitive costs of a romantic breakup. Sarah Seraj,  Kate G. Blackburn, James W. Pennebaker. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, February 16, 2021 118 (7) e2017154118; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2017154118

Significance: By analyzing language on the social media platform Reddit, we tracked people’s social, cognitive, and emotional lives as they dealt with the breakup of a close intimate relationship. Language markers can detect impending relationship breakups up to 3 mo before they occur, with continued psychological aftereffects lasting 6 mo after the breakup. Because the language shifts are also apparent in subreddits (forums) unrelated to relationships, the research points to the pervasive impact personal upheavals have across people’s social worlds. Comparable cognitive and social effects are apparent among people undergoing divorce or dealing with major life secrets. The analysis of subtle shifts in pronouns, articles, and other almost-invisible words can reveal the psychological effects of life experiences.

Abstract: Using archived social media data, the language signatures of people going through breakups were mapped. Text analyses were conducted on 1,027,541 posts from 6,803 Reddit users who had posted about their breakups. The posts include users’ Reddit history in the 2 y surrounding their breakups across the various domains of their life, not just posts pertaining to their relationship. Language markers of an impending breakup were evident 3 mo before the event, peaking on the week of the breakup and returning to baseline 6 mo later. Signs included an increase in I-words, we-words, and cognitive processing words (characteristic of depression, collective focus, and the meaning-making process, respectively) and drops in analytic thinking (indicating more personal and informal language). The patterns held even when people were posting to groups unrelated to breakups and other relationship topics. People who posted about their breakup for longer time periods were less well-adjusted a year after their breakup compared to short-term posters. The language patterns seen for breakups replicated for users going through divorce (n = 5,144; 1,109,867 posts) or other types of upheavals (n = 51,357; 11,081,882 posts). The cognitive underpinnings of emotional upheavals are discussed using language as a lens.

Discussion

Breaking up is a complicated social and cognitive process that can last many months. The results suggest a natural evolution in the language people use before, during, and after a breakup.

Before the breakup, we see people’s natural thinking patterns on display, but the breakup disrupts this cognitive equilibrium. In fact, even before the actual breakup, analytic thinking drops as people talk about their relationship in a personal and informal manner. One explanation may be that people can sense the end of the relationship. This prebreakup phase reveals a disruption to people’s normal thinking patterns starting almost 3 mo before the breakup.

A second cognitive process is activated when the breakup occurs. As people make decisions about their new lives, their language spikes in the use of cognitive processing words. Finally, as the story becomes more developed and organized, analytic thinking increases again. The fluctuation in analytic and cognitive processing words reveals two dynamic cognitive mechanisms that unfold over the course of a breakup. Indeed, in many ways, these two cognitive processes may be tied to the way we encode experiences and map them into memories. We can see people’s thought process through their word use before a breakup even takes place. Additionally, tracking what happens during the moment of the breakup gives access to the ways people are trying to explain to themselves and others why the breakup occurred.

As seen in the post hoc analyses, those who write about their breakups more frequently are slower to return to their prebreakup language patterns. One explanation is simply that people who need to write continually may have experienced more disruptive or traumatic breakups. Alternatively, writing about the same events repeatedly may be a form of rumination whereby people are reliving the same distressing events over and over. In fact, expressive writing studies have found that people who write about emotional upheavals in similar ways on multiple occasions often do not show as many health benefits compared to those who update their narrative over time (47). By repeatedly recalling the same experience over several months, those who continue to relive the same painful memories might benefit from an alternative coping strategy, such as seeking clinical intervention.

Using language analysis tools, social scientists can now track social shifts in human connections in near-real time. Within hours of people revealing their broken hearts, it is possible to detect how they are communicating with other parts of their social networks about their hobbies, jobs, or religion. Communities such as Reddit provide a laboratory for researchers to measure how different coping strategies can potentially work. One contribution of the current research is that it points to the power of analyzing social media data to understand the unfolding dynamics of interpersonal processes.

The social construction of birthdays: There are many fewer modern U.S. births than would be expected on Christmas Day; in addition, modern parents appear to use birth medicalization to avoid undesirable birthdays (Friday the 13th)

Identity Selection and the Social Construction of Birthdays. Brett W. Pelham et al. Front. Psychol., October 26 2021. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.693776

Abstract: We argue that rather than being a wholly random event, birthdays are sometimes selected by parents. We further argue that such effects have changed over time and are the result of important psychological processes. Long ago, U.S. American parents greatly overclaimed holidays as their children's birthdays. These effects were larger for more important holidays, and they grew smaller as births moved to hospitals and became officially documented. These effects were exaggerated for ethnic groups that deeply valued specific holidays. Parents also overclaimed well-liked calendar days and avoided disliked calendar days as their children's birthdays. However, after birthday selection effects virtually disappeared in the 1950s and 1960s, they reappeared after the emergence of labor induction and planned cesarean birth. For example, there are many fewer modern U.S. births than would be expected on Christmas Day. In addition, modern parents appear to use birth medicalization to avoid undesirable birthdays (Friday the 13th). We argue that basking in reflect glory, ethnic identity processes, and superstitions such as magical thinking all play a role in birthday selection effects. Discussion focuses on the power of social identity in day-to-day judgment and decision-making.

General Discussion

The studies in this report attest to the powerful role intuitive beliefs play in people's preferences for their children's birthdays. They suggest, for example, that basking in reflected glory, superstitious thinking, and the pragmatic goals of health care providers all influence preferences for a real-world outcome, namely a child's date of birth. The finding that birthday selection effects are larger than usual for more important holidays suggests that parents long ago engaged in motivated social cognition or even outright fabrication when recalling their children's dates of birth. This finding, combined with the aversions we have found here and elsewhere for undesirable birthdates, suggests that birthday selection is not simply a matter of memorial accessibility. For example, modern parents clearly avoided giving birth on the 13th of the month. These were actual birthdays rather than remembered birthdays. These findings strongly suggest that parents themselves play at least some role in birthday selection effects. The aversions to certain dates we have observed here and elsewhere suggest that there is much more to birthday selection than simple memorial accessibility.

The naming patterns observed in Study 1 strongly suggest that at least some parents try to help their children bask in the reflected glory of famous people—rather than simply misremembering salient dates as their children's dates of birth. Future research should try to dissect impression management processes and magical thinking processes as separate explanations for the effects document here. Given how robust birthday selection effects are, it would be surprising if a single mechanism were responsible for all cases of birth date selection. Many social preferences are overdetermined.

Limitations of this Research

Many of the studies in this report are open to more than one interpretation. For example, even showing that some parents gave their children names such as “George Washington Johnson” does not guarantee that all parents who chose this birthday for their children were trying to bask in reflected glory. Likewise, most of these studies cannot tell us exactly which parents falsely claimed desirable birthdays and which ones reported birthdays accurately. Further, we assume that more than one psychological mechanism is likely to be at the root of the preferences documented here. Along similar lines, we did not present any evidence that magical thinking played a role in any of these preferences. To address this concern, Pelham and von Hippel (2021) directly asked both parents and college students whether they endorsed “magical” beliefs about birthdays and holidays. These preliminary studies show that people clearly believe that others expect children to possess the traits associated with certain holidays. For example, people report that they believe most Americans think that a child born on Christmas Day will be perceived as “holy” and “generous” —whereas a child born on September 11th will be perceived as “evil” and “Anti-American.” Respondents even concede that they themselves endorse such beliefs—although to a weaker extent than they think such beliefs are endorsed by others. Magical thinking appears to be at least part of the reason for the preferences documented here. But this reinforces the fact that the present studies could not definitively identify the exact mechanisms responsible for the birthday selection effect.

Future research might also assess whether birthday selection in our older data is grounded in (a) motivated memory biases (ranging from self-deception to “judgment calls” that happen when children are born in very close proximity to midnight), or (b) consciously calculated fabrications. Illusory beliefs that portray us and those we love in a favorable light appear to be both more satisfying and more convincing to others when we truly believe them ourselves (Murray et al., 1996; Von Hippel and Trivers, 2011). But it is surely reasonable to assume that some of these parents consciously claimed a desirable birthday for their children. And if some of these parents lied about their children's birth dates, one must ask why they did so. Our findings suggest that at least some of these parents may have felt their children would benefit from basking in the reflected glory of a famous person or event. It is less clear that an obvious fabrication of a child's birth date could allow parents themselves to conclude that their child was especially holy. Magical thinking probably works best among people who personally buy into the relevant association. However, as Von Hippel and Trivers (2011) have argued, the line between self- and other deception is much fuzzier than most people assume. People who are able to convince themselves that a fabrication is true may well have an easier than average time convincing others.

Do our results reflect “cherry picking”? When researchers are able to study entire populations rather than convenience samples, and when they are able to examine every possible operationalization of a variable (as one can do with U.S. holidays but not with variables such as “self-esteem” or “cognitive dissonance”), concerns about “cherry picking” and “researcher degrees of freedom” are largely ruled out. Of course, one can always open the conceptual net—by examining the cross-cultural generality of an effect, for example. This is exactly what some members of this research team are currently doing. Whatever one's perspective, the findings reported here pave the way for critics who might wish to disconfirm our hypotheses. For example, the Social Security Death records examined here are freely available at ancestry.com. Thus, it would be possible to see how robust any one of these holiday biases is across the 50 U.S. states—or to see if these biases vary with cultural variables such as collectivism (see Vandello and Cohen, 1999). Our initial analyses suggest that cultural variables do matter. Both the pro-Christmas bias of yesteryear and the preference for July 4th birthdays were stronger than average in more collectivistic U.S. states. The Christmas Day preference was also much stronger than average in more religious U.S. states. As a final example, researchers could manipulate well-studied self-concept motives in the lab (e.g., using self-affirmation vs. self-concept threat manipulations) to examine the effects of such manipulations on the birthday preferences examined here.

One surprising aspect of our findings in Study 4 is that birthday number effects (e.g., the 11th vs. the 12th of the month) were so large in the 1890–1910 window that they introduced some noise into the assessment of some of the 10 specific holidays we examined in Study 1. In principle, one could ipsatize (i.e., proportionalize) the 31 days of the month during a given historical period to reduce noise when creating effect sizes for the holidays in the same exact window. Of course, these ipsatized scores would need to be calculated separately for different temporal windows, making this task a bit more complex than it would be otherwise. Having said all this, our supplemental analyses (e.g., those comparing claimed birthdays on the 25th of December vs. the 25th of other months) do make it very clear that holiday effects are not merely calendar day effects—or day of the week effects—in disguise. It is also possible that different psychological mechanisms underly the subtle preferences for certain calendar days and the preferences for specific holidays. It is not clear, for example, whether any parents would ever expect their children to bask in the glow of the likable number 14.

Of course, arguments such as these rest on the assumption that a person's birthday can be a part of a person's identity. Is this true? Research suggests so. Most people strongly like their birthday numbers (Kitayama and Karasawa, 1997). Further, many researchers have incorporated liking for one's birthday numbers into measures of implicit self-esteem (DeHart et al., 2006). In principle, any letter, number, or symbol that is associated with a person can become a part of a person's identity. Former professional athletes Reggie Jackson and Wayne Gretsky even incorporated their uniform numbers into their signatures (Armstrong, 1986). Of course, fans of famous athletes often advertise their psychological connection to such athletes—and to the teams for which the athletes play—by wearing copies of the jerseys of famous athletes. Symbols and events that are connected to us and to the groups to which we belong truly become a part of us. Finally, even if most people were not highly invested in their birthdays, those who believe that their birthday is special—because it doubles as a widely adored holiday—might be expected to identify more strongly than average with their birthdates.

These findings attest to the power and pervasiveness of both identity and magical thinking. We have long known that human beings care deeply about their identities (James, 1890; Cooley, 1902; Mead, 1934), including the ethnic, religious, and cultural groups to which they belong. The present findings suggest that parents are keenly aware of the subtle ways in which people can derive a sense of value or worth by merely sharing a birthday with a person who is deeply valued or respected by most others. Likewise, taken together, these studies strongly suggest that magical thinking is alive and well in the distortion and creation of children's dates of birth. For well over a century, U.S. parents have apparently gone to great lengths to create happy birthdays for their children.

Our understanding of why applications of deep learning networks are so effective is lacking; the empirical results should not be possible according to sample complexity in statistics and nonconvex optimization theory

The unreasonable effectiveness of deep learning in artificial intelligence. Terrence J. Sejnowski. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, December 1, 2020 117 (48) 30033-30038; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1907373117

Abstract: Deep learning networks have been trained to recognize speech, caption photographs, and translate text between languages at high levels of performance. Although applications of deep learning networks to real-world problems have become ubiquitous, our understanding of why they are so effective is lacking. These empirical results should not be possible according to sample complexity in statistics and nonconvex optimization theory. However, paradoxes in the training and effectiveness of deep learning networks are being investigated and insights are being found in the geometry of high-dimensional spaces. A mathematical theory of deep learning would illuminate how they function, allow us to assess the strengths and weaknesses of different network architectures, and lead to major improvements. Deep learning has provided natural ways for humans to communicate with digital devices and is foundational for building artificial general intelligence. Deep learning was inspired by the architecture of the cerebral cortex and insights into autonomy and general intelligence may be found in other brain regions that are essential for planning and survival, but major breakthroughs will be needed to achieve these goals.

Keywords: deep learningartificial intelligenceneural networks

Lost in Parameter Space

The network models in the 1980s rarely had more than one layer of hidden units between the inputs and outputs, but they were already highly overparameterized by the standards of statistical learning. Empirical studies uncovered a number of paradoxes that could not be explained at the time. Even though the networks were tiny by today’s standards, they had orders of magnitude more parameters than traditional statistical models. According to bounds from theorems in statistics, generalization should not be possible with the relatively small training sets that were available. However, even simple methods for regularization, such as weight decay, led to models with surprisingly good generalization.

Even more surprising, stochastic gradient descent of nonconvex loss functions was rarely trapped in local minima. There were long plateaus on the way down when the error hardly changed, followed by sharp drops. Something about these network models and the geometry of their high-dimensional parameter spaces allowed them to navigate efficiently to solutions and achieve good generalization, contrary to the failures predicted by conventional intuition.

Network models are high-dimensional dynamical systems that learn how to map input spaces into output spaces. These functions have special mathematical properties that we are just beginning to understand. Local minima during learning are rare because in the high-dimensional parameter space most critical points are saddle points (11). Another reason why good solutions can be found so easily by stochastic gradient descent is that, unlike low-dimensional models where a unique solution is sought, different networks with good performance converge from random starting points in parameter space. Because of overparameterization (12), the degeneracy of solutions changes the nature of the problem from finding a needle in a haystack to a haystack of needles.

Many questions are left unanswered. Why is it possible to generalize from so few examples and so many parameters? Why is stochastic gradient descent so effective at finding useful functions compared to other optimization methods? How large is the set of all good solutions to a problem? Are good solutions related to each other in some way? What are the relationships between architectural features and inductive bias that can improve generalization? The answers to these questions will help us design better network architectures and more efficient learning algorithms.

[...]

In his essay “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences,” Eugene Wigner marveled that the mathematical structure of a physical theory often reveals deep insights into that theory that lead to empirical predictions (38).

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Not only in AI...

38  E. P. Wigner, The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences. Richard Courant lecture in mathematical sciences delivered at New York University, May 11, 1959. Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 13, 1–14 (1960):

The first example is the oft quoted one of planetary motion. The laws of falling bodies became rather well established as a result of experiments carried out principally in Italy. These experiments could not be very accurate in the sense in which we understand accuracy today partly because of the effect of air resistance and partly because of the impossibility, at that time, to measure short time intervals. Nevertheless, it is not surprising that as a result of their studies, the Italian natural scientists acquired a familiarity with the ways in which objects travel through the atmosphere. It was Newton who then brought the law of freely falling objects into relation with the motion of the moon, noted that the parabola of the thrown rock’s path on the earth, and the circle of the moon’s path in the sky, are particular cases of the same mathematical object of an ellipse and postulated the universal law of gravitation, on the basis of a single, and at that time very approximate, numerical coincidence. Philosophically, the law of gravitation as formulated by Newton was repugnant to his time and to himself. Empirically, it was based on very scanty observations. The mathematical language in which it was formulated contained the concept of a second derivative and those of us who have tried to draw an osculating circle to a curve know that the second derivative is not a very immediate concept. The law of gravity which Newton reluctantly established and which he could verify with an accuracy of about 4 % has proved to be accurate to less than a ten thousandth of a per cent and became so closely associated with the idea of absolute accuracy that only recently did physicists become again bold enough to inquire into the limitations of its accuracy.[...] Certainly, the example of Newton’s law, quoted over and over again, must be mentioned first as a monumental example of a law, formulated in terms which appear simple to the mathematician, which has proved accurate beyond all reasonable expectation. Let us just recapitulate our thesis on this example: first, the law, particularly since a second derivative appears in it, is simple only to the mathematician, not to common sense or to non-mathematically-minded freshmen; second, it is a conditional law of very limited scope. It explains nothing about the earth which attracts Galileo’s rocks, or about the circular form of the moon’s orbit, or about the planets of the sun. The explanation of these initial conditions is left to the geologist and the astronomer, and they have a hard time with them.

The second example is that of ordinary, elementary quantum mechanics. This originated when Max Born noticed that some rules of computation, given by Heisenberg, were formally identical with the rules of computation with matrices, established a Iong time before by mathematicians. Born, Jordan and Heisenberg then proposed to replace by matrices the position and momentum variables of the equations of classical mechanics [S]. They applied the rules of matrix mechanics to a few highly idealized problems and the results were quite satisfactory. However, there was, at that time, no rational evidence that their matrix mechanics would prove correct under more realistic conditions. Indeed, they say “if the mechanics as here proposed should already be correct in its essential traits”. As a matter of fact, the first application of their mechanics to a realistic problem, that of the hydrogen atom, was given several months later, by Pauli. This application gave results in agreement with experience. This was satisfactory but still understandable because Heisenberg’s rules of calculation were abstracted from problems which included the old theory of the hydrogen atom. The miracle occurred only when matrix mechanics, or a mathematically equivalent theory, was applied to problems for which Heisenberg’s calculating rules were meaningless. Heisenberg’s rules presupposed that the classical equations of motion had solutions with certain periodicity properties; and the equations of motion of the two electrons of the helium atom, or of the even greater number of electrons of heavier atoms, simply do not have these properties, so that Heisenberg’s rules cannot be applied to these cases. Nevertheless, the calculation of the lowest energy level of helium, as carried out a few months ago by Kinoshita at Cornell and by Bazley at the Bureau of Standards, agree with the experimental data within the accuracy of the observations, which is one part in ten millions. Surely in this case we “got something out” of the equations that we did not put in.

[...]

Considered from this point of view, the fact that some of the theories which we know to be false give such amazingly accurake results, is an adverse factor. Had we somewhat less knowledge, the group of phenomena which these “false” theories explain, would appear to us to be large enough to "prove" these theories. However, these theories are considered to be “false” by us just for the reason that they are, in ultimate analysis, incompatible with more encompassing pictures and, if sufficiently many such false theories are discovered, they are bound to prove also to be in conflict with each other. Similarly, it is possible that the theories, which we consider to be “proved” by a number of numerical agreements which appears to be large enough for us, are false because they are in conflict with a possible more encompassing theory which is beyond our means of discovery. If this were true, we would have to expect conflicts between our theories as soon as their number grows beyond a certain point and as soon as they cover a sufficiently large number of groups of phenomena. In contrast to the article of faith of the theoretical physicist mentioned before, this is the nightmare of the theorist.

Moral outrage at injustices afforded highly justice-sensitive individuals a stronger sense of meaningfulness of their own life

Meaningful outrage: Anger at injustice bolsters meaning for justice sensitive individuals. Zachary K. Rothschild, Lucas A. Keefer. European Journal of Social Psychology, October 24 2021. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2820

Abstract: Individuals are frequently exposed to media describing salient moral violations, often eliciting negative reactions. Three studies examined whether the outrage engendered by such news may serve as a source of personal meaning for justice sensitive individuals. Using an experience sampling method, Study 1 found that among high (but not low) justice sensitive individuals, outrage (but not sadness) at unethical/unjust news content predicted greater personal meaning. Employing an experimental paradigm, Study 2 found that the opportunity to express outrage at third-party harm-doing attenuated a threat-induced reduction in personal meaning among high (but not low) justice sensitive participants. Study 3 found that giving justice sensitive participants the opportunity to affirm the meaningfulness of their own life (vs. another person's life or no affirmation) reduced expressions of outrage at third-party harm-doing. Results suggest outrage may uniquely serve a meaning-maintenance function for those who view upholding justice as a central value.

Consumption imagery increases food desire & suggest that this impact is due to induced feelings of deprivation; this increased desire explains a higher willingness to pay for and consumption volumes of the imagined food

Does a single consumption imagery event increase food desire? Evelynn Devos, Mario Pandelaere, Anneleen Van Kerckhove. Appetite, October 24 2021, 105773. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2021.105773

Abstract: Food desire is an intense motivational state a consumer experiences toward food that accounts for much of consumption. While extant research has shown that experiencing desire elicits consumption imagery, it remains unclear whether consumption imagery alone instigates desire. Even though this directional relationship has been often speculated upon, little empirical study has considered it. This paper empirically identifies imagined consumption as an antecedent of food desire. Six studies show that consumption imagery increases food desire and suggest that this impact is due to induced feelings of deprivation. Our findings also show that increased desire explains previously researched outcomes of imagery, such as a higher willingness to pay for and consumption volumes of the imagined food.

Keywords: DesireConsumption imageryFood deprivationConsumptionFood