Archive for April, 2008
Let’s Do It - People Trade Sex For Resources
Female penguins mate with males who bring them pebbles to build egg nests. Hummingbirds mate to gain access to the most productive flowers guarded by larger males.
New research shows that even affluent college students who don’t need resources will still attempt to trade sexual currency for provisions, said Daniel Kruger, research scientist at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.
The exchange of resources for sex—referred to by scientists as nuptial gifts—has occurred throughout history in many species, including humans, Kruger said. The male of the species offers protection and resources to the female and offspring in exchange for reproductive rights. For example, an arranged marriage can be considered a contract to trade resources.
However, the recent findings suggest that such behaviors are hard wired, and persist no matter how much wealth, resources or security that people obtain.
“It’s remarkable to find these patterns in the students in the study,” Kruger said. “We have seen many examples where people do this out of necessity, but we still see these tendencies in people who are already well provided for.”
In addition, there are predictable, sexual differences in the types of exchanges attempted. Men are more likely to attempt to exchange investment for sex, females were more likely to attempt to exchange sex for investment, Kruger said.
For the study, researchers interviewed 475 U-M undergraduate students to discover if they attempted exchanges in reproductively relevant currencies outside of dating or formally committed relationships, and if they were aware of attempts others tried with them. While the study population was limited to students, these types of exchanges happen all over the world in different cultures and species, he said.
The majority of students were well aware of their own attempts to trade reproductive currency, Kruger said. However, if they were in committed relationships, they did not view the partnership as trading in reproductive currencies, he said.
Overall, the strategy of attempting to exchange investment for sex is only successful about 25 percent of the time, the paper found. Some of the attempted trades included: tickets to the U-M versus Ohio State game; studying assistance; laundry washed; a Louis Vuitton bag; and voice lessons among other things.
Students in the study were 18-26 years old. For exchange attempts made, 27 percent of men and 14 percent of women reported attempts to trade investment for sex, 5 percent of men and 9 percent of women reported attempts to trade sex for investment. Of exchange attempts initiated by others, 14 percent of men and 20 percent of women reported that someone else attempted to trade investment for sex with them, and 8 percent of men and 5 percent of women reported that someone else attempted to trade sex for their investment.
A sample of older individuals, especially one that is more representative of the general population, would likely report higher frequencies of experiences, Kruger said. The assumption is an older population would have more unmet needs and would be more sexually active.
In fact, Kruger said the findings were remarkable in that any exchanges were reported at all, considering the subjects’ youth and affluence—in other words, they don’t want for much yet they still attempt these exchanges.
“The confirmation of hypothetical predictions regarding these exchanges once again demonstrates the power of an evolutionary framework for understanding human psychology and behavior,” Kruger said.
Evolutionary Psychology www.epjournal.net – 2008. 6(1): 204-212
Young Adults Attempt Exchanges in Reproductively Relevant Currencies
Daniel J. Kruger
Adults in many species exhibit exchanges in reproductively relevant currencies,
where males trade resources for sexual relations with females, and females have sex with
males in exchange for provisioning. These exchanges can occur outside of a long-term
partnership, which itself could be considered a commitment to the accessibility of
reproductive currencies provided by each partner. The current study investigated whether
young adults who are not in acute need of resources intentionally attempt reproductive
currency exchanges outside of dating relationships or formal committed relationships such
as marriage; and whether young adults have awareness of being the target of such attempts
made by others. College students (N = 475) completed a brief survey assessing their own
attempts to exchange reproductively relevant currencies, as well as others’ attempts to
make these exchanges with them. Men were more likely to report making attempts to trade
investment for sex and women were more likely to report attempted trades of sex for
investment. Participants’ experiences of exchange attempts initiated by other individuals
mirrored these patterns. Men were more likely to report another individual trying to trade
sex for their investment, and women were more likely to report another individual trying to
trade investment for sex with them. The vast majority of these attempted exchanges took
place outside of existing relationships, although a small portion did lead to short or longterm
relationships.
How Smoking Encourages Infection
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Smokers are often more prone to bacterial infections and inflammatory diseases than the rest of us, thanks to hundreds of toxic components in their cigarettes. Next to dry and irritated mucosal linings in mouth and respiratory system due to smoke and nicotine, now new research shows that nicotine affects neutrophils, the short-lived white blood cells that defend against infection, by reducing their ability to seek and destroy bacteria.
Neutrophils are generated by our bone marrow, which they leave as terminally differentiated cells. Although nicotine is known to affect neutrophils, there has been no study until now of the mechanisms at work when nicotine is present during neutrophil differentiation. David Scott from the Oral Health and Systemic Disease Research Group at the University of Louisville School of Dentistry, Kentucky, USA, along with a team of international colleagues decided to investigate how nicotine influenced the differentiation process.
The authors suggest the processes they observed as contributing to impaired neutrophil function partially explain chronic tobacco users’ increased susceptibility to bacterial infection and inflammatory diseases. A better understanding of this relationship could pave the way for specific therapeutic strategies to treat a number of important tobacco-associated inflammatory diseases and conditions.
The team modeled the neutrophil differentiation process beginning with promyelocytic HL-60 cells, which differentiated into neutrophils following dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) treatment both with and without nicotine. The researchers found that nicotine increased the percentage of cells in late differentiation phases (metamyelocytes, banded neutrophils and segmented neutrophils) compared to DMSO alone, but did not affect other neutrophil differentiation markers that they examined.
However, the nicotine treated neutrophils were less able to seek and destroy bacteria than nicotine-free neutrophils. The nicotine suppressed the oxidative burst in HL-60 cells, a function that helps kill invading bacteria. Nicotine also increased MMP-9 release, a factor involved in tissue degradation.
BMC Cell Biol. 2008 Apr 15;9(1):19 [Epub ahead of print] -
ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Neutrophils leave the bone marrow as terminally differentiated cells, yet little is known of the influence of nicotine or other tobacco smoke components on neutrophil differentiation. Therefore, promyelocytic HL-60 cells were differentiated into neutrophils using dimethylsulfoxide in the presence and absence of nicotine (3-(1-methyl-2-pyrrolidinyl) pyridine). Differentiation was evaluated over 5 days by monitoring terminal differentiation markers (CD11b expression and formazan deposition); cell viability, growth phase, kinetics, and apoptosis; assessing cellular morphology and ultrastructure; and conformational changes to major cellular components. Key neutrophil effector functions (oxidative burst, bacterial killing, matrix metalloproteinase release) were also examined. Results: Nicotine increased the percentage of cells in late differentiation phases (metamyelocytes, banded neutrophils and segmented neutrophils) compared to DMSO alone (p < 0.05), but did not affect any other marker of neutrophil differentiation examined. However, nicotine exposure during differentiation suppressed the oxidative burst in HL-60 cells (p < 0.001); inhibited bacterial killing (p < 0.01); and increased the LPS-induced release of MMP-9, but not MMP-2 (p < 0.05). These phenomena may be alpha-7-acetylcholine nicotinic receptor-dependent. Furthermore, smokers exhibited an increased MMP-9 burden compared to non-smokers in vivo (p < 0.05). Conclusions: These findings may partially explain the known increase in susceptibility to bacterial infection and neutrophil-associated destructive inflammatory diseases in individuals chronically exposed to nicotine.
Hepatitis C: Identification Of A Protein That Inhibits The Virus
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Scientists in the Laboratoire Hépatite C of the Institut de Biologie de Lille in collaboration with INSERM Unit 602 and a laboratory at Stanford University have provided evidence of a protein, called EWI-2wint, that inhibits the hepatitis C virus at an early stage of its infective cycle. This research suggests possible new perspectives for the development of therapies to block the virus before it enters a cell.
The EWI-2wint protein is not present in hepatocytes (liver cells). When it comes into contact with the hepatocyte, the hepatitis C virus can thus bind to the CD81 protein, which will allow it to enter the cell and pursue its infective cycle. In other types of cells in the body, the EWI-2wint protein is present and interacts with CD81, thus preventing the hepatitis C virus from entering these cells. (Credit: Copyright CNRS 2008 Sophana Ung)Hepatitis C is a major public health problem that affects some 130 million people throughout the world. In France , where there are about 5000 new cases each year, it is estimated that half a million people could be affected by this disease. The causal agent is the hepatitis C virus (HCV) which targets cells in the liver called hepatocytes. HCV infection is usually chronic (60% to 80% of cases) and in the long term can lead to the development of cirrhosis and liver cancer.
Unlike the hepatitis A and B viruses, there is no vaccine to combat this virus. Furthermore, the treatments employed are only of limited efficacy (the failure rate reaches around 40%), and they involve considerable side effects. It is therefore crucial to develop new antiviral compounds to control this infection.
HCV uses at least three receptors to enter and infect a hepatocyte. One of these receptors is the CD81 protein, which has the particular characteristic of associating with numerous other proteins. It was by studying these CD81 partner proteins that the researchers identified the EWI-2wint protein, which prevents the recognition of CD81 by the hepatitis C virus and inhibits it at a very early stage in its infective cycle. This protein is present in other types of cells, which could explain why they are not infected by HCV. Discovery of the role of EWI-2wint in hepatocytes has demonstrated the complexity of the mechanisms of entry of HCV into its target cells, and opens the way to new therapeutic approaches.
PLoS ONE. 2008 Apr 2;3(4):e1866. -
Institut de Biologie de Lille (UMR8161), CNRS, Universités de Lille I et Lille II, Institut Pasteur de Lille, Lille, France.
Two to three percent of the world’s population is chronically infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) and thus at risk of developing liver cancer. Although precise mechanisms regulating HCV entry into hepatic cells are still unknown, several cell surface proteins have been identified as entry factors for this virus. Among these molecules, the tetraspanin CD81 is essential for HCV entry. Here, we have identified a partner of CD81, EWI-2wint, which is expressed in several cell lines but not in hepatocytes. Ectopic expression of EWI-2wint in a hepatoma cell line susceptible to HCV infection blocked viral entry by inhibiting the interaction between the HCV envelope glycoproteins and CD81. This finding suggests that, in addition to the presence of specific entry factors in the hepatocytes, the lack of a specific inhibitor can contribute to the hepatotropism of HCV. This is the first example of a pathogen gaining entry into host cells that lack a specific inhibitory factor.
Beijing 2008
Decision-making May Be Surprisingly Unconscious
Contrary to what most of us would like to believe, decision-making may be a process handled to a large extent by unconscious mental activity. A team of scientists has demonstrated in brain scanning images how the brain might unconsciously prepare our decisions. Even several seconds before a conscious decision its outcome could be predicted from unconscious activity in the brain.
This is shown in a study by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, in collaboration with the Charité University Hospital and the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin. The researchers from the group of Professor John-Dylan Haynes used a brain scanner to investigate what happens in the human brain just before a decision is made. “Many processes in the brain occur automatically and without involvement of our consciousness. This prevents our mind from being overloaded by simple routine tasks. But when it comes to decisions we tend to assume they are made by our conscious mind. This is questioned by our current findings.”
In the study participants could freely decide if they wanted to press a button with their left or right hand. They were free to make this decision whenever they wanted, but had to remember at which time they felt they had made up their mind. The aim of the experiment was to find out what happens in the brain in the period just before the person felt the decision was made. The researchers found that it was possible to predict from brain signals which option participants would take up to seven seconds before they consciously made their decision. Normally researchers look at what happens when the decision is made, but not at what happens several seconds before. The fact that decisions can be predicted so long before they are made is a astonishing finding.
This unprecedented prediction of a free decision was made possible by sophisticated computer programs that were trained to recognize typical brain activity patterns preceding each of the two choices. Micropatterns of activity in the frontopolar cortex were predictive of the choices even before participants knew which option they were going to choose. The decision could not be predicted perfectly, but prediction was clearly above chance. This suggests that the decision is unconsciously prepared ahead of time but the final decision might still be reversible.
“Most researchers investigate what happens when people have to decide immediately, typically as a rapid response to an event in our environment. Here we were focusing on the more interesting decisions that are made in a more natural, self-paced manner”, Haynes explains.
More than 20 years ago the American brain scientist Benjamin Libet found a brain signal, the so-called “readiness-potential” that occurred a fraction of a second before a conscious decision. Libet’s experiments were highly controversial and sparked a huge debate. Many scientists argued that if our decisions are prepared unconsciously by the brain, then our feeling of “free will” must be an illusion. In this view, it is the brain that makes the decision, not a person’s conscious mind. Libet’s experiments were particularly controversial because he found only a brief time delay between brain activity and the conscious decision.
In contrast, Haynes and colleagues now show that brain activity predicts — even up to 7 seconds ahead of time — how a person is going to decide. But they also warn that the study does not finally rule out free will: “Our study shows that decisions are unconsciously prepared much longer ahead than previously thought. But we do not know yet where the final decision is made. We need to investigate whether a decision prepared by these brain areas can still be reversed.” Daring as all imaging scientists seem to be. The study shows that there is an unconscious activity antecedent or parallel to conscious decicion making. As “post hoc non est propter hoc”, this parallelism does neither mean that this unconcsious processes are the very decision making nor that they are determining the actual decision. Even the predictability of choices based on such signals does allow for such a conclusion. In the end, the researcher team, pushing a button on their MR-scan highly predictably produced MR-images. Which does not at all explain, how magnetic resonance does work…
Nature Neuroscience (13 Apr 2008), doi: 10.1038/nn.2112, Brief Communications
Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain
Chun Siong Soon, Marcel Brass, Hans-Jochen Heinze, John-Dylan Haynes
There has been a long controversy as to whether subjectively ‘free’ decisions are determined by brain activity ahead of time. We found that the outcome of a decision can be encoded in brain activity of prefrontal and parietal cortex up to 10 s before it enters awareness. This delay presumably reflects the operation of a network of high-level control areas that begin to prepare an upcoming decision long before it enters awareness.
Too Many Choices - Good Or Bad - Can Be Mentally Exhausting
Ever tried to place an order in a Starbucks? Then you know what this is about. Until you get some average quality coffee, you have spent more time with the employee choosing between options, than a full account of his major biographical events would have needed - given that she or he is young, as is the case most of the time. Each day, we are bombarded with options — at the local coffee shop, at work, in stores or on the TV at home. Do you want a double-shot soy latte, a caramel macchiato or simply a tall house coffee for your morning pick-me-up” Having choices is typically thought of as a good thing. Maybe not, say researchers who found we are more fatigued and less productive when faced with a plethora of choices.
Researchers from several universities have determined that even though humans’ ability to weigh choices is remarkably advantageous, it can also come with some serious liabilities. People faced with numerous choices, whether good or bad, find it difficult to stay focused enough to complete projects, handle daily tasks or even take their medicine.
Researchers conducted seven experiments involving 328 participants and 58 consumers at a shopping mall. In the laboratory experiments, some participants were asked to make choices about consumer products, college courses or class materials. Other participants did not have to make decisions but simply had to consider the options in front of them.
The scientists then asked each group to participate in one of two unpleasant tasks. Some were told to finish a healthy but ill-tasting drink (akin to taking ones medicine). Other participants were told to put their hands in ice water. The tasks were designed to test how the previous act of choosing, or not choosing, affected peoples’ ability to stay on task and maintain behaviors aimed at reaching a goal.
Researchers found that the participants who earlier had made choices had more trouble staying focused and finishing the disagreeable but goal-focused tasks compared to the participants who initially did not have to make choices.
In other experiments, participants were given math problems to practice for an upcoming test. The participants who had to make important choices involving coursework spent less time solving the math problems and more time engaging in other distractions such as playing video games or reading magazines, compared to participants who were not asked to make choices prior to that point. The participants who made choices also got more math problems wrong than participants not faced with decisions.
To further buttress their laboratory findings, the researchers conducted a field test at a shopping mall. The shoppers reported how much decision-making they had done while shopping that day and then were asked to solve simple arithmetic problems. The researchers found that the more choices the shoppers had made earlier in the day, the worse they performed on the math problems. The authors note they controlled for how long the participants had been shopping, and for several demographic categories such as age, race, ethnicity and gender.
Kathleen D. Vohs, PhD, the study’s lead author and a member of the University of Minnesota’s marketing department, concluded that making choices apparently depletes a precious resource within the human mind. “Maintaining one’s focus while trying to solve problems or completing an unpleasant task was much harder for those who had made choices compared to those who had not,” says Vohs. “This pattern was found in the laboratory, classroom and shopping mall. Having to make the choice was the key. It did not matter if the researchers told them to make choices, or if it was a spontaneously made choice, or if making the choice had consequences or not.”
But what about making fun choices” How does that affect our mental acuity” In their last experiment, researchers determined that making a few enjoyable decisions, such as spending four minutes selecting items for a gift registry, was shown to be less mentally draining than when participants spent 12 minutes doing the same task. In other words, even if people are having fun making decisions, their cognitive functions are still being depleted with every choice they make.
Vohs says these experiments provide evidence that making choices, as opposed to just thinking about options, is what is especially taxing. “There is a significant shift in the mental programming that is made at the time of choosing, whether the person acts on it at that time or sometime in the future. Therefore, simply the act of choosing can cause mental fatigue,” says Vohs. “Making choices can be difficult and taxing, and there is a personal price to choosing.”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 94, No. 5
Making Choices Impairs Subsequent Self-Control: A Limited-Resource Account of Decision Making, Self-Regulation, and Active Initiative.
Kathleen D. Vohs, PhD, and Noelle M. Nelson, PhD, University of Minnesota; Roy Baumeister, PhD, Florida State University; Brandon J. Schmeichel, PhD, Texas A&M University; Jean M. Twenge, PhD, San Diego State University; Dianne M. Tice, PhD, Florida State University
The current research tested the hypothesis that making many choices impairs subsequent self-control.
Drawing from a limited-resource model of self-regulation and executive function, the authors hypothesized
that decision making depletes the same resource used for self-control and active responding. In 4
laboratory studies, some participants made choices among consumer goods or college course options,
whereas others thought about the same options without making choices. Making choices led to reduced
self-control (i.e., less physical stamina, reduced persistence in the face of failure, more procrastination,
and less quality and quantity of arithmetic calculations). A field study then found that reduced
self-control was predicted by shoppers’ self-reported degree of previous active decision making. Further
studies suggested that choosing is more depleting than merely deliberating and forming preferences about
options and more depleting than implementing choices made by someone else and that anticipating the
choice task as enjoyable can reduce the depleting effect for the first choices but not for many choices.
Full text of the article is available from the APA Public Affairs Office and at http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/psp945883.pdf
Does The Internet Really Influence Suicidal Behavior?
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People searching the Internet for information about suicide methods are most likely to come across sites that encourage suicide rather than sites offering help and support, finds a study in the British Medical Journal. Media reporting of suicide and its portrayal on television are known to influence suicidal behaviour, particularly the choice of method used, but little is known about the influence of the internet.
Recent reports in the popular press have highlighted the existence and possible influence of internet sites that promote suicide and web forums that may encourage suicide in young people.
But despite these recent controversies, the ease with which these sites may be found on the internet has not been systematically documented nor the kind of information they contain been described.
Researchers from the Universities of Bristol, Oxford and Manchester set out to replicate a typical search that might be undertaken by a person looking for instructions and information about methods of suicide using the four most popular search engines–Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask–and 12 simple search terms.
They analysed the first ten sites from each search, giving a total of 480 hits.
Altogether 240 different sites were found and just under half of these provided some information about methods of suicide. Almost a fifth of hits (90) were for dedicated suicide sites, of which half were judged to be encouraging, promoting, or facilitating suicide.
Sixty-two (13%) sites focused on suicide prevention or offered support and 59 (12%) sites actively discouraged suicide.
Almost all dedicated suicide and factual information sites provided information about methods of suicide. But, a fifth (21%) of support and prevention sites and over half (55%) of academic or policy sites, and all news reports of suicides also provided information about methods.
Overall, Google and Yahoo retrieved the highest number of dedicated suicide sites, whereas MSN had the highest number of prevention or support sites and academic or policy sites.
In addition, the three most frequently occurring sites were all pro-suicide, whereas the information site Wikipedia was fourth. All top four sites evaluated methods of suicide including detailed information about speed, certainty, and the likely amount of pain associated with each method.
However, there is currently no regulation of suicide sites in the UK because they are not illegal.
Self-regulation by internet providers and use of filtering software by parents to block sites are the main approaches to reducing potential harm from suicide sites. However, efforts to remove some of the most detailed technical descriptions of suicide methods may be easily circumvented, say the authors.
They conclude that service providers might pursue website optimisation strategies to maximise the likelihood that sites aimed at preventing suicide are preferentially sourced by people seeking information about suicide methods rather than potentially harmful sites.
BMJ. 2008 Apr 12;336(7648):800-2.
Risk Of First Depression Episode Even Late In Life
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Even after the age of 70, people prone to feelings of anxiety, worry, distress and insecurity face a risk for a first lifetime episode of clinically significant depression, according to a unique study led by a University of Rochester Medical Center researcher.
“We assume that because depression has not developed for people with these personality traits by the age of 70 that it won’t develop,” said Paul R. Duberstein, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry who led the study. “But even in older adulthood, these traits confer risk. Presumably something about aging helps take down the façade or destroys the protective sheath that has kept them from significant depression.”
The findings from the prospective study, the first of its kind, are published in the May issue of the journal Psychological Medicine.
Having a working-class background also may place older adults at heightened risk for depression, particularly prior to the age of 80, the study found. Consistent with previous research, women were found to be at greater risk than men. The study enhances the understanding of late-life depression and could aid in the identification and treatment of people at risk.
“The findings suggest that long-standing personality traits can predict onset of depression into older adulthood,” said Duberstein, who is director of the Laboratory of Personality and Development at the Medical Center.
The researchers utilized data from a multi-disciplinary study of 70-year-old residents of Göteborg, Sweden, that began in 1971 to gain a greater understanding of aging and age-related disorders.
Because most people in Sweden receive their health care through a public health system, the study had access to decades of medical records. Data collection also involved physical and mental health examinations and a social assessment. After the initial test, participants were examined over a 15-year period at the ages of 75, 79, 81, 83 and 85.
For the current study, researchers eliminated people at age 70 with dementia and other psychiatric disorders. In all, the records of 275 people were analyzed. There were 59 cases of first lifetime episodes of depression after the age of 70.
“Although we are aware of no research on how people who are highly distress prone manage to stave off clinically significant depression, protective factors might play a role,” the study authors state. “Candidate protective factors include close personal relationships, rewarding occupations or meaningful hobbies, physical vigor and vitality, economic independence, and spiritual well-being. Processes related to aging might inexorably erode some of these protective factors.”
The researchers urge more study of the relationships between personality, age and first lifetime episodes of depression.
“This is a particularly important issue for older men, given their high suicide rate in many Western countries, and the observation that they often take their lives in the midst of a first lifetime episode of depression,” the researchers state.
Psychol Med. 2008 May;38(5):663-71. Epub 2008 Feb 1.
And You, You Need To Look Nicer…
Attitudes Towards Sexual Relationships Can Be Judged From Photos Of Your Face
Suitors can tell a young person’s attitude to sexual relationships by the look on their face, according to new research which gives deeper insight into mate attractiveness.
The Durham University-led study of 700 heterosexual participants also found that young men and women look for complete opposites when it comes to relationships with the other sex.
Men generally prefer women who they perceive are open to short-term sexual relationships whilst women are usually interested in men who appear to have potential to be long-term relationship material.
The scientists say the research shows people can use their perceptions to make more informed partner selection depending on the type of relationship they are pursuing. The study is a significant step in further understanding the evolution of partner choice, according to the research team from Durham, St Andrews and Aberdeen Universities.
Participants were asked to judge the attractiveness and attitudes to sex of the opposite sex from their facial photographs. These perceptual judgements were then compared with the actual attitudes and behaviours of the individuals in the photographs, which had been determined through a detailed questionnaire. The people in the photographs were all in their early 20s.
The experiments found that the men and women taking part could generally judge from photographs who would be more interested in a short-term sexual relationship. In the first study sample of 153 participants, 72 per cent of people correctly identified the attitudes from photographs more than half of the time. However, further questioning showed that the participants were not always confident in their judgements.
The research, published in Evolution and Human Behavior, also found that women who were open to short-term sexual relationships were usually seen by others as more attractive — although researchers can not determine precisely why without further investigation. The men who were most open to casual sex were generally perceived as being more masculine-looking, with facial features including squarer jaws, larger nose and smaller eyes. These findings support previous research carried out by the Durham team which found that women see masculine men as more likely to be unfaithful and as worse parents.
Lead author Dr Lynda Boothroyd from Durham University’s Psychology Department said: “Our results suggest that although some people can judge the sexual strategy of others simply from looking at their face, people are not always sure about their judgements possibly because the cues are very subtle. Yet preferences for different types of face were actually quite strong.
“This shows that these initial impressions may be part of how we assess potential mates — or potential rivals — when we first meet them. These will then give way over time to more in depth knowledge of that person, as you get to know them better, and may change with age”.
Dr Ben Jones, from the University of Aberdeen’s Face Research Lab, said “Lots of previous studies have shown that people can judge a lot about a person from their face, including things like health and even some personality traits like introversion, but this really is the first study to show that people are also sensitive to subtle facial signals about the type of romantic relationships that others might enjoy.”
Professor David Perrett from the University of St Andrews cautioned: “While faces do hold cues to sexual attitudes, men should not presume any kind of relationship is wanted from appearance alone since women’s choice is what matters. Indeed most women found promiscuous-looking guys unattractive for both short and long-term relationships”.
In the study, participants were shown pairs of photographs or ‘averaged’ facial images of men and women in their early 20s with two opposing attitudes to relationships. The participants were asked to choose the face that they felt would be more open to short-term sexual relationships, one-night stands and the idea of sex without love. They were also asked which face they thought was the most attractive for a long- or short-term relationship, who was more masculine or feminine, and who they thought was generally attractive.
Evolution & Human Behavior DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2007.12.009 Corrected Proof, 27 March 2008
Facial correlates of sociosexuality
Lynda G. Boothroyd, Benedict C. Jones, D. Michael Burt, Lisa M. DeBruine, David I. Perrett
Previous studies have documented variation in sexual behaviour between individuals leading to the notion of ‘restricted’ individuals (i.e., people who prefer long-term relationships) and ‘unrestricted’ individuals (i.e., people who are open to short-term relationships). This distinction is often referred to as sociosexual orientation. Observers have been previously found to distinguish sociosexuality from video footage of individuals, although the specific cues used have not been identified. Here we assessed the ability of observers to judge sexual strategy based specifically on cues in both facial composites and real faces. We also assessed how observers’ perceptions of the masculinity/femininity and attractiveness of faces relate to the sociosexual orientation of the pictured individuals. Observers were generally able to identify restricted vs. unrestricted individuals from cues in both composites and real faces. Unrestricted sociosexuality was generally associated with greater attractiveness in female composites and real female faces and greater masculinity in male composites. Although male observers did not generally associate sociosexuality with male attractiveness, female observers generally preferred more restricted males’ faces (i.e., those with relatively strong preferences for long-term relationships). Collectively, our results support previous findings that androgenisation in men is related to less restricted sexual behaviour and suggest that women are averse to unrestricted men.
Treating Post-traumatic Stress First Helps Children Overcome Grief
Post traumatic stress disorder is commonly thought to affect victims of major trauma and those who witness violence, but a new University of Georgia study finds that it also can affect children who have lost a parent expectedly to diseases such as cancer.
The finding, scheduled to be published in the May issue of the journal Research on Social Work Practice, has major implications for helping children cope with grief, said lead author Rene Searles McClatchey.
“Often children who have lost a parent are given grief therapy, and we’ve found that grief therapy doesn’t help if you don’t take care of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms first,” said McClatchey, an adjunct professor in the UGA School of Social Work. McClatchey co-authored the study with UGA associate professor Elizabeth Vonk and University of California, Riverside assistant professor Gregory Palardy.
McClatchey is also founder and director of Camp Magik, a non-profit organization that provides weekend camps for children that blend traditional camp activities such as canoeing and hiking with therapy for PTSD and grief. McClatchey and her colleagues studied 100 children to test the effectiveness of the camp-based intervention.
They found that:
* The odds of continuing to experience severe PTSD were 4.5 times higher for children who did not attend the camp compared to those who did;
and
* The odds of experiencing severe grief were 3.6 times greater for children who did not attend the camp than for those who did.
McClatchey said that in addition to showing that camp-based interventions work, the study found a link between post-traumatic stress disorder and grief. She explains that a previous study she conducted in 2005 in which children attended camp and underwent grief counseling without PTSD treatment found that the children didn’t improve or, in some cases, fared worse after the camp.
“Delving into their grief without addressing their PTSD got them thinking about their loss,” McClatchey said, “but we didn’t teach them the coping mechanisms to deal with the PTSD symptoms that were stirred up.”
Few studies have examined the effectiveness of camp-based interventions and most studies on overcoming grief have focused on children who have lost family members to sudden death resulting from violence or accidents. Until now, researchers have overlooked the post-traumatic stress and grief of children whose parents died expectedly after a long illness. The new study finds that both groups can benefit from PTSD treatment followed by grief counseling.
Vonk said the PTSD treatment consisted of exposure therapy, in which the children talk about their loss repeatedly until their fear diminished, and cognitive restructuring, in which children learn to modify negative thoughts, such as feelings of guilt, about their loss. The grief treatment portion included cognitive restructuring as well as lessons on coping skills.
“The camp allows kids to process their grief and go on with their lives,” Vonk said. “They can attend to everyday activities in a way that they weren’t able to before and can concentrate better in school.”
McClatchey said the average cost per camper is about $250 for the three-day weekend, making it more cost effective than individual counseling, which costs an average of $100 per hour and requires multiple sessions to be effective. (Camp Magik is supported by donations so that children and their families never pay to attend.)
Another benefit of the camp setting is that it gives children around-the-clock access to counselors so that those who don’t open up during group sessions can have their needs addressed individually. The researchers add that attending such camps with other children that have experienced a loss has benefits that individual therapy can’t provide.
“They see that other kids are having the same kinds of thoughts and feelings,” Vonk said, “and that in and of itself is healing.”
The study gives statistical evidence that the campers benefit from the intervention, but numbers don’t tell the whole story. McClatchey recalls one child who left Camp Magik and told her parents that she learned that it was okay to have fun again. Another went home and told her family that it was okay to talk about their loss. One child hadn’t spoken for a year before going to camp but went home talking. One young boy had refused to leave his mother’s side after the sudden heart attack of his father six months earlier. He returned home from camp insisting on sleeping in his own bed again. He went off to school without objection and resumed play dates with his friends.
“There’s really no way of describing the difference between how they are when they arrive on Friday and how much better they are when they leave on Sunday,” McClatchey said.
Research on Social Work Practice, Mar 2008; vol. 0: pp. 1049731508314276v1.
Efficacy of a Camp-Based Intervention for Childhood Traumatic Grief
Irene Searles McClatchey, M. Elizabeth Vonk, and Gregory Palardy
no abstract available
