Forgiving Racist Tweets, the Heritability of Grit, and a Random Collection of Sex Differences
My first Linkfest!
Hi folks! Here’s a roundup of links to papers and articles that caught my eye over the last few weeks. Topics covered include social psychology, behavior genetics, personality psychology, evolutionary psychology, and sex differences. Hope you enjoy it!
Social Psychology
According to a recent study, physical attractiveness is associated with higher educational attainment, greater occupational success, and a higher income, even after controlling for potential confounds such as health, IQ, parental SES, and neighborhood conditions. In other words, it pays to be good looking - literally. Curiously, the benefits of good looks are larger for men than for women, which is the opposite of what I would have predicted. Link.
We tend to assume that people who are born poor and get rich will be more sympathetic to the plight of the poor than those who are born rich and stay rich. According to a new paper, however, it’s the other way around. As the authors note, “Surveys of wealthy individuals reveal that, compared with the Born Rich, the Became Rich perceive improving one’s socioeconomic conditions as less difficult, which, in turn, predicts less empathy for the poor, less perceived sacrifices by the poor, more internal attributions for poverty, and less support for redistribution.” Link.
How harshly do people judge public figures who, at some point in the past, tweeted racist statements? A new analysis suggests that people are more forgiving of statements made long ago than recently, and more forgiving of statements made by young people than older ones. Patterns of forgiveness also differ depending on political persuasion: People on the left are less forgiving of anti-Black tweets; people on the right are less forgiving of anti-White tweets. Link.
Behavior Genetics/Personality
A new study of more than 8,000 twins found that self-control and grit are around 70% heritable, whereas academic skills are around 80% heritable. (Heritability is a measure of the extent to which variation among individuals in a given trait correlates with variation among those individuals in their genes.) Link.