Self-reported dominance in women: Associations with hormonal contraceptive use, relationship status, and testosterone

How to achieve dominance in a group is a recurrent challenge for individuals of many species, including humans. Previous research indicates that both relationship status and contraceptive use appear to moderate women’s testosterone levels. If testosterone contributes to dominance, this raises the possibility for group differences in dominance between single and partnered women, and between users and non-users of hormonal contraception. Here, we examine associations between relationship status and use/non-use of hormonal contraception and women’s self-reported social dominance. In a sample of 84 women, we replicate previous research documenting a significant positive correlation between women’s saliva testosterone levels and their self-reported dominance. Consistent with other literature, we also find that women using hormonal contraception have significantly lower testosterone than those who are regularly cycling and that partnered women have significantly lower testosterone than single women. Although we do not find a main effect of either relationship status or hormonal contraceptive use status on women’s reported levels of dominance, the interaction between these variables predicted reported dominance scores. This interaction remained significant when participant age and testosterone values were added to the model as covariates. We discuss these results in the context of the existing literature on testosterone and women’s dominance behaviour and with respect to the evolutionary benefits of social dominance in women

Data from an International Multi-Centre Study of Statistics and Mathematics Anxieties and Related Variables in University Students (the SMARVUS Dataset)

This large, international dataset contains survey responses from N = 12,570 students from 100 universities in 35 countries, collected in 21 languages. We measured anxieties (statistics, mathematics, test, trait, social interaction, performance, creativity, intolerance of uncertainty, and fear of negative evaluation), self-efficacy, persistence, and the cognitive reflection test, and collected demographics, previous mathematics grades, self-reported and official statistics grades, and statistics module details. Data reuse potential is broad, including testing links between anxieties and statistics/mathematics education factors, and examining instruments’ psychometric properties across different languages and contexts. Data and metadata are stored on the Open Science Framework website [https://osf.io/mhg94/]

Voice modulation: from origin and mechanism to social impact

Research on within-individual modulation of vocal cues is surprisingly scarce outside of human speech. Yet, voice modulation serves diverse functions in human and nonhuman nonverbal communication, from dynamically signalling motivation and emotion, to exaggerating physical traits such as body size and masculinity, to enabling song and musicality. The diversity of anatomical, neural, cognitive and behavioural adaptations necessary for the production and perception of voice modulation make it a critical target for research on the origins and functions of acoustic communication. This diversity also implicates voice modulation in numerous disciplines and technological applications. In this two-part theme issue comprising 21 articles from leading and emerging international researchers, we highlight the multidisciplinary nature of the voice sciences. Every article addresses at least two, if not several, critical topics: (i) development and mechanisms driving vocal control and modulation; (ii) cultural and other environmental factors affecting voice modulation; (iii) evolutionary origins and adaptive functions of vocal control including cross-species comparisons; (iv) social functions and real-world consequences of voice modulation; and (v) state-of-the-art in multidisciplinary methodologies and technologies in voice modulation research. With this collection of works, we aim to facilitate cross-talk across disciplines to further stimulate the burgeoning field of voice modulation

Vocal Preferences in Humans: A Systematic Review

International audienc

To which world regions does the valence–dominance model of social perception apply?

Over the past 10 years, Oosterhof and Todorov’s valence–dominance model has emerged as the most prominent account of how people evaluate faces on social dimensions. In this model, two dimensions (valence and dominance) underpin social judgements of faces. Because this model has primarily been developed and tested in Western regions, it is unclear whether these findings apply to other regions. We addressed this question by replicating Oosterhof and Todorov’s methodology across 11 world regions, 41 countries and 11,570 participants. When we used Oosterhof and Todorov’s original analysis strategy, the valence–dominance model generalized across regions. When we used an alternative methodology to allow for correlated dimensions, we observed much less generalization. Collectively, these results suggest that, while the valence–dominance model generalizes very well across regions when dimensions are forced to be orthogonal, regional differences are revealed when we use different extraction methods and correlate and rotate the dimension reduction solution. Protocol registration: The stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 5 November 2018. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7611443.v1