Saturday, September 19, 2020

Longitudinal data from the Child Development Project: Parental psychological control perceived at age 16 predicts insecure attachment at age 18, which then predicts psychological intimate partner violence at age 24

Psychological Intimate Partner Violence, Insecure Attachment, and Parental Psychological Control from Adolescence to Emerging Adulthood. So Young Choe, Jungeun Olivia Lee, Stephen J. Read. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, September 15, 2020.

Abstract: We examine if psychological intimate partner violence (pIPV) is predicted by parental psychological control (PPC) via insecure attachment. Our results analyzing longitudinal data from the Child Development Project show that PPC perceived at age 16 predicts insecure attachment at age 18, which then predicts pIPV at age 24. Moreover, the paths with attachment anxiety are consistently significant while ones with attachment avoidance are not. Further, all the paths are significant regardless of the gender of the adolescents and parents, which indicates that PPC is detrimental regardless of the gender of the adolescents or parents. Lastly, PPC perceived at age 16 does not directly predict pIPV at age 24, which suggests that social learning theory of aggression (Bandura, 1978) may not explain the association from PPC to pIPV. Our results suggest that research and practice would benefit by considering PPC as an antecedent of pIPV via insecure attachment from adolescence to emerging adulthood.

Keywords: parental psychological control, attachment, intimate partner violence

93 math teachers grading exam papers: those who underestimated their own implicit stereotypes engaged in more pro-male discrimination compared to those who overestimated or accurately estimated them

On the Origins of Gender-Biased Behavior: The Role of Explicit and Implicit Stereotypes. Eliana Avitzour, Adi Choen, Daphna Joel, Victor Lavy. NBER Working Paper No. 27818, September 2020.

Abstract: In recent years, explicit bias against women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) is disappearing but gender discrimination is still prevalent. We assessed the gender-biased behavior and related explicit and implicit stereotypes of 93 math teachers to identify the psychological origins of such discrimination. We asked the teachers to grade math exam papers and assess the students’ capabilities while manipulating the perceived gender of the students to capture gender-biased grading and assessment behavior. We also measured the teachers’ implicit and explicit stereotypes regarding math, gender, and talent. We found that implicit, but not explicit, gender stereotypes correlated with grading and assessment behavior. We also found that participants who underestimated their own implicit stereotypes engaged in more pro-male discrimination compared to those who overestimated or accurately estimated them. Reducing implicit gender stereotypes and exposing individuals to their own implicit biases may be beneficial in promoting gender equality in STEM fields.

We show evidence that a well-socialized companion cat was able to reproduce actions demonstrated by a human model

Did we find a copycat? Do as I Do in a domestic cat (Felis catus). Claudia Fugazza, Andrea Sommese, Ákos Pogány & Ádám Miklósi. Animal Cognition (2020). Sep 18, 2020.


Abstract: This study shows evidence of a domestic cat (Felis catus) being able to successfully learn to reproduce human-demonstrated actions based on the Do as I Do paradigm. The subject was trained to reproduce a small set of familiar actions on command “Do it!” before the study began. To test feature–contingent behavioural similarity and control for stimulus enhancement, our test consisted of a modified version of the two-action procedure, combined with the Do as I Do paradigm. Instead of showing two different actions on an object to different subjects, we applied a within-subject design and showed the two actions to the same subject in separate trials. We show evidence that a well-socialized companion cat was able to reproduce actions demonstrated by a human model by reproducing two different actions that were demonstrated on the same object. Our experiment provides the first evidence that the Do as I Do paradigm can be applied to cats, suggesting that the ability to recognize behavioural similarity may fall within the range of the socio-cognitive skills of this species. The ability of reproducing the actions of a heterospecific human model in well-socialized cats may pave the way for future studies addressing cats’ imitative skills.


Our results show the first experimental evidence of the domestic cat’s ability of matching actions to the actions displayed by a heterospecific, human demonstrator in the Do as I Do paradigm. Thereby we provide evidence that the capacity of reproducing actions of a heterospecific model could be considered within the range of cats’ cognitive skills.
Based on the cat’s performance, we argue that she has the ability to map the different body parts and movements of the human demonstrator into her own body parts and movements, at least to some extent. Ebisu’s ability to reproduce the demonstrator’s actions when different actions were shown on the same object allow excluding that behavioural similarity relied only on perceptual factors, such as increased attention to the stimulus. In fact, the cat’s flexibly modified her behaviour based on the different actions that were demonstrated, thereby excluding stimulus enhancement and goal emulation as explanations for the behavioural similarity between demonstrator and observer (Dawson and Foss, 1965; Akins and Zentall 1996; van de Waal et al. 2012).
The two actions chosen as demonstrations were of similar difficulty for the cat and this is confirmed by similar success in reproducing those. One of the two actions—the paw action—was not completely novel for the cat, since she had been trained to touch other objects with her paw. In the case of this action, therefore, the novelty in the test consisted of the object to be touched. However, the face action had not been previously trained, and Ebisu had never been required to perform or imitate this action before the experiment. Her reproduction of the face-rubbing action since the first trial when this action was demonstrated indicates that she was able to generalize the Do as I Do rule to reproduce this action too. This also suggests that cats may have the ability to map the different body parts and movements of the human demonstrator into their own body parts. Face-rubbing is a behaviour that pertains to the natural repertoire of cats (Machado and Genaro 2014; Vitale Shreve and Udell 2017b). However, this action was not included in the Do as I Do training, and Ebisu had never been trained to perform it. Transfer tests of this kind, in which successful performance on one cognitive task is applied to another, ensure that the subjects learned a rule and not a stimulus–response association (Shea and Heyes 2010).
Importantly, in the very first trial when rubbing face on the box was demonstrated (trial 1, Table 3), Ebisu performed both actions: she touched the box with her paw (a body movement that belonged to her training repertoire) and she also rubbed her face on the box. Although this trial was excluded from the action matching analysis due to its ambiguity, we note that the cat performed the demonstrated action after the very first time seeing it and this shows that the cat was already able to use the demonstration as a sample against which to match her behaviour at the start of the experiment. The performance of the cat can be explained by imitation (Whiten and Ham 1992) or, alternatively, by response facilitation (Byrne 1994).
Unexpectedly, Ebisu did not always approach the object used by her owner during the demonstrations and in 4 trials she performed the demonstrated action “on nothing” or on the floor (so-called “vacuum actions”, Huber et al. 2009). This happened in three face action trials and in one paw action trials, suggesting that it was not an action-specific response. Moreover, the cat did not approach the object (and location) where the demonstration was performed more likely than chance level. This may simply be due to fatigue and reduced motivation related to the compromised health of the cat (i.e., it may be due to tiredness or low motivation, making it more likely that the subject would save energy and not move from her starting position).
Ebisu’s health condition did not allow further testing; therefore, some caution should be taken before generalizing the results to other actions, not tested in the present study. However, the results obtained by combining the Do as I Do method and the two-action procedure allow us to exclude that the cat’s performance relied on other processes, such as stimulus enhancement or goal emulation. These findings provide evidence that the cat was able to successfully learn to reproduce human-demonstrated actions with the Do as I Do method. Cats, similar to dogs (e.g. Fugazza and Miklósi 2014), might be able to map the different body parts and movements of the human demonstrator into their own body parts, at least with regard to the tested actions. Ebisu’s motivation for food and training activities made it possible to successfully train her with the Do as I Do method. Our experience about the time investment and difficulty of training cats prevented us from testing other subjects, therefore, the extent to which we can generalize these results to the cat population in general takes further investigation. We suggest that cats possess the cognitive skill to reproduce the actions of conspecific and—if properly socialized—also heterospecific models. Therefore, we think that these results could be replicated, provided that the subjects can be motivated enough by food, toys/play or social reward, to collaborate with a human trainer.

2016 US elections: “Born this way”-type beliefs in the innateness & immutability of sexual orientation did not significantly distinguish respondents’ support for presidential candidates or party affiliation

Grzanka, P. R., Zeiders, K. H., Spengler, E. S., Hoyt, L. T., & Toomey, R. B. (2020). Do beliefs about sexual orientation predict voting behavior? Results from the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, 7(3), 241–252.

Rolf Degen's take:

Abstract: Research has shown that beliefs about sexual orientation, including the naturalness, discreteness, and informativeness of sexual orientation categories, are associated with varying levels of sexual prejudice. Less is known about how these and other sexual orientation beliefs may correspond with broader social and political attitudes, including party affiliation and voting behavior. The present study explored voting intention and political party affiliation, as well as other constructs not directly associated with sexuality, among a sample of emerging adults (N = 286) immediately prior to the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Using a person-centered statistical approach, we replicated sexual orientation belief profiles found in prior research and observed significant associations between belief profiles and intentions to vote for certain candidates, as well as party affiliation, ambivalent sexist attitudes, and number of reported lesbian, gay, and bisexual friends. Notably, “born this way”-type beliefs in the innateness and immutability of sexual orientation did not significantly distinguish respondents’ support for presidential candidates or political party affiliation. We situate these results within existing research on essentialist beliefs and point to implications of these findings for ongoing research, clinical work, and advocacy for sexual minority rights

Himba women who face greater resource constraints are less discriminating in the number of partners they are open to, & have stronger preferences for resource-related traits; number of dependants was an important predictor

Resource demands reduce partner discrimination in Himba women. Sean P. Prall and Brooke A. Scelza. Evolutionary Human Sciences (2020), 2, e45, doi:10.1017/ehs.2020.43

Abstract: Where autonomy for partner choice is high, partner preferences may be shaped by both social and ecological conditions. In particular, women’s access to resources can influence both the type and number of partnerships she engages in. However, most existing data linking resources and partner choice rely on either priming effects or large demographic databases, rather than preferences for specific individuals. Here we leverage a combination of demographic data, food insecurity scores and trait and partner preference ratings to determine whether resource security modulates partner preferences among Himba pastoralists. We find that while food insecurity alone has a weak effect on women’s openness to new partners, the interaction of food insecurity and number of dependent children strongly predicts women’s openness to potential partners. Further, we show that women who have more dependants have stronger preferences for wealthy and influential men. An alternative hypothesis derived from mating-market dynamics, that female desirability affects female preferences, had no effect. Our data show that women who face greater resource constraints are less discriminating in the number of partners they are open to, and have stronger preferences for resource-related traits. These findings highlight the importance of ecological signals in explaining the plasticity of mate preferences.

Keywords: mate choice; food insecurity; transactional sex


Male access to resources is believed to be one of the primary factors in female mate choice, and has
broad empirical support across taxa. Here, we examine how resource scarcity affects women’s openness to new partners, and how the relative importance of resource-related traits changes as resource
scarcity increases. Women with more dependants, and women with more dependants who are
more food insecure, show attenuated discrimination of potential partners, and are more likely to
give any individual male higher preference ratings. We also predicted that other resource related traits,
as rated by women in the study community, should be similarly related to female preference with
higher resource scarcity predicting greater weighting of these traits. Livestock wealth, as reported by
men, was a strong predictor of female preference. However, other male traits which may signal
resource acquisition or sharing potential, including being generous and hardworking, showed no relationship to resource need. In other words, while women with more dependants tended to prefer
wealthier men, the degree to which a man was viewed as being hardworking, generous or attractive
did not differ across women with varyng resource need.
Our data show a positive correlation between resource scarcity and the level of discrimination used
in a partner choice task. While definitively demonstrating a causal relationship between scarcity and
selectivity is not possible with these data, we did test an alternative hypothesis that this relationship
was simply the product of a relationship between resource need and position on the mating market,
Our results indicate that relative mate value, as measured by male desirability ratings of women, has no
impact on female preferences. Women who were viewed as more desirable by men were not more discriminating in their judgments. Given the large and multifaceted literature on assortative mating, this
finding warrants further study. In particular, use of women’s assessments of their own desirability
(self-perceived mate value), instead of male assessed desirability, may show stronger associations
Figure 2. Posterior predictions for interaction effect of number of dependants and status assessments on reported mate preferences. Posterior medians and 95% credible intervals for each rating category shown
with women’s mate choice. Here, we focus on the role that resource scarcity plays in determining preferences, but we recognize that this is just one of many potential pressure points that could be influencing partner choice.

The methods used in this study differ markedly from those that are currently standard in mate
choice studies within evolutionary psychology. We rely on individualized demographics and food
security ratings, rather than primes of resource scarcity. We also collected preference data for members
of the respondents’ own community, people well known to them, rather than standardized images or
priming vignettes. This more individualized approach is believed to increase ecological validity in
these sorts of tasks (Gervais, 2017). Furthermore, the study was conducted in a community where
resource scarcity is particularly salient, as chronic drought and limited access to market goods
mean that food insecurity is a common concern. This study therefore provides an important complement to previous findings, which have largely relied on samples from student populations in countries where resource scarcity is less common.

We found that number of dependants was an important predictor of partner preferences, both on
its own and in conjunction with food insecurity. In the case of shifting trait preferences, number of
dependants was a stronger predictor than food insecurity. It may be because food insecurity is chronically high in this population that food security alone does not produce enough variation to see large effects. Number of dependants represents a longer-term measure of resource stress than food security,
which has seasonal components, and which may fluctuate somewhat depending on conditions like the
number of recent funerals or ceremonies (where food is more abundant), as well as cultural practices
to cope with drought and low food availability (Bollig, 2010).
The results from this study add an interesting complement to the broader literature on transactional
sex and risky sexual behavior. Concurrent and sequential partnerships are common among Himba,
and not stigmatized in the way they are in many places. The majority of married men and women
across age groups have at least one additional partner, and these relationships are often long-lasting,
at times spanning several decades (Scelza et al., 2020b; Scelza & Prall, 2018). The transfer of resources
is commonly cited as an important component of women’s relationships with both their husbands and
their lovers. These can range from expectations about provisioning of cash or food to help with an
emergency to smaller food gifts and trinkets such as bracelets and mobile airtime. We therefore see
the relationship between resource stress and openness to romantic partners to be driven in part by
expectations that men can buffer shortfalls, in much the same way that transactional sex operates
in other sub-Saharan contexts.


This study uses a novel trait and partner preference trait rating task, where participants rate individuals
known to them in the community. In most cases, this is preferable to using self-perceived traits, in that
it assesses community perception of individual community members, and as such should be a more
accuate representation of individual characteristics. However, this means that these results are difficult
to compare with many similar studies that use self-perceived mate value (e.g. Fisher, Cox, Bennett, &
Gavric, 2008). Additionally, trait ratings of known individuals may be subject to bias based on personal history, and traits like attractiveness are subject to non-physical influences when assessing
known individuals (Kniffin & Wilson, 2004). However, other ratings including being influential
and hardworking require knowledge of the individual in question, and the statistical methods make
idiosyncratic ratings unlikely to impact results. Complex interactions including marital status of the
rater and ratee, interpersonal dynamics and other unknown effects may be at play in the preference
ratings. Additionally, in our preference task, women were asked about how much they would like
to be in a relationship with a given set of men, but we did not specify whether this would be a marital
or non-marital relationship. Since divorce and remarriage are common, as are poygyny and concurrency, partnership status is not a disqualifer of a potential future partner, or partner interest more
broadly, but future work will seek to clarify how women best utilize different partner types.

There are other potential explanations for the relationship between resource scarcity and partner preferences that were not directly tested in this study. Some practitioners of life history theory predict that
early life stressors (including reduced access to resources) might lead to a faster life history, including
being open to a greater number of sexual partners (Simpson, Griskevicius, Kuo, Sung, & Collins, 2012).
Because of limitations in the data we had available and questions of ecological validity, we did not test
this theory here. Food insecurity in this population is largely a function of access to livestock and maize,
both of which are highly dependent on rainfall. In this drought-prone environment fluctuations in
wealth are not uncommon, so that a family with plentiful resources one year could after a multiyear
drought be suffering greatly. Given this stochasticity, as well as demographic factors like high rates
of divorce, remarriage and fosterage, which influence household composition, we do not have a simple
measure of early life stress that we could use here as a predictor. Furthermore, in our ethnographic
interviews women and men have continually stressed the importance of resource transfers as being
an important facet of both formal (marital) and informal romantic relationships. Therefore, we focused
here on how current measures of need might impact partner choice.

First, Best, Forbidden and Worst Kisses: Memorable Experiences of Intimate Kisses Among U.S. Adults

First, Best, Forbidden and Worst: Memorable Experiences of Intimate Kisses Among Heterosexual and Sexual Minority U.S. Adults. Kendra S. Wasson Simpson et al. Journal of Relationships Research, Volume 112020, e11, September 2020.

Abstract: Intimate kissing is often viewed as a preliminary or ancillary behaviour in studies exploring sexual interactions. There is a lack of research that focuses on differentiating the types of intimate kisses, including the contexts in which they occur, and desirable and undesirable features. The current study was designed to assess memories of first, best, forbidden and worst kisses. Participants were 691 U.S. adults (mean age 32.27 years; 55% identified as male) who completed an online survey addressing kissing attitudes and experiences using both structured and open-ended survey tools. Four themes emerged through content analysis: physical components, connection to the partner, context, and emotions evoked; and these are discussed for all four types of kissing memories. Findings are discussed in terms of embodiment that intimate kisses capture, their role as a metric of one's attraction to a partner, and the means by which kissing experiences might solidify a sense of oneself as a sexual person.