Friday, February 25, 2022

Strong men are more inclined to casual sex; contrary to our predictions, socioeconomic status did not affect short-term mating orientation

Long-Term Mating Orientation in Men: The Role of Socioeconomic Status, Protection Skills, and Parenthood Disposition. Gabriela Fajardo et al. Front. Psychol., February 25 2022. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.815819

Abstract: From an evolutionary perspective, phenotypic, social, and environmental factors help to shape the different costs and benefits of pursuing different reproductive strategies (or a mixture of them) from one individual to another. Since men’s reproductive success is mainly constrained to women’s availability, their mating orientations should be partially calibrated by features that women prefer in a potential partner. For long-term relationships, women prefer traits that signal access to resources, protection skills, and the willingness to share them. Using generalized linear models with laboratory data taken from a Chilean population (N = 197), this study aimed to test whether real and potential resources (measured as self-reported socioeconomic status), protection skills (measured as handgrip strength), and the willingness to provide resources and protection (measured as their disposition toward parenthood) are related to mating orientation in men. Our predictions were: (1) socioeconomic status would be positively associated with long-term and short-term mating orientation but for long-term-oriented individuals, this would be enhanced by having a more favorable parenthood disposition and (2) strength would be positively related to long-term mating orientation in men with higher socioeconomic status and a favorable disposition toward parenthood and it would have a positive and direct association with short-term mating orientation. Our results partially supported the first hypothesis, since men with higher socioeconomic status were more long-term oriented, but parenting disposition did not moderate this effect. Contrary to our expectations, socioeconomic status was not related to short-term mating orientation. Strength appeared not to be significant for long-term mating orientation, even interacting with other traits. However, strength by itself was powerfully linked with a short-term mating orientation. Our results suggest that only some individuals that are attractive for long-term relationships are indeed long-term oriented and may reflect the overall conflict of interests between mating strategies among sexes.

Discussion

The SPH proposes that the relative allocation of time and energy between mating and parenting activities is facultatively calibrated by an individual’s particular traits and social context. In this regard, men showing traits preferred by women for long-term relationships should display higher sociosexual attitudes toward long-term mating (Gangestad and Simpson, 2000Buss and Schmitt, 2019). Previous studies reporting associations between traits preferred by women for long-term relationships and men’s sociosexuality are scarce, do not specifically address the mentioned issue, and use a unidimensional approach to sociosexuality (Townsend, 1993Sprecher et al., 2013Szepsenwol et al., 2017). In this study, we tested whether economic resources, protection skills, and the willingness to allocate these resources in offspring—all traits preferred by women in long-term partners—are associated with men’s long-term mating orientation. Our results partially supported our predictions as we found that socioeconomic status was positively associated with a long-term mating orientation, but parenthood disposition did not moderate this effect. Instead, parenthood disposition seems to mediate this effect. Contrary to our predictions, socioeconomic status did not affect short-term mating orientation. Moreover, we failed to find the expected effects of strength on long-term mating orientation, but we found that strength was positively associated with short-term orientation.

Our first specific prediction was aimed at testing the effect of economic resources on long and short-term mating orientation and whether the willingness to allocate resources in offspring was moderating the effect for long-term oriented men. Regarding main effects, we found that resources, measured by socioeconomic status, were positively related to long-term mating orientation but did not affect short-term mating orientation. This result is aligned with previous studies that found the possession of resources attractive for women when choosing a long-term partner (Townsend, 1989Buss et al., 1990Sprecher et al., 1994Buunk et al., 2002Blossfeld and Timm, 2018) and support our prediction that resources are important in calibrating long-term mating orientation in men. In addition, our null result regarding short-term mating orientation is similar to the results of Sprecher et al. (2013), in which socioeconomic status was not related to short-term mating strategies but differs from the findings of Townsend (1993) that found a positive relationship. Our prediction regarding the positive relationship between economic resources and short-term mating orientation in men was based on previous evidence suggesting that economic resources may be a relevant trait for women when choosing a short-term mate (Greiling and Buss, 2000Thomas and Stewart-Williams, 2018). But this preference for economic resources in short-term mating might be related to context-specific traits as when women meet a potential mate with higher socioeconomic status than their current partner (Greiling and Buss, 2000) or when the environment is high in resources (Thomas and Stewart-Williams, 2018). This circumstance may explain why, in a general context, economic resources seem to be related to long-term mating orientation in men but not to short-term mating orientation.

As important as resources are for women who seek long-term relationships, there are personality features that signal a willingness to allocate them to one partner and their offspring over a significant period (Buss, 2018Webb and Fisher, 2018). In this regard, parenthood dispositions denote the willingness to invest in offspring and it is considered a component of men’s mate value which is especially relevant to attract partners for long-term relationships (Fisher et al., 2008). Accordingly, we expected that parenthood dispositions would moderate the effect of resources in the expression of long-term mating orientation in men. However, our results did not support this prediction, suggesting that socioeconomic status influences long-term mating orientation independently of parenthood dispositions. Since socioeconomic status and parenthood disposition were correlated in this study, we explored the possibility that parenthood disposition was mediating the relationship between socioeconomic status and long-term mating orientation. We found that indeed this was the case, suggesting that socioeconomic status affects long-term mating orientation through an increase in parenthood disposition. Future studies are needed to confirm that result due to its exploratory nature in this study.

Our second specific prediction was focused on testing the effect of protection skills on long and short-term mating orientation. In this regard, previous literature did not find an association between protection skills (i.e., strength and muscularity) and long-term sociosexual orientation, but it did for short-term (Lukaszewski et al., 2014Polo et al., 2019). We proposed that this feature might have a positive effect on long-term mating orientation when interacting with other variables relevant for this context, like socioeconomic status and parenthood dispositions, and a direct and positive effect on short-term mating orientation. In line with previous research (Lukaszewski et al., 2014), strength predicted short-term but not long-term sociosexual orientation in men. However, contrary to our prediction, we did not find an effect for the proposed interaction between strength, socioeconomic status, and parenthood disposition. Thus, our results suggest that protection skills, measured from handgrip strength, do not seem to be a relevant factor that calibrates men’s long-term sociosexual orientation despite being described as relevant for women when choosing a long-term partner (Buss and Schmitt, 2019). A possible explanation is that, since it has been documented that protection skills are attractive for women in both mating contexts, men who display these traits may be attracting a larger pool of women and may gain more by pursuing a short-term mating strategy, maximizing the number of sexual partners (Hughes and Gallup, 2003Frederick and Haselton, 2007Lukaszewski et al., 2014Polo et al., 2019). That can be particularly true in the case of men around their reproductive peak, as is the case of our sample, which was composed of young men with an average age of 22 years old. Finally, it is interesting to emphasize that strength is positively related to short-term mating orientation and has a null, but not negative, effect in the expression of long-term mating orientation. Strength has been associated with the possession of good genes and the ability to win a conflict (Sell et al., 2009), traits that are beneficial when pursuing a short-term mating strategy (Gangestad and Simpson, 2000). Consequently, it seems to be an important factor in calibrating short-term mating orientation but, according to our results, it did not affect long-term mating orientation. That suggests that a long-term mating orientation is not necessarily an alternative strategy employed when individuals cannot maximize their reproductive success through investing in casual sexual encounters. In addition, our results suggest that pursuing a short-term mating orientation by stronger men does not affect their orientation toward long-term mating and stress the importance of considering sociosexual orientation as a multidimensional construct.

To sum up, our results suggest that long-term-oriented men only display some of the traits that women prefer in them for long-term mating contexts, since resources but not protective skills are important for men’s long-term sociosexual orientation. Previous results showed that most of the traits preferred by women for short-term relationships are important in calibrating the expression of short-term mating orientation in men (Lukaszewski et al., 2014Valentine et al., 2014Polo et al., 2019). However, our results are less clear about the link between traits preferred for long-term mating and the expression of long-term mating orientation in men. This may indicate that, at least some individuals who possess traits reported to be attractive for long-term relationships, may be pursuing a short-term mating strategy instead. Possibly, this reflects the overall conflict of interests between mating strategies among the sexes that arise from differences in parental investment and potential reproductive rates (Trivers, 1972Parker, 2006). Complementary theoretical approaches to the study of reproductive trade-offs in humans such as the life history theory (Kruger, 2017) may be useful to understand this variability in sociosexuality in future studies. From this framework, one of the variables that has been reported to affect sociosexual orientation in adulthood is the developmental conditions and, especially, the predictability and harshness of the childhood environment (Ellis et al., 2009). Considering these developmental conditions jointly with current traits and conditions may help to have a wider understanding of the causes of the individual differences in mating strategies.

Our study has several limitations. First, our measure of parenthood dispositions which, although based on a subscale of a validated questionnaire (Fisher et al., 2008), might be too general as it was composed of only two items and precluded delving into different sources of investment and commitment to offspring. Future studies should include more specific measures of parenthood dispositions to determine whether different types of investment in offspring influence the relationships between socioeconomic status and long-term mating orientation in different ways. Second, our sample mainly consisted of young men and with low variability in age. This precludes analyzing whether the association of traits and mating strategies changes as individuals age and consolidate their social status. Future studies should include a wider age range to address this issue, either by pursuing a larger sample or by quota sampling by age groups. Our third limitation is that we did not have information about whether the participants currently had children or not. Despite that our sample was composed mainly of young men, their paternal status may be relevant as there is some evidence suggesting that unrestricted sociosexuality is reduced during parenthood in men, but only in those that reside with their children (Gettler et al., 2019).

Thursday, February 24, 2022

Rivalry is usually positively related to performance; this effect is significant ; the relationship between rivalry and performance is more robust for individual rivalry compared to group rivalry

Rivalry and performance: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Nir Milstein et al. Organizational Psychology Review, February 24, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1177/20413866221082128

Abstract: Rivalry, a relational competition, is known to increase motivation and performance. However, a systematic review and meta-analysis that examines the effect sizes is lacking. Further, most research on this topic has not considered the type of rivalry (individual versus collective) and the research field as potential moderators. We conducted a wide-scale search, looking for rivalry and performance studies, which yielded 22 papers (k = 35) with 27,771 observations that were systematically reviewed. Eighteen papers (k = 28) were eligible for a further meta-analysis, including a total of 26,215 observations. The systematic review indicated that rivalry is usually positively related to performance. Results of the meta-analysis revealed that this effect is significant and that the relationship between rivalry and performance is more robust for individual rivalry compared to group rivalry. Further analyses indicated that for group rivalry, correlations are positive and significant only in the domains of sports and donation-raising.

Plain Text Abstract: Rivalry is a unique and common type of competition in which the competing parties have longstanding relationships. When rivalry is present, the competing actors have an increased desire to win and invest extra effort into the competition, leading to enhanced performance. However, an integration of studies that examine the effects of rivalry, as a relational competition, is lacking. Here, we scanned studies from diverse research fields that claimed to measure rivalry and actor's performance. We considered only research that specifically measured rivalry as a relational competition and its association with performance. We systematically reviewed eligible studies and found that, generally, rivalry is positively related to performance. We then performed a meta-analysis that confirmed that this relationship is statistically significant. We further found that this relationship is more robust for rivalries in the context of individuals compared to groups. The association between rivalry and performance is most prominent in certain domains, such as sports rivalry. These findings can guide scholars in designing research on rivalry. Specifically, considering the various effect sizes found here in different contexts of rivalry will allow researchers to plan for more appropriate sample sizes designed to reveal the relationship between rivalry and performance in a targeted domain. Further, these results can inform managers about the effects of rivalries in or between their organizations, distinguishing among the different contexts of rivalries and their specific outcomes.


Keywords: rivalry, relational competition, competition, performance


Rats showed bonding-like behavior to an affiliative human who repeatedly stroked the rats; also, these rats emitted distress calls, an index of negative emotion, when an affiliative human stroked another rat in front of them

Rats emit unique distress calls in social inequality conditions. Shota Okabe, Yuki Takayanagi, Masahide Yoshida, Tatsushi Onaka. bioRxiv, Feb 24 2020. https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.02.22.481162

Abstract: Humans show aversion toward inequality of social reward, and this aversion plays important roles for the establishment of social cooperation. However, it has remained unknown whether commonly used experimental animals show negative responses to social reward inequality. In this study, we found that rats showed bonding-like behavior to an affiliative human who repeatedly stroked the rats. In addition, these rats emitted distress calls, an index of negative emotion, when an affiliative human stroked another rat in front of them. These distress calls had acoustic characteristics different from those emitted in response to physical stress stimuli such as air-puff. Rats emitted calls with higher frequency (28 kHz) and shorter durations (0.05 sec) in an inequality condition than the frequency and durations of calls emitted when receiving air-puff. Our results suggested that rats exhibited negative emotion with unique distress calls in response to a social inequality condition.


Most organizations rely on managers to identify talented workers; but because managers are evaluated on team performance, they have an incentive to hoard talented workers, thus jeopardizing the efficient allocation of talent within firms

Talent Hoarding in Organizations. Ingrid Haegele. Feb 2022. https://www.dropbox.com/s/bnzs5h4h43i7ano/Haegele_Talenthoarding.pdf

Most organizations rely on managers to identify talented workers. However, because managers are evaluated on team performance, they have an incentive to hoard talented workers, thus jeopardizing the efficient allocation of talent within firms. This study provides the first empirical evidence of talent hoarding using a unique combination of personnel records and application data from a large manufacturing firm. When managers rotate to a new position and temporarily stop hoarding talent, workers’ applications for promotions increase by 123%. Marginal applicants,who would not have applied in the absence of manager rotations, are three times as likely as average applicants to land a promotion, and perform well in higher-level positions. By reducing the quality and performance of promoted workers, talent hoarding causes misallocation of talent. Because female workers react more to talent hoarding than males, talent hoarding perpetuates gender inequality in representation and pay at the firm.


Strength (measured as grip strength, a highly sexually dimorphic index of physical formidability) is negatively associated with depression and accounts for some of the sex difference

Strength is negatively associated with depression and accounts for some of the sex difference: a replication & extension. Caroline B Smith, Tom Rosenström, Edward H Hagen. Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, eoac007, Feb 22 2022. https://doi.org/10.1093/emph/eoac007

Abstract

Background: Depression occurs about twice as often in women as in men, a disparity that remains poorly understood. Using an evolutionary model, Hagen and Rosenström [1] predicted and found that grip strength, a highly sexually dimorphic index of physical formidability, mediated much of the effect of sex on depression. Striking results like this are more likely to be published than null results, potentially biasing the scientific record. It is therefore critical to replicate and extend them.

Methodology: Using new data from the 2013-2014 cycle of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a nationally representative sample of US households (N = 3650), we replicated models of the effect of sex and grip strength on depression reported in Hagen and Rosenström [1], along with additional potential confounds and a new detailed symptom-level exploration.

Results: Overall, the effects from the original paper were reproduced although with smaller effect sizes. Grip strength mediated 38% of the effect of sex on depression, compared to 63% in Hagen and Rosenström [1]. These results were extended with findings that grip strength had a stronger association with some depression symptoms, like suicidality, low interest, and low mood than with other symptoms, like appetite changes.

Conclusions: Grip strength is negatively associated with depression, especially its cognitive-affective symptoms, controlling for numerous possible confounds. Although many factors influence depression, few of these reliably occur cross-culturally in a sex-stratified manner and so are unlikely to explain the well-established, cross-cultural sex difference in depression. The sex difference in upper body strength occurs in all populations and is therefore a candidate evolutionary explanation for some of the sex difference in depression.


Keywords: mood disorders, major depressive disorder, bargaining, honest signaling, gender, replication






If gorgonzola cheese tastes like soap to you... you have an inconvenient genetic variation

Genetic variations associated with the soapy flavor perception in Gorgonzola PDO cheese. Maria Pina Concas et al. Food Quality and Preference, Feb 23 2022, 104569. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2022.104569

Highlights

• Genetic analyses on soapy flavor perception in Gorgonzola cheese were performed.

• Subjects were grouped in soapy-tasters (66%) and non-soapy tasters (34%)

• Genes involved in olfactory or taste processes were found: SYT9, PDE4B, AVL9, HTR1B.

• A single nucleotide polymorphism near HTR1B gene affected also the liking for cheese.

• Soapy flavor perception was associated with rs72921001 (as found for cilantro)

Abstract

Food preferences are influenced by several factors including individual differences in the physiological perception of the sensory properties and genetic factors. This study was aimed to investigate the genetic bases underlying the perception of the soapy flavor, a sensory attribute identified as a driver of disliking for blue-veined cheese. Responses on soapy flavor perception (SFP) in six Gorgonzola Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) cheese samples were collected from 219 genotyped Italians (age 18-77 y) applying a Rate-All-That-Apply (RATA) test combined with a liking test.


Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) were performed on three phenotypic traits: the SFP in at least one cheese (SFP_1), the number of cheese samples in which each individual perceived the soapy flavor (SFP_N) and the SFP in the cheese in which the highest number of individuals perceived the soapy flavor (SFP_P95).

Results showed that 144 individuals (65.8%) perceived the soapy flavor in at least one cheese. Our analysis allowed identifying four loci that resulted shared in all the three GWAS and have been confirmed by the SFP in at least other two Gorgonzola cheese samples. Particularly, we highlighted four genes (SYT9, PDE4B, AVL9 and HTR1B) that are involved in olfactory or taste processes, suggesting that they could play a relevant role in determining the individual differences in the SFP. In addition, a SNP near the HTR1B gene affected also the liking for Gorgonzola PDO cheese.

Overall, our work suggests possible candidate genes associated with the perception of soapy flavor, providing a starting point to better understand the individual differences in blue-veined cheese perception and expanding the current scientific knowledge in the emerging research area linking genetic individual differences to food perception and preferences.

Keywords: blue-veined cheesesoapy flavorlikingconsumersrate-all-that-apply testgenome-wide association studies



Wednesday, February 23, 2022

Altruistic behavior and moderate problem solving in birds

Australian Magpies Gymnorhina tibicen cooperate to remove tracking devices. Joel Crampton, Celine H. Frère, Dominique A. Potvin. Feb 2022, Vol 39, https://www.birdlife.org.au/afo/index.php/afo/article/view/2247

Abstract: Recent advances in tracking technology have enabled devices such as Global Positioning Systems (GPS) loggers to be used on a wide variety of birds. Although there are established ethical considerations to these processes, different species may react differently to particular devices and attachments. Thus, pilot studies are still of utmost importance in this field. Here, we describe one such study trialling a novel harness design for GPS tracking devices on Australian Magpies Gymnorhina tibicen. Despite previous testing demonstrating the strength and durability of the harness, devices were removed within minutes to hours of initial fitting. Notably, removal was observed to involve one bird snapping another bird’s harness at the only weak point, such that the tracker was released. This behaviour demonstrates both cooperation and a moderate level of problem solving, providing potential further evidence of the cognitive abilities of this species. To our knowledge, this is the first study to report the conspecific removal of GPS trackers, and should be considered when planning future tracking studies especially on highly social species.


Gender differences in experience of first intercourse are among the largest in sexuality research (women recalling less pleasure & satisfaction than men); this “enjoyment gap” has not been considered in explanations of gender differences in sexual desire

A Learning Experience? Enjoyment at Sexual Debut and the Gender Gap in Sexual Desire among Emerging Adults. Diana E. Peragine et al. The Journal of Sex Research, Jan 26 2022. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2022.2027855

Abstract: Gender differences in experience of first intercourse are among the largest in sexuality research, with women recalling less pleasure and satisfaction than men. This “enjoyment gap” has not been considered in explanations of gender differences in sexual desire. Yet, reinforcement and incentive learning feature prominently in recent models of women’s sexual desire, and nonhuman animal models demonstrate their impact at sexual debut. We examined whether women’s lower sexual desire is explained by their gender or by gendered experience of enjoyment at sexual debut. Emerging adults (N = 838) provided retrospective accounts of physical (orgasm) and affective (satisfaction) enjoyment at (hetero)sexual debut. We replicated gender differences across behavioral, general, and multidimensional measures of trait sexual desire; however, they were contingent on experience and measurement method. When its cognitive multidimensional properties were appreciated, women’s sexual desire varied with experience of orgasm at sexual debut and diverged from men’s only when orgasm did not occur. Such effects were not observed for satisfaction, nor for men. Nor did effects of a control event – masturbatory debut – extend beyond solitary sexual desire. Findings underscore the importance of orgasm equality, and suggest its absence at sexual debut may play an unacknowledged role in differentiating sexual desire.


First evidence that humans accurately forecast men’s agonistic behavior from variation in facial morphology, suggesting perceptual systems have evolved to perceive physical formidability among contemporaries and competitors

Caton, Neil R., Amy Zhao, David M. G. Lewis, and Barnaby Dixson. 2022. “Facial Masculinity Predicts Men’s Actual and Perceived Aggressiveness.” PsyArXiv. February 18. doi:10.31234/osf.io/qejga

Abstract: Status obtained via dominance is a phylogenetically ancient feature of human social systems. Yet empirical evidence that men’s secondary sexual traits reliably predict success in intra-sexual contests has been hard to demonstrate. The present work provides the first test of whether masculine craniofacial structures in men predicts aggressiveness in contest competition and whether people accurately assess such aggressiveness from masculine facial cues. After placing 32,447 facial landmarks on the facial stimuli of 457 male fighters, multivariate geometric morphometric analyses extracted 142 distinct facial metrics and revealed that men with better developed masculine facial traits (e.g., large jaw, large browridge, deep-set eyes) attempted more strikes and successfully struck their opponents, including targeting the face. When rating the facial stimuli of these male fighters, participants (N = 500) used men’s masculine facial traits to accurately predict these same components of aggressiveness, including targeting the face. These findings remained robust after accounting for the fighter’s age, total fights, weight division, height, fight duration, and their opponent’s striking frequency. Our findings provide the first evidence that humans accurately forecast men’s agonistic behavior from variation in facial morphology, suggesting perceptual systems have evolved to perceive physical formidability among contemporaries and competitors.


Tuesday, February 22, 2022

The causal impact of engaging in sports on happiness is about four times higher than the effect of happiness on engaging in sports; correlation between sports participation and reported life satisfaction is greater in the young & the old

Does Sports Make People Happier, or Do Happy People More Sports? Bruno S. Frey, Anthony Gullo. Journal of Sports Economics, January 7, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527002520985667

Abstract: We contribute to the happiness literature by analyzing the causal relationship between sports and happiness. Using longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), we find a positive correlation between sports participation and reported life satisfaction. This relationship is stronger at younger and older ages than in middle age, and for people in bad health compared to those in average health. We further provide evidence for both causal directions. It turns out that the causal impact of engaging in sports on happiness is about four times higher than the effect of happiness on engaging in sports.

Keywords: happiness, life satisfaction, well-being, sports, causality


Darkness always represented danger to our ancestors and may still decrease our happiness today; exposure to sunlight was associated with happiness (but the effect was significantly weaker among more intelligent individuals)

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy. . . especially if I’m less intelligent: how sunlight and intelligence affect happiness in modern society. Satoshi Kanazawa, Norman P. Li & Jose C. Yong. Cognition and Emotion, Feb 21 2022. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2022.2029358 

Abstract: The savanna theory of happiness proposes that, due to evolutionary constraints on the human brain, situations and circumstances that would have increased our ancestors’ happiness may still increase our happiness today, and those that would have decreased their happiness then may still decrease ours today. It further proposes that, because general intelligence evolved to solve evolutionarily novel problems, this tendency may be stronger among less intelligent individuals. Because humans are a diurnal species that cannot see in the dark, darkness always represented danger to our ancestors and may still decrease our happiness today. Consistent with this prediction, the analysis of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) data shows that exposure to sunlight was associated with happiness but the association was significantly weaker among more intelligent individuals.

Keyword: Seasonal affective disorder (SAD)subjective well-beinglife satisfaction


Self-attractive men tend to overestimate women’s sexual interest based on their high mating success; self-unattractive men tend to underestimate women’s sexual

Mechanism of the association between men’s self-perceived attractiveness and sexual interest perception: the mediating paths of positive and negative mating efficacies. Zhenlan Yang & Lijun Zheng. Sexual and Relationship Therapy, Feb 21 2022. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681994.2022.2033968

Abstract: At the core of sexual assault is a misunderstanding of sexual consent, and incorrect sexual interest perception is a misunderstanding of other people’s sexual consent. Therefore, it is important to examine the mechanism of sexual interest perception to prevent instances of sexual assault. In order to explore the relationship and mechanism between self-perceived attractiveness and sexual interest perception, this study explored the relationship between self-perceived attractiveness and sexual interest perception from the perspectives of positive mating efficacy (mating confidence and self-esteem) and negative mating efficacy (perceived rejection experiences from the opposite sex, rejection sensitivity, and social anxiety). Four hundred and three heterosexual male subjects participated in this study (age in years: M = 26.4, SD = 6.1). The results showed that mating confidence and negative mating efficacy, but not self-esteem, mediated the relationship between self-perceived attractiveness and the sexual interest perception. The findings indicated that those with high self-perceived attractiveness overestimated sexual interest and those with low self-perceived attractiveness underestimated sexual interest.

Lay Summary: In general, men tend to overestimate the sexual interest from opposite-sex under the ambiguous condition. Especially, self-attractive men tend to overestimate women’s sexual interest based on their high mating success. However, self-unattractive men tend to underestimate women’s sexual interest based on their being rejected experiences or fear of being rejected in mating condition.

Keywords: self-perceived attractivenesssexual interest perceptionmating confidenceself-esteemrejection sensitivitysocial anxiety


Impact of a two-decade-long Islamization policy carried out by a pro-Islamist party in Turkey: Reduction in belief in God, attendance to mosques, and trust in clergy

Can the State Make you More Religious? Evidence from Turkish Experience. Murat Çokgezen. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, February 20 2022. https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12785

Abstract: This paper first evaluates the impact of a two-decade-long Islamization policy carried out by a pro-Islamist party, which came to power in 2002 in Turkey, on the attitudes of Turkish people toward religious values, religious practices, and clergy. In this regard, how the importance of religion, frequency of going to mosques, and trust in the clergy have changed among Turkish Muslims between 2002 and 2018 were examined by using World Values Survey data and employing logistic regression analysis. Estimation results indicated a reduction in belief in God, attendance to mosques, and trust in clergy, which imply the failure of the Islamization policy. Second, we explored what caused the failure by using the same data set and methodology. Our estimations suggested that the symbiotic relationship between the pro-Islamist government and religious clergy and institutions may explain the failure. As the government is identified with religion in the eye of the public, dissatisfaction with the government turned to dissatisfaction with religious values.


People tend to find more "symmetrical" faces more "beautiful" and "attractive," but those with visual arts or dance expertise don't find symmetrical faces especially beautiful (but do still find them more attractive); it seems you can be trained to find beauty in asymmetry

The Role of Art Expertise and Symmetry on Facial Aesthetic Preferences. Luis Carlos Pereira Monteiro et al. Symmetry 2022, 14(2), 423; February 20 2022. https://doi.org/10.3390/sym14020423

Abstract: Humans, like other species, have a preference for symmetrical visual stimuli, a preference that is influenced by factors such as age, sex, and artistic training. In particular, artistic training seems to decrease the rejection of asymmetry in abstract stimuli. However, it is not known whether the same trend would be observed in relation to concrete stimuli such as human faces. In this article, we investigated the role of expertise in visual arts, music, and dance, in the perceived beauty and attractiveness of human faces with different asymmetries. With this objective, the beauty and attractiveness of 100 photographs of faces with different degrees of asymmetry were evaluated by 116 participants with different levels of art expertise. Expertise in visual arts and dance was associated with the extent to which facial asymmetry influenced the beauty ratings assigned to the faces. The greater the art expertise in visual arts and dance, the more indifferent to facial asymmetry the participant was to evaluate beauty. The same effect was not found for music and neither for attractiveness ratings. These findings are important to help understand how face aesthetic evaluation is modified by artistic training and the difference between beauty and attractiveness evaluations.

Keywords: symmetry; aesthetics; preference; art experts; human faces

4. Discussion

We investigated for the first time the role of expertise in visual arts, music, and dance, in assessing the beauty and attractiveness of human faces with different asymmetries. Following theoretical models about aesthetic processing, it is expected that art experts and laypersons will differ on their aesthetic evaluation of different sensory features [53,54,55,56,57], including visual symmetry or asymmetry [49,50,51]. Exploring individual differences, we found that people with higher visual arts and dance expertise tend to disregard facial asymmetry in beauty evaluation of human faces, but not in attractiveness evaluation. The same trend was not found for music experts.
In this work, we use a continuous measure for art expertise as proposed by several authors [70,83,99]. Many studies have used art expertise as a quasi-categorical variable, artificially dividing participants into artists and non-artists—a dichotomy that does not capture the variability within groups concerning this variable [70]. As an alternative, we use a questionnaire that takes into account not only formal education but professional experiences, skills, and other artistic experiences. Art experts scored highest in their specific areas (e.g., dancers scored higher than other groups in the dance expertise section of our questionnaire). Moreover, art expertise significantly correlated with art interest and with creativity in their specific domains (e.g., visual art expertise scores correlated significantly with creativity scores in visual arts). Such results provide evidence of the instrument’s validity to measure expertise.
Most research investigating human preference for faces uses the terms “beauty” and “attractiveness” as synonyms, or simply does not differentiate between them [24,100,101,102]. In this study, however, we consider beauty and attractiveness as two different variables, as has been done by some authors [103,104,105]. We observed that although there is a moderate correlation between these two variables, the mean scores for beauty and attractiveness were significantly different. As discussed below, different patterns of individual differences in the assessment of beauty and attractiveness were found, suggesting that they are, in fact, two different variables. In our protocol, after the presentation of the image of the face to be evaluated, the participant first indicated the respective beauty rating, and only afterward the attractiveness rating, so we cannot completely exclude the possibility that the sequence of events may have interfered with the response.
In general, we found that the degree to which facial asymmetry affects beauty evaluation (i.e., aesthetic sensitivity to facial asymmetry) was influenced by participant’s visual arts and dance expertise, but not music expertise. Previous research has found an effect of visual arts expertise in the aesthetic evaluation of symmetry/asymmetry in abstract figures [49,50,51]. The results of Weichselbaum et al. [50] and Gartus et al. [51] indicated that art experts, in general, tended to evaluate stimuli independently from their asymmetry when compared to laypersons. Our results demonstrate that the same trend found for abstract figures can be expected for human faces aesthetic evaluation, not only for visual arts experts but also for dance experts.
While we found a positive effect of the expertise in visual arts and dance on the aesthetic sensitivity to facial asymmetry based on individual differences in the perceived beauty of human faces, we didn’t find the same result for music. Visual and auditory stimuli are evaluated differently, and while the appreciation of visual arts and dance relies on vision, the appreciation of music relies on sound. Thus, the differences in the visual assessment of beauty may be related to the peculiarities of each artistic category. These results are consistent with Clemente et al. [82], who found stimuli modality-specific (visual/auditory) effects on evaluative judgments. Moreover, musicians often have a high affinity to symmetrical features, as these are essential to organize the tempo of a melody [5,106].
No evidence for the effect of any of the three areas of art expertise on aesthetic sensitivity to facial asymmetry based on attractiveness ratings was found. This difference between beauty and attractiveness can be explained by the mate choice importance in our species. The mate choice criteria tend to be more stable during human development [107], and therefore should be less influenced by art training. However, it is necessary to take into account the participant’s sexual orientation and the gender of the person in the photo evaluated to discuss mate choice accurately. Since our experimental design is not suitable for this type of analysis, we also suggest that further studies take into account these variables.
We also found no effect of facial asymmetry on general beauty or attractiveness ratings. Despite several studies showed that facial asymmetry is an important predictor of facial preference, the magnitude of this effect is relatively small based on meta-analytic estimates [29]. It is also possible that this effect was not found in our study since our sample includes art experts, whose beauty assessment tended to disregard facial asymmetry as commented above.
A possible limitation of this study is the under-representation of highly specialized artists in the areas of interest. This happened in our study because we mostly sought out participants in a general university population, and not in art courses and artistic spaces. Therefore, we suggest that new studies should include more participants with higher art expertise.
The present study concludes that people with different art expertise use asymmetry information differently to evaluate facial beauty. This result can be important in understanding how the facial aesthetic evaluation is modified by this type of training and to give us clues about the way symmetry perception can be affected during human development.

Both Democrats & Republicans discriminate & negatively stereotype job applicants with a political orientation that is dissimilar to their own; most of the time, Democrats discriminated & stereotyped applicants to a larger extent than Republicans did

Sinclair, Samantha, Artur Nilsson, and Jens Agerström. 2022. “Judging Job Applicants by Their Politics: Effects of Target–rater Political Dissimilarity on Discrimination, Cooperation, and Stereotyping.” PsyArXiv. February 21. doi:10.31234/osf.io/ctqmw

Abstract: Despite well-known problems associated with political prejudice, research that examines effects of political dissimilarity in organizational contexts is scarce. We present findings from a pre-registered online experiment (N = 973) which suggest that both Democrats and Republicans discriminate and negatively stereotype job applicants with a political orientation that is dissimilar to their own. The effects were small for competence judgments, moderate in size for hiring judgments, and large for warmth ratings and for willingness to cooperate and socialize with the applicant. Furthermore, for all outcomes except competence judgments, Democrats discriminated and stereotyped applicants to a larger extent than Republicans did. These findings shed light on the consequences of applicants disclosing or revealing their political orientation. They also have potentially important implications for the promotion of diversity in organizations.


Monday, February 21, 2022

Eating Vegetables Does Not Protect Against Heart Disease; BBC headline is 'Vegetables alone not enough to reduce heart risk, study finds'

Raw and Cooked Vegetable Consumption and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease: A Study of 400,000 Adults in UK Biobank. Qi Feng. Frontiers in Nutrition, Feb 21 2022. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.831470

Objectives: Higher levels of vegetable consumption have been associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), but the independent effect of raw and cooked vegetable consumption remains unclear.

Methods: From the UK Biobank cohort, 399,586 participants without prior CVD were included in the analysis. Raw and cooked vegetable intakes were measured with a validated dietary questionnaire at baseline. Multivariable Cox regression was used to estimate the associations between vegetable intake and CVD incidence and mortality, adjusted for socioeconomic status, health status, and lifestyle factors. The potential effect of residual confounding was assessed by calculating the percentage reduction in the likelihood ratio (LR) statistics after adjustment for the confounders.

Results: The mean age was 56 years and 55% were women. Mean intakes of raw and cooked vegetables were 2.3 and 2.8 tablespoons/day, respectively. During 12 years of follow-up, 18,052 major CVD events and 4,406 CVD deaths occurred. Raw vegetable intake was inversely associated with both CVD incidence (adjusted hazard ratio (HR) [95% CI] for the highest vs. lowest intake: 0.89 [0.83–0.95]) and CVD mortality (0.85 [0.74–0.97]), while cooked vegetable intake was not (1.00 [0.91–1.09] and 0.96 [0.80–1.13], respectively). Adjustment for potential confounders reduced the LR statistics for the associations of raw vegetables with CVD incidence and mortality by 82 and 87%, respectively.

Conclusions: Higher intakes of raw, but not cooked, vegetables were associated with lower CVD risk. Residual confounding is likely to account for much, if not all, of the observed associations. This study suggests the need to reappraise the evidence on the burden of CVD disease attributable to low vegetable intake in the high-income populations.

Press release: Eating Vegetables Does NOT Protect Against Heart Disease (scitechdaily.com)

Discussion

In this large prospective cohort study, total vegetable intake was associated with reduced risks of CVD incidence, CVD mortality, and all-cause mortality. When assessing the independent effect of raw and cooked vegetable intake, only raw vegetable intake showed inverse associations with CVD outcomes, whereas cooked vegetables showed no association. However, given the large reductions in the predictive values of total and raw vegetable intake after adjustment for socioeconomic and lifestyle factors, residual confounding is likely to account for much, if not all, of the remaining associations.

The modest inverse associations of total vegetable intake with CVD outcomes and all-cause mortality in our analyses are consistent with previous large-scale observational evidence. For example, a meta-analysis of 24 cohort studies estimated that high vegetable intake reduced all-cause mortality by about 13% (relative risk 0.87 [0.82–0.92]) (15). Previous systematic reviews showed total vegetable consumption was associated with a risk reduction in CVD incidence by 11 (15) to 18% (16), similar to the ~10% lower risk in this study. Our findings of the inverse association with MI are also in line with published meta-analyses with effect sizes ranging from 9 to 15% (1517). Although previous studies have also demonstrated an association with a reduced risk of stroke (1517), we did not find sufficient evidence for such an association.

In contrast to a large number of studies on total vegetable intake, there is limited evidence on the independent effect of raw and cooked vegetables on all-cause mortality. Aune et al. (15) conducted a meta-analysis that found cooked vegetable was associated with 13% (relative risk 0.87 [0.80–0.94]) lower risk of all-cause mortality, and raw vegetable was associated with 12% (relative risk 0.88 [0.79–0.98]) lower risk of mortality, although the analyses of raw and cooked vegetables were not mutually adjusted. Studies that have attempted to assess the independent effects of raw and cooked vegetable intakes on all-cause mortality have reported conflicting results. Our results are broadly consistent with the EPIC study (7), in which both raw vegetable intake and cooked vegetable intake were associated with reduced risk of all-cause mortality. By contrast, the PURE study (8) reported an inverse association with all-cause mortality for raw vegetable intake, but not for cooked vegetable intake, while an Australian cohort study (9) reported that only cooked vegetable intake was associated with lower overall mortality. The characteristics and main findings of these studies are summarized in Supplementary Table 10.

In this study, cooked vegetable intake and raw vegetable intake showed different associations with cardiovascular outcomes. We found inverse associations of raw vegetables with CVD incidence and mortality, but null associations with cooked vegetables. This is consistent with the MORGEN study, a Dutch cohort (18), in which raw, but not processed, vegetables were associated with a reduced risk of ischemic stroke. In the EPIC cohort (7), there was a stronger inverse association of CVD mortality with raw than cooked vegetables. Whereas the PURE study (8) found no evidence of an association of CVD and raw vegetable intake, and high intakes levels of cooked vegetable was positively associated with CVD incidence.

Previous studies that reported associations of higher levels of vegetable intake with lower risk of CVD have proposed various mechanisms by which these associations might be mediated. For example, it has been suggested that diets high in vegetables have, on average, fewer calories and replace foods that are high in fat, sodium, and glycemic load (1519). It has also been hypothesized that the lower risk might be mediated by micronutrients, namely, higher intake of vitamins, polyphenols, and antioxidant compounds (25), which are required for regulating various biological processes, including anti-oxidation, anti-inflammation, lipid metabolism, and endothelial function (20). As for the different associations of raw and cooked vegetables observed in this and other studies, several possible mechanisms have been proposed in previous studies. First, it has been proposed that the kinds of vegetables that are usually consumed cooked (e.g., beans, peas, eggplant) may differ from those typically consumed raw (e.g., lettuce). Second, cooking processes can alter the digestibility of food as well as the bioavailability of nutrients (21). For example, Lee et al. found that vitamin C retention after cooking ranged from 0 to 91% for various combinations of cooking methods and vegetable, with higher retention after microwaving and lower retention after boiling (22). Third, the seasoning and oils used in cooking vegetables often increase intake of sodium and fat, which are known risk factors for CVD incidence and mortality (2324).

Despite these proposed mechanisms, this study indicates that observed associations of vegetable intakes with CVD risk and all-cause mortality are likely to be mostly accounted for by residual confounding. Studies using Mendelian randomization (which are less susceptible to confounding, and other biases of observational studies) might be particularly useful in reliably assessing the associations of diet on disease risk. For example, a recent Mendelian randomization study that used genetic determinants of plasma vitamin C concentration as a surrogate for vegetable intake reported a null association with ischemic heart disease (odds ratio 0.90 [0.75–1.08]) and all-cause mortality (odds ratio 0.88 [0.72–1.08]), despite strong inverse associations between vitamin C and these outcomes in observational analyses (25).

This study found the observed associations were mainly accounted for by socioeconomic status and lifestyle factors (26). Both the low socioeconomic status and major lifestyle factors, such as smoking and alcohol intake, are established risk factors for CVD, and there is strong evidence that the effect of socioeconomic status is partially mediated by the known lifestyle factors (27). For example, one study reported that an unhealthy lifestyle (including smoking, drinking, obesity, physical inactivity, and others) mediated 34–38% of the association between socioeconomic status and all-cause death (28). Therefore, given the complicated inter-relationship between socioeconomic status, lifestyle, and health outcomes, adjustment of measures of both socioeconomic status and lifestyle factors is likely to be important.

This study has some limitations. First, we did not measure intake of specific types of raw or cooked vegetables, nor were we able to account for differences in cooking methods. Second, vegetable intakes are self-reported in the baseline dietary questionnaire, although the validity and repeatability of the UK Biobank baseline dietary questionnaire have been evaluated and confirmed in previous studies (12). Third, we did not adjust for total calorie intake because such information was not available from the baseline dietary questionnaire, but we did adjusted for physical activity level and BMI, which has been shown as a valid method for isocaloric adjustment (29). Future studies should seek to address these limitations. However, such studies should also be aware of the importance of assessing reliably for residual confounding using similar methods to this report, or other approaches, such as Mendelian randomization.

Although this report does not find strong evidence of an association between higher vegetable intake and reduced risk of major CVD, the wider literature suggests that increasing vegetable intake is likely to reduce the risk of some other common diseases (4). As such, the public health recommendations on the benefits to health and the environment of a diet that is high in vegetable intake remain.

Sunday, February 20, 2022

Women reported less sexual pleasure than men; for men, sex is almost invariably pleasurable

Sexual Pleasure Matters (Especially for Women) — Data from the German Sexuality and Health Survey (GeSiD). Verena Klein, Ellen Laan, Franziska Brunner & Peer Briken. Sexuality Research and Social Policy, Feb 19 2022. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-022-00694-y

Abstract

Introduction: Sexual pleasure has been a neglected issue in sexual health policies. Emerging trends in public health, however, emphasize the importance of sexual pleasure in preventing negative sexual health outcomes.

Methods: Using data from the German Sexuality and Health Survey (GeSiD), we tested the assumption that sexual pleasure is associated with sexual health, including a special focus on the role of gender. Participants were interviewed about their sexual experiences and health between October 2018 and September 2019. The analytical sample included 3472 partnered and single women and men who had been sexually active with a partner in the past 12 months. We examined if sexual pleasure was associated with various sexual health indicators (i.e., communication about sexually transmitted infections (STIs), condom use, and absence of sexual problems).

Results: Women reported less sexual pleasure than men. Results further indicate that sexual pleasure was associated with more sexual health indicators in women than in men.

Conclusions: Supporting emerging trends in public health our results emphasize the importance of sexual pleasure in preventing negative sexual health outcomes.

Policy Implications. To promote (especially women’s) sexual health, our results call for the implementation of comprehensive sexuality education programs that focus on more positive aspects of sex, such as sexual pleasure and agency.

Discussion

Research and sexual health policies have a long history of neglecting the role of sexual pleasure in preventing negative sexual outcomes (Ford et al., 2019). Our results point to the importance of sexual pleasure for sexual health — and even more pronounced for women. Aligning with the current public health discourse, sexual pleasure in our study was associated with making sexually healthy decisions (e.g., condom use, STI communication) and sexually satisfying experiences (e.g., oral sex engagement, absence of sexual problems, and orgasm frequency).

Although odds rations were overall small, sexual pleasure was associated with more sexual health indicators in women than in men. Ample evidence indicates that both women and men value men’s sexual pleasure more, and men are more likely to demand it during an encounter (McCabe et al., 2010; McClelland, 2011; Muehlenhard & Shippee, 2010). Globally speaking, men seem to have a better access to sexual pleasure and autonomy than women do (Hall, 2019; Higgins & Hirsch, 2007). Alingning with this assumption, in our study, men were more likely to report experiencing sexual pleasure than women. Based on those observed gender differences, it could be assumed that whereas men’s pleasure seems to be a “normal,” present condition, women’s sexual pleasure seems to be more often absent, an add-on, or at least less prioritized. That said, the results might not a function of pleasure being more important for women, but rather men’s scores lack variability (i.e., for men, sex is almost invariably pleasurable). This lower variability in scores might explain why sexual pleasure plays a more predictive role in women’s sexual health than in men’s.

Interestingly, pleasure had a greater influence on communication about STIs and condom use for partnered women than it did for single women. Public health research has emphasized that safer sex communication is interwoven with gendered power inequalities (Wingood & DiClemente, 2000). Women face more stigma when negotiating condom use (Peasant et al., 2015; Woolf & Maisto, 2008) as well as when expressing themselves in a sexually assertive manner (Klein et al., 2019). Women and men are especially likely to conform to traditional gender expectations surrounding sexual behavior (female submission vs. male dominance) in initial states of dating (Eaton & Rose, 2011). Sexual communication and safer sex negotiations, however, need some degree of assertiveness, which might undermine women’s conformity to gender norm expectations in the casual context. Nevertheless, the sample size of single women was small in the present study, what might explain the different role pleasure plays for single versus partnered women when it comes to communication about STIs and condom use.

Since our data are cross-sectional, all that is known is that sexual pleasure and the investigated sexual health indicators are associated. That said, it is possible that for instance being able to communicate about STI risk makes sex more pleasurable (by removing concerns about STIs etc.) or STI communication might be a good proxy for comfort with sexuality. There is also the possibility that sexual pleasure and safer sex practices may be linked via another third factor such as being comfortable with one’s sexuality. Moreover, we have focused on condom use as main safe-sex practice, which leaves out other safe-sex practices mostly practice by women who have sex with women such as dental dams and gloves. A closer examination of the interplay between sexual pleasure and sexual health among gender diverse samples would be an interesting venue for future research. Another limitation is that we have assessed some health behaviors such as condom use discussion retrospectively meaning that single and partnered people answered questions about different time periods. Consequently, we cannot exclude the possibility of recall biases. Although our cross-sectional, correlational study points to associations between sexual pleasure and sexual health behaviors, prospective studies that assess the influence of sexual pleasure on sexual risk and risk-reduction practices are warranted.

The present study included a large, representative sample with a balanced distribution of women and men; it is however important to keep in mind that our sample draws from Germany, a Western liberal country when it comes to sexual attitudes (i.e., acceptance of same-sex behavior, abortion, sex work; Klein & Brunner, 2018). Sexual pleasure has different meanings and varies in ascribed significance over different cultures (Hall & Graham, 2012), which limits the generalizability of our result to other cultural contexts. Societal and cultural judgements about sex, shame, and guilt have negative effects on both sexual pleasure and health (Hull, 2008).


Neuroticism and cardiovascular diseases are genetically related, and the genetic liability to neuroticism exerts causal effects on the heart

Zhang, F., Cao, H., & Baranova, A. (2022). Genetic variation mediating neuroticism’s influence on cardiovascular diseases. Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science. Feb 2022. https://doi.org/10.1037/abn0000744

Abstract: The personality of neuroticism is phenotypically associated with cardiovascular diseases (CVD), but the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. We conducted Mendelian randomization analysis to investigate causal relationships between neuroticism and CVD (including coronary artery disease, heart failure, atrial fibrillation, stroke, and hypertensive disease) using summary results of genome-wide association studies for these traits. Our results show that although neuroticism has low or minimal correlations with CVD in general, there are substantial polygenic overlaps between neuroticism and CVD (20%∼97%). Mendelian randomization analysis indicates that genetic liability to neuroticism exerts causal effects on CVD, but not the reverse. A panel of pleiotropic genes is shared by neuroticism and CVD, pointing to the potential role of the SOX–WNT/β-catenin–T-cell-specific transcription factors/lymphoid enhancer factors pathway. Our study suggests that genetics may mediate the influence of neuroticism on CVD. The results shed light on mechanisms underlying phenotypic relationships between neuroticism and CVD and have implications for personalized prevention of CVD with the potential benefits of incorporating personality management into the treatment regimen.