Warriors and Peacekeepers: Testing a Biosocial Implicit Leadership Hypothesis of Intergroup Relations Using Masculine and Feminine Faces

This paper examines the impact of facial cues on leadership emergence. Using evolutionary social psychology, we expand upon implicit and contingent theories of leadership and propose that different types of intergroup relations elicit different implicit cognitive leadership prototypes. It is argued that a biologically based hormonal connection between behavior and corresponding facial characteristics interacts with evolutionarily consistent social dynamics to influence leadership emergence. We predict that masculine-looking leaders are selected during intergroup conflict (war) and feminine-looking leaders during intergroup cooperation (peace). Across two experiments we show that a general categorization of leader versus nonleader is an initial implicit requirement for emergence, and at a context-specific level facial cues of masculinity and femininity contingently affect war versus peace leadership emergence in the predicted direction. In addition, we replicate our findings in Experiment 1 across culture using Western and East Asian samples. In Experiment 2, we also show that masculine-feminine facial cues are better predictors of leadership than male-female cues. Collectively, our results indicate a multi-level classification of context-specific leadership based on visual cues imbedded in the human face and challenge traditional distinctions of male and female leadership

A face for all seasons:searching for context-specific leadership traits and discovering a general preference for perceived health

Previous research indicates that followers tend to contingently match particular leader qualities to evolutionarily consistent situations requiring collective action (i.e., context-specific cognitive leadership prototypes) and information processing undergoes categorization which ranks certain qualities as first-order context-general and others as second-order context-specific. To further investigate this contingent categorization phenomenon we examined the “attractiveness halo”—a first-order facial cue which significantly biases leadership preferences. While controlling for facial attractiveness, we independently manipulated the underlying facial cues of health and intelligence and then primed participants with four distinct organizational dynamics requiring leadership (i.e., competition vs. cooperation between groups and exploratory change vs. stable exploitation). It was expected that the differing requirements of the four dynamics would contingently select for relatively healthier- or intelligent-looking leaders. We found perceived facial intelligence to be a second-order context-specific trait—for instance, in times requiring a leader to address between-group cooperation—whereas perceived health is significantly preferred across all contexts (i.e., a first-order trait). The results also indicate that facial health positively affects perceived masculinity while facial intelligence negatively affects perceived masculinity, which may partially explain leader choice in some of the environmental contexts. The limitations and a number of implications regarding leadership biases are discussed

The General Age of Leadership: Older-Looking Presidential Candidates Win Elections during War

As nation-state leaders age they increasingly engage in inter-state militarized disputes yet in industrialized societies a steady decrease in testosterone associated with aging is observed – which suggests a decrease in dominance behavior. The current paper points out that from modern societies to Old World monkeys increasing both in age and social status encourages dominant strategies to maintain acquired rank. Moreover, it is argued this consistency has shaped an implicit prototype causing followers to associate older age with dominance leadership. It is shown that (i) faces of older leaders are preferred during intergroup conflict and (ii) morphing U.S. Presidential candidates to appear older or younger has an overriding effect on actual election outcomes. This indicates that democratic voting can be systematically adjusted by activating innate biases. These findings appear to create a new line of research regarding the biology of leadership and contextual cues of age

The Simons Observatory Large Aperture Telescope Receiver

The Simons Observatory (SO) Large Aperture Telescope Receiver (LATR) will be coupled to the Large Aperture Telescope located at an elevation of 5,200 m on Cerro Toco in Chile. The resulting instrument will produce arcminute-resolution millimeter-wave maps of half the sky with unprecedented precision. The LATR is the largest cryogenic millimeter-wave camera built to date with a diameter of 2.4 m and a length of 2.6 m. It cools 1200 kg of material to 4 K and 200 kg to 100 mk, the operating temperature of the bolometric detectors with bands centered around 27, 39, 93, 145, 225, and 280 GHz. Ultimately, the LATR will accommodate 13 40 cm diameter optics tubes, each with three detector wafers and a total of 62,000 detectors. The LATR design must simultaneously maintain the optical alignment of the system, control stray light, provide cryogenic isolation, limit thermal gradients, and minimize the time to cool the system from room temperature to 100 mK. The interplay between these competing factors poses unique challenges. We discuss the trade studies involved with the design, the final optimization, the construction, and ultimate performance of the system

Tinbergen's take on the evolution of leadership:A framework for clarifying and integrating contributions

Investigating the evolution of leadership is important. From ultimate questions about the origins of leadership to proximate questions about its current form, an evolutionary lens clarifies what we know. However, to ensure knowledge growth is valid and reliable, scholars need to extend from an accurate assessment of the existing literature. To demonstrate my concern, I comment on Pietraszewski (in press). I question three claims, suggest opportunities for improvement, and utilize a Tinbergen Four Questions framework to organize what we know about the evolution of leadership. Fundamentally, Pietraszewski's publication is valuable, spanning a number of Tinbergen quadrants. The shortcoming is not with core assumptions, rather the work requires a clear and accurate representation of how it fits within existing work. I note that Pietraszewski is not an isolated case and encourage the development of a Tinbergen-style knowledge base (i.e., a wiki) where collaborators can update and systematically organize output

The asymmetric relationship between smoking and sleep: Longitudinal findings from Dutch panel data

INTRODUCTION Smokers typically experience more sleep problems than non-smokers, so sleep problems are frequently reported by smokers who are attempting to quit and these can be expected to develop also after initiation of smoking. However, little is known about the effects of starting smoking on sleep problems. Some research suggests smoking reduces stress, which indicates that some aspects of smoking could benefit sleep. This study aims to contribute to the understanding of the asymmetry of the relationship between smoking and sleep problems. METHODS To test the asymmetry of the relationship between smoking and sleep problems, a logistic regression analysis was conducted via GEE (generalized estimating equation). GEEs are an extension of Generalized Linear Models (GLMs) which allow for longitudinal data and correlation among observations of the same unit (person). This technique was recently proposed to test the asymmetry of causal effects based on panel data. The data used were from the LISS panel, a representative sample of Dutch individuals. The sample (n=1477) contained 259 individuals that changed their smoking status at least once. When conducting the analysis, we controlled for time-varying variables such as: subjective health, BMI, partner status, and parental status. RESULTS The asymmetric effects of smoking on sleep problems were statistically significant, suggesting that starting smoking and quitting smoking are not similarly related to sleep problems. Starting smoking was not significantly related to sleep problems, but quitting smoking increased the odds of sleep problems by 23%. No statistically significant relationship was found between sleeping problems and changes in BMI and parental status. Subjective health was negatively associated with sleeping problems. Stopping to live with a partner increased the likelihood of sleep problems by 41%. CONCLUSIONS Quitting smoking can have a different impact on sleep problems than starting smoking. In this study, starting smoking did not result in sleep problems, whereas quitting smoking resulted in sleep problems

Forced-choice pairs voting results for the Obama- and McCain-like facial images during intergroup conflict.

*<p>Check marks indicate statistically significant wins.</p

Old and young face teams: example of stimuli.

<p>Old and young face teams: example of stimuli.</p