Personality and reproductive success in the Ache (Paraguay) : implications for the evolution of human individual differences

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on July 29, 2013).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Dissertation advisor: Dr. David C. GearyIncludes bibliographical references.Vita.Ph. D. University of Missouri--Columbia 2012."July, 2012"This study tested alternative evolutionary mechanisms regarding the maintenance of heritable variation in human personality by examining the relations between personality and reproductive success (RS) in two villages in a traditional natural-fertility population, the Ache of eastern Paraguay. The relation between RS and personality was assessed in each village, and a deep pedigree allowed for an analysis that tested the relation between personality breeding values and RS in deceased ancestors living in the pre-contact forest period. Phenotypic analyses did not indicate significant relations between personality and RS. However, genetically informed analyses indicated that the relation between personality breeding values (specifically agreeableness and conscientiousness) and RS varies with historical period, consistent with the hypothesis of temporal variation in selection pressures. Personality heritability estimates were similar to those estimated in most Western samples. Finally, significant assortative mating for personality was observed, which could contribute to the maintenance of heritable variation in personality.Includes bibliographical references

Is accuracy in fertility detection mediated by differences in the mate value of the rater and target?

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on September 9, 2010).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Thesis advisor: David C. Geary, Ph.D.M.A. University of Missouri--Columbia 2009.I propose the existence of a perceptual bias in men toward detecting fertility status in women of similar mate value. To test this hypothesis, 153 male undergraduates (raters) chose which of two photographs of the same woman was more attractive for 116 female undergraduates (targets) photographed once at ovulation and once during a non-fertile phase of their menstrual cycle. Differences between independently determined rankings of women's physical attractivenesses and the men's self-perceived mate values were curvilinearly associated. Men's accuracy at detecting mate value differences peaked for women of modestly higher mate value than themselves, with lower accuracies for women of lower attractiveness and substantially higher attractiveness than themselves. Furthermore, these functions varied with manipulations of apparent target partner status and rater self-perceived mate value. Results suggest that men's sensitivity to cycle-related changes in women's attractiveness vary with the fit between the man's self-perceived mate value and the relative attractiveness of the woman. I discuss how this perceptual bias might have coevolved with a tendency to seek mates with similar mate values.Includes bibliographical references

Mosaic Brains? A Methodological Critique of Joel et al. (2015)

(no abstract

Fashion Variations: Students Approaches to Learning in Fashion Design

This research unpacks the assumption that students understand research in the discipline of fashion textiles in a unitary and unproblematic way. It is one of the first empirical studies to examine learning from a phenomenographic research perspective in this particular discipline and is a result of reanalysing data collected for a previous study (Drew, Bailey and Shreeve 2001, 2002). The research question in this case was to ask what were the qualitatively different ways in which students in fashion textiles project work approached the research component of the project? The paper is published in ADCHE, a peer reviewed journal and has been cited by Biddle-Perry. The study led on to further work in the phenomenographic tradition, with a small research grant from the ADC-LTSN being awarded to look at student conceptions of assessment using learning outcomes in the design project. Although phenomenography as a research method is widely known and the outcomes of it inform learning and teaching in higher education (eg Marton and Saljo 1984, Prosser and Trigwell 1997) to such an extent that deep and surface learning has been accused of hegemonic status by Haggis (2004), there have been few applications of this research approach in art and design. It constitutes a rigorous research methodology (Kerlind 2005) and the study of approaches to learning in practice based subjects (eg Drew et al 2001, 2002, Case and Marshall 2004) highlights the need to contribute an art and design perspectives to mainstream debates on learning in text based academic disciplines in order to fully understand different and more widespread learning and teaching practices

Recovery of the old nova V840 Ophiuchi: A carbon rich system

We present optical spectroscopy and multi colour photometry of the old nova V840 Oph. We rediscovered the nova based on its position in the colour--colour diagrams. It stands out as a very blue object with an additional red component. We present the first optical spectroscopy of this candidate and confirm its nova character. Furthermore, V840\,Oph has been found as one of very few cataclysmic variables showing C IV emission at lambda = 580/1 nm. From the analysis of the carbon lines it seems probable that V840 Oph contains actually a carbon-rich secondary star. So far, only the nova-like QU Car has been known to have such a companion. We furthermore find spectroscopic evidence that V840 Oph has a hot, dense accretion disc or stream and is probably a magnetic system.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, accepted by A&

Sex differences in spatial abilities: Methodological problems in Hoffman et al.

Hoffman et al. (1) claimed to provide evidence that “nurture” (i.e., residing in a patrilineal vs. matrilineal tribe in India) critically affects sex differences in spatial abilities. Unfortunately, their conclusion is undermined by major problems with their measures of spatial ability and sex equality. The first and biggest problem is with their measure of spatial abilities. “Spatial abilities” are a complex cognitive domain, with facets ranging from location memory (favoring women) to navigation in 3D virtual space (favoring men) (2). The puzzle used by Hoffman et al. (1) is similar to the Object Assembly subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (3); sex differences on this task are extremely small (d = 0.10), at least 10-fold smaller than those found for spatial measures showing the largest sex differences. It is odd that Hoffman et al. (1) chose to investigate sex differences with this kind of sex-insensitive task. The second problem is the lack of a control task. The insensitivity of the task used by Hoffman et al. (1) suggests that their finding that men outperform women in a patrilineal tribe but not a matrilineal tribe is not related to sex differences in spatial abilities per se but to other factors instead. Education, as they noted, is likely one of these. The use of a cognitive control task tapping nonspatial abilities would have allowed for an assessment of the specificity of the effect, but, unfortunately, such a task was not included. Third, defining sex equality as matrilineality is problematic, because cross-cultural studies generally show that equality (a multidimensional construct) is not systematically correlated with descent system (4). From the descriptions of Hoffman et al. (1), it appears that women in the matrilineal Khasi have more economic power and better education, but this ignores other sex equality dimensions, such as positions of political and religious leadership, domestic authority, and autonomy. Without such measures, it is unclear whether the Khasi are, in fact, more sexegalitarian than the Karbi. Furthermore, a recent 53-nation cross-cultural study has shown that sex differences favoring men on validated, reliable, multi-item spatial measures are positively associated with United Nation indices of sex development and empowerment (5), a pattern opposite to that reported by Hoffman et al. (1). For all these reasons, the study by Hoffman et al. (1) failed to support their conclusions

Fadeout in an early mathematics intervention: Constraining content or preexisting differences?

A robust finding across research on early childhood educational interventions is that the treatment effect diminishes over time, with children not receiving the intervention eventually catching up to children who did. One popular explanation for fadeout of early mathematics interventions is that elementary school teachers may not teach the kind of advanced content that children are prepared for after receiving the intervention, so lower-achieving children in the control groups of early mathematics interventions catch up to the higher-achieving children in the treatment groups. An alternative explanation is that persistent individual differences in children’s long-term mathematical development result more from relatively stable pre-existing differences in their skills and environments than from the direct effects of previous knowledge on later knowledge. We tested these two hypotheses using data from an effective preschool mathematics intervention previously known to show a diminishing treatment effect over time. We compared the intervention group to a matched subset of the control group with a similar mean and variance of scores at the end of treatment. We then tested the relative contributions of factors that similarly constrain learning in children from treatment and control groups with the same level of post-treatment achievement and pre-existing differences between these two groups to the fadeout of the treatment effect over time. We found approximately 72% of the fadeout effect to be attributable to pre-existing differences between children in treatment and control groups with the same level of achievement at post-test. These differences were fully statistically attenuated by children’s prior academic achievement

Pave It or Plant It, 7th - 12th Grade Curriculum

Students will use simple watershed models to measure runoff from natural and urbanized areas. They will graph the data to create and compare the hydrographs of these two different types of watersheds. Students will also map different areas in their neighborhood, calculate the amount of impervious surface in the area, and determine how this affects the volume of stormwater runoff expected from a typical rainstorm. Finally, students will list different types of pollutants that enter the streams from urban areas and learn about possible impacts to the stream. They will also learn about possible methods of reducing these impacts through community or individual actions