Study: 75 percent of women executives have experienced imposter syndrome
A new survey also found that women executives believe imposter syndrome to be common among women in corporate America.
09 October, 2020
Credit: fizkes on Adobe Stock
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<p>Have you ever felt like a fraud? Like, everyone at the office treats you with respect and admires your hard work, but inside you feel artificial. It's as though you have no idea what you're really about, and all it would take is the whisper of a secret activation phrase to crumble your entire façade. Only, instead of revealing that you're secretly an awesome spy with the skills that kill, the phrase reveals a far more humbling reality: You suck.</p><p>If that sounds unsettlingly familiar—and it sure does for me—then you may have experienced <a href="https://bigthink.com/philip-perry/afraid-youll-be-revealed-as-an-impostor-youre-not-alone" target="_self">imposter syndrome</a>. People <a href="https://bigthink.com/mind-brain/imposter-syndrome" target="_self">in the throes of imposter syndrome</a> doubt their skills and accomplishments, worry their successes were the result of good luck, and fear being exposed as beguiling charlatans. This mental pattern, first known as "imposter phenomenon," was introduced in <a href="http://mpowir.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Download-IP-in-High-Achieving-Women.pdf" target="_blank">a 1978 study</a>. For the study, Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Ament Imes interviewed more than 150 highly successful women and discovered a lack of internal acknowledgment to be prevalent.</p><p>In the 40 years since, American women have made incredible strides. They have managed successful companies, held some of the most powerful offices, and <a href="https://www.freethink.com/articles/nobel-prize-in-chemistry" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">won recognition</a> for pushing scientific boundaries. Yet, a new study released by KPMG LLP, a U.S. audit, tax, and advisory firm, suggests imposter syndrome remains as pernicious as ever.</p>
Am I the great pretender?
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDQ3NzQzOC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNDI1NzA2Nn0._YO27j8GmJnSeop1mPFxx_sOKg3DorgFFpcfHNYVV98/img.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=0%2C312%2C0%2C312&height=700" id="5201d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3474c9bcafb8198254dd798882b99551" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="diverse group meeting" /><p>For the study, KPMG polled 750 high-performing executive women across a range of industries. Each was a participant at the KPMG Women's Leadership Summit and was within promotional range of a C-suite position. These women had a proven work history of dedication, advancement, and achievement. No one could debate that these executives were anything but stalwart professionals—except, unfortunately, themselves.</p><p>Seventy-five percent of those polled reported having experienced imposter syndrome. Nearly half said those feelings originated from not expecting to reach their level of success and that it becomes lonelier at the top. Eighty-one percent believed they put more pressure on themselves than their male counterparts, leading to a consensus among participants that imposter syndrome is more common among women in corporate America. Three-fourths believed men do not experience feelings of self-doubt at the same level as women.</p><p>"It is important for organizations to gain a more thorough understanding of the specific issues women may face as they advance in their careers and as they move toward the C-suite. We hope the thought-provoking findings and solutions in this study help leaders everywhere as we work to further advance inclusion and diversity," KPMG CEO Paul Knopp said <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/kpmg-study-finds-75-of-female-executives-across-industries-have-experienced-imposter-syndrome-in-their-careers-301148023.html" target="_blank">in a release</a>.</p><p>The participants did recommend workplace dynamics to ease these burdensome feelings. About half received support from thoughtful performance managers, and a third from rewards and other recognitions of value. And 72 percent said they looked to a mentor or trusted advisor for help and advice when the doubt creeps in.</p><p>"It's important to realize that most women experience similar doubts at some point in our careers," Laura Newinski, KPMG's COO, said in the same release. "Our contribution as leaders is pivotal. Together, we have the opportunity to build corporate environments that foster a sense of belonging and lessen the experience of imposter syndrome for women in our workplaces."</p><p>KPMG published its results as part of its "<a href="https://womensleadership.kpmg.us/content/dam/womensleadership/pdf/kpmg2019wlsreport.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Advancing the Future of Women in Business" report</a>.</p>Fake it till you make it (to the moon)
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d991955b6be7f4d226a2e1572edec4f9"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IrTrBNmMXG0?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>Because the original study focused on highly successful women, there's been a misconception that only women suffer from imposter syndrome and the best remedy is for them to "just get over it." Neither is true.</p><p>Regarding the gender gap, there's been much back and forth in the research. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/men-suffer-from-impostor-syndrome-2016-1" target="_blank">Men certainly suffer</a> from imposter syndrome, and some studies have suggested men <a href="https://qz.com/1296783/it-turns-out-men-not-women-suffer-more-from-imposter-syndrome/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">may be more inclined toward it</a>—at least under specific conditions. But due to social expectations and cultural norms, they may not be as open about it. Other studies have found women, especially women of color and those from the LGBTQ community, to be <a href="https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200724-why-imposter-syndrome-hits-women-and-women-of-colour-harder" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">hit harder by imposter syndrome</a>.</p><p>Thankfully, for both men and women, there are ways to diminish these fraudulent feelings of phoniness. <a href="https://time.com/5312483/how-to-deal-with-impostor-syndrome/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Speaking with Time</a>, imposter syndrome expert Valerie Young recommended reframing your thoughts. We can learn to be mindful of the disruptive thought, relabeling it as a feeling and not a reality. We can learn to appreciate constructive criticism, develop growth mindsets, and push ourselves to ask questions rather than holding back out of fear. And as KPMG's study showed, having a supportive person to speak honestly with can do wonders.</p><p>"The goal is not to never feel like an impostor. The goal for me is to give [people] the tools and the insight and information to talk themselves down faster," Young told Time. "They can still have an impostor moment, but not an impostor life."</p><p>Short of pathological narcissism, I imagine we all have our imposter moments. I think <a href="https://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/160603396711/hi-i-read-that-youve-dealt-with-with-impostor" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">author Neil Gaiman</a> illustrates this best in an anecdote. One night, Gaiman was chatting up a fellow Neil at a very important event filled with very important people who had done very important things. Like Gaiman, the elderly Neil felt he didn't belong in such a prestigious company. That Neil was, of course, Neil Armstrong.</p><p>As Gaiman put it so well: "And I felt a bit better. Because if Neil Armstrong felt like an imposter, maybe everyone did. Maybe there weren't any grown-ups, only people who had worked hard and also got lucky and were slightly out of their depth, all of us doing the best job we could, which is all we can really hope for."</p>
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No, opposites do not attract
The problem is that what's true of magnets is not at all true of romance.
30 August, 2020
Brent Lewin/Getty Images
Everyone seems to agree that opposites attract.
<p> Young and old people, happy and distressed couples, single folks and married partners – all apparently buy the classic adage about love. <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Opposites_attack.html" target="_blank">Relationship experts</a> <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/I_Love_You_But_why_are_We_So_Different.html" target="_blank">have written</a> <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/opposites-attract-renee-baron/1103372924">books</a> based on this assumption. It's even been internalized by people who are on the hunt for a partner, with 86 percent of those looking for love saying they're <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/147470490800600406" target="_blank">seeking someone with opposite traits</a>.</p><p>The problem is that what's true of magnets is not at all true of romance. As I explain in my book, “<a href="http://www.wiley.com/buy/978-1-118-52128-1" target="_blank">Great Myths of Intimate Relationships: Dating, Sex, and Marriage</a>," people tend to be attracted to those who are similar – not opposite – to themselves.</p>
<h2>I love how you're just like me</h2><p>Whether people <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.72.3.592" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">really find opposites more attractive</a> has been the subject of many scientific studies. Researchers have investigated what combination makes for better romantic partners – those who are similar, different, or opposite? Scientists call these three possibilities the homogamy hypothesis, the heterogamy hypothesis and the complementarity hypothesis, respectively.</p><p>The clear winner is homogamy. Since the 1950s, social scientists have conducted over 240 studies to determine whether similarity in terms of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0045531" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">attitudes</a>, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/0146167291174010" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">personality traits</a>, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.53.6.1052" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">outside interests</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-1031(81)90009-3" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">values</a> and <a href="http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1976.tb02485.x" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">other characteristics</a> leads to attraction. In 2013, psychologists Matthew Montoya and Robert Horton examined the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407512452989" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">combined results of these studies</a> in what's called a meta-analysis. They found an irrefutable association between being similar to and being interested in the other person.</p><p>In other words, there is clear and convincing evidence that birds of a feather flock together. For human beings, the attractiveness of similarity is so strong that it is found <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6811.2009.01217.x" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">across cultures</a>.</p><p>Because similarity is associated with attraction, it makes sense that individuals in committed relationships tend to be alike in many ways. Sometimes this is called <a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/0192513x12459020" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">assortative mating</a>, although this term is more often used to describe the ways in which people with similar levels of educational attainment, financial means and <a href="http://doi.org/10.2307/2786870" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">physical appearance</a> tend to pair up.</p><p>None of this necessarily means that opposites don't attract. Both the homogamy hypothesis and the complementarity hypothesis could be true. So is there scientific support that opposites might attract at least some of the time?</p>
<h2>Filling in my weak spots with your strengths</h2><p>Love stories often include people finding partners who seem to have traits that they lack, like a good girl falling for a bad boy. In this way, they appear to complement one another. For example, one spouse might be outgoing and funny while the other is shy and serious. It's easy to see how both partners could view the other as ideal – one partner's strengths balancing out the other partner's weaknesses. In fact, one could imagine the friends and relatives of a shy person trying to set them up with an outgoing person to draw the shy one out. The question is whether people actually seek out complementary partners or if that just happens in the movies.</p><p>As it turns out, it's pure fiction. There is essentially no research evidence that differences in personality, interests, education, politics, upbringing, religion or other traits lead to greater attraction.</p><p>For example, in one study researchers found that college students preferred descriptions of mates whose written bios were <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.4.709" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">similar to themselves or their ideal self</a> over those described as complementing themselves. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167298243004" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Other studies</a> have supported this finding. For example, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0031699" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">introverts are no more attracted to extraverts</a> than they are to anyone else.</p>
<h2>Why are we so sure opposites attract?</h2><p>Despite the overwhelming evidence, why does the myth of heterogamy endure? There are probably a few factors at work here.</p><p>First, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.24.5.1315" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">contrasts tend to stand out</a>. Even if the partners in a couple match on tons of characteristics, they may end up arguing about the <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/acceptance-and-change-in-couple-therapy-andrew-christensen/1103810614?ean=9780393702903" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ways in which they are different</a>.</p><p>Beyond that, there's evidence that <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0044134" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">small differences</a> between spouses can become larger over time. In their self-help book "<a href="https://www.guilford.com/books/Reconcilable-Differences/Christensen-Doss-Jacobson/9781462502431" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Reconcilable Differences</a>," psychologists Andrew Christensen, Brian Doss and Neil Jacobson describe how partners move into roles that are complementary over time.</p><p>For example, if one member of a couple is slightly more humorous than the other, the couple may settle into a pattern in which the slightly-more-funny spouse claims the role of "the funny one" while the slightly-less-funny spouse slots into the role of "the serious one." Scientists have demonstrated that, yes, partners <a href="http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6811.2001.tb00038.x" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">grow more complementary over time</a>; while they may begin as quite alike, they find ways to differentiate themselves by degree.</p><p>In the end, people's attraction to differences is vastly outweighed by our attraction to similarities. People persist in thinking opposites attract – when in reality, relatively similar partners just become a bit more complementary as time goes by.<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88839/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation"></p><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/matthew-d-johnson-254463" target="_blank">Matthew D. Johnson</a>, Chair & Professor of Psychology and Director of the Marriage and Family Studies Laboratory, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/binghamton-university-state-university-of-new-york-2252" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Binghamton University, State University of New York</a></em></p><p>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-opposites-do-not-attract-88839" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">original article</a>.</p>
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How Camus and Sartre split up over the question of how to be free
If the idea of freedom bound Camus and Sartre philosophically, then the fight for justice united them politically.
19 July, 2020
Mario Tama/Getty Images
They were an odd pair. Albert Camus was French Algerian, a pied-noir born into poverty who effortlessly charmed with his Bogart-esque features.
<p> Jean-Paul Sartre, from the upper reaches of French society, was never mistaken for a handsome man. They met in Paris during the Occupation and grew closer after the Second World War. In those days, when the lights of the city were slowly turning back on, Camus was Sartre's closest friend. 'How we loved you then,' Sartre later wrote.</p><p>They were gleaming icons of the era. Newspapers reported on their daily movements: Sartre holed up at Les Deux Magots, Camus the peripatetic of Paris. As the city began to rebuild, Sartre and Camus gave voice to the mood of the day. Europe had been immolated, but the ashes left by war created the space to imagine a new world. Readers looked to Sartre and Camus to articulate what that new world might look like. 'We were,' remembered the fellow philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, 'to provide the postwar era with its ideology.'</p><p>It came in the form of existentialism. Sartre, Camus and their intellectual companions rejected religion, staged new and unnerving plays, challenged readers to live authentically, and wrote about the absurdity of the world – a world without purpose and without value. '[There are] only stones, flesh, stars, and those truths the hand can touch,' Camus wrote. We must choose to live in this world and to project our own meaning and value onto it in order to make sense of it. This means that people are <em>free</em> and burdened by it, since with freedom there is a terrible, even debilitating, responsibility to live and act authentically.</p><p>If the idea of freedom bound Camus and Sartre philosophically, then the fight for justice united them politically. They were committed to confronting and curing injustice, and, in their eyes, no group of people was more unjustly treated than the workers, the proletariat. Camus and Sartre thought of them as shackled to their labour and shorn of their humanity. In order to free them, new political systems must be constructed.</p>
<p>In October 1951, Camus published <em>The Rebel</em>. In it, he gave voice to a roughly drawn 'philosophy of revolt'. This wasn't a philosophical system <em>per se</em>, but an amalgamation of philosophical and political ideas: every human is free, but freedom itself is relative; one must embrace limits, moderation, 'calculated risk'; absolutes are anti-human. Most of all, Camus condemned revolutionary violence. Violence might be used in extreme circumstances (he supported the French war effort, after all) but the use of revolutionary violence to nudge history in the direction you desire is utopian, absolutist, and a betrayal of yourself.</p><p>'Absolute freedom is the right of the strongest to dominate,' Camus wrote, while 'absolute justice is achieved by the suppression of all contradiction: therefore it destroys freedom.' The conflict between justice and freedom required constant re-balancing, political moderation, an acceptance and celebration of that which limits the most: our humanity. 'To live and let live,' he said, 'in order to create what we are.'</p><p>Sartre read <em>The Rebel </em>with disgust. As far as he was concerned, it <em>was</em> possible to achieve perfect justice and freedom – that described the achievement of communism. Under capitalism, and in poverty, workers could not be free. Their options were unpalatable and inhumane: to work a pitiless and alienating job, or to die. But by removing the oppressors and broadly returning autonomy to the workers, communism allows each individual to live without material want, and therefore to choose how best they can realise themselves. This makes them free, and through this unbending equality, it is also just.</p><p>The problem is that, for Sartre and many others on the Left, communism required revolutionary violence to achieve because the existing order must be smashed. Not all leftists, of course, endorsed such violence. This division between hardline and moderate leftists – broadly, between communists and socialists – was nothing new. The 1930s and early '40s, however, had seen the Left temporarily united against fascism. With the destruction of fascism, the rupture between hardline leftists willing to condone violence and moderates who condemned it returned. This split was made all the more dramatic by the practical disappearance of the Right and the ascendancy of the Soviet Union – which empowered hardliners throughout Europe, but raised disquieting questions for communists as the horrors of gulags, terror and show trials came to light. The question for every leftist of the postwar era was simple: which side are you on?</p>
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With the publication of <em>The Rebel</em>, Camus declared for a peaceful socialism that would not resort to revolutionary violence. He was appalled by the stories emerging from the USSR: it was not a country of hand-in-hand communists, living freely, but a country with no freedom at all. Sartre, meanwhile, would fight for communism, and he was prepared to endorse violence to do so.
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The split between the two friends was a media sensation. <em>Les Temps Modernes </em>– the journal edited by Sartre, which published a critical review of<em> The Rebel </em>– sold out three times over. <em>Le Monde </em>and <em>L'Observateur </em>both breathlessly covered the falling out. It's hard to imagine an intellectual feud capturing that degree of public attention today, but, in this disagreement, many readers saw the political crises of the times reflected back at them. It was a way of seeing politics played out in the world of ideas, and a measure of the worth of ideas. If you are thoroughly committed to an idea, are you compelled to kill for it? What price for justice? What price for freedom?
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Sartre's position was shot through with contradiction, with which he struggled for the remainder of his life. Sartre, the existentialist, who said that humans are condemned to be free, was also Sartre, the Marxist, who thought that history does not allow much space for true freedom in the existential sense. Though he never actually joined the French Communist Party, he would continue to defend communism throughout Europe until 1956, when the Soviet tanks in Budapest convinced him, finally, that the USSR did not hold the way forward. (Indeed, he was dismayed by the Soviets in Hungary because they were acting like Americans, he said.) Sartre would remain a powerful voice on the Left throughout his life, and chose the French president Charles de Gaulle as his favourite whipping boy. (After one particularly vicious attack, de Gaulle was asked to arrest Sartre. 'One does not imprison Voltaire,' he responded.) Sartre remained unpredictable, however, and was engaged in a long, bizarre dalliance with hardline Maoism when he died in 1980. Though Sartre moved away from the USSR, he never completely abandoned the idea that revolutionary violence might be warranted.
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The violence of communism sent Camus on a different trajectory. 'Finally,' he wrote in <em>The Rebel</em>, 'I choose freedom. For even if justice is not realised, freedom maintains the power of protest against injustice and keeps communication open.' From the other side of the Cold War, it is hard not to sympathise with Camus, and to wonder at the fervour with which Sartre remained a loyal communist. Camus's embrace of sober political reality, of moral humility, of limits and fallible humanity, remains a message well-heeded today. Even the most venerable and worthy ideas need to be balanced against one another. Absolutism, and the impossible idealism it inspires, is a dangerous path forward – and the reason Europe lay in ashes, as Camus and Sartre struggled to envision a fairer and freer world.<img src="https://metrics.aeon.co/count/d5f97bbd-d975-4075-839b-51bc83628eb4.gif" alt="Aeon counter – do not remove"></p><p>
This article was originally published at <a href="https://aeon.co/?utm_campaign=republished-article" target="_blank">Aeon</a> and has been republished under Creative Commons. Read the <a href="https://aeon.co/ideas/how-camus-and-sartre-split-up-over-the-question-of-how-to-be-free" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
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Cognitive ability tied to better social distancing
Working memory is the workhorse of cognition. Having less of it has side effects.
16 July, 2020
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
- A new study finds that people with lower working memory capacity were less likely to practice social distancing.
- The study also found working memory was related to how fairly a subject behaved in an ultimatum game.
- The findings help explain why some people don't social distance and offer new ways to encourage proper distancing.
<p>Social distancing is difficult. Few people would contest that fact. Despite this, in this time between the beginning of a pandemic and the creation of an effective vaccine, it is essential. An endless stream of scientists, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/social-distancing.html" target="_blank">major organizations</a>, and public health experts agree on the benefits social distancing provides to public and personal health. Many of them add that proper social distancing could <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/12/coronavirus-fauci-says-earlier-social-distancing-would-have-saved-more-lives.html" target="_blank">lower infection rates</a> and return us to normalcy sooner. </p><p>Despite the best efforts of these experts, many other people continue to crowd bars, refuse to wear masks, and host parties. This frequently leads to <a href="https://fox5sandiego.com/news/trending/man-30-who-thought-coronavirus-was-hoax-dies-after-attending-covid-party-doctor-says/" target="_blank">predictable results</a>, <a href="https://people.com/health/43-new-confirmed-coronavirus-cases-linked-to-one-large-house-party-in-michigan/" target="_blank">new outbreaks</a>, and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/14/coronavirus-live-updates-us/" target="_blank">longer waits</a> until the rest of us can go out again. </p><p>Luckily, the exasperated guideline followers of the world can take solace in the findings of a new <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/07/09/2008868117" target="_blank">study</a> that suggests people who don't follow the rules test lower for cognitive ability than those who do.</p>
Working Memory or Hardly Working Memory?
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-media_id="DFsIl6ht" data-player_id="FvQKszTI" data-rm-shortcode-id="ab1df5c2b15ea0a546e5f21edacdadad"> <div id="botr_DFsIl6ht_FvQKszTI_div" class="jwplayer-media" data-jwplayer-video-src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/DFsIl6ht-FvQKszTI.js"> <img src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/thumbs/DFsIl6ht-1920.jpg" class="jwplayer-media-preview" /> </div> <script src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/DFsIl6ht-FvQKszTI.js"></script> </div> <p>Working memory is that part of our memory concerned with limited amounts of information used in the service of other mental processes for a short time. Several studies associate having more working memory with <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3746349/#:~:text=Working%20memory%20(WM)%20capacity%2C,cognitive%20abilities%20in%20healthy%20adults." target="_blank">higher cognitive function</a>. Of particular interest are the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40539693?seq=1" target="_blank">many studies</a> that have <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0217681" target="_blank">shown that</a> a higher working memory relates to being better able to follow new and <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22806448/" target="_blank">complex rules</a>, especially under stress.</p><p>This led the authors of the new study to suspect that there might be a connection between the working memory a person has and how well they socially distanced in the early days of the outbreak.</p><p>To find out, they surveyed 850 American adults from the Mechanical Turk platform immediately after the beginning of social distancing recommendations in March 2020. The questions focused on how well they were abiding by recently imposed social distancing orders. Participants also completed tests designed to measure working memory, fluid intelligence, how they viewed the costs and benefits of distancing, and the <a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/big-five-personality.html#:~:text=The%20Big%20Five%20personality%20traits%20are%20extraversion%20(also%20often%20spelled,the%20continuum%20for%20each%20trait." target="_blank">Big Five Personality Test</a>. </p><p>Test subjects with stronger working memories were much more likely to report that they had taken precautions to avoid COVID-19, such as avoiding large gatherings, than others. The researchers also found a similar, but smaller, relationship between how well a subject socially distanced and their scores on a fluid intelligence and agreeableness test. <br> <br> The researchers looked for a possible mediator in the form of the test subject's cost-benefit analysis of social distancing. By asking subjects how much they agreed with statements such as "Social distancing may minimize the burden on medical resources, so people in need can use them," and comparing the results between the cost and benefits questions, the researchers were able to determine how each test subject viewed the cost and benefits of distancing. <br> <br> While they did discover a relationship between cost-benefit analysis and how well they distanced- people who decided the benefits of distancing outweighed the costs to themselves and others were better at distancing-the effect was only a partial meditator. This means that even after accounting for it, the amount of working memory a person had was still a factor in how much they choose to socially distance.</p><p> In a separate experiment, the researchers had test subjects play an ultimatum game. In this game, participants had to determine if they would share surplus resources with another player. In one iteration, the computer that played as the test subject's opponent could penalize the test subject if the offer they made was deemed "unfair."</p><p> As some of your might expect, the players with the best working memory came closest to a "fair" split, defined here as dividing the surplus in half, by a large margin. The authors suggest that this was because these subjects were better able to evaluate the consequences of not being fair and worked both to avoid punishment and maximize their reward.</p>So, what does this mean for us?
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-media_id="buUMHthW" data-player_id="FvQKszTI" data-rm-shortcode-id="bbb7bd4badeb90b08b654edd8bddcf44"> <div id="botr_buUMHthW_FvQKszTI_div" class="jwplayer-media" data-jwplayer-video-src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/buUMHthW-FvQKszTI.js"> <img src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/thumbs/buUMHthW-1920.jpg" class="jwplayer-media-preview" /> </div> <script src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/buUMHthW-FvQKszTI.js"></script> </div> <p>The findings suggest a correlation between working memory capacity and how well people stick to social distancing rules. This holds up after controlling for variables that might impact someone's ability to isolate, such as socioeconomic status, age, or even mood. As the authors mention in their concluding thoughts, this does make sense given the evidence that working memory aids both in following social norms and determining benefits and risks. </p><p> As they put it:</p><p>"…our findings are in line with the theoretical framework that social distancing compliance during the early outbreak of an infectious disease is driven by deliberate thoughts about the costs and benefits of this practice. Our novel observation is that the decision to follow the social distancing norm in prioritizing societal benefits over personal costs is contingent on one's WM capacity, the core of human cognition."</p><p>Co-Author Weizhen Xie expanded on this in an interview with <a href="https://www.psypost.org/2020/07/study-lower-cognitive-ability-linked-to-non-compliance-with-social-distancing-guidelines-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak-57293/amp/" target="_blank">PsyPost</a>:</p><p>"The decision of whether or not to follow social distancing guidelines is a difficult one, especially when there is a conflict between the societal benefits (e.g., prevent straining public health resources) and personal costs (e.g., loss in social connection and financial challenges). This decision critically relies on our mental capacity in retaining multiple pieces of potentially conflicting information in our head, which is referred to as working memory capacity."</p><p>Before you start getting too smug about how well you've followed social distancing regulations thus far, Co-author Weiwei Zhang wrote in an <a href="https://memory.ucr.edu/clarification-on-our-pnas-paper-regarding-working-memory-social-distancing/" target="_blank">online post</a> that working memory isn't the whole story:<br></p><p>"There is no doubt that many factors we did not include in this study may also contribute to social-distancing compliance, perhaps with even stronger relationships. It is, therefore, inappropriate to attribute individual differences in social distancing behaviors entirely to one's cognitive abilities such as working memory capacity and fluid intelligence."<strong><br> </strong><br> Within the study, the authors suggest that these findings might lead to new ways of helping the public comply with social distancing mandates in the future. They also express optimism that the amount of working memory needed to follow the rules will decline over time as the notion of wearing a mask and social distancing becomes more prevalent. These findings reinforce previous studies which suggest that working memory is an integral part of cognitive ability and may lead to further research on the practical results of having more or less to work with. </p><p>Many people agree that social distancing is difficult. In what sense it is difficult appears to vary between people. While it is fun to say that people who aren't wearing masks are stupid, the findings of this study speak to the inherent difficulty in assuring mass compliance with vital yet largely voluntary and frequently novel measures. </p>
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Do we really date based on our own ideals?
Do we really know what we want in a romantic partner? If so, do our desires actually mean we match up with people who suit them?
09 July, 2020
Photo by Nejron Photo on Shutterstock
- Two separate scientific studies suggest that our "ideals" don't really match what we look for in a romantic partner.
- Results of studies like these can change the way we date, especially in the online world.
- "You say you want these three attributes and you like the people who possess these attributes. But the story doesn't end there," says Paul Eastwick, co-author of the study and professor in the UC Davis Department of Psychology.
<p>A new study from the University of California, Davis, suggests that whatever you feel your ideal partner preference is doesn't really reflect your personal insight and values. </p><p>The 2020 paper entitled "<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103118305961" target="_blank">Negligible Evidence That People Desire Partners Who Uniquely Fit Their Ideals</a>" outlines this scenario: "If Faye prefers kindness in a partner and Sonia prefers ambition, Faye should be especially attracted to kind partners and Sonia should be especially attracted to ambitious ones." </p><p>According to lead author Jehan Sparks, a former UC Davis doctoral student, the participants in the study were very easily able to list their top three attributes in an ideal partner.</p><p>"We wanted to see whether those top three attributes really mattered for the person who listed them. As it turns out, they didn't," <a href="https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-romantic-partner-random-stranger.html" target="_blank">Sparks explains</a>.</p><ul class="ee-ul"></ul>
Do we really know what we want in love or are we just guessing?
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="204859156383d358652fda6f7eadda0f"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vQgfx2iYlso?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>More than 700 participants selected their top three qualities in a romantic partner (things like funny, attractive, inquisitive, kind, etc). They then reported their romantic desire for a series of people they knew personally. Some were blind date partners, others were romantic partners and some were simply platonic friends.</p><p>While participants did experience more romantic desire to the extent that these personal connections of theirs (people they knew) had the qualities they listed, there was more to the study. </p><p>Paul Eastwick, co-author and professor in the UC Davis Department of Psychology <a href="https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-romantic-partner-random-stranger.html" target="_blank">explains</a>: "You say you want these three attributes and you like the people who possess these attributes. But the story doesn't end there." </p><p>The participants also considered the extent to which their personal acquaintances possessed three attributes nominated by some other random person in the study. For example, if Kris listed "down-to-earth", intelligent and thoughtful as her own top three attributes, Vanessa also experienced more desire for people with those specific traits. </p>Does what we want really match up with what we find?
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQ0NDA4Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1OTQ0OTY5OX0.l-kqQna5vb_Ah1F-zTfTebr7qso1q0VCw5F5OhBdR_g/img.jpg?width=980" id="66b69" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7c1e3a1bb9d576872ef5dce39b2e8e80" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="illustration of a man and woman matching on a dating app" />What we claim to want and what we look for may be two separate things...
Image by GoodStudio on Shutterstock
<p>So the question became: are we really listing what we want in an ideal partner or are we just listing vague qualities that people typically consider as positive?</p><p>"So in the end, we want partners who have positive qualities," Sparks explained, "but the qualities you specifically list do not actually have special predictive power for you." </p><p>In other words, the idea that we find certain things attractive in a person does not mean we actively seek out people who have those qualities, despite saying it's what we want in a love interest. The authors of this study suggest these findings could have implications for the way we approach online dating in the digital age. </p><p>This isn't the first study of its kind to suggest that what we find in love isn't really what we were looking for. The evidence suggests that we really are consistent in the abstract of it all: when asked to evaluate what you want on paper, you are more likely to suggest overall attractiveness in accordance with what you've stated are important ideals to you. But real life isn't so similar. </p><p>According to <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/meet-catch-and-keep/201506/when-it-comes-love-do-you-really-know-what-you-want" target="_blank">Psychology Today,</a> who covered a 2015 study with similar results, initial face-to-face encounters have very little effect on our romantic desire. "When we initially meet someone, our level of romantic interest in the person is independent of our standards."</p><p>While you might have no immediate interest in John, he may fit your criteria of being kind, loyal, and intelligent. Similarly, someone may be attracted to Elaine even though she doesn't have any of the qualities they originally said were important to them. </p><p><strong>What does this all mean? </strong></p><p>The authors of both the 2015 and 2020 studies say the same thing: give someone a chance before writing them off as a poor match. If your initial attraction is independent of the standards you've set out, the qualities which you've listed as important to you, the first time you meet someone may not give you enough information to make an informed decision.</p><p>"It's really easy to spend time hunting around online for someone who seems to match your ideals," said Sparks, "But our research suggests an alternative approach: Don't be too picky ahead of time about whether a partner matches your ideals on paper. Or, even better, let your friends pick your dates for you." </p>
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