Tag: Behavioral Science

Violence on TV: The Effects Can Stretch From Age 3 Into the Teens

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Newswise — Watching violent TV during the preschool years can lead to later risks of psychological and academic impairment, the summer before middle school starts, according to a new study led by Linda Pagani, a professor at Université de Montréal’s School of Psycho-Education.

The study is published in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics.

Before now, “it was unclear to what extent exposure to typical violent screen content in early childhood—a particularly critical time in brain development—can predict later psychological distress and academic risks,” said Pagani.

“The detection of early modifiable factors that influence a child’s later well-being is an important target for individual and community health initiatives, and psychological adjustment and academic motivation are essential elements in the successful transition to adolescence,” she added.

“So, we wanted to see the long-term effect of typical violent screen exposure in preschoolers on normal development, based on several key indicators of youth adjustment at age 12.”

To do this, Pagani and her team examined the violent screen content that parents reported their children viewing between ages three-and-a-half and four-and-a-half, and then conducted a follow-up when the children reached 12.

Two reports were taken

At the follow-up, two reports were taken: first, of what teachers said they observed, and second, of what the children themselves, now at the end of Grade 6, described as their psychological and academic progress.

“Compared to their same-sex peers who were not exposed to violent screen content, boys and girls who were exposed to typical violent content on television were more likely to experience subsequent increases in emotional distress,” said Pagani.

“They also experienced decreases in classroom engagement, academic achievement and academic motivation by the end of the sixth grade,” she added.

“For youth, transition to middle school already represents a crucial stage in their development as adolescents. Feeling sadness and anxiety and being at risk academically tends to complicate their situation.”

Pagani and co-authors Jessica Bernard and Caroline Fitzpatrick came to their conclusions after examining data from a cohort of children born in 1997 or 1998 who are part of the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development, coordinated by the Institut de la statistique du Québec.

Close to 2,000 children studied

In all, the parents of 978 girls and 998 boys participated in the study of violent TV viewing at the preschool age. At age 12 years, the children and their teachers rated the children’s psychosocial and academic achievement, motivation and participation in classroom activities.

Pagani’s team then analyzed the data to identify any significant link between problems with those aspects and violent content they were exposed to at preschool, while trying to account for as many possible biases and confounding influences as possible.

“Our goal was to eliminate any pre-existing conditions of the children or families that could have provided an alternative explanation or throw a different light on our results,” Pagani said.

Watching TV is a common early childhood pastime, and some of the children in the study were exposed to violence and some were not.

Psychological and academic impairment in children is of increasing concern for education and public-health sector workers. According to Pagani, problems starting middle school are rooted in early childhood.

Identifying with fictional characters

“Preschool children tend to identify with characters on TV and treat everything they see as real,” she said. “They are especially vulnerable to humorous depictions of glorified heroes and villains who use violence as a justified means to solve problems.

“Repeated exposure,” she added, “to rapidly paced, adrenaline-inducing action sequences and captivating special effects could reinforce beliefs, attitudes and impressions that habitual violence in social interactions is ‘ normal’. Mislearning essential social skills can make it difficult to fit in at school.”

Added Bernard: “Just like witnessing violence in real life, being repeatedly exposed to a hostile and violent world populated by sometimes grotesque-looking creatures could trigger fear and stress and lead these children to perceive society as dangerous and frightening.

“And this can lead to habitually overreacting in ambiguous social situations.”

She continued: “In the preschool years, the number of hours in a day is limited, and the more children get exposed to aggressive interactions (on screens) the more they might think it normal to behave that way.”

Pagani added: “Being exposed to more appropriate social situations, however, can help them develop essential social skills that will later be useful and ultimately play a key role in their personal and economic success.”

About this study

“Prospective associations between preschool exposure to violent televiewing and psycho-social and academic risks in early adolescent boys and girls” was published Nov. 8, 2022 in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. Universite de Montréal professor Linda Pagani, Ph.D., is lead author of the study; Jessica Bernard, M.Sc., is a graduate student under her supervision, and Caroline Fitzpatrick, Ph.D., is Canada Research Chair in Education at Université de Sherbrooke. Pagani is also a researcher at the UdeM-affiliated CHU Sainte-Justine Research Centre and with the Research Group on Learning Environments of the Fonds de recherche du Québec—Société et culture. Fitzpatrick is an assistant professor at both Université de Sherbrooke’s Department of Preschool and Elementary School Education and at the University of Johannesburg’s Department of Childhood Education.

The authors wish to acknowledge the sponsors funding the larger public data set. The Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development was made possible thanks to the funding provided by the Fondation Lucie et André Chagnon, the Institut de la Statistique du Québec, the Ministère de l’Éducation et de l’Enseignement supérieur (MÉES), the Ministère de la Famille (MF), the Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail (IRSST), the Centre hospitalier universitaire Sainte-Justine, the Ministère du Travail, de l’Emploi et de la Solidarité sociale (MTESS) and the Ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux du Québec (MSSS). Source: Data compiled from the final master file ‘E1-E22’ from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (1998–2019), ©Gouvernement du Québec, Institut de la statistique du Québec.

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Universite de Montreal

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November 7, 2022
Americans more likely to share COVID-19 misinformation online

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Newswise — People living in the United States are more than three times more likely to share misinformation and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 than people in four other English-speaking countries, including Canada, a Simon Fraser University study has found.

When the entire world stopped in early 2020 due to the pandemic, researchers were presented with a rare opportunity to study the sharing of the same conspiracy theories and other misinformation across multiple countries.

SFU political science professor Mark Pickup, along with colleagues from Colorado State University and McMaster University, focused on five Western, English-speaking democracies: the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.

Researchers found that people in the U.S. were no more likely to report seeing misinformation than people living in any of the other countries but were three times more likely to share these theories with their followers.

“America is an outlier. Our findings are consistent with recent work about the outsized role that Americans play in sharing misinformation on social media,” Pickup says.

According to the study, published in the Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media, there are a few reasons why Americans stand out from the other countries.

While people in other countries self-reported that they shared misinformation to make other aware of them or to criticize them, Americans are considerably more likely to share theories to promote or show support for them and use it as a way to connect with others.

The polarized political landscape of the U.S., which also played out in debates about COVID-19, also correlated with the sharing of misinformation. Those who identified as conservative and those that trusted the Trump government were more likely to share misinformation online.

In all countries, those who have populist attitudes and distrust health officials were more likely to share misinformation than those who do not.

In Canada, the survey found that the number one reason people shared conspiracy theories online was for people to be aware of them and the second-most common reason was to criticize them.

Facebook was the most common platform for sharing misinformation, accounting for more than half of those sharing misinformation in each country.

The results are based on their study of thousands of nationally-representative surveys conducted in each country in July 2020 and January 2021.

ABOUT SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

As Canada’s engaged university, SFU works with communities, organizations and partners to create, share and embrace knowledge that improves life and generates real change. We deliver a world-class education with lifelong value that shapes change-makers, visionaries and problem-solvers. We connect research and innovation to entrepreneurship and industry to deliver sustainable, relevant solutions to today’s problems. With campuses in British Columbia’s three largest cities—Vancouver, Burnaby and Surrey—SFU has eight faculties that deliver 364 undergraduate degree programs and 149 graduate degree programs to more than 37,000 students. The university now boasts more than 180,000 alumni residing in 145+ countries.

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Simon Fraser University

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November 7, 2022
Study reveals vaccine confidence declined considerably during COVID-19 pandemic
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Newswise — A new study suggests that, despite the success of the COVID-19 vaccination campaigns, vaccine confidence has declined significantly since the start of the pandemic.

Researchers from the University of Portsmouth carried out two anonymous surveys in the winters of 2019 and 2022 to investigate people’s attitudes towards vaccinations and the factors that might underpin hesitancy and refusal.

By comparing the responses of more than 1,000 adults overall, they found the post-pandemic group was considerably less confident in vaccines than in the pre-pandemic one.

The paper, published in the medical journal Vaccine, revealed nearly one in four participants reported a fall in confidence since 2020, and this was observed regardless of participants’ age, gender, religious belief, education and ethnicity.

Dr Alessandro Siani, Associate Head (Students) of the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Portsmouth, said: “While vaccine hesitancy is not a new phenomenon, COVID-19 vaccines have been met with particular hostility despite the overwhelming scientific evidence of their safety and effectiveness.

“This isn’t just among conspiracy theorists though, but also those who don’t consider themselves ‘anti-vaxxers’ and had supported other vaccination campaigns in the past.”

Participants were asked how much they agreed with statements including:
- Vaccines are safe
- I think vaccines should be a compulsory practice
- I believe if I get vaccinated it would benefit the wellbeing of others
- Vaccines are a necessity for our health and wellbeing
In both surveys participants who held religious beliefs were significantly more vaccine-hesitant than atheist and agnostic ones, and individuals from Black and Asian backgrounds were more hesitant than those belonging to White ethnicities. However, gender showed no association with vaccine confidence.

While these overall trends remained largely similar between the two surveys, some noteworthy changes were observed in the post-pandemic survey. For example, the analysis revealed that while in 2019 middle-aged participants were considerably more apprehensive about getting vaccinated than younger groups , this was not the case in the 2022 survey.

“This could be because COVID-19 infections notoriously lead to more severe outcomes in older patients”, added Dr Siani.

“Young people who are infected rarely experience severe symptoms that lead to hospitalisation and death, so it’s possible that many have become complacent and don’t feel the need to get vaccinated. On the other hand, older people may have been more wary of the consequences of the infection, and more appreciative of the protection offered by the vaccine.”

While providing precious insight into how the pandemic affected the public perspectives on vaccinations, the study is not without limitations. The original survey was designed as a standalone piece of research, so a different group of people had to be sampled in 2022. This resulted in a cross-sectional study as opposed to a longitudinal one.

Dr Siani explained: “We didn’t expect a worldwide pandemic to break out only a few months after carrying out the 2019 survey. Because our findings don’t reflect the changing opinions of the same group of people over time, but rather a comparison of responses provided by two different cohorts, they should be interpreted with a grain of salt.

“However, the study is consistent with other observations suggesting that vaccine confidence may be yet another victim of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
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University of Portsmouth

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November 7, 2022
The Early Bird May Just Get the Worm

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Newswise — Night owls may be looking forward to falling back into autumn standard time but a new study from the University of Ottawa has found Daylight Saving Time may also suit morning types just fine.

Research from Dr. Stuart Fogel, a cognitive neuroscientist, professor at the University of Ottawa’s School of Psychology, and researcher at the Royal’s Institute for Mental Health Research, is shedding light into how the impact of a person’s daily rhythm and activity levels during both wake and sleep relate to human intelligence. Contrary to the adage “the early bird gets the worm,” previous work suggests that evening types, or “owls,” have superior verbal intelligence.

Yet, “once you account for key factors including bedtime and age, we found the opposite to be true, that morning types tend to have superior verbal ability,” says Stuart Fogel, Director of the University of Ottawa Sleep Research Laboratory. “This outcome was surprising to us and signals this is much more complicated that anyone thought before.”

Fogel’s team identified individual’s chronotype – their evening or morning tendencies – by monitoring biological rhythms and daily preferences. A person’s chronotype is related to when in the day they prefer to do demanding things, from intellectual pursuits to exercise.

Young individuals are typically “evening types” while older individuals and those more regularly entrenched in their daily/nightly activities are likely “morning types”. The juxtaposition here is that morning is critical for young people, especially school aged children and adolescents, who have their schedules set by their morning-type parents and their routines. This might be doing youngsters a disservice.

“A lot of school start times are not determined by our chronotypes but by parents and work-schedules, so school-aged kids pay the price of that because they are evening types forced to work on a morning type schedule,” says Fogel.

“For example, math and science classes are normally scheduled early in the day because whatever morning tendencies they have will serve them well. But the AM is not when they are at their best due to their evening type tendencies. Ultimately, they are disadvantaged because the type of schedule imposed on them is basically fighting against their biological clock every day.”

The study enlisted volunteers from a wide age range, who were rigorously screened to rule out sleep disorders and other confounding factors. They outfitted volunteers with a monitoring device to measure activity levels.

Establishing the strength of a person’s rhythm, which drives intelligence, is key to understanding the results of this nuanced study, says Fogel, with a person’s age and actual bedtime proving important factors.

“Our brain really craves regularity and for us to be optimal in our own rhythms is to stick to that schedule and not be constantly trying to catch up,” adds Fogel.

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University of Ottawa

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November 4, 2022
In Organizations, Group Dynamics Influence Individuals’ Likelihood of Blowing the Whistle on Wrongdoing

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Newswise — Wrongdoing is endemic to organizations, costing U.S. firms billions of dollars in fraud. The primary way wrongdoing is caught is through whistleblowers, who have long been thought to act out of a desire to help or improve their organization.

A new study considered a different angle, looking at individuals as members of organizations as well as members of social groups to understand how group affiliations affect the likelihood of whistleblowing. The study found that group cohesion reduced individuals’ tendencies to blow the whistle on wrongdoers inside their group but increased their tendency to do the same on wrongdoers outside of their group.

The study, by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and the University of California, Irvine (UCI), is published in Organization Science.

Determining the Impact of Social Structure on Whistleblowing

“Understanding the effects of group dynamics on whistleblowing can inform organizational interventions to detect and prevent wrongdoing,” explains Brandy Aven, Associate Professor of Organizational Theory, Strategy, and Entrepreneurship at CMU’s Tepper School of Business, who co-authored the study. “By understanding how individuals identify and associate with each other, we can determine the impact of social structure on responses to wrongdoing.”

Seeing whistleblowers as individuals who act for the organization’s benefit neglects the fact that these individuals are not only members of the organization but also members of internal social groups that may form along various dimensions (e.g., work groups, demographics, rank, geography, hobbies). These social groups affect individuals’ behavior and decision-making.

In this study, researchers used data from the 2010 Merit Principles Survey, which asked federal employees in two dozen U.S. departments and agencies about observed and hypothetical wrongdoing; the study’s sample included nearly 3,000 federal employees with knowledge of wrongdoing by another government employee who either blew the whistle or did not report the wrongdoing. The researchers also conducted a vignette experiment using a separate sample of nearly 300 online respondents in the United States.

The study found that when a wrongdoer was affiliated with a potential whistleblower’s group, higher group cohesion decreased the likelihood of blowing the whistle, due to the potential whistleblower’s greater loyalties toward group members and a desire to protect the reputation of the group. When a wrongdoer was not affiliated with a potential whistleblower’s group, higher group cohesion increased the likelihood of blowing the whistle because potential whistleblowers felt they had the support of fellow group members, lessening fears of retaliation.

“Understanding the effects of group dynamics on whistleblowing can inform organizational interventions to detect and prevent wrongdoing. By understanding how individuals identify and associate with each other, we can determine the impact of social structure on responses to wrongdoing.”

Brandy Aven
Associate Professor of Organizational Theory, Strategy, and Entrepreneurship

Findings Suggest Individuals Are Strongly Influenced by Group Dynamics

The authors note that their study features several limitations. While research has shown that individuals’ morality and perceptions of wrongdoing can be influenced by social dynamics and group membership, this study did not assess whether individuals interpret differently what behaviors constitute wrongdoing. The study also did not address issues related to overlapping group memberships and to differences in voluntary versus mandatory groups. Finally, the study did not distinguish which acts of wrongdoing harmed victims (e.g., harassment, discrimination) and which harmed just the organization.

Contrary to prevailing views of whistleblowing, the study’s findings suggest that individuals are strongly influenced by group dynamics within the organization, perhaps more so than by concerns about the organization itself. Thus, while group cohesion may lead to whistleblowing in one part of the organization (i.e., outside the group), it can lead employees to shield wrongdoers in another part of the organization (i.e., inside of the group).

“By showing how group affiliations inform whistleblowing decisions, we reveal how variation in social structure leads to heterogeneity in responses to wrongdoing,” says Patrick Bergemann, Assistant Professor of Organization and Management at the Paul Merage School of Business at UCI, who led the study. “As such, we encourage organizations to look at more than organizational-level factors and consider a new focus on relational dynamics.”

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Carnegie Mellon University

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November 3, 2022
Surf’s up (and don’t mind the sharks)
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Newswise — Clean, choppy, or cranking, when the surf’s up, so too are the surfers. But even the most avid surfer would steer clear of the waves when a shark is about… or would they?

In a new study from the University of South Australia, researchers found that 60 per cent of surfers are not afraid of sharks when surfing, despite more than half of them spotting a shark when out in the water.

It’s an interesting finding, particularly given people’s general fascination and fear of sharks, but as behavioural scientist and conservation psychology researcher, UniSA’s Dr Brianna Le Busque, says it’s a step in the right direction when it comes to shark conservation.

“People have long feared sharks – not surprisingly given the hype generated from modern shark movies,” Dr Le Busque says.

“But exaggerated depictions of sharks have unfairly influenced people and as a result, have damaged shark conservation efforts.

“Surfers are frequent ocean users, so they’re in a unique position to change these perceptions.

“Anecdotally, we know that surfers understand the role sharks play in ocean health and, for the most part, believe that shark conservation is good.

“But the relationship between surfers and sharks is complex and has not been widely researched, so understanding their interactions is an important step in shark conservation and management policies.”

Surveying 391 surfers across 24 different countries (predominantly USA), the study found that:
- 60 per cent were not afraid of sharks when surfing
- 52 per cent had seen a shark when surfing
- 44 per cent said a shark sighting would not stop them from going in the water
- 17 per cent had been bitten or personally knew someone who had been bitten by a shark.
Globally, 100 million sharks are killed each year with a quarter of shark species threatened by extinction.

Le Busque says that the study will help to change people’s negative perceptions of sharks.

“Surfers encounter sharks more than any other people in the community; they should be part of the consultation process when it comes to management or mitigation strategies,” Le Busque says.

“When we step into the ocean, we step into their environment. We all need to be appropriately informed to ensure a logical balance between safety and conservation.”

Notes to editors:

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University of South Australia

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November 1, 2022
Climate Change Negatively Affecting School Sharks

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Newswise — (San Diego) October 29, 2022— Preliminary research data suggest warmer temperatures and increased salt levels might have negative effects on the behavior and physiology of school sharks. A clear indicator of physiological changes is higher levels of stress markers such as glucose and lactate concentrations in the blood. Researchers also noted behavior changes according to the warmer and saltier the environment is and the more time school sharks spend resting. School sharks are usually constantly swimming. A break in their usual activity means they might be too stressed to find food or escape predators. The findings will be presented this week at the American Physiological Society (APS) Intersociety Meeting in Comparative Physiology: From Organism to Omics in an Uncertain World conference in San Diego.

Researchers also examined the response of school sharks to increases in temperatures and salinity levels based on neonatal and juvenile (one year old and older) stage. The findings show newborns were more tolerant of some of the environmental changes than juveniles. This suggests neonates might have a special ability at birth to inhabit coastal waterways where freshwater mixes with salt water before migrating into deeper waters as juveniles.

The shallow water home of school sharks is constantly fluctuating, but this natural variation is being exacerbated due to the rapid pace of climate change. As a result, researchers through this study were seeking to determine “if this endangered species will be able to continue using these protected, resource-rich waters, or if they will be forced out into the ocean, which may have major ecological implications for the survival of the species.” They specifically wanted to know if the nursery ground in southeast Tasmania will remain a viable area for school shark pups in the coming years. To reach their conclusion, researchers evaluated the physiology and biochemistry of neonatal and juvenile sharks.

“Hopefully, these findings will be able to guide or inform regulations that can improve shark health,” said Katherine Ollerhead, a PhD candidate at the University of Tasmania in Australia and co-author of the study.

Physiology is a broad area of scientific inquiry that focuses on how molecules, cells, tissues and organs function in health and disease. The American Physiological Society connects a global, multidisciplinary community of more than 10,000 biomedical scientists and educators as part of its mission to advance scientific discovery, understand life and improve health. The Society drives collaboration and spotlights scientific discoveries through its 16 scholarly journals and programming that support researchers and educators in their work.

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American Physiological Society (APS)

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October 29, 2022
Reward for Cooperative Behavior

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Newswise — Researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Plön show that reputation plays a key role in determining which rewarding policies people adopt. Using game theory, they explain why individuals learn to use rewards to specifically promote good behaviour.

Often, we use positive incentives like rewards to promote cooperative behaviour. But why do we predominantly reward cooperation? Why is defection rarely rewarded? Or more generally, why do we bother to engage in any form of rewarding in the first place? Theoretical work done by researchers Saptarshi Pal and Christian Hilbe at the Max Planck Research Group ‘Dynamics of Social Behaviour’ suggests that reputation effects can explain why individuals learn to reward socially.

With tools from evolutionary game theory, the researchers construct a model where individuals in a population (the players) can adopt different strategies of cooperation and rewarding over time. In this model, the players’ reputation is a key element. The players know, with a degree of certainty (characterized by the information transmissibility of the population), how their interaction partners are going to react to their behaviour (that is, which behaviours they deem worthy of rewards). If the information transmissibility is sufficiently high, players learn to reward cooperation. In contrast, without sufficient information about peers, players refrain from using rewards. The researchers show that these effects of reputation also play out in a similar way when individuals interact in groups with more than two individuals.

Antisocial rewarding

In addition to highlighting the role of reputation in catalyzing cooperation and social rewarding, the scientists identify a couple of scenarios where antisocial rewarding may evolve. Antisocial rewarding either requires populations to be assorted or rewards to be mutually beneficial for both the recipient and the provider of the reward. “These conditions under which people may learn to reward defection are however a bit restrictive since they additionally require information to be scarce” adds Saptarshi Pal.

The results from this study suggest that rewards are only effective in promoting cooperation when they can sway individuals to act opportunistically. These opportunistic players only cooperate when they anticipate a reward for their cooperation. A higher information transmissibility increases both, the incentive to reward others for cooperating, and the incentive to cooperate in the first place. Overall, the model suggests that when people reward cooperation in an environment where information transmissibility is high, they ultimately benefit themselves. This interpretation takes the altruism out of social rewarding – people may not use rewards to enhance others’ welfare, but to help themselves.

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Max Planck Society (Max-Planck-Gesellschaft)

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October 28, 2022
Empathy for the Pain of the Conflicting Group Is Altered Across Generations in the Aftermath of a Genocide

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Newswise — Feeling empathy for others is deeply engrained into our biology, as seeing another individual in pain triggers an empathic response in the brain of the observer, which allows us to understand and feel what other feels. However, our capacity to feel empathy for the suffering of others is unfortunately not equal towards all human beings. “There are many individuals for which we have a natural, and potentially unconscious, reduction of empathy. This is notably the case when we witness the pain individuals that we do not recognize as part of our own group, and this can alter our prosociality towards them”, says lead author Prof. dr. Emilie Caspar (Université libre de Bruxelles, Ghent University) of a study published today in American Psychologist.

Human conflicts can be extremely complex, but frequently arise when a group is perceived as not sharing a similar religion, culture, political opinion or ethnicity. In the aftermath of conflict, being able to understand and feel what the other group feel is critical for reaching reconciliation. But conflicts also enhance intergroup conflicts, as they accentuate resentment against the other group. Studying how intergroup biases evolve in war-torn societies is critical for understanding better the perpetuation of conflict.

In Rwanda, citizens are exposed to a unique case of intergroup reconciliation and have to try to manage their intergroup biases caused by decades of ethnic conflicts and the Genocide against Tutsis. Between April 1994 and July 1994, more than one million of Tutsis and some moderate Hutus were mutilated and killed in a genocidal process. This dramatic event in the history of Rwanda seems unforgivable. However, Rwandan citizens have to learn to live together: perpetrators of the genocide were not invaders from another country; those who were killed died at the hands of their neighbors. Rwandan citizens thus cannot avoid the people they were in conflict with in the past, and have to be able to manage their emotions and behaviors toward their former aggressors or victims. “Can we expect individuals who have suffered such intense trauma, or who are descendants of the victims, to be able to resonate with the suffering of others and develop empathy toward them, especially if those others were their former aggressors?”, asks Emilie Caspar. That could nonetheless be crucial to ensure that a true reconciliation between groups is possible.

She and her colleagues thus decided to travel across Rwanda to recruit former genocide perpetrators, survivors and their children thanks to the help of local associations. They installed their electroencephalograms and material in churches or bars in rural villages, any places that had at least some electric plugs. “That was of course an exceptional adventure, beyond the scientific aspect of the project. We were reaching a population that not a single neuroscientist approached before on the field, and we had to convince them to accept to wear a weird apparatus on their head to record their brain activity, while many of them never even saw a keyboard in their life”, adds Guillaume Pech, another author of the study.

During the experiment, volunteers were asked to visualize pictures of different individuals, including for instance a former genocide perpetrator, a survivor or one of their offspring. In order to trigger an empathic reaction in the brain of the observer, the pictures also displayed painful stimulations or non-painful stimulations on those individuals. “With such procedure, it is classic to observe that the brain processes stimuli as more painful when the individual presented in considered as an ingroup member, compared to an outgroup member. And this is exactly what we observed in our sample from all volunteers no matter their group, even though the genocide happened 27 years ago at the moment of the testing”, says Emilie Caspar. This result suggests that it is difficult to get rid of intergroup biases in the aftermath of such tragedy.

“But what was even more critical is that children from both former genocide perpetrators and survivors displayed the same intergroup bias as their parents, even though they did not experience the conflict themselves. This result might explain why some conflicts sometimes last over generations, as the children appear to have the same biases as their parents”, she adds.

In the scientific literature, it is acknowledged that a trauma can be passed down generations, by social transmission through stories for instance, but also through genetic transmission. It would be important to determine exactly how intergroup biases are passed down generations to understand how to try to reduce them. The researchers of the study do not have the answer to this question but are now preparing a similar research project in Cambodia, where a genocide led by the Khmer Rouge killed about 2 million people between 1975 and 1979. This project will help to understand if intergroup biases are also observable two generations after the genocide or if they start to evaporate at some point.

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Universite Libre de Bruxelles

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October 28, 2022
New Study Shows How Voting Methods Affect Group Decision-Making

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Newswise — When groups of people need to reach a decision, they will often take a straw poll to test opinions before the official vote. New research from the University of Washington shows that one specific voting method proved more effective than others in identifying the best choice.

In a study published Sept. 28 in Academy of Management Discoveries, researchers found that groups that used “multivoting” in unofficial votes were 50% more likely to identify the correct option than those that used plurality or ranked-choice voting.

Multivoting gives people several votes to allocate across all options. The reality show “American Idol” uses multivoting, giving fans 10 votes each. They can use all 10 for their favorite contestant or split their votes among two or more. For this study, students were given 10 votes to distribute among three choices.

Plurality voting, where voters must select one option, is most often used in political elections. Ranked-choice voting, which is growing in popularity in some local and state political elections, allows people to list their preferences from first to last. It’s also used to determine Academy Award winners.

Michael Johnson, co-author and professor of management in the UW Foster School of Business, said multivoting most benefits groups that want to be sure they’re making the best decision. The researchers don’t believe it would work for political elections, mostly because of how taxing it would be to allocate votes across a variety of options.

“We see multivoting as primarily useful for decision-making groups in workplaces,” Johnson said. “Wherever groups feel like it’s going to be critical to get a decision right, use multivoting as an unofficial vote, look at the distribution and discuss after that. It works where people are motivated to vote consistent with what they really think rather than trying to strategically vote to counter another person.”

The UW study was based on the “pursuit teams” developed by the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11. The purpose was to connect the findings of multiple intelligence agencies to track potential terrorist threats.

In this study, researchers asked 93 groups of undergraduate students to simulate the counterterrorism support teams and identify which of three suspects represented the greatest threat. The student groups were given information about three terrorists, but no group member had all the information about any one suspect. Students had to share intelligence to correctly identify the biggest threat.

The teams were split into thirds, producing an even number of groups using ranked-choice voting, plurality and multivoting. All groups took a preliminary, unofficial vote to see members’ initial thoughts on the terrorist suspects. After the unofficial vote, they considered the results and discussed the suspects. If students combined the information well, they would be able to identify one terrorist who was clearly more of a threat. The teams then returned their final verdict.

Just 31% of plurality teams chose the most threatening suspect in the final vote, about the same as if it were left up to chance. In the unofficial vote, 6% of teams had a majority of members identify the correct suspect. That’s less than the 11% that would have been expected by chance.

Ranked-choice voting didn’t fare much better. In the final vote, 32% of teams identified the correct suspect. In the unofficial vote, 7% of groups had a majority of members rank the right suspect as the most threatening.

“We were surprised that the ranked-choice groups did not outperform the plurality groups,” Johnson said. “There is a lot of evidence, particularly in politics these days, that ranked-choice voting leads to outcomes that are more consistent with the preferences of the electorate than plurality voting does. That’s why we’ve seen so many political elections move toward ranked-choice voting.

“But ranked-choice voting is generally better at revealing the true preferences of people and not necessarily getting to the exact right answer. When people are making decisions at work, you’re more concerned about getting it right than about making sure it reveals what everybody thinks.”

The multivoting groups started stronger, with most members in 30% of the groups choosing the most threatening suspect. In the final vote, 45% of teams identified the most threatening suspect.

Researchers found no evidence that discussions in the multivoting groups varied in any meaningful way from the other two voting conditions. Instead, the benefit of multivoting occurred before any discussion as students processed the information more deeply and considered the intelligence more critically.

“The real discovery, and the thing we didn’t expect, was that multivoting groups would be more accurate before they discussed,” Johnson said. “We just assumed they would all be kinds of equal before the discussion and then they’d improve at the end. If people have the option to say, ‘I kind of like Option A, but I also kind of like Option B,’ that might make them think more before they discuss, which would help them make the proper decision.”

Other co-authors were Eli Awtrey of the University of Cincinnati and Wei Jee Ong of the National University of Singapore.

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University of Washington

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October 26, 2022
More than a quarter of U.S. adults say they’re so stressed they can’t function

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Newswise — Americans are struggling with multiple external stressors that are out of their personal control, with 27% reporting that most days they are so stressed they cannot function, according to a poll conducted for the American Psychological Association.

A majority of adults cited inflation (83%), violence and crime (75%), the current political climate (66%), and the racial climate (62%) as significant sources of stress.

The nationwide survey, fielded by The Harris Poll on behalf of APA, revealed that 70% of adults reported they do not think people in the government care about them, and 64% said they felt their rights are under attack. Further, nearly half of adults (45%) said they do not feel protected by the laws in the United States. More than a third (38%) said the state of the nation has made them consider moving to a different country.

More than three-quarters of adults (76%) said that the future of our nation is a significant source of stress in their lives, while 68% said this is the lowest point in our nation’s history that they can remember.

Various disparities in stressors emerged among population subgroups. For example, 72% of the members of the LGBTQIA+ community reported feeling as if their rights are under attack, which is a higher proportion than non-LGBTQIA+ adults (64%). Younger adult women (ages 18 to 34) were more likely to report that most days their stress is completely overwhelming, in comparison with older women (62% vs. 48% 35-44; 27% 45-64; 9% 65+) and men ages 35 or older (62% vs. 48% 35-44; 21% 45-64; 8% 65+). Seventy-five percent of Black adults said that the racial climate in the U.S. is a significant source of stress, while 70% of Latino/a adults, 69% of Asian adults and 56% of white adults reported the same.

Furthermore, Latinas were most likely, among racial/ethnic groups, to cite significant sources of stress related to violence, including violence and crime (89% Latinas; 80% Black women; 79% Asian women; 77% Latinos; 75% Black men; 73% white women; 72% white men; 70% Asian men), mass shootings (89% Latinas; 78% Latinos; 77% Black women; 77% Asian women; 73% white women; 71% Black men; 67% Asian men; 66% white men) and gun violence (87% Latinas; 83% Black women; 77% Asian women; 76% Latinos; 75% Black men; 69% white women; 68% white men; 63% Asian men).

“It’s clear that the impacts of uncontrollable stressors are profound for most Americans, but psychological science shows us that there are effective ways to talk about and cope with this type of stress,” said Arthur C. Evans Jr., PhD, APA’s chief executive officer. “Focusing on accomplishing goals that are in our control can help prevent our minds from getting overwhelmed by the many uncertainties in life. From using our breathing to slow racing thoughts, to intentionally limiting our social media consumption, or exercising our right to vote, action can be extremely empowering.”

Adults reported that stress has had an impact on their health; 76% of adults reported they had experienced at least one symptom in the last month as a result of stress – such as headache (38%), fatigue (35%), feeling nervous or anxious (34%) and feeling depressed or sad (33%). Seven in 10 adults (72%) experienced additional symptoms in the last month, including feeling overwhelmed (33%), experiencing changes in sleeping habits (32%), and/or worrying constantly (30%).

“With so many people suffering health effects from these unrelenting external stressors, it’s important that all health care providers understand the research and offer their patients evidence-based techniques to reduce the effects of extreme stress and build their resilience,” said Evans.

More information on the survey findings and how to handle stress related to uncertainty is available at www.stressinamerica.org.

METHODOLOGY The 2022 Stress in America™ survey was conducted online within the United States by The Harris Poll on behalf of the APA between Aug. 18 and Sept. 2, 2022, among 3,192 adults age 18+ who reside in the U.S. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish.

Data are weighted where necessary to reflect their proportions in the population based on the 2021 Current Population Survey (CPS) by the U.S. Census Bureau. Weighting variables included age by gender, race/ethnicity, education, region, household income and time spent online. Latino/a adults were also weighted for acculturation, taking into account respondents’ household language as well as their ability to read and speak in English and Spanish. Country of origin (U.S./non-U.S.) was also included for Latino/a and Asian subgroups. Weighting variables for Gen Z adults (ages 18 to 25) included education, age by gender, race/ethnicity, region, household income and size of household, based on the 2021 CPS.

Propensity score weighting was used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online. A propensity score allows researchers to adjust for attitudinal and behavioral differences between those who are online versus those who are not, those who join online panels versus those who do not, and those who responded to this survey versus those who did not.

Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who have agreed to participate in Harris’s surveys. The sampling precision of Harris online polls is measured by using a Bayesian credible interval. For this study, the sample data is accurate to within + 2.9 percentage points using a 95% confidence level. This credible interval will be wider among subsets of the surveyed population of interest.

All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling, are subject to other multiple sources of error, which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including but not limited to coverage error, error associated with nonresponse, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments.

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American Psychological Association (APA)

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October 18, 2022
New insights into how serotonin regulates behavior

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Newswise — Ithaca, NY – Rates of anxiety and depression have been increasing around the world for decades, a trend that has been sharply exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. New research led by the Boyce Thompson Institute’s Frank Schroeder could ultimately lead to new therapeutics to help relieve this global mental health burden.

First discovered in the 1930s, serotonin is a neurotransmitter produced in many animals that mediates myriad behaviors, such as feeding, sleep, mood and cognition. Drugs that alter serotonin levels are the main weapon to treat psychological conditions like anxiety and depression, as well as eating disorders.

As a simple model for neurobiology research, the microscopic roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans has been used extensively to study serotonin’s role in regulating behavior and food intake. For many years, researchers thought that serotonin was made in C. elegans by one specific molecular pathway, and that serotonin was then quickly degraded. Schroeder’s team and colleagues at Columbia University now demonstrated that both of those assumptions were not quite correct.

“We discovered a second, parallel biosynthetic pathway that accounts for about half of the total serotonin produced in our model system,” said Schroeder.

The findings are described in a paper published in Nature Chemical Biology on October 10.

The work began about three years ago, when the researchers unexpectedly discovered an enzyme that converts serotonin into derivative compounds.

“Most people in the field thought serotonin is made and then quickly broken down, but we found that, instead, it is used as a building block for other compounds that are responsible for some of serotonin’s activity,” explained Schroeder. “So, we decided to start at the beginning and see how serotonin is made, and once it is made then how is it converted into these new molecules.”

Jingfang Yu, a graduate student in Schroeder’s lab and first author on the paper, further showed that the new serotonin derivatives affect feeding behavior.

“When the worms lack endogenous serotonin, they tend to move quickly across the bacteria food lawn on an agar plate, and turn infrequently to explore the food,” Yu said. “We found this behavior can be alleviated by treating the worms with serotonin derivatives, suggesting these newly identified compounds contribute to effects previously attributed to serotonin.”

The worm C. elegans is an excellent model for studying serotonin because the compound’s molecular signaling pathways are highly conserved across species, including in humans. For example, the researchers showed that in C. elegans a large portion of serotonin is made in the gut, which is also the case in humans.

Schroeder said there are hints that human serotonin is converted into metabolites similar to the ones identified in C. elegans.

“This research opens up the door for many more avenues of research in humans,” said Schroeder, who is also a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology in the college of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University.

“Are the analogous metabolites important in humans? What is the role of one manufacturing pathway versus the other? How are these manufacturing pathways and metabolites important for human behaviors, like mental health and feeding behaviors?” he asked.

The researchers are currently exploring how the new serotonin derivatives affect behavior in C. elegans and whether similar serotonin metabolites exist in humans.

About Boyce Thompson Institute:

Opened in 1924, Boyce Thompson Institute is a premier life sciences research institution located in Ithaca, New York. BTI scientists conduct investigations into fundamental plant and life sciences research with the goals of increasing food security, improving environmental sustainability in agriculture, and making basic discoveries that will enhance human health. Throughout this work, BTI is committed to inspiring and educating students and to providing advanced training for the next generation of scientists. BTI is an independent nonprofit research institute that is also affiliated with Cornell University. For more information, please visit BTIscience.org.

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October 14, 2022
Empathizing With the Opposition May Make You More Politically Persuasive

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Newswise — Trying to understand people we disagree with can feel like an effort hardly worth making, particularly in contentious political environments in which offering even the smallest olive branch to the opposition can be perceived as betraying our own side. Research in Psychological Science, however, suggests that cross-partisan empathy may actually make our political arguments more persuasive, rather than softening our convictions. This holds true for even the most politically partisan among us.

“Empathizing across differences can not only help us better understand people’s perspectives but also make us more convincing advocates of our own beliefs,” said Luiza A. Santos, who conducted this research with Jan G. Voelkel, Robb Willer, and Jamil Zaki (Stanford University). People who are encouraged to value empathy across party lines are also more likely to support bipartisan cooperation and less likely to report hating people on the other side of a political issue, Santos added.

To explore how belief in the utility of empathy can decrease partisan animosity and increase political persuasiveness, Santos and colleagues conducted a series of four studies involving 3,650 Democrat and Republican participants in the United States.

In the first study of 411 participants, the researchers found that people who placed more value on cross-partisan empathy were also more likely to desire bipartisan cooperation and to hold less animosity toward the other political party. A follow-up study of 688 college freshmen revealed that students with more cross-partisan empathy were likelier than less empathetic students to report having more friends with different political beliefs.

Cross-partisan empathy isn’t a static trait, however—and Santos and colleagues’ work suggests that even the most politically partisan individuals may be open to walking in the opposition’s shoes.

A third study involved 1,551 participants using Amazon Mechanical Turk. When they read text arguing for or against the value of cross-partisan empathy, participants reacted as you might expect: Those in the high-utility condition, which emphasized increased understanding of the opposition, reported a greater desire for bipartisan cooperation and less out-party animosity, moral superiority, and desire to socially distance from political out-group members. Those in the low-utility condition, which emphasized the threat to their own beliefs, had the opposite response.

The strength of this response wasn’t the same for everyone, though. Whereas the effects were relatively small for participants with mild political beliefs, staunch Democrats and Republicans in the high-utility condition reported significantly larger decreases in animosity and moral superiority toward out-group members.

“These findings indicate that strong partisans can be moved by beliefs about cross-partisan empathy. If anything, our manipulations had, in some cases, stronger effects on more partisan individuals,” Santos and colleagues wrote.

Finally, the researchers put these findings to the test by having 1,000 participants read a high- or low-utility argument on the value of empathy before writing a message to a member of the opposing party intended to change their beliefs about gun control laws. Each of these messages was then shared with a participant who identified with that party, so that Democrats read messages written by Republicans and vice versa.

Through analyzing the text of each message, the researchers found that participants in the high-utility condition were nearly twice as likely to use conciliatory language to express cross-partisan empathy. This included trying to find common ground, represented by terms like “we all want” and “I agree,” as well as using perspective-taking language like “I understand that” to acknowledge the reader’s existing beliefs. They were also more likely to focus on common goals such as safety and on institutions like the U.S. Constitution rather than directly discussing more contentious concepts like crime and violence. Despite the more empathetic tone of the high-utility participants’ messages, condition-blind coders rated these messages as arguing for similarly strong political positions as those in the low-utility condition.

Readers from the opposing party rated the high-utility writers as being more likable and persuasive than low-utility writers and reported less animosity toward high-utility writers’ political parties after reading those messages. They were also more likely to soften their views on gun laws after reading a high-utility message, Santos added.

“In other words, people’s belief in the utility of empathizing not only improved intergroup feelings but also helped create greater common ground,” she said.

It remains to be seen how long the effects of cross-partisan empathy may last after an interaction, she noted. There may also be differences in how empathy influences asynchronous communication, such as letter writing, versus face-to-face conversations.

“Believing in cross-partisan empathy’s usefulness helps people attain shared goals of decreasing partisan animosity and building consensus around critical issues. In this light, cross-partisan empathy can be a valuable resource—an instrumental tool for not only connecting minds but also changing them,” Santos and colleagues concluded.

Reference

Santos, L. A., Voelkel, J. G., Willer, R., & Zaki, J. (2022). Belief in the utility of cross-partisan empathy reduces partisan animosity and facilitates political persuasion. Psychological Science, 33(9), 1557–1573. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976221098594

Request a copy of this article by emailing [email protected]

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Association for Psychological Science

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October 5, 2022
Shoppers more likely to buy on Pi Day and other “special” day-themed promotions

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Newswise — Call it “having their ‘Pi’ and buying too.” A new study finds that consumers are more likely to make purchases during promotions tied to a special day, like Pi Day (March 14), than during regular holiday or non-distinctive day promotions.

Researchers describe their findings in a paper, “Promoting Pi Day: Consumer Response to Special Day-Themed Sales Promotions,” published in the October 2022 print issue of the Journal of Consumer Psychology.

“We found that special day-themed sales promotions lead consumers to be more likely to use the discounts to make a purchase compared to the more standard promotions,” said Daniel Zane, assistant professor of marketing at Lehigh University, who authored the paper with Rebecca Walker Reczek of The Ohio State University and Kelly Haws of Vanderbilt University. “We also discovered that the positive consumer response to special day-themed promotions is essentially driven by consumers’ rewarding marketers for their creativity in providing a way to celebrate the special day.”

While many consumers associate discounts with traditional holidays and sales events such as Black Friday, Labor Day and Back to School, firms often now link discounts to “special days,” novel holidays not historically associated with promotions.

Think pizza and pie promotions or 31.4% discounts for Pi Day, the annual celebration of the mathematical constant Pi (3.14…). Or sales on apparel, games or toys for Mario Day (MAR10) and Star Wars Day, May 4 (May the Fourth Be With You). Companies may tie promotions to National Ice Cream Day, National Dog Day, their founder’s birthday or the anniversary of a customer’s first purchase. Lands’ End created its own special day when it launched National Swimsuit Day.

First research to explore special-day promotions

The proliferation of special day-themed promotions in the marketplace – including in social media and e-commerce – inspired the researchers to explore whether the companies using them were seeing a benefit, such as increased sales, new customers and more brand loyalty. They are the first to systematically study the effects of special day-themed sales promotions, and the study is the first to explore how consumers’ perceptions of marketers’ creativity in linking promotions to special days can influence purchasing behavior.

Using field and laboratory studies, the researchers randomly showed participants one of two versions of a promotion, either a special day-themed promotion or a more traditional promotion, and assessed their intentions to use the discount to make a purchase. In one experiment, they found that consumers report being significantly more likely to make a purchase from a company when offered the National Picnic Day Sale, compared to the same discount framed as an Annual One Day Sale.

In another study, they partnered with a firm and found that consumers who received a 25% discount by email in celebration of the day that a company adopted its mascot dog were nearly twice as likely to click a link in the email to shop on the company’s website compared to those who received an equivalent discount with no mention of the dog’s special day. The effect held for national special days as well as special days more personal to an individual consumer, like the anniversary of their first purchase with the company.

Their findings show that consumers are more likely to respond favorably to a discount celebrating a special day compared to the same discount with no link to a special day. The key is that consumers must find the promotion to be both original and appropriate, Zane said. For example, a spa pedicure discount on National Barefoot Day, versus a discount on clothing in celebration of a national food day.

Creative, appropriate promotions drive engagement

When consumers see a high fit between a firm and a special day-themed promotion, the perceived creativity drives increased intentions to use the promotion, the researchers said. However, when consumers see a low fit – even with the positive influence of creativity – the perceived inappropriateness “ultimately hurts purchase intentions enough to cancel out any positive effect of originality,” they said.

It’s known that more traditional sales promotions can generate negative thoughts about a firm because consumers assume marketers are just trying to persuade them to spend money, or they suspect the company is trying to unload old inventory, Zane said.

“Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this research was what we found to be the psychological driver of consumers’ positive response to special day-themed promotions,” he said. “They actually think about how the marketer who created the special day-themed promotion was creative in providing a way to celebrate the special day. In essence, consumers then reward marketers for their creativity by being more likely to use a special day discount to make a purchase from that company.”

Knowing the impact that special day-themed sales promotions have on shopping behavior can benefit both marketers and consumers, Zane said. For marketers and businesses, there is promise for increased sales, new customers and more engagement tied to such promotions. “The findings suggest that linking a discount to a company-generated special day can positively impact real customer behavior,” the researchers said. “It is possible that consumers who receive special day-themed discounts may feel they are unique or in an exclusive subset of consumers receiving the promotion.”

With technology and availability of customer data, there are growing opportunities to create special days and promotions specific to a customer’s interaction with a company, which may show additional potential, Zane said.

“For consumers, this work can perhaps help them reflect on the many hidden forces that shape our marketplace behaviors,” he said. “Being aware of this might help curb unnecessary or impulsive purchases.”

That’s knowledge as sweet as Pi.

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Lehigh University

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September 30, 2022
What is the effect of hierarchy on moral behavior?

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Newswise — Researchers from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience show that powerful hierarchical situations make it easier to commit harmful actions, as agency and empathy are split across multiple individuals.

There are numerous historical examples where horrific acts and mass destruction have occurred as a result of a hierarchical structure. A superior communicates a plan and a subordinate carries it out. The superior then bears responsibility for the decision but is distanced from the results, while the subordinate experiences authorship over the action but may experience reduced responsibility for its outcomes. And in our daily lives too, hierarchy is acquired throughout our society. In many organizations, orders are embedded in an even longer chain of commands in which a given commander often merely relays on the orders received from a superior. But what effect does this have on our actions?

A new study from the social brain lab looked at how your position within a hierarchical structure (commander or intermediary) influences the sense of agency and empathy for pain. The aim was to understand how these two different neurocognitive processes differ in commanders and intermediaries. And guess what? Commanders and intermediaries show reduced activation in empathic brain regions when pain is inflicted on the victim compared to people who can decide and act for themselves. The results were published in the journal eNeuro.

The team used functional MRI (fMRI) and electroencephalogram (EEG) techniques in order to perform their experiments. fMRI measures brain activity by tracking changes in blood flow over time. The changes visible on the scan are related to change in oxygen levels: when areas of the brain are active, they will need more oxygen, causing them to ‘light up’. Using EEG, brain activity is measured electrically. During this test, small sensors are attached to the scalp to pick up the electrical signals produced by the brain.

Reduced empathy

The fMRI study shows that activity in empathy-related brain regions was low in both the commander and the intermediary, compared to someone who delivered the shock directly of their own free will. During the both studies, pain was administered by a human or robot. The EEG results show that the sense of agency did not differ between commanders and intermediaries, regardless of whether the execution was performed by a robot or a human. However, it turned out that the neural response to the pain of the victim were higher when participants commanded a robot compared to a human. This suggests that when there is a second human involved, the responsibility tends to be diffused and commanders’ pain processing of the victim’s pain is reduced. Diffusing such responsibility onto a robot is perhaps more difficult.

Emilie Caspar (first co-author of the paper): “The law generally punished those who gave out orders more severely than those who carried out the orders. But what do people feel exactly in a hierarchical chain? Recently, Khieu Samphan, one of the main Khmer Rouge leaders, was sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity and genocide. Yet, he claimed that he did not know what was happening during the Khmer Rouge Era, where millions of Cambodians died of execution, starvation, and diseases. It seems that people commanding may not always experience the responsibility they should, an aspect which would nonetheless be crucial to avoid mass atrocities. This is why it is important to understand better their subjective experience and how their brain processes the consequences of their orders, to perhaps in the future offer interventions that would prevent a diminution of responsibility in hierarchical chain”

Kalliopi Ioumpa (first co-author of the paper): ‘These results complement previous research showing that hierarchy has a measurable effect on people’s behaviour and brain activation, making them less engaged in the harm they cause. This study can raise questions on how we can ensure that people feel responsibility despite being in a hierarchical chain. Is it easier for executors to take responsibility over their actions since they are the ones acting – or for commanders because they bear the responsibility of the order? We show how powerful hierarchical situations can facilitate committing actions that harm others, as agency and empathy are distributed across multiple individuals.’

Prof Dr Christian Keysers (One of the senior author of the study heading the lab in which it was performed): ‘Times are changing. The solder at the forefront, whose empathy sometimes prevented the worst atrocities, is increasingly replaced by drones that feel no empathy. Has this removed any empathy from the chain of command? Indeed, we find that merely commanding someone to deliver pain reduces how much your brain processes the pain you command compared to directly triggering the pain. What was really exciting to see, however, is that knowing that you command a machine, that you cannot defer the responsibility to, restores some of the reactions to the pain in commanders. Perhaps there is hope, after all, that the empathy we reduce at the forefront might be replaced – at least in part – by an increase is the sense of responsibility at higher levels in the hierarchy…”

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Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience

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September 30, 2022
Health, care and social services should be designed to be sensitive to people’s shame, experts urge

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Newswise — Health, care and social services should be designed to be more sensitive to the shame felt by their clients, patients and service users, experts have said. Using a ‘shame lens’ can transform interactions between professionals and those they work with, according to a new study.

The research says being more aware of the impact of shame will help doctors and other care professionals manage interactions and relationships with more empathy, humanity and sensitivity. This is particularly relevant for professionals working with trauma-informed approaches. Training care professionals to have “shame competence” would involve giving them a theoretical and practical understanding of what shame is, how it operates, how it is evoked, how it can be hidden, and understand the behaviours that are used to cope with shame.

The study, published in the journal Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, was conducted by Luna Dolezal, from the University of Exeter, and Matthew Gibson, from the University of Birmingham.

Dr Dolezal said: “Not only is shame a barrier to accessing services, but it is also very easily exacerbated and incited in the context of seeking help from professionals. Interactions with care professionals can compound feelings of shame, as these interactions often involve unequal power relationships, a fear of being judged, the scrutiny and exposure of one’s potentially ‘shameful’ past, circumstances, coping behaviours, body, illnesses, along with other vulnerabilities.”

Dr Gibson said: “Having the capacity, on the levels of policy, organizations and individual practitioners, to address shame directly is imperative considering the how impactful shame can be for those who have experienced trauma and post-traumatic states. Being attentive to shame, and acknowledging its significance for individuals, in health and social care contexts can improve both engagement and outcomes.

“Using a ‘shame lens’ can help those who work with people to redesign services to be more sensitive and supportive, with the ultimate aim of avoiding additional trauma and harm.”

The study says doctors, social workers and other care professionals should become aware of common verbal and nonverbal cues that may indicate shame. This includes physical tics such as covering the face, blushing and downcast eyes. They should also be aware of words people us instead of shame – self-conscious’, ‘embarrassed’, ‘foolish’, ‘worthless’, ‘inept’, ‘inferior’ and stammering, silence, long pauses.

They must remain alert to, and continuously assess, how the language they use, their demeanour, questioning style, emotional expression and other interpersonal dynamics may inadvertently produce a shame response. Organizations must also continuously assess for implicit and explicit shaming, endeavouring to eliminate intentional or inadvertent shaming from their policies and practices.

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University of Exeter

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September 30, 2022
Most Twitter users don’t follow political elites, researchers suggest

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Newswise — While social media platforms are the primary source of political information for a growing number of people, a majority of Twitter users do not follow either members of Congress, their president or news media, a new study suggests.

They are much more likely to follow Tom Hanks or Katie Perry than an elected official.

“Those users who do follow political accounts on Twitter, however, stick to insular online communities and mostly follow and share information from their political in-group,” said Magdalena Wojcieszak, lead author and professor of communication at the University of California, Davis, and the University of Amsterdam.

In other words, speaking to ongoing debates about so-called “echo chambers” on social media platforms, the small group of users who do follow political elites display clear political biases and engage with these elites in a very one-sided way.

The findings come after researchers from UC Davis and New York University analyzed four years’ worth of data from a sampling of 1.5 million Twitter users.

Researchers concluded that even though the group of social media users who display political biases in their online behaviors is small, it is nevertheless consequential. These users are much more vocal, participatory and active online, thus amplifying the general perception of unprecedented polarization.

The study was published Friday (Sept. 30) in Science Advances.

“In this project, we focus on national political elites due to their visibility and national-level influence on public opinion and the political process,” Wojcieszak said. Yet, despite the prominence and impact of presidents, congressmen, journalists, pundits and the news media, researchers found that only 40% of Twitter users follow one or more political “elites.” The remaining 60% follow no political actors at all.

“Given that we analyzed over 2,500 American political elite accounts including Donald Trump, Joe Biden, prominent pundits including Rachel Maddow and Sean Hannity, and the most popular media outlets such as MSNBC and Fox News, the fact that only 23% of the representative sample of over 1.5 million users follow three of more of such elite accounts is revealing,” Wojcieszak said.

The authors found that those users who do follow politicians, pundits and news media follow their political in-group at much higher rates than out-group elites (around 90% vs. 10%) and share tweets from in-group elites overwhelmingly more frequently than out-group tweets (at about a 13:1 ratio). And when users share out-group tweets, they tend to add negative comments to these reshares, further reinforcing ideological biases online.

The research also reveals important ideological asymmetries: conservative users are roughly twice as likely as liberals to share in-group versus out-group content, as well as to add negative commentary to out-group shares.

Surprising findings

“Overall, the majority of American Twitter users are not sufficiently interested in politics to follow even a single political or media elite from our list,” Wojcieszak said. Researchers wrote that they found this surprising, since it is generally believed that Twitter users are more politically engaged than the general population.

Given a growing radicalization in America, decreasing support for democratic norms, and rising support for political violence, concerns about political biases on social media platforms are valid, no matter how small the groups displaying those biases may be.

“At the same time,” Wojcieszak said, “we have to remember that these political biases are far removed from the everyday online behaviors of most politically disinterested Americans, who simply don’t care and prefer to immerse themselves in entertainment or sports. Our findings should help us all keep in perspective the concerns about the so-called ‘echo chambers’ online.”

Co-authors of the study include: Andreu Casas, Free University of Amsterdam; Xudong Yu, former doctoral student at UC Davis, now University of Amsterdam; and Jonathan Nagler and Joshua A. Tucker, New York University Center for Social Media and Politics.

The Center for Social Media and Politics at New York University is supported by funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Charles Koch Foundation, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Siegel Family Endowment, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Science Foundation.

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University of California, Davis

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September 30, 2022