Body Language Interview, Frank Salter (May 2014)

Social Selection and the Notorious Free Rider - Cristopher Boehm

HBES Interview Series - Napoleon Chagnon

Social dialect and men’s voice pitch influence women’s mate preferences

Social dialect and men’s voice pitch influence women’s mate preferences
J. J. M. O’Connor, P. J. Fraccaro, K. Pisanski, C. C. Tigue, T. J. O'Donnell, D. R. Feinberg
Evolution and Human Behavior (In Press, May 2014)


Abstract

Low male voice pitch may communicate potential benefits for offspring in the form of heritable health and/or dominance, whereas access to resources may be indicated by correlates of socioeconomic status, such as sociolinguistic features. Here, we examine if voice pitch and social dialect influence women’s perceptions of men’s socioeconomic status and attractiveness. In Study 1, women perceived lower pitched male voices as higher in socioeconomic status than higher pitched male voices. In Study 2, women independently perceived lower pitched voices and higher status sociolinguistic dialects as higher in socioeconomic status and attractiveness. We also found a significant interaction wherein women preferred lower pitched men’s voices more often when dialects were lower in sociolinguistic status than when they were higher in sociolinguistic status. Women also perceived lower pitched voices as higher in socioeconomic status more often when dialects were higher in sociolinguistic status than when lower in sociolinguistic status. Finally, women’s own self-rated socioeconomic status was positively related to their preferences for voices with higher status sociolinguistic dialects, but not to their preferences for voice pitch. Hence, women’s preferences for traits associated with potentially biologically heritable benefits, such as low voice pitch, are moderated by the presence of traits associated with resource accrual, such as social dialect markers. However, women’s preferences for language markers of resource accrual may be functionally independent from preferences for potential biological indicators of heritable benefits, such as voice pitch.

Behavioral Genetics - Robert Plomin

The Big Fat Surprise - Nina Teicholz at TEDxEast (Mar 2014)

[Thanks @ Mr. Mangan]

Testosterone reactivity to facial display of emotions in men and women

Testosterone reactivity to facial display of emotions in men and women
Samuele Zilioli, Evan Caldbick, Neil V. Watson
Hormones and Behavior (May 2014)


Highlights

•

We examined whether exposure to facial expressions affects testosterone secretion.

•

Testosterone percentage change was higher in men watching female faces compared to men watching male faces.

•

Testosterone percentage change was higher in women watching male faces compared to women watching female faces.

•

Testosterone percentage change was higher in women watching angry faces compared to women watching happy faces.

Abstract

Previous studies have examined testosterone's role in regulating the processing of facial displays of emotions (FDEs). However, the reciprocal process – the influence of FDEs, an evolutionarily ancient and potent class of social signals, on the secretion of testosterone – has not yet been studied. To address this gap, we examined the effects of emotional content and sex of facial stimuli in modulating endogenous testosterone fluctuations, as well as sex differences in the endocrine responses to faces. One hundred and sixty-four young healthy men and women were exposed, in a between-subjects design, to happy or angry same-sex or opposite-sex facial expressions. Results showed that in both men (n = 85) and women (n = 79), extended exposure to faces of the opposite sex, regardless of their apparent emotional content, was accompanied by an accumulation in salivary testosterone when compared to exposure to faces of the same sex. Furthermore, testosterone change in women exposed to angry expressions was greater than testosterone change in women exposed to happy expressions. These results add emotional facial stimuli to the collection of social signals that modulate endocrine status, and are discussed with regard to the evolutionary roles of testosterone.

“It’s the people, stupid”: a review of Wade’s “A Troublesome Inheritance"

“It’s the people, stupid”: a review of Wade’s “A Troublesome Inheritance"
James Thompson

Dual-Processing Accounts of Reasoning, Judgment, and Social Cognition

Dual-Processing Accounts of Reasoning, Judgment, and Social Cognition
Jonathan Evans (2008)


Abstract

This article reviews a diverse set of proposals for dual processing in higher cognition within largely disconnected literatures in cognitive and social psychology. All these theories have in common the distinction between cognitive processes that are fast, automatic, and unconscious and those that are slow, deliberative, and conscious. A number of authors have recently suggested that there may be two architecturally (and evolutionarily) distinct cognitive systems underlying these dual-process accounts. However, it emerges that (a) there are multiple kinds of implicit processes described by different theorists and (b) not all of the proposed attributes of the two kinds of processing can be sensibly mapped on to two systems as currently conceived. It is suggested that while some dual-process theories are concerned with parallel competing processes involving explicit and implicit knowledge systems, others are concerned with the influence of preconscious processes that contextualize and shape deliberative reasoning and decision-making.

Incorporating General Intelligence Into Epidemiology and the Social Sciences

Incorporating General Intelligence Into Epidemiology and the Social Sciences
D. Lubinski & L. G. Humphrey (1997)
https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/files/2013/02/Intelligence.pdf


Abstract

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the value of examining a variety of pressing behavioral, medical, and social phenomena as they relate to gradations in general intelligence. Although few (if any) variables in the social sciences can compete with the construct of general intelligence in its ability to forecast an array of socially valued attributes and outcomes, measures of general intelligence are seldom incorporated into correlational and experimental designs aimed at understanding maladaptive behavior (e.g., crime, dropping out of high school, unwise financial planning, health-risk behaviors, poor parenting, and vocational discord) or its opposite, highly adaptive behavior. We contend that, if consulted more often, the construct of general intelligence would contribute to understanding many puzzling human phenomena, because successive gradations of intelligence reflect successive degrees of risk. A method is provided for uncovering group trends, one expressly designed to reveal the range and prevalence of the many different kinds of human phenomena that vary as a function of intellectual gradations. By employing this method, policymakers and the public can more readily apprehend the significant, but often unsuspected, contribution made by general intelligence to many socially important outcomes. Our approach is similar to traditional epidemiological research aimed at ascertaining antecedents to maladies through the defining features of high-risk groups (e.g., for lung cancer, smokers and passive smokers; for AIDS victims, participants in unsafe sex; for academic mediocrity, among the intellectually gifted in nonaccelerative educational tracks; for mental retardation, high blood-lead levels). Once such high-risk groups are defined (i.e., groups of persons whose behavioral dispositions predispose them, and often others around them, to unfortunate outcomes), policymakers and scientists are in a better position to disentangle genuine causes from families of correlations and can concentrate ameliorative resources more effectively. Data from educational and medical contexts are analyzed to show how measures of general intelligence, and other dimensions from differential psychology, can complement epidemiological and social science inquiry. We also argue that by incorporating such measures of human variation into policy development and research, policymakers are more likely to forestall “iatrogenic effects” (maladies caused by treatment).

Some Bodily and Medical Correlates of Mathematical Giftedness and Commensurate Levels of Socioeconomic Status

Some Bodily and Medical Correlates of Mathematical Giftedness and Commensurate Levels of Socioeconomic Status
D. Lubinski & L. D. Humphreys (1992)
https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/files/2013/02/CorrelatesOfMath.pdf


Abstract

Four groups of 10th-grade students were selected from the upper tails of four distributions based on a stratified random sample of the nation's high schools (N = 95,650): Two groups consisted of mathematically gifted subjects (boys n = 497, girls n = 508); the remaining two groups comprised environmentally privileged students (boys n = 647, girls n = 485). The former represented approximately the top 1% on a standard measure of quantitative ability, whereas the latter represented approximately the upper 1% of a conventional SES index. These four gifted/privileged groups were then compared to one another, by gender, and to their gender equivalent normative cohorts on 43 indices of medical and physical well-being. Although higher levels of physical health are found in both gifted and privileged groups (relative to the norm), medical and physical well-being appears to be more highly associated with mathematical giftedness than extreme levels of socioeconomic privilege. To the extent that these findings may be linked to the construct general intelligence, they confirm and extend the view that the nomothetic span (network of correlates) of general intelligence permeates a variety of important and valued nonintellectual domains (cf. Brand, 1987).

THE MATH SEX GAP REVISITED: A THEORY OF EVERYONE

THE MATH SEX GAP REVISITED: A THEORY OF EVERYONE
La Griffe du Lion (December 2008)
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/math2.htm


Abstract

At the annual meeting of Women Against the Gap, Prodigy unveils a model of mathematical ability that brings together seemingly isolated facts. He demonstrates that there is a single math ability gap between the sexes, biological in origin, and independent of race, culture and geography. Prodigy introduces the theory of Everyone which accounts for all available data.

Subjective Judgments of Intelligence and IQ-Tests:

>It is helpful to think of the subjective perception of intelligence as analogous to the subjective perception of temperatures ... . Before the invention of the thermometer, temperature was a matter of subjective judgment. The invention of the thermometer made it possible to objectify the attribute of temperature, to quantify it, and to measure it with a high degree of reliability. With some important qualifications, the situation is similar in the case of intelligence tests.<

Arthur R. Jensen

IQ and Retention:

>... When persons are equated in degree of original learning of simple material, their retention measured at a later time is only slightly if at all correlated with IQ. The retention of more complex learning, however, involves meaningfulness and the way in which the learner has transformed or encoded the material. This is related to the degree of the learner’s under­standing, the extent to which the learned material is linked into the learner’s preexisting associative and conceptual network, and the learner’s capacity for conceptual reconstruc­tion of the whole material from a few recollected principles. The more that these aspects of memory can play a part in the material to be learned and later recalled, the more that retention measures are correlated with IQ.<

Arthur R. Jensen

Bias in Mental Testing - p. 329 (1980)

[See also: The myth of “they weren’t ever taught….”]

IQ and somatic health in late adolescence

IQ and somatic health in late adolescence
Alma Sörberg, Peter Allebeck, Tomas Hemmingsson
Intelligence (May - June 2014)


Highlights

•

IQ is associated with somatic health and early death later in life.

•

Less is known about the relationship between IQ and somatic health in youth.

•

IQ was associated with a range of diagnoses/health indicators already in youth.

•

Lower IQ was mostly associated with higher risk for diagnoses/poor health indicators.

•

The associations were not explained by differences in socioeconomic background.

Abstract

Intelligence quotient (IQ) is associated with mental health in youth onwards, as well as somatic health and longevity later in life. However, little is known about the association with somatic health in youth. We aimed to investigate the cross-sectional association between IQ and a range of somatic diagnoses and health indicators in late adolescence. In a cohort comprising 49 321 Swedish men, IQ test performance and health status were recorded at conscription in 1969–70, at ages 18–20. Information on socioeconomic factors in childhood was obtained from the national census. Odds ratios (ORs) were estimated by logistic regression. With adjustment for socioeconomic background, each step decrease in IQ test performance on a nine-point scale was associated with an increased OR for the following somatic diagnoses: impaired hearing (1.14, 1.12–1.16), endocrine disorders (1.13, 1.10–1.17), symptoms and ill-defined conditions (1.11, 1.08–1.14), back pain (1.10, 1.08–1.12), digestive system diseases (1.08, 1.05–1.10) and injuries (1.02, 1.00–1.05); and a decreased OR for hayfever (0.87, 0.85–0.90) and refractive errors (0.87, 0.86–0.88). IQ was also associated with increased ORs for low physical capacity (1.12, 1.10–1.14), signs of inflammation (1.07, 1.06–1.09) and low self-rated health (1.03, 1.02–1.05). Several diagnoses were not associated with IQ. In conclusion, lower IQ at conscription was associated with a higher risk for several diagnoses and indicators of poor health, but the risk was decreased for a few of the diagnoses. The mechanisms underlying the associations presumably differ. However, socioeconomic factors in childhood could not explain the associations.

Major Findings on g’s Impact on Job Performance

Utility of g

1. Higher levels of g lead to higher levels of performance in all jobs and along all dimensions of performance. The average correlation of mental tests with overall rated job performance is around .5 (corrected for statistical artifacts).

2. There is no ability threshold above which more g does not enhance performance. The effects of g are linear: successive increments in g lead to successive increments in job performance.

3. (a) The value of higher levels of g does not fade with longer experience on the job. Criterion validities remain high even among highly experienced workers. (b) That they sometimes even appear to rise with experience may be due to the confounding effect of the least experienced groups tending to be more variable in relative level of experience, which obscures the advantages of higher g.

4. g predicts job performance better in more complex jobs. Its (corrected) criterion validities range from about .2 in the simplest jobs to .8 in the most complex.

5. g predicts the core technical dimensions of performance better than it does the non-core “citizenship” dimension of performance.

6. Perhaps as a consequence, g predicts objectively measured performance (either job knowledge or job sample performance) better than it does subjectively measured performance (such as supervisor ratings).

Utility of g Relative to Other “Can Do” Components of Performance

7. Specific mental abilities (such as spatial, mechanical, or verbal ability) add very little, beyond g, to the prediction of job performance. g generally accounts for at least 85-95% of a full mental test battery’s (cross-validated) ability to predict performance in training or on the job.

8. Specific mental abilities (such as clerical ability) sometimes add usefully to prediction, net of g, but only in certain classes of jobs. They do not have general utility.

9. General psychomotor ability is often useful, but primarily in less complex work. Its predictive validities fall with complexity while those for g rise. 

Utility of g Relative to the “Will Do” Component of Job Performance

10. g predicts core performance much better than do “non-cognitive” (less g-loaded) traits, such as vocational interests and different personality traits. The latter add virtually nothing to the prediction of core performance, net of g.

11. g predicts most dimensions of non-core performance (such as personal discipline and soldier bearing) much less well than do “non-cognitive” traits of personality and temperament. When a performance dimension reflects both core and non-core performance (effort and leadership), g predicts to about the same modest degree as do non-cognitive (less g-loaded) traits.

12. Different non-cognitive traits appear to usefully supplement g in different jobs, just as specific abilities sometimes add to the prediction of performance in certain classes of jobs. Only one such non-cognitive trait appears to be as generalizable as g: the personality trait of conscientiousness/integrity. Its effect sizes for core performance are substantially smaller than g’s, however.

Utility of g Relative to the Job Knowledge

13. g affects job performance primarily indirectly through its effect on job-specific knowledge.

14. g’s direct effects on job performance increase when jobs are less routinized, training is less complete, and workers retain more discretion.

15. Job-specific knowledge generally predicts job performance as well as does g among experienced workers. However, job knowledge is not generalizable (net of its g component), even among experienced workers. The value of job knowledge is highly job specific; g’s value is unrestricted.

Utility of g Relative to the “Have Done” (Experience) Component of Job Performance

16. Like job knowledge, the effect sizes of job-specific experience are sometimes high but they are not generalizable.

17. In fact, experience predicts performance less well as all workers become more experienced. In contrast, higher levels of g remain an asset regardless of length of experience.

18. Experience predicts job performance less well as job complexity rises, which is opposite the trend for g. Like general psychomotor ability, experience matters least where g matters most to individuals and their organizations.

Source:

Where and Why g Matters: Not a Mystery - Appendix 1

Linda S Gottfredson (2002)

The Distribution of Mental Ability:

...

>The “retarded” category is traditionally described as IQ below 70, but this is rather arbitrary. Psychologists, educators, and social workers, however, show little disagree­ment that the vast majority of persons with IQs below 70 have unusual difficulties in school and generally have difficulties of an intellectual nature as adults. There are few jobs in a modern industrial society for which persons below IQ 70 are capable without making allowances for their intellectual disability or restructuring the usual requirements of the job so as to bring it within the capabilities of the retarded person. Persons below IQ 70 have difficulty in managing their financial affairs and other ordinary demands involv­ing arithmetic and reading comprehension. Many school systems set the retarded classification at IQ 75 or even 80, because such children so often require special instruction to learn the basic school subjects. Even then these children find it very difficult to keep pace with their classmates, because, with a mental age a year or more below the average of their classmates, they lack the conceptual readiness for the scholastic subjects that are taught in a given grade. The armed forces exclude most persons who score below an equivalent of about IQ 75 or 80 on the Armed Forces Qualification Test. There are too few useful occupations that these low-IQ recruits can be successfully trained to perform, with limited time for training.

The American Association of Mental Deficiency has recommended that the border­line of mental retardation be set at between IQ 70 to 85, defining as “ subnormal " IQ deviations of more than one standard deviation below the general mean of the population. But this is a matter of statistical definition and does not agree with the general practice of basing classification as retarded not only on IQ but on various criteria of the individual’s social adjustment and adaptive behavior. The majority of adults with IQs between 70 and 85 are not retarded by ordinary criteria of social adjustment. In one large study, for example, it was found that 84 percent of such persons had completed at least eight years of school, 83 percent had held a job, 65 percent had a semiskilled or higher occupation, 80 percent were financially independent or a housewife, and almost 100 percent were able to do their own shopping and travel alone (Mercer, 1972a).

The AAMD further subdivides the retarded classification as follows:

IQ 85-70                Borderline retardation

IQ 69-55                Mild retardation

IQ 54-40                Moderate retardation

IQ 39-25                Severe retardation

IQ 24 and below   Profound retardation 

The vast majority, some 70 percent to 80 percent, of persons below IQ 70 are biologically normal; no brain damage, disease, or genetic defect is detectable. They are apart of normal variation in the combination of polygenic and environmental factors that contribute to variance in IQ. The remaining 20 percent to 30 percent show “ clinical” signs, either due to brain damage from injury or disease, or they show the medically recognizable signs of one or another of the more than eighty specifically identifiable syndromes associated with a single defective gene or chromosomal anomaly. The bulk of such individuals are found in the IQ range below 50 and nearly all persons with IQs below 35 or 40 are the “ clinical” type.

All levels of retardation, except perhaps some of those at the “profound” level, are amenable to various forms of therapy, conditioning, or training that can make their social behavior and their lives more satisfactory, both to themselves and to those who must take care of them, although such training has no appreciable effect on the IQ. The mildly or educably retarded can benefit from schooling when it is properly geared to their level of readiness and conceptual capabilities.

Moving up the IQ scale to the 80 to 90 range, which is traditionally but unfortu­nately labeled "dull normal", the typical picture is that of quite normal children or adults whose only consistently distinguishing feature is greater than average difficulty in the more academic school subjects. Such children are generally slower to “catch on” to whatever is being taught if it involves symbolic, abstract, or conceptual subject matter. In the early grades in school they most often have problems in reading and arithmetic and are sometimes labeled “slow learners.” But it is really not that they learn slowly as that they lag behind in developmental readiness to grasp the concepts that are within easy reach of the majority of their age mates. Such children will eventually grasp these basic subjects fairly easily, but about a year or two later than their age mates. They are better thought of as “ slow developers” than as “ slow learners. ” The child with an IQ of 80 to 90, it seems, has to be explicitly taught more of what he must learn, in or out of school, than the brighter child, who picks up much more knowledge and skills on his own, without need of direct intervention by parents or teachers. The lower-IQ child does not as readily absorb as much from his own experiences as the brighter child. Most low-IQ children do not eventually catch up with their age mates. Because of the fairly high degree of constancy of the IQ (...), low-IQ children differ increasingly from their average age mates in mental age as they advance in school. Children in the IQ range of 80 to 90 are usually not noticed to be intellectually different in any way until they enter school. Their scholas­tic problems become more evident with each higher grade, since they are further behind their classmates in mental age.

Because of this increasing lag in the academic subjects, most of these children, when they reach junior or senior high school, elect the less academic courses. The elective system allows them to choose courses in which they are more apt to succeed and from which they are more apt to profit in the world of work when they leave school. By high school age many such children, because of their earlier scholastic difficulties, have already acquired a definite dislike for the academic subjects and tend to drop out of high school if it has little else to offer besides the traditional curriculum. Algebra and geometry, foreign languages, English literature, and physics and chemistry are not these pupils’ forte; unless strenuously pressured by parents, they usually avoid these tra­ditionally college preparatory courses. They prefer the more practical and vocational courses, which are less symbolic and abstract. Not surprisingly, as adults they have few if any intellectual interests to speak of; they are generally poorly informed on world affairs, science, the arts, or other types of information gained through reading. They are usually employed in jobs that depend little on scholastic skills or in which advancement depends on individual study or training courses involving “book learning,” “examinations," or other school-like requirements.

The 50 percent of the population classed as “average” and falling between IQs 90 and 110 hardly needs description. They differ from those below and above on the IQ scale only in degree. The schools, the world of work, and the entertainment industry are largely geared to this average majority of the population. Persons with IQs closer to 110, because of their usually more favorable experiences in elementary and high school are more likely to seek advanced training or even college than those with IQs closer to 90. The myriad of occupations below the highly technical and professional levels are mostly occupied by persons in this IQ range. There is virtually no limitation on such persons in fields that are not dependent on university- or graduate-level education or in occupations that require special talents, such as athletics, art, acting, and musical performance. At least an average IQ is usually needed to compete successfully in such fields, but, beyond that, a high level in special talents and personal qualities are the crucial factors in success.

IQs between 110 and 130 are typically found in children who do well in school subjects, who catch on easily to what is being taught at their grade level, and who take a liking to the academic curriculum. They are typically good readers from an early age, they enjoy reading, and they do more of it than most children without encouragement from others. There are great individual differences in interests and special abilities in this group, and these differences are reflected in the variability of these children’s perfor­mances in various scholastic subjects. But usually children with IQs above 115 or so can perform outstandingly in any school subject to which they may apply themselves, barring special disabilities such as aphasia and dyslexia. These above-average children show a wider range of interests than the average, they tend to be self-learners, and their hobbies are usually more complex, advanced, well planned, and long term than one sees in their more average age mates. Colleges and universities obtain their students almost entirely from the range above IQ 110. Entering freshmen in most selective colleges average in the 115 to 120 range, and graduates from these colleges average about 120 to 125. The vast majority of persons in skilled, managerial, and professional occupations are from this group. Manual or “ blue-collar” workers in this IQ range generally become the master carpenters, skilled mechanics, technicians, foremen, and contractors with earnings on a par with or exceeding those of many white-collar and professional workers.

Persons with IQs above 130 usually find school easy, or even perhaps boring for lack of intellectual challenge. Some are not very enthusiastic students until they reach college. With average interest, motivation, and application, they tend to be in the upper half of their college class in grade-point average. With better than average effort and persistence, they can succeed in virtually any occupation except those requiring special talents, among which I would include mathematics; at an advanced level mathematics seems to require not only a high level of general intelligence but also something more in the nature of a special talent. (As in high-level talent for musical composition and in playing chess, there is also a marked sex difference in high-level mathematical ability. Also, it is interesting that authentic child prodigies are found only in chess, music, and mathematics.) Beyond IQ 130, factors other than general intelligence largely account for what these persons make of their careers. Personality factors, interests, drive, stability, perseverance, general health, cultural background, educational opportunities, and special talents become the main determining factors once a high level of general intelligence is present. Outstanding achievement, as Galton noted, depends on at least three things: exceptional general mental ability, exceptional drive, and exceptional perseverance. These qualities are almost invariably illustrated, for example, in the biographies of per­sons whose achievements are judged sufficiently outstanding to be included in the Ency­clopaedia Britannica.<
...

Bias in Mental Testing -> p. 109-112
Arthur R. Jensen (1980)

[If you read this excerpt with interest, I highly recommend you to read the whole chapter (or at least p. 105-114). Perhaps I shouldn't have cut it into pieces.]