No form of pandemic preparedness helped to ameliorate or shorten the pandemic; compared to other countries, the US did not perform poorly because of cultural values such as individualism, collectivism, selfishness, or lack of trust

Is it possible to prepare for a pandemic? Robert Tucker Omberg, Alex Tabarrok. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Volume 38, Issue 4, Winter 2022, December 14 2022, Pages 851–875, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxrep/grac035

Abstract: How effective were investments in pandemic preparation? We use a comprehensive and detailed measure of pandemic preparedness, the Global Health Security (GHS) Index produced by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (JHU), to measure which investments in pandemic preparedness reduced infections, deaths, excess deaths, or otherwise ameliorated or shortened the pandemic. We also look at whether values or attitudinal factors such as individualism, willingness to sacrifice, or trust in government—which might be considered a form of cultural pandemic preparedness—influenced the course of the pandemic. Our primary finding is that almost no form of pandemic preparedness helped to ameliorate or shorten the pandemic. Compared to other countries, the United States did not perform poorly because of cultural values such as individualism, collectivism, selfishness, or lack of trust. General state capacity, as opposed to specific pandemic investments, is one of the few factors which appears to improve pandemic performance. Understanding the most effective forms of pandemic preparedness can help guide future investments. Our results may also suggest that either we aren’t measuring what is important or that pandemic preparedness is a global public good.

JEL H12 - Crisis Management I10 - General I18 - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

According to AAA, "about 70 percent of the entire increase in driver fatal crash involvement [between May and December of 2020] was specifically among males under the age of 40"

Traffic Safety Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Fatal Crashes Relative to Pre-Pandemic Trends, United States, May–December 2020. Brian C. Tefft, Meng Wang.  AAA Foundation for
Traffic Safety, Dec 2022. https://aaafoundation.org/traffic-safety-impact-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-fatal-crashes-relative-to-pre-pandemic-trends-united-states-may-december-2020

Abstract: Despite a brief reduction during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of people killed in motor vehicle crashes in the United States surged in 2020 to its highest level in over a decade. The purpose of the research reported here is to advance the understanding of how safety on U.S. roads changed during the pandemic, beyond its initial months, by comparing the involvement of specific crash-, vehicle-, and driver-related factors in fatal crashes during the eight-month period of May through December 2020 to what would have been expected had the pandemic not occurred and pre-pandemic trends continued. Data from all fatal crashes in the U.S. from 2011 through 2019 were used to develop statistical models of the monthly number of fatal crashes through December 2019. These models were then used to forecast how many fatal crashes would been expected in each month of 2020 without the pandemic. Overall, the number of traffic fatalities in 2020 was 2,570 (7.1%) more than expected based on pre-pandemic trends. However, a sharp decrease in traffic fatalities in March and April 2020 partially offset an even larger increase later in the year. During the eight-month period of May through December 2020, the number of traffic fatalities was 3,083 (12.1%) more than expected. Importantly, however, this increase was not uniform across all factors examined. This Research Brief identifies specific crash-, vehicle-, and driver-related factors that contributed most to the overall increase in traffic fatalities during this period, as well as others that continued to follow pre-pandemic trends or that even decreased.

Key Findings: A total of 38,824 people died in motor vehicle crashes in the U.S. in 2020, 2,570 (7.1%) more than forecast from models developed using data from 2011 through 2019 (Figure). In April 2020—the first full month of the pandemic—the number of fatalities was much lower than what would have been expected based on pre-pandemic trends. By May 2020, however, the actual number of fatalities was similar to historical levels. The number of fatalities greatly exceeded forecasts based on pre-pandemic trends for the remainder of 2020. In May through December collectively, there were a total of 28,611 traffic fatalities nationwide, which was 3,083 (12.1%) more than expected based on pre-pandemic trends.

The increase in traffic fatalities was not uniform across crash-, vehicle-, and driver-related factors. Scenarios present in greater than expected numbers in fatal crashes in 2020 included evening and late-night hours, speeding drivers, drivers with illegal alcohol levels, drivers without valid licenses, drivers of older vehicles, drivers of vehicles registered to other people, crash involvement and deaths of teens and young adults, and deaths of vehicle occupants not wearing seatbelts. In contrast, several crash types followed pre-pandemic trends (e.g., crashes in the middle of the day; crash involvements of drivers with valid licenses; pedestrian fatalities), and a few decreased (e.g., crashes of elderly drivers; crashes during typical morning commute hours).

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Road Deaths Surged Alongside Covid — But Who Died, Exactly? Kea Wilson. StreetsBlog USA, Jan 9 2023. https://usa.streetsblog.org/2023/01/09/road-deaths-surged-alongside-covid-but-who-died-exactly

Excerpts:

The study verified that the absence of traffic jams played some role in allowing drivers to reach dangerous speeds on too-wide roads, but the researchers also found that the most significant differences between their forecast and real-world death totals happened in the dead of night, when most roads have always been congestion-free.

Between 10 p.mm and 1:59 a.m., deaths were nearly 22 percent higher than expected; during the typical morning rush hours, by contrast, deaths were actually 6.3 percent lower than the model anticipated they'd be. The late afternoon and evening rush hour, meanwhile, "did not differ significantly from the forecast."

2020 also saw an increase in hit-and-runs, which clocked in at 31.2 percent higher than originally forecast.

According to AAA, "about 70 percent of the entire increase in driver fatal crash involvement [between May and December of 2020] was specifically among males under the age of 40." Tefft suspects that increase may have been particularly driven by the minuscule subset of young, male motorists who were emboldened to do risky things on the road when the world shut down, though the data doesn't tell him exactly why.

People in more developed and modernized countries experience more love with their partners, but at a high level of modernization, mean love levels tend to drop

Modernization, collectivism, and gender equality predict love experiences in 45 countries. Piotr Sorokowski et al. Scientific Reports volume 13, Article number: 773. Jan 14 2023. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-26663-4

Abstract: Recent cross-cultural and neuro-hormonal investigations have suggested that love is a near universal phenomenon that has a biological background. Therefore, the remaining important question is not whether love exists worldwide but which cultural, social, or environmental factors influence experiences and expressions of love. In the present study, we explored whether countries’ modernization indexes are related to love experiences measured by three subscales (passion, intimacy, commitment) of the Triangular Love Scale. Analyzing data from 9474 individuals from 45 countries, we tested for relationships with country-level predictors, namely, modernization proxies (i.e., Human Development Index, World Modernization Index, Gender Inequality Index), collectivism, and average annual temperatures. We found that mean levels of love (especially intimacy) were higher in countries with higher modernization proxies, collectivism, and average annual temperatures. In conclusion, our results grant some support to the hypothesis that modernization processes might influence love experiences.

Discussion

Many descriptive works show how love experiences may change with various levels of modernization^34,35. Other study supported such claims based on the analysis of incidences of love in narrative fiction throughout centuries¹¹. However, based on quantitative, cross-cultural data, our study is the first to provide evidence on how love experiences vary concerning different levels of human development and modernization indexes. We observed that, in general, participants from countries with higher (compared with countries with lower) levels of HDI, World Modernization Index, and gender equality experienced more love with their partners, controlling for participants’ sex, relationship length, countries’ average annual temperatures, and collectivism level. However, after reaching a certain, relatively high threshold of modernization (e.g., in the case of HDI—0.85), mean love levels tend to drop. Overly simplifying, we can conclude that more modernized countries have a higher level of all love subscales (though this effect is more pronounced for intimacy than passion), but the highest levels of modernization do not promote intense love experiences.

Furthermore, the results provided tentative evidence that higher mean levels of intimacy and commitment are positively related to countries’ level of collectivism. It is especially interesting, considering that previous studies highlighted the importance of romantic love in relationships established in more individualistic cultures^7,23,26 as opposed to more collectivistic cultures, in which, historically, arranged rather than love marriages have been more prevalent^36,37. On the other hand, collectivistic values promote a more relational view of romantic relationships³⁸. Thus, individuals from more collectivistic countries might be more altruistic towards their partners^5,39, which could naturally lead to more intimate and stronger bonds between the lovers⁴⁰. However, the observed relationships ceased to be significant when controlling for participants’ age. Also, we did not observe any links between passion level and country’s collectivism index. Considering the most recent cultural changes in collectivistic values in various countries⁴¹, future studies could investigate whether individual levels of collectivistic beliefs might be more related to experiences love than country-levels of collectivism.

Relatively modest relationships between modernization indexes and passion suggest that passion is rather stable across different modernization levels, and that what carries the relationship between the passionate love (i.e., passion to intimacy ratio) and modernization indexes is higher intimacy in countries with higher modernization indexes. A growing body of research provides evidence for biological antecedents of passion and its role in reproduction (see, e.g.,^42,43,44), and thus, the stability of passionate experiences across various countries seems unsurprising. Furthermore, in line with previous works^3,44,45, we observed lower levels of passion and intimacy, and higher levels of commitment among participants with longer relationship duration.

However, questions regarding the mechanisms behind the observed patterns of changes in intimacy/commitment are more challenging to answer. The simplest explanation might be that people from countries with higher modernization indexes tend to emphasize the friendship aspect of relations with their partners⁴⁶. Indeed, some studies provided evidence that individuals from countries with higher modernization indexes expect love to be based on mutual attraction and emotional closeness^31,47. Apart from the environmental and economic factors already tackled in the introduction (i.e., the growing importance of romantic love in adulthood possibly resulting from changes in parental emotional investment and better living conditions^11,16,48,49), we can also hypothesize other possible explanations.

For instance, cultural changes stem from processes of democratization, emancipation of love^34,50,51, gender shifts, and increasing gender equality^52,53. Because love becomes increasingly dependent on the capitalist market, such processes may also promote specific love patterns (that is, more intimate love but not that much of sexual love^47,54). We might also consider social changes in terms of cultural perception of reproduction or, in general, postponed reproduction in countries with higher modernization indexes^55,56. Several of these factors may be responsible for the observed increasing role of intimacy in societies with higher modernization indexes. Future research should focus on disentangling modernization components, which would shed more light on which specific factors drive the observed patterns.

Furthermore, we observed a distinctive drop in the mean levels of love among participants from countries that reached a relatively high level of modernization (e.g., in the case of HDI, the threshold was 0.85). This suggests that, although country’s economic development generally promotes more intense love experiences, reaching a certain developmental point might reverse these beneficial love effects. Such hypotheses have been indirectly laid by ethologists studying animal behaviors^57,58. For instance, in a classical study, Calhoun⁵⁷ observed that mice thrived when granted unlimited access to all necessary resources. However, mice started to lose interest in mating and reproduction when the situation was too good for too long. We can only speculate to which extent such an animal model might apply to humans.

Interestingly, research on the role of temperature in social interactions evokes heated discussions. We found some evidence that a country’s average temperature is positively related to love experiences. When controlling for other factors, we found that participants from countries with higher annual temperatures reported higher levels of love (though this effect was the strongest for passion). However, raw correlations showed the opposite patterns, meaning that participants from countries with higher temperatures experienced lower intimacy and commitment levels. As results of previous studies also yielded contradictory conclusions^28,29, future investigations might attempt to deepen our understanding of the role of climate and temperature on humans’ feelings and behaviors.

Although the current study sheds new light on the cultural evolution of love, it is not free of limitations. First, despite recruiting a relatively large number of participants from various cultures, one needs to bear in mind that the studied sample was not representative of any of the 45 countries. Moreover, our participants were relatively well-educated and from urban areas (see Fig. 3), which makes them even less representative of less modernized countries. Second, although we used one of the most famous love scales, the Triangular Love Scale²⁷, the scale has been criticized for high correlations between love components^59,60. Furthermore, the TLS might not reliably distinguish participants with high levels of love⁶¹. As love measures are not perfectly correlated (their correlations tend to vary from 0.00 to even 0.83, see^62,63), it would be interesting to test the present results' robustness using different love measures. Third, we have focused on cultural and environmental variables at the country-level. Future studies could investigate whether individual-level factors identified in the present study contribute to love experiences in a similar vein. There is some evidence that, for instance, psychological collectivism might impact love patterns differently⁶⁴.

Figure 3

Locations of data collection. Countries (in blue) with corresponding study sites (cities in orange).

In conclusion, our study—one of the largest studies on cross-cultural differences in love experiences to date—provided evidence that, at least at the beginning of the twenty-first century, love is a near universal human experience. The results of the present investigation offer valuable insight into cultural and environmental factors related to countries’ variability of love experiences. Although our research is correlational and no causal conclusions can be made, one may hypothesize that cultural changes in the level of a country’s modernization index may affect patterns of love (i.e., may increase experiences of intimacy and commitment). More studies conducted in countries with lower levels of modernization using a longitudinal design might address this hypothesis.

Our study showed that love experiences differ across cultures. The results corroborate previous research findings on similarities and differences in how people chose their love partners⁶⁵ and how their choices affect their relationship satisfaction^66,67. However, as a concluding remark, we would like to highlight that we believe there is no better or worse way to experience love. On the contrary, understanding different love patterns may be crucial in studying the vast phenomenon of love. Exploring how love differs across cultures may result in identifying the love hardships of couples from different cultural backgrounds, which may, inter alia, promote developing more accurate and effective strategies in couple counseling.

Opiates of the Masses? Deaths of Despair and the Decline of American Religiosity

Opiates of the Masses? Deaths of Despair and the Decline of American Religion. Tyler Giles, Daniel M. Hungerman & Tamar Oostrom. NBER Working Paper 30840, January 2023. DOI 10.3386/w30840

Abstract: In recent decades, death rates from poisonings, suicides, and alcoholic liver disease have dramatically increased in the United States. We show that these "deaths of despair" began to increase relative to trend in the early 1990s, that this increase was preceded by a decline in religious participation, and that both trends were driven by middle-aged white Americans. Using repeals of blue laws as a shock to religiosity, we confirm that religious practice has significant effects on these mortality rates. Our findings show that social factors such as organized religion can play an important role in understanding deaths of despair.

The moral imperative is not towards making people’s lives better, but performative demonstration that you are on the side of righteousness, that you have not only ticked all the right boxes but done so with a song in your heart

The morality of growth. Robert Colvile. CAPX, January 3 2023. https://capx.co/the-morality-of-growth

Excerpts:

One of the most striking phrases to enter the political lexicon in recent years is ‘degrowth’. This is the idea that capitalism and its obsession with growth are a cancer on the planet.

When you talk to environmental activists, they insist that ‘degrowth’ isn’t about making people poorer. It’s just, according to the movement’s official website, about reducing ‘the material size of the global economy’. We should, they argue, ‘prioritise social and ecological wellbeing instead of corporate profits, over-production and excess consumption’.

This is, to me, one of the most purely wicked ideas that humanity has come up with in recent years. It is a call for others to have less, coming from those who already have so much – and who have mostly never known anything but the extraordinary comforts of our modern world.

The fact that malnutrition, poverty, infant mortality and all other indices of deprivation have plunged across the world in recent decades is the blessed fruit of the economic growth that has taken place. The faster you grow, the better the lives your citizens are able to enjoy – and the more you can invest in either mitigating the damage from climate change, or developing the kind of technologies that might actually bring it to a halt.

To say that growth is the enemy is, in fact, the ultimate example of white privilege – the privilege to tell billions of people across the world that their ambitions for heat and light, water and sanitation, medicine and education aren’t actually that important in the grand scheme of things.

A couple of years ago, in August 2020, I delivered a lecture for the Centre for Policy Studies and 1900 Club called ‘The Morality of Growth’, which inspired this current essay. The case I sought to make was that we have a moral duty not just to support growth, but to oppose policies that diminish opportunity. The mindset that apologises for growth and innovation, I argued, is one that leaves less for the most vulnerable – in Britain and beyond.

In particular, I argued that while the claims of the ‘degrowth’ movement might seem both marginal and laughable – what mainstream politician would really stand up and say that we need to actively shrink the world economy? – British politics is afflicted by a diluted version of the same syndrome. Too often, we pay lip service to growth, but aren’t willing to actually do what it takes to deliver it. Like the football team that always falls short, we just don’t want it enough.

This debate has become all the more urgent as the pandemic and cost of living crisis have driven home to people quite how little growth we have had in recent decades, and quite how little we have to look forward to. Indeed, it is both telling and depressing that the most interesting debate in British economics at the moment, triggered by my friend Sam Bowman’s essay on ‘Boosters’ vs ‘Doomsters’, is not about how to get growth back up, but whether we can get it back up at all.

A society without growth is not just politically far more fragile. It is hugely damaging to people’s lives – and in particular to the young, who will never get to benefit from the kind of compounding, increasing prosperity their parents enjoyed. It is striking that the fastest-growing societies also tend to be by far the most optimistic about their futures – because they can visibly see their lives getting better.

By temperament, I am what Sam calls a ‘Booster’ – that is, I believe that we are not in fact doomed to irrevocable decline. Indeed, the focus of most of our work at the Centre for Policy Studies is coming up with policies that help Britain grow. But in this essay, I want to do something different: not to set out specific ideas for growth, but make the fundamental argument, not least in light of the recent political convulsions in the UK, that we need to treat growth as a moral good – and treat the many obstacles to it not just as unfortunate but as a moral outrage.

 

Where did the growth go?

Let’s start by making a very basic point: there isn’t enough growth to go round.

Since the financial crisis, real GDP growth has been the most consistent since the Second World War. Unfortunately, it has been consistently abysmal. Not once in the decade before the pandemic did a rolling average of GDP growth go above 3% – the first time that had happened in living memory. And even before the economy plunged into its coronacoma, the projections for the next few years were of further stagnation.

Things look even worse if you don’t just look at GDP, but GDP per head. Data from the World Bank shows that in the UK, average GDP growth per capita across the 1980s was 2.5%. During the 1990s, that fell to 1.9%. In the 2000s, thanks partly to the financial crisis, it fell again to 1.2%. In the 2010s, it stood at just 1.1% – even before the apocalyptic impact of the pandemic.

In other words, like in an Indiana Jones movie, the growth ceiling of the British economy is grinding inexorably downwards.

You can see this decline and fall even more clearly if you strip out the recessions. During the Lawson boom, GDP growth per capita went over 5% for two years in a row. Gordon Brown inherited per capita GDP growth of 3.6% in 1997 – but the economy has never even come close to hitting that again, with the exception of the artificial rebound after the pandemic.

In short, the idea that our troubles began with the financial crisis, or the fact of Tory government, is wrong-headed. Even in the years before the 2008 crash, growth per capita was only running at between 1.6% and 2.4% – which may look like unimaginable prosperity now, but was still much lower than what had come before.

To put it another way, when our politicians promised to ‘abolish boom and bust’, it turns out that they actually just abolished booms.

The ‘Doomster’ argument, if we use Sam’s categorisation, is that this decline – while historically unprecedented – is now to a large extent baked into the economy. He cites the work of Dietrich Vollrath, whose book Fully Grown argues that a combination of factors have combined to lower productivity and hence growth: a decline in geographic mobility; an ageing population and shrinking workforce; and the inexorable growth of services as a proportion of the economy, where the potential for productivity gains is lower. (It’s worth pointing out that unlike some of his British acolytes, Vollrath actually sees this as a natural and in many ways welcome result of America’s increasing prosperity – an argument which, as Sam points out, rings rather less true for a country where GDP per capita is roughly 30% lower.)

British Doomsters, adds Sam, do accept that good policies can make a difference on growth, but they tend to think they will have only a marginal impact, or be too hard to push through. They might also point out that these problems are by no means confined to the UK: even with the headwinds from Brexit, our paltry growth performance between 2010 and 2019 eclipsed that of the even feebler eurozone.

The counter-argument – made by the ‘Boosters’ – is that Britain’s performance has been so lacklustre that there are all manner of ways to improve it. We have obvious and longstanding problems with productivity, and business investment. Our failure to build sufficient housing, stretching over a period of decades, has had devastating economic consequences. One of the most obvious ways to make the country more productive is to ensure that the best workers can find places to live near the best jobs. On that front, we have absolutely failed.

The problem, though – arguably the biggest problem in British politics – is that our failure to grow becomes self-reinforcing. At a time when we should be more obsessed than ever with growing the cake, we have become ever more focused on how to share it. In fact, it is precisely because there has not been as much growth to go around that we fixate on the size of the portions.

Jeremy Corbyn was the perfect symptom of an age in which, with riches harder to come by, those who do have riches become the object of envy and resentment.

At the Centre for Policy Studies, we believe that the only way to deliver growth – proper, sustainable, cake-growing growth – is by supporting the private sector. Every job created, every product sold, every pound in tax paid, is a tiny victory in the war for our collective prosperity.

So the key question is: how ready are we to prioritise that?

The decline of business

The first thing to say is that Britain is – despite the brief irruption of Corbynism – an admirably business-friendly country.

As Liz Truss pointed out in a speech in 2019, there was an 85% increase over the three years before the pandemic in the number of 18- to 24-year-olds setting up businesses. Britain is consistently one of the strongest performers in terms of the ease of doing business, and indeed starting a business. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor shows that the proportion of Britons involved in some form of entrepreneurial activity has increased from 15% to 20% since the turn of the millennium – and the proportion of us who own our own businesses has doubled. There also seems to have been a strong and sustained shift towards a more entrepreneurial culture in around 2010 – perhaps mirroring the change in governing party.

But things become more murky when you look not at the number of businesses we have, but what we think they should do.

A few years ago, we at the Centre for Policy Studies published a paper called  ‘Think Small’, which focused on the needs of small businesses in Britain and how to help them grow.

In the polling for it, we found an overwhelming consensus that the system of tax and administration to which those firms are subject is far more onerous than it should be – not just in terms of the amounts that are taken, but the sheer complexity of the process.

That survey also showed that people really like small businesses. They want them to prosper and grow.

And yet if you ask (as YouGov has via a regular tracker poll) whether businesses are regulated enough, only 12-14% of the country will answer ‘too much’, less than half the proportion who will say ‘not enough’. If you ask whether they pay enough tax, you get 48% saying ‘not enough’, and only 9% saying ‘too much’.

Analysis by the OECD and other institutions has consistently shown that taxes on businesses and investment are absolutely the worst for growth. Yet when Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak needed to pay for the costs of the pandemic, it was taxes on employers that went up first and most – because that was by far the most popular option.

More generally, there is a small forest of opinion research that will tell you that people these days don’t think the business of business should just be business – more people say that a brand’s ‘stance on wider society’ is very important than not at all important. (And yes, that sound you can hear is Friedman and Hayek spinning in their graves.)

A recent edition of Deloitte’s regular survey of millennials showed that they overwhelmingly feel business success should be measured in terms of more than financial performance. A foreword from its ‘global chief purpose and people officer’, which is a pretty telling title in itself, found that ‘if anything, the pandemic has reinforced their desire to help drive positive change in their communities and around the world. And they continue to push for a world in which businesses and governments mirror that same commitment to society, putting people ahead of profits and prioritising environmental sustainability, diversity and inclusion, and income equality.’

In the 2022 edition of Deloitte’s survey, less than half of young people agreed that business was having a positive impact on wider society – the fifth consecutive year in which the percentage had dropped. Previous research by Matthew Elliott and James Kanagasooriam, for the Legatum Institute, found – even more starkly – that the words that young people most associated with ‘capitalism’ were ‘greedy’, ‘selfish’, ‘corrupt’, ‘divisive’ and ‘dangerous’. Frank Luntz, in more recent polling for the CPS, asked people whether they agreed with the statement: ‘When I look at corporate leaders and how they treat us, I just think ‘f*** them all’.’ By 50% to 23%, they agreed. (The only consolation is that the figures for politicians were even worse.)

There’s a fascinating case to be made that much of this ties into the broader culture war. YouGov has found that the focus on companies’ wider responsibilities is being driven by a group it called the ‘catalysts’ – the most influential, and opinionated, section of society.

To quote:

‘…catalysts are overwhelmingly likely to be members of the ABC1 social grades… and over two thirds… are in the highest AB brackets… Their favourite newspaper is The Guardian (31% vs. 4% nationwide) [and] they’re more likely to be left-leaning Remain voters: almost two-thirds (65%) voted for Labour, the Lib Dems, or the SNP at the 2017 General Election, while almost three-quarters voted to stay in the EU (73%).’

In short, half a century after Milton Friedman first set out the argument that the business of business is business, that argument is being decisively lost. And it’s being lost within the business community itself – even though people are pretty clear (as Frank Luntz’s polling showed) that when they’re actually making purchasing decisions, and living their lives, what they really want is good, cheap products, excellent service, and for companies to treat their workers fairly. Not to have an ice cream company like Ben & Jerry’s lecture them via its Twitter account on the Government’s policy towards refugees.

What’s less appreciated, however, is that all this is doing economic damage, because it’s not only diverting capital from productive ends but moving the policy debate away from what we actually need for growth.

In particular, there is a dangerous gap between what people think is happening in the business world and what is actually happening.

In a celebrated speech in 2012, Andy Haldane of the Bank of England pointed out that the UK had moved from employing one regulator for every 11,000 people working in the financial sector in 1980 to one for every 300 in 2011.

Financial regulation had become much more complex, with the latest Basel rulebook requiring large banks to carry out several million calculations, as opposed to single figures a generation ago. Over a single decade, the proportion of Citigroup’s global workforce devoted to compliance and risk went from 4% to 15%. George Osborne warned in 2013 about over-regulation leading to ‘the financial stability of a graveyard’. It is striking, and alarming, that Britain’s regulators – unlike many of their counterparts – have generally had no specific duty to promote growth, or to consider the dynamic impact of their decisions. And when the Government tried to bring one in recently, all hell broke loose.

The CPS has recently been carrying out extensive work on regulation. We will be publishing the full details later this year, but it is fair to say that our team were genuinely shocked by the ease with which Whitehall can impose extra costs on businesses and consumers, and the flimsiness of the justifications that have been used to do so.

But it is not just about regulation. In many firms, the proportion of people actively devoted to the core task of generating profits has shrunk and shrunk. Meanwhile, the global human resources industry grew from around $343bn in 2012 to $476bn in 2019, and the number of diversity roles has increased by 71% over five years.

The adoption of a wider definition of corporate purpose has been accompanied by a growth in the number of staff whose mindset is effectively public sector rather than private: their role is to ensure that the company does good and is good, rather than that it meets its targets. And of course, for many public companies those targets are in any case geared more towards meeting investors’ quarterly expectations than delivering long-term growth – or pleasing institutional investors such as Larry Fink at BlackRock, which have wholeheartedly embraced the gospel of ESG.

The death of Adam Smith

My argument, in other words, is that business has indeed been infused with morality – but the moral imperative is not towards making people’s lives better, but performative demonstration that you are on the side of righteousness, that you have not only ticked all the right boxes but done so with a song in your heart.

This flies in the face of a fundamental point made by Adam Smith. He famously said that: ‘It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest.’

This was, at the time, a revolutionary argument. For centuries, philosophers had stressed the importance of leading a good life. What Smith was saying was that – at least in economic terms – it was perfectly fine to look after number one, because in doing so you looked after numbers two through 20,000.

But today, that is no longer true. Today, you not only have to do good – by creating jobs, providing goods, paying taxes and dividends. You have to proclaim that you are doing good. And if you transgress those rules, you are cast out of polite society.

Recently, the journalist Ed West wrote a book called Small Men on the Wrong Side of History. It was about, in essence, how conservatives are losing the culture war. As he says in that book, ‘The Left has developed a moral monopoly, so that those outside the faith are under an unspoken obligation to prove their moral worth before their views can be heard.’

I was reminded of this a few years ago when I got a message from my local council leader:

‘It is no longer enough to be simply a low tax council,’ it said. ‘It is also not enough to say we are good at delivering services.

‘People’s priorities have changed, and their expectations have increased.

‘We need to work harder to be seen as being on the side of residents.

‘And we need to re-earn our place in residents’ hearts and their minds. This is what will determine where they put their cross.

‘Our key response to the changing times is Smart Growth and our commitment to be inner London’s greenest borough.

‘Smart growth is green growth and is fair growth for all.’

I’ve quoted that email at length for one simple reason: I live in Wandsworth. What was long the lowest-tax, toughest-minded council in the country. The place where the Thatcherites proved that you can win even in the heart of a Labour-leaning city by delivering, delivering and delivering.

Except that, according to that email, you couldn’t. (Not that it mattered: in the most recent elections, the borough voted in Labour anyway.)

[...]

It’s almost a quarter of a century old, but there’s a wonderful passage in the original Bridget Jones columns that perfectly sums this up, in which Bridget suddenly finds out that Mark Darcy, her new boyfriend, is a Tory.

The Tories, she explains, stand for ‘braying bossy men having affairs with everyone… then telling all the presenters off on the Today programme.’ Labour ‘stands for sharing, kindness, gays, single mothers and Nelson Mandela’. It’s not hard to know who to vote for.

The morality of growth

Because of shrinking growth, we’ve become more and more obsessed with how to share the cake, and who deserves which particular slice. But that has reached the point where it is actively preventing us from returning to growth – because the free-market machine has become gritted up.

There was a lot of coverage a couple of years ago, for example, of the fact that Apple is now larger than the entire FTSE 100. It seemed like proof of the superior dynamism of the US tech firms.

But there’s a more interesting story here. In the five years before the pandemic struck, the FTSE All Share index went up by 20%. But the actual collective market capitalisation of Britain’s listed companies was completely flat. In other words, shares went up, but the number of listed firms went down. In 2019, just 34 firms applied to be listed – the lowest since the financial crisis.

There are many reasons for this. But one of the simplest is that we have made it such a chore to be a listed company, and to be a director of a listed company, that fewer and fewer rational people want to do it. The result is that the kind of popular capitalism that Margaret Thatcher dreamt of – an economy built around mass ownership of homes and shares and savings – becomes harder to achieve.

In the City, and across the wider economy, we have tilted the balance towards security and away from risk. And in doing so we have lost the sense of the value of business. Of the urgency of growth. Of the idea that creating a job – any job – and growing the economy should be considered a heroic act.

[...]

In which environments is impulsive behavior adaptive? A cross-discipline review and integration of formal models

Fenneman, J., Frankenhuis, W. E., & Todd, P. M. (2022). In which environments is impulsive behavior adaptive? A cross-discipline review and integration of formal models. Psychological Bulletin, 148(7-8), 555–587, Jan 2023. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000375

Abstract—Are impulsive behaviors an adaptive response to living in harsh or unpredictable environments? Formal models help address this question by providing cost–benefit analyses across a broad range of environmental conditions, but their various results have not been systematically integrated. Here, we survey models from diverse disciplines including psychology, biology, economics, and management to develop a conceptual framework of impulsivity. Using this framework, we integrated results from 30 models to review whether impulsivity is adaptive across a range of environmental conditions. We focus on information impulsivity, that is, acting without considering consequences, and temporal impulsivity, that is, the tendency to pick sooner outcomes over later ones. Results show that both types are adaptive when individuals are close to a critical threshold (e.g., bankruptcy), resources are predictable, or interruptions are common. When resources are scarce, impulsivity can be adaptive or maladaptive, depending on the type and degree of scarcity. Information impulsivity is also adaptive when environments do not change over time or change very often (but maladaptive in between), or if local resource patches have similar properties, reducing the need to gather further information. Temporal impulsivity is adaptive when environments do not change over time and when local resource patches differ. Our review shows theoreticians how ideas from different disciplines are connected, affords formal modelers to see similarities and differences between their own models and those of others, and informs researchers about which empirical predictions generalize across a broad range of environmental conditions and which ones do not. To end, we provide concrete recommendations for future empirical studies.

Public Significance Statement—We review and synthesize findings from 30 formal models from diverse disciplines to evaluate whether impulsive behaviors are adaptive or maladaptive in harsh or unpredictable environments. We focus on information impulsivity, acting without considering consequences, and temporal impulsivity, choosing sooner outcomes over later ones. Our synthesis provides six broad conclusions on the adaptive value of information and temporal impulsivity in different environmental conditions. We also provide recommendations for future research on environmental influences on impulsive behaviors.

Previous research from these authors: Impulsive behavior is not always adaptive in harsh & unpredictable conditions, it depends on the exact definitions of harshness, unpredictability, & impulsivity; may be adaptive when resource encounters are likely to be interrupted https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2020/08/impulsive-behavior-is-not-always.html

They found significantly higher levels of sexual intelligence in men as compared to women, which had significant positive correlations with age, education, emotional intelligence, social intelligence, sexual health, & satisfaction with life

Measuring Sexual Intelligence for Evaluating Sexual Health. Waqar Husain et al. Psychological Reports, January 14, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1177/00332941231152388

Abstract: The current paper reports four consecutive studies that were conducted to link sexual health with a new construct of sexual intelligence by developing and validating a new scale to measure sexual intelligence. Sexual intelligence was defined as “the ability to perceive, understand and respond to sexual needs and desires in a personal and social context.” Sexual Intelligence Scale (SIS), comprising of 8 items in English and 2 factors (sexual knowledge & sexual behavior), was developed and validated by involving 959 respondents in the process of 4 consecutive studies. The validity of SIS was tested step by step for its face, content, factorial, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validities. The reliability was measured through internal consistency and item-total & item-scale correlations. The study found significantly higher levels of sexual intelligence in men as compared to women. Sexual intelligence, moreover, had significant positive correlations with age, education, emotional intelligence, social intelligence, sexual health, and satisfaction with life. Sexual health was linked with sexual intelligence and the SIS was accepted as a reliable and valid tool to measure sexual intelligence.

Conclusion

The significance of sexuality in the lives of human beings has been well established

through the biological and as well as the psychological perspectives. Sexual intelligence

is a new construct. The literature reveals only two earlier works that mention the

term “sexual intelligence”. These works tried to present sexual intelligence as one of the

human abilities that enables a person to sense, perceive, understand, and respond to the

sexual needs and desires in a personal and social context. The current work is based

upon four consecutive studies that statistically validated the construct of sexual intelligence

and presented the first ever psychological scale in this regard. These four

studies were conducted for a step-by-step development and statistical validation of

‘Sukoon Sexual Intelligence Scale’ by establishing the factorial, convergent, discriminant,

and predictive validity of the scale.

Referring to the new developments in the theoretical and practical aspects of human

intelligence, the current work sensitizes the researchers to explore the construct of

sexual intelligence further as it is a significantly crucial factor within the construct of

general intelligence. Apart from being social, mental, or spiritual beings; humans must

be deeply understood as sexual beings. Their cognitive capabilities should also

highlight their sexual capacities. Sexual intelligence needs to be worked upon further as

it surely contributes to sexual satisfaction, marital satisfaction, marital adjustment, and

overall psychosocial wellbeing of a person. The inappropriate levels of sexual intelligence

in a person, if diagnosed properly, may protect the person from several sexual

improprieties including sexual dysfunctions and unsafe sex. The levels of sexual

intelligence can be enhanced by a special training program on sexual intelligence.

Future researchers are also suggested to design a capacity building theme to improve

one’s sexual intelligence through training.

A considerable share of the German population already felt fatigued with the coronavirus issue in April; the results show that perceptions of low news credibility and perceived “victimization” of other topics caused high levels of issue fatigue

When citizens get fed up. Causes and consequences of issue fatigue – Results of a two-wave panel study during the coronavirus crisis. Christina Schumann and Dorothee Arlt. Communications, Jan 14 2023. https://doi.org/10.1515/commun-2021-0014

Abstract: In the context of the long-lasting coronavirus crisis, this study examines the occurrence, causes, and consequences of issue fatigue – a phenomenon that refers to a feeling of annoyance with an issue that is repeated continually in the news. Using data obtained from a representative two-wave panel survey conducted online in April and May 2020 (n = 1,232) in Germany, the study employed a cross-lagged panel model to examine longitudinal relations. First, the results indicate that a considerable share of the German population already felt fatigued with the coronavirus issue in April, and that this proportion increased by May. Second, in terms of causes, the results show that perceptions of low news credibility and perceived “victimization” of other topics caused high levels of issue fatigue. However, effects of the reverse direction were also present, pointing to a mutual reinforcement of issue fatigue and media perceptions. Third, regarding consequences, the results reveal that recipients experiencing issue fatigue increasingly avoided coronavirus news, and also tended to disregard coronavirus hygiene rules.

Keywords: issue fatigue; media perceptions; information avoidance; disregarding coronavirus hygiene rules

We find that there are no statistically significant differences in generosity as a function of social class; however, there are subtle - yet statistically significant - patterns linking SES and dark triad personality traits

Fomina, Daria, Amy Goltermann, Claire E. Berner, Stephen Spivack, Theadora Bulajic, Jennifer Freda, Amelia Karim, et al. 2023. “The Influence of Affluence on Prosocial Behavior.” PsyArXiv. January 13. doi:10.31234/osf.io/grxyj

Abstract: Popular wisdom has it that excessive material wealth leads to decreased prosocial behavior. This notion has empirical support in the literature, but there are open questions about how strong, specific, and general this effect is. Here, we aimed to test the hypothesis that increased SES is associated with decreased prosocial behavior in a high-powered laboratory task. We find that there are no statistically significant differences in generosity as a function of social class. However, there are subtle - yet statistically significant - patterns linking SES and dark triad personality traits. We conclude that the relationship between SES and social behavior is considerably more nuanced than commonly believed.

There was no reliable effect of temperature on the behavioural outcomes measured; & we find little support for either the warmth-primes-prosociality view or the heat- facilitates-aggression view

Lynott, Dermot, Katherine S. Corker, Louise Connell, and Kerry S. O'Brien. 2023. “The Effects of Temperature on Prosocial and Antisocial Behaviour: A Review and Meta- Analysis.” PsyArXiv. January 13. doi:10.31234/osf.io/qup53

Abstract: Research from the social sciences suggests an association between higher temperatures and increases in antisocial behaviours, including aggressive, violent, or sabotaging behaviours, and represents a heat-facilitates-aggression perspective. More recently, studies have shown that higher temperature experiences may also be linked to increases in prosocial behaviours, such as altruistic, sharing, or cooperative behaviours, representing a warmth-primes-prosociality view. However, across both literatures, there have been inconsistent findings and failures to replicate key theoretical predictions, leaving the status of temperature-behaviour links unclear. Here we review the literature and conduct meta-analyses of available empirical studies that have either prosocial (e.g., monetary reward, gift giving, helping behaviour) or antisocial (self-rewarding, retaliation, sabotaging behaviour) behavioural outcome variables, with temperature as an independent variable. In an omnibus multivariate analysis (total N = 4577) with 80 effect sizes, we found that there was no reliable effect of temperature on the behavioural outcomes measured. Further, we find little support for either the warmth-primes-prosociality view or the heat- facilitates-aggression view. There were no reliable effects if we consider separately the type of behavioural outcome (prosocial or antisocial), different types of temperature experience (haptic or ambient), or potential interactions with the experimental social context (positive, neutral or negative). We discuss how these findings affect the status of existing theoretical perspectives, and provide specific suggestions advancing research in this area.

A new primitive language, inspired by Mesopotamic ones & by Dylan Black's I Taught ChatGPT to Invent a Language

A new primitive language, inspired by Mesopotamic ones & by Dylan Black's I Taught ChatGPT to Invent a Language https://maximumeffort.substack.com/p/i-taught-chatgpt-to-invent-a-language

My conversation with OpenAI...

> me: hello... may I create a new language with your help? I have a basic vocabulary to start.

> AI: Of course! I'd be happy to help you create a new language. What kind of vocabulary do you have to start with, and what kind of language are you trying to create?

> me: see these examples

water - u

cloud - un

rain - unu

river - um

creek - umu

man - a

boy - an

woman - anu

girl - am

embryo person - amu

food - e

cooking - en

pan - enu

milk - em

butter - emu

to be - i

to walk - in

to eat - inu

to sleep - im

to attack - imu

one - o

two - on

three - onu

four - om

five - omu

six - omu-o

seven - omu-on

eight - omu-onu

nine - omu-om

ten - oom

in/inside - uu

out/outside - uun

above - uunu

below - uum

bad - oo

good - oon

fast - oonu

slow - oom

AI: Those examples are a good start for creating a basic vocabulary for your new language. It seems that you're using a consistent pattern for creating new words by adding syllables to the end of a root word. For example, "water" is "u", "cloud" is "un", and "rain" is "unu". This is a common way to create new words in a constructed language.

It also appears that you are using a consistent pattern for creating different forms of a word. For example, "man" is "a", "woman" is "anu", "boy" is "an" and "girl" is "am". This is a good way to make the language easy to learn and use.

I would recommend that you create more words and test how they fit together in sentences, and maybe consider creating some grammar rules. You may also want to consider creating more numbers, words for different parts of speech, and so on, to make your language more expressive. Let me know if you want me to help you further, I'll be happy to assist you.

> me: and - ii

or - iin

could you please make sentences in the new language? Example to translate: one boy cooked food for two women and a man besides the river when it rained copiously

AI: Sure! Here is a possible translation of the sentence you provided into the new language you've created:

"oom an anu e en oon anu a ii um unu ii unu"

Here's how I arrived at that translation:

"one boy" = "oom an"

"cooked" = "en"

"food" = "e"

"for two women" = "oon anu"

"and a man" = "a ii"

"besides the river" = "um"

"when it rained copiously" = "unu ii unu"     <<< like humans did and do in many languages

Please note that the grammar and word order of the new language is not specified, thus this is just a way of putting the words together, but you may want to put some grammar rules in place to make the language more expressive.

---

I also tried to force things a bit...

> me: a man attacked an embryo and cooked it for the boy

> AI: "a ii amu iim an amu ii en"

Here's how I arrived at that translation:

"a man" = "a ii"

"attacked" = "iim"

"an embryo" = "an amu"

"and" = "ii"

"cooked" = "en"

"it" = "amu"

"for the boy" = "an"

[needles repetition of the previous advice]

Between 25% to 39% of the total variance in time spent playing video games can be attributed to shared genetic traits with the remainder explained by shared environmental factors (e.g., parenting and culture)

Genetic and Environmental Influences on Playing Video Games. Toqa Hassan. Media Psychology, Jan 12 2023. https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2023.2165504

Abstract: In this study, I use a representative survey from the German Twin Family Panel (N = 5,472) to examine the extent to which genetic and environmental factors account for time spent playing video games on personal computers and gaming consoles. Results show that genetic variation among twins explains a non-trivial amount of variation in video game play. Through ACE modeling techniques, I find that between 25% to 39% of the total variance in time spent playing video games can be attributed to shared genetic traits with the remainder explained by shared environmental factors (e.g., parenting and culture) and environmental attributes unique to individuals. This study and its findings provide a starting point for future genetic and neurological research on video game use and effects.

We are relatively pessimistic about our skills in striking an appealing conversation with a stranger and attribute the worst talking moments to ourselves

Pessimistic assessments of ability in informal conversation. Christopher Welker, Jesse Walker, Erica Boothby, Thomas Gilovich. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, January 10 2023. https://doi.org/10.1111/jasp.12957

Abstract: Conversation is one of the most common ways of establishing social connection and satisfying the need to belong. But despite spending considerable time talking to others, many people report that engaging in informal conversation with anyone other than close friends and family makes them anxious. In this research, we explored people's assessments of their conversational ability. In Studies 1a–1c, we found that people are relatively pessimistic about their skills in conversation when compared to other common activities. We also provide support for the hypothesis that this pessimism is driven by a tendency to not engage in the usual pattern of self-serving attributions when it comes to the positive and negative moments of conversations. Instead, people attribute the low points of a conversation more to themselves than to the other person (Studies 2 and 3). We discuss the origins of this attributional pattern, as well as other potential mechanisms underlying conversational pessimism, in the General Discussion.

Contrary to the moral comparison, appearance-based standards comparison is most frequently made with those of better looks than our own, and we suffer for it

How we compare: A new approach to assess aspects of the comparison process for appearance-based standards and their associations with individual differences in wellbeing and personality measures. Peter A. McCarthy, Thomas Meyer, Mitja D. Back, Nexhmedin Morina. PLOS, January 11, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280072

Abstract: We introduce a novel approach to assess habitual comparison processes, while distinguishing between different types of comparison standards. Several comparison theories (e.g., social) suggest that self-evaluations use different standards to inform self-perception and are associated with wellbeing and personality. We developed the Comparison Standards Scale for Appearance (CSS-A) to examine self-reported engagement with social, temporal, criteria-based, dimensional, and counterfactual comparisons for upward and downward standards in relation to appearance. The scale was completed by three hundred participants online alongside measures of appearance schemas, social comparison evaluations, depression, anxiety, stress, self-esteem, physical self-concept, narcissism, and perfectionism. The CSS-A was found to reliably assess individual differences in upward and downward comparison frequency and affective impact for multiple comparison standards. In line with theory, CSS-A upward comparisons were more frequent than downward comparisons and coincided with negative (versus positive) affective impact. Comparison intensity (i.e., comparison frequency × discrepancy) predicted negative and positive affective impact for upward and downward comparisons, respectively. This relationship was partially mediated by appearance concern for upward comparisons (a composite of appearance schemas and physical self-concept), yet moderated by negativity for downward comparisons (a composite of depression, anxiety, stress, and self-esteem). We offer a framework for measuring the comparison process that warrants further research on underlying comparison processes, for which the CSS(-A) and experience sampling methods should serve as useful tools.

Discussion

This study presents a novel approach to assess between-person differences in aspects of the comparison process as they relate to appearance self-perception. Results suggest that the CSS-A reliably assesses individual differences across five types of comparison standards and engendered affective reaction. Participants reported more upward than downward comparisons and comparison intensity was significantly associated with affective impact. Appearance concern partially accounted for the aversive affective consequences of upward comparisons, while the positive association between downward intensity and affective impact was weaker for individuals who reported higher negativity ratings.

Structure & properties of the CSS-A items

Analyses of frequency items showed good reliability and the two-factor structure indicates that all types of standards are used in upward and downward appearance-based comparisons. Exploratory factor analyses for items per standard could only support extraction of a social standard factor, likely due to the greater potential of specific social standards (eight) compared to the other standards (four each). However, social standards are also more commonly used to inform appearance-based self-perceptions due to physical representations and socio-cultural phenomena such as advertising and social media, [e.g., 60–62]. This was supported by the CFA, where the general appearance factor was defined by a social item.

As expected, upward comparisons were more frequently reported than downward comparisons and were associated with predominantly negative affective impact, while downward comparisons were predominantly positive. In the EFA, the upward and downward comparison factors accounted for 25% of the common variance in frequency, however the downward comparison factor explained a relatively low amount of this, which usually indicates the items do not accurately measure a shared latent factor. Yet in the CFA, downward items accounted for variance in the general factor and the downward factor, where loadings were stronger for the latter. This indicates that while downward standards are utilised, they are less salient in appearance comparisons, supporting previous findings that they are not as common as upward standards [63,64]. Downward comparisons may be rather reactive, rather than self-initiated, and involve more flexible standards [65], thus being less consistent and more difficult to recall than upward comparisons.

Only future temporal, counterfactual, compensatory dimensional, and ideal criteria-based standards significantly contributed to a specific upward comparison factor, indicating that these captured less typical upward appearance comparisons. While taking the motivational significance of comparisons processes into account [1], we anticipated the future temporal and compensatory dimensional standards as appetitive (i.e., favourable) upward comparisons. This was supported by the positive mean affective impact ratings for these items, while the counterfactual comparison items were aversive, indicating that the upward factor represents both appetitive and aversive standards outside of the typical appearance comparisons. Specific standards could prove useful for identifying atypical comparison habits that have (dys)functional properties. For example, according to the functional theory of counterfactual thinking [66], excessive upward counterfactual thinking is associated with higher negative affect and depressive symptoms, supported in a review of upward counterfactual thinking [28]. Further investigation of comparison standards as indicators of self-perception is necessary, particularly to establish what constitutes excessive or dysfunctional appearance comparisons, as well as if this varies between dimensions. Our results show that the CSS-A is a useful tool for future research to consider multiple comparison standards when investigating appearance self-evaluation processes, as well as providing a framework for research in other domains.

While appearance comparisons are largely shaped by social and upward standards, other comparison dimensions may be shaped by different types of standards. For example, comparisons involved in assessing one’s wellbeing are predominantly based on upward comparisons using past temporal, social, and criteria-based standards, often with negative evaluations [3]. Whereas for academic and social performance, past and future temporal comparisons are most common and are associated with more positive self-evaluations than social and criteria-based comparisons [38]. We encourage further research using the CSS-A framework for other comparison dimensions to gain better insight into variations of the comparison process.

The roles of Appearance concern and negativity

Both appearance concern and negativity showed stronger associations with upward comparison intensity and affective impact than downward comparison intensity and affective impact, and both composite variables were associated with negative affective impact. We tested a provisional process-based approach to assess the mediating and moderating properties of the composite variables on the relationship between comparison intensity and affective impact. For upward comparisons, higher comparison intensity with higher appearance concern was associated with negative affective impact. For downward comparisons, the association between comparison intensity and positive affective impact was moderated by negativity, where low negativity scores were indicative of higher positive affective impact as intensity scores were higher. These results support previous findings that dimension salience and psychological wellbeing influence comparison outcomes and subsequent affective reactions [2,3], and could explain findings such as why only some individuals experience the touted benefits of downward comparisons [67]. Future research should focus on these relationships in-situ due to the dynamic nature of cognitions, emotions, and behaviour.

While our conclusions may appear self-evident, very little research has investigated influences of the comparison process outside of self-esteem, group differences, or motives, especially beyond social comparisons. Although beyond the scope of this paper, perception of changeability of an attribute has also been identified as a moderator of self-evaluative process and outcomes [68], which can be applied to the comparison process and consequences, such as change in affect [1]. For example, if an individual makes an unfavourable comparison about their appearance and perceive this as a fixed entity, they are more likely to be threatened by the comparison and experience a negative change in affect, particularly if appearance concern is high. However, should the individual perceive appearance as malleable, this could lead to optimism and a positive change in affect.

Measurement of the comparison process

Previous cross-sectional assessments of comparison standards have focused on unitary aspects of the comparison process, mostly the frequency of specific comparisons, such as in social [16] and counterfactual comparisons [69]. In a rare example of a multi-standard comparison scale, only frequency was assessed and the scale was limited to one item per direction and standard, and scoring ignored individual comparison standards [70]. Several reviews have reiterated that to fully understand the comparison process, it is important to consider various standards, direction of comparison, perceived (dis)similarity and engendered reactions [1,2,5]. The conceptualization of the CSS-A is therefore necessary to assess key aspects of the comparison process, with comparison intensity and affective impact variables providing respective indicators of comparison evaluation outcomes and engendered reaction. Literature investigating the associations of comparison habits with body-image perception and eating disorders have all but focused on social comparison [23,71,72], yet our results show that individuals engage with multiple types of standards. Observed gender differences in comparison intensity and affective impact ratings also occurred within upward standards, where women reported higher comparison intensity than men as well as lower negative affective impact scores. Investigating multiple comparison standards in body-image research could provide greater insight into individual differences when considering gender, as well as informing potential uses for clinical assessment and intervention.

Strengths and limitations

Previous self-report measures have predominantly focused on singular types of comparison standards or have been limited to one aspect of the comparison process. We developed the CSS-A to measure multi-standard comparisons in context of perceived appearance. Our approach incorporates several theories of comparison standards that have found comparative thinking influences self-perception. Yet, the following limitations deserve to be mentioned. Despite recruiting a large sample and following the general rule of thumb of at least 10:1 ratio of participants to items for obligatory scale items [73], a larger sample and a better distribution of age and gender would have benefited validity and reliability. In addition, convergent validity regarding standards is limited given the lack of comparable measures and subsequent novel development of the scale. Thus, future studies with larger samples are required to further establish the characteristics of the CSS-A. Another potential limitation is that we focused on upward and downward comparisons, omitting the possibility of lateral comparisons. The general comparison processing model of self-perception by Morina [1] defines lateral comparisons as fulfilling an important role in the self-evaluation process. For example, lateral social comparisons tend to be reported just as often as upward social comparisons [5]; however, upward and downward comparisons across various standards have been reported more often than lateral comparisons for the dimension of wellbeing [3]. We did not explicitly refer to lateral comparisons, yet we assessed the degree of comparison discrepancy, where a value of zero may suggest a lateral comparison. Thus, using the intensity variables per direction, we attempt to control for lateral comparisons while assessing the typical outcome of upward or downward comparison evaluations.

Future research

Our approach to assessing comparison as a process provides several avenues for future research. The current study focuses on appearance comparisons, however comparison tendencies represented by intensity and affective impact will likely differ depending on the comparison dimension, with contextual and individual differences influencing the comparison process [1]. Therefore further research can adapt the CSS-A to other specific comparison dimensions, such as trauma-related counterfactual comparisons [29]. Using the process-based approach to assessment with experience sampling methods will also facilitate the assessment of multiple comparison dimensions, as well as providing within-person data to see if our findings occur at state-level. Previous experience sampling in diary studies have often focused on specific types of comparison standards [19–21], or were limited regarding information about comparison standards and self-evaluation [14]. Our approach could be applied to a diary method similar to Summerville and Roese [14] using prompts and a series of questions to assess what type of comparison standard was used, yet with a broader range of comparison standards, as well as additional questions addressing key aspects of comparison such as discrepancy. Finally, to examine the comparative impact of different types of comparison on appearance and engendered reactions experimental studies are required. More data on the comparison process at both trait and state levels will provide much needed insight on the aspects involved and how these contribute to beneficial and undesirable consequences.