There is Nothing Magical About Bayesian Statistics: An Introduction to Epistemic Probabilities in Data Analysis for Psychology Starters

This paper is a reader-friendly introduction to Bayesian inference applied to psychological science. We begin by explaining the difference between frequentist and epistemic interpretations of probability that underpin respectively frequentist and Bayesian statistics. We use a concrete example – a student wondering whether s/he carries the virus statisticus malignum – to explain how both approaches are different one from another. We illustrate Bayesian inference with intuitive examples, before introducing the mathematical framework. Different schools of thoughts and recommendations are discussed to illustrate how to use priors in Bayes Factor testing. We discuss how psychology could benefit from a greater reliance on Bayesian methods. Finally, we illustrate how to compute Bayes Factors analyses with real data and provide the R code

The Facets of Social Hierarchy: How Judges’ Legitimacy Beliefs and Relative Status Shape Their Evaluation of Assertiveness and Ability

Contemporary approaches of impression formation and stereotypes celebrate the role of the Big Two in social evaluation: the horizontal and vertical dimensions (Abele et al., 2021). Recently, interest has grown in making further distinctions within each of these dimensions (Abele et al., 2008). Here, we focused on the vertical facets, namely, assertiveness and ability. Research found that assertiveness is more strongly related to a target’s status than ability. Arguably, this pattern emerges because assertiveness comes across as less negotiable, whereas ability leaves more room for appreciation. Building on this assumption, we reasoned that judgments of ability provide more opportunity to justify or to reclaim positive identity, depending on one’s position in the hierarchy. Specifically, we hypothesized that the legitimacy beliefs and status of the judges are key factors to consider in that they moderate the perceived overlap between the vertical facets. Using a novel paradigm based on Goodman et al.’s (2001) social ladder, Studies 1a and 1b relied on judges’ legitimacy beliefs as a proxy for status, whereas Studies 2 and 3 directly examined the judges’ relative status. As predicted, we consistently found more overlap between assertiveness and ability among highlegitimacy/status judges than among low-legitimacy/status judges. We discuss the importance of taking into account the more specific meaning of the facets

Love and affectionate touch toward romantic partners all over the world

Touch is the primary way people communicate intimacy in romantic relationships, and affectionate touch behaviors such as stroking, hugging and kissing are universally observed in partnerships all over the world. Here, we explored the association of love and affectionate touch behaviors in romantic partnerships in two studies comprising 7880 participants. In the first study, we used a cross-cultural survey conducted in 37 countries to test whether love was universally associated with affectionate touch behaviors. In the second study, using a more fine-tuned touch behavior scale, we tested whether the frequency of affectionate touch behaviors was related to love in romantic partnerships. As hypothesized, love was significantly and positively associated with affectionate touch behaviors in both studies and this result was replicated regardless of the inclusion of potentially relevant factors as controls. Altogether, our data strongly suggest that affectionate touch is a relatively stable characteristic of human romantic relationships that is robustly and reliably related to the degree of reported love between partners.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Reasons for facebook usage: Data from 46 countries

Seventy-nine percent of internet users use Facebook, and on average they access Facebook eight times a day (Greenwood et al., 2016). To put these numbers into perspective, according to Clement (2019), around 30% of the world\u2019s population uses this Online Social Network (OSN) site. Despite the constantly growing body of academic research on Facebook (Chou et al., 2009; Back et al., 2010; Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010; McAndrew and Jeong, 2012; Wilson et al., 2012; Krasnova et al., 2017), there remains limited research regarding the motivation behind Facebook use across different cultures. Our main goal was to collect data from a large cross-cultural sample of Facebook users to examine the roles of sex, age, and, most importantly, cultural differences underlying Facebook use

Affective interpersonal touch in close relationships: a cross-cultural perspective

Interpersonal touch behavior differs across cultures, yet no study to date has systematically tested for cultural variation in affective touch, nor examined the factors that might account for this variability. Here, over 14,000 individuals from 45 countries were asked whether they embraced, stroked, kissed, or hugged their partner, friends, and youngest child during the week preceding the study. We then examined a range of hypothesized individual-level factors (sex, age, parasitic history, conservatism, religiosity, and preferred interpersonal distance) and cultural-level factors (regional temperature, parasite stress, regional conservatism, collectivism, and religiosity) in predicting these affective-touching behaviors. Our results indicate that affective touch was most prevalent in relationships with partners and children, and its diversity was relatively higher in warmer, less conservative, and religious countries, and among younger, female, and liberal people. This research allows for a broad and integrated view of the bases of cross-cultural variability in affective touch

Sex differences in mate preferences across 45 countries: A large-scale replication

Considerable research has examined human mate preferences across cultures, finding universal sex differences in preferences for attractiveness and resources as well as sources of systematic cultural variation. Two competing perspectives—an evolutionary psychological perspective and a biosocial role perspective—offer alternative explanations for these findings. However, the original data on which each perspective relies are decades old, and the literature is fraught with conflicting methods, analyses, results, and conclusions. Using a new 45-country sample (N = 14,399), we attempted to replicate classic studies and test both the evolutionary and biosocial role perspectives. Support for universal sex differences in preferences remains robust: Men, more than women, prefer attractive, young mates, and women, more than men, prefer older mates with financial prospects. Cross-culturally, both sexes have mates closer to their own ages as gender equality increases. Beyond age of partner, neither pathogen prevalence nor gender equality robustly predicted sex differences or preferences across countries

Respective roles of agency and competence in social status perception

Il y a consensus sur la structure bidimensionnelle du jugement social. Cette thèse avait pour but de montrer que les concepts d'agentisme et de compétence sont deux registres distincts au sein de la dimension verticale du jugement. L'agentisme ferait référence à l'avancement du soi alors que la compétence ferait référence à un ensemble de ressources instrumentales. Une première implication concerne la relation entre les deux dimensions du jugement. Nous observons que la sociabilité est liée négativement à l'agentisme alors qu'elle reste indépendante de la compétence.Une autre implication concerne la perception du statut social. Nos données montrent l'agentisme est spécifiquement associé aux personnes de haut statut alors que la compétence peut être associée à des personnes de haut ou de bas statut. Les registres d'agentisme et de compétence ne jouent donc pas le même rôle dans le jugement social.There is a consensus about the bidimensionnal structure of social judgment. The aim of this thesis was to show that the concepts of agency and competence are two distinct registers within the vertical dimension of social judgment. Agency reflects a motive to advance the self where as competence refers to a set of instrumental resources. The first implication of this distinction deals with the relationship between the two dimensions of social judgment. We found that sociability and agency were negatively correlated while sociability and competence were orthogonal. Another implication deals with social status perception. Results showed that agency is specifically associated with high status individuals whereas competence can be associated with high status individuals and relatively low status individuals. These findings suggest that these two registers do not play the same role in social judgment

Respective roles of agency and competence in social status perception

Il y a consensus sur la structure bidimensionnelle du jugement social. Cette thèse avait pour but de montrer que les concepts d'agentisme et de compétence sont deux registres distincts au sein de la dimension verticale du jugement. L'agentisme ferait référence à l'avancement du soi alors que la compétence ferait référence à un ensemble de ressources instrumentales. Une première implication concerne la relation entre les deux dimensions du jugement. Nous observons que la sociabilité est liée négativement à l'agentisme alors qu'elle reste indépendante de la compétence.Une autre implication concerne la perception du statut social. Nos données montrent l'agentisme est spécifiquement associé aux personnes de haut statut alors que la compétence peut être associée à des personnes de haut ou de bas statut. Les registres d'agentisme et de compétence ne jouent donc pas le même rôle dans le jugement social.There is a consensus about the bidimensionnal structure of social judgment. The aim of this thesis was to show that the concepts of agency and competence are two distinct registers within the vertical dimension of social judgment. Agency reflects a motive to advance the self where as competence refers to a set of instrumental resources. The first implication of this distinction deals with the relationship between the two dimensions of social judgment. We found that sociability and agency were negatively correlated while sociability and competence were orthogonal. Another implication deals with social status perception. Results showed that agency is specifically associated with high status individuals whereas competence can be associated with high status individuals and relatively low status individuals. These findings suggest that these two registers do not play the same role in social judgment

Of nice and mean: The personal relevance of others’ competence drives perceptions of warmth

Past research shows that when forming an impression of an interdependent person, perceivers are motivated to look for information relevant to their goals and interests. The present experiments examined what happens after this information- seeking stage and showed that the relevance of the target’s attributes for one’s goals and interests drives warmth impressions. Using both a scenario (Experiment 1) and realistic methodologies (Experiment 3), we showed that when the perceiver had to collaborate with a target, the more competent the target, the more perceivers anticipated success and the more the target came across as warm. By contrast, in a competition setting, the competence of the target negatively affected prospects of success and impressions of warmth. Experiment 2 further showed that the target’s competence drove warmth impressions only when perceivers attached a great value to the success of the task, suggesting that these inferences have a motivational underpinning

The Drawback of Sexual Empowerment: Perceiving Women as Emancipated but Still as Sexual Objects

The belief that sexualization might be used as a source of power for women in Western societies is spreading (Anderson 2014; Erchull and Liss 2013). The present research aims at evaluating the interpersonal consequences for women endorsing this belief. In three experimental studies with Belgian and French participants (100 college men in Study 1; 135 men in Study 2; 203 women in Study 3), we examine how women who intentionally self-sexualize (i.e., endorse a sex-is-power belief; SIPB) are perceived on four facets of social judgment (i.e., agency, morality, competence, warmth). Furthermore, we compare the perception of women endorsing SIPB to the perception of those who enact body surveillance (BSV), a behavior commonly associated with passive self-objectification, and we explore the expected and actual objectifying behaviors these targets elicit. Results indicate that women engaged in BSV were negatively evaluated on the four facets of social judgment, were perceived as more likely to experience daily objectification, and were more objectified by men than women who do not. The same pattern of results emerges for women endorsing (vs. not) SIPB, except that their agency is acknowledged. We discuss the societal consequences of intentional self-sexualization, whether empowering or not