Sample characteristics for quantitative analyses in Body Image: Issues of generalisability.

Psychological research frequently encounters criticism regarding the representativeness of the samples under study, highlighting concerns about the external validity of the obtained results. Here, we conducted a comprehensive survey of all the quantitative samples from the journal Body Image for 2021 (n = 149 samples). Our primary objective was to examine the extent to which the sampled populations deviated from the population at large, which could potentially compromise the generalizability of findings. We identified that a substantial number of these samples came from student populations (n = 44) and the majority were from the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. Only a small number of samples (n = 9) employed direct measurements of body mass index (BMI), while the majority relied on self-reported data (n = 93). For a subset of samples in the journal, which were drawn from the general population, we compared whether these differed from population reference values in terms of age and BMI. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we found that samples tended to be younger and score lower on BMI than reference values obtained from the broader population. Samples drawn from female university students also tended to be lower on BMI than age-matched reference samples. We discuss the implications of our findings and make recommendations on sampling and inference. We conclude that a clearer specification of the parameters or conditions under which findings are expected to generalise has the potential to enhance the overall rigor and validity of this field of research.

Publication bias in psychology: A closer look at the correlation between sample size and effect size.

Previously observed negative correlations between sample size and effect size (n-ES correlation) in psychological research have been interpreted as evidence for publication bias and related undesirable biases. Here, we present two studies aimed at better understanding to what extent negative n-ES correlations reflect such biases or might be explained by unproblematic adjustments of sample size to expected effect sizes. In Study 1, we analysed n-ES correlations in 150 meta-analyses from cognitive, organizational, and social psychology and in 57 multiple replications, which are free from relevant biases. In Study 2, we used a random sample of 160 psychology papers to compare the n-ES correlation for effects that are central to these papers and effects selected at random from these papers. n-ES correlations proved inconspicuous in meta-analyses. In line with previous research, they do not suggest that publication bias and related biases have a strong impact on meta-analyses in psychology. A much higher n-ES correlation emerged for publications' focal effects. To what extent this should be attributed to publication bias and related biases remains unclear.

Detection of Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus in Hyalomma marginatum ticks, southern France, May 2022 and April 2023.

Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF), a potentially severe zoonotic viral disease causing fever and haemorrhagic manifestations in humans. As the Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) has been detected in ticks in Spain and antibodies against the virus in ruminant sera in Corsica, it was necessary to know more about the situation in France. In 2022-2023, CCHFV was detected in 155 ticks collected from horses and cattle in southern France.

Occurrence and environmental risk assessment of 4 estrogenic compounds in surface water in Belgium in the frame of the EU Watch List.

The presence of natural estrogens estrone (E1), 17ß-estradiol (E2), estriol (E3) and synthetic estrogen 17α-ethynylestradiol (EE2) in the aquatic environment has raised concerns because of their high potency as endocrine disrupting chemicals. The European Commission (EC) established a Watch List of contaminants of emerging concerns including E1, E2 and EE2. The proposed environmental quality standards (EQSs) are 3.6, 0.4, 0.035 ng/L, for E1, E2, EE2, respectively. A thorough evaluation of analytical procedures developed by several studies aiming to perform sampling campaigns in different European countries highlighted that the required limits of quantification in surface water were not reached, especially for EE2 and to a lesser extent for E2. Moreover, data regarding the occurrence of these contaminants in Belgian surface water are very limited. A sampling campaign was therefore performed on a wide range of rivers in Belgium (accounting for a total of 63 samples). The detection frequencies of E1, E2, E3 and EE2 were 100, 98, 86 and 48%, respectively. E1 showed the highest mean concentration (= 4.433 ng/L). In contrast, the mean concentration of EE2 was 0.042 ng/L. The risk quotients (RQs) were calculated based on the respective EQS of each analyte. The frequency of exceedance of the EQS was 31.7% for E1, EE2, while it increased to 44.4% for E2. The extent of exceedance of the EQS, represented by the 95th percentile of the RQ dataset, was higher than 1 for E1, E2, EE2. The use of a confusion matrix was investigated to try to predict the risk posed by E2, EE2, based on the concentration of E1.

A social-ecological systems approach to tick bite and tick-borne disease risk management: Exploring collective action in the Occitanie region in southern France.

Ticks are amongst the most important zoonotic disease vectors affecting human and animal health worldwide. Tick-borne diseases (TBDs) are rapidly expanding geographically and in incidence, most notably in temperate regions of Europe where ticks are considered the principal zoonotic vector of Public Health relevance, as well as a major health and economic preoccupation in agriculture and equine industries. Tick-borne pathogen (TBP) transmission is contingent on complex, interlinked vector-pathogen-host dynamics, environmental and ecological conditions and human behavior. Tackling TBD therefore requires a better understanding of the interconnected social and ecological variables (i.e., the social-ecological system) that favor disease (re)-emergence. The One Health paradigm recognizes the interdependence of human, animal and environmental health and proposes an integrated approach to manage TBD. However, One Health interventions are limited by significant gaps in our understanding of the complex, systemic nature of TBD risk, in addition to a lack of effective, universally accepted and environmentally conscious tick control measures. Today individual prevention gestures are the most effective strategy to manage TBDs in humans and animals, making local communities important actors in TBD detection, prevention and management. Yet, how they engage and collaborate within a multi-actor TBD network has not yet been explored. Here, we argue that transdisciplinary collaborations that go beyond research, political and medical stakeholders, and extend to local community actors can aid in identifying relevant social-ecological risk indicators key for informing multi-level TBD detection, prevention and management measures. This article proposes a transdisciplinary social-ecological systems framework, based on participatory research approaches, to better understand the necessary conditions for local actor engagement to improve TBD risk. We conclude with perspectives for implementing this methodological framework in a case study in the south of France (Occitanie region), where multi-actor collaborations are mobilized to stimulate multi-actor collective action and identify relevant social-ecological indicators of TBD risk.

An exploratory psychometric network analysis of loneliness scales in a sample of older adults.

To examine the relationships within and between commonly used measures of loneliness to determine the suitability of the measures in older adults. Further, to determine whether certain items in these measures are more psychometrically robust in terms of capturing different types of loneliness across this population. Data were obtained from 350 older adults via completion of an online survey. Four measures of loneliness were completed. These were the University of California Los Angeles Loneliness Scale 4 (Version 3), the de Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale, the Social and Emotional Loneliness Scale for Adults (Short Version) and a direct measure of loneliness. Analysis via a regularized partial correlation network and via clique percolation revealed that only the SELSA-S encompassed loneliness relating to deficits in social, family and romantic relationships. The remaining measures tapped mostly into social loneliness alone. The direct measure of loneliness had the strongest connection to the UCLA item-4 and the de Jong Gierveld item-1 exhibited the strongest bridge centrality, being a member of the most clusters. The results indicate that should researchers be interested in assessing loneliness resulting from specific relationships, then the SELSA-S would be the most suitable measure. Whereas the other measures are suitable for assessing loneliness more generally. The results further suggest that the de Jong Gierveld item-1 may be a more suitable direct measure of loneliness than that currently employed as it taps into a greater number of relationships.

HEXACO Personality Factors and their Associations with Facebook use and Facebook Network Characteristics.

Personality factors affect the properties of 'offline' social networks, but how they are associated with the structural properties of online networks is still unclear. We investigated how the six HEXACO personality factors (Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience) relate to Facebook use and three objectively measured Facebook network characteristics - network size, density, and number of clusters. Participants (n = 107, mean age = 20.6, 66% female) extracted their Facebook networks using the GetNet app, completed the 60-item HEXACO questionnaire and the Facebook Usage Questionnaire. Users high in Openness to Experience spent less time on Facebook. Extraversion was positively associated with network size (number of Facebook Friends). These findings suggest that some personality factors are associated with Facebook use and the size of Facebook networks, and that personality is an important influence on both online and offline sociality.

An Updated Review of Ornithodoros Ticks as Reservoirs of African Swine Fever in Sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar.

This updated review provides an overview of the available information on Ornithodoros ticks as reservoirs and biological vectors of the ASF virus in Africa and Indian Ocean islands in order to update the current knowledge in this field, inclusive of an overview of available methods to investigate the presence of ticks in the natural environment and in domestic pig premises. In addition, it highlights the major areas of research that require attention in order to guide future investigations and fill knowledge gaps. The available information suggests that current knowledge is clearly insufficient to develop risk-based control and prevention strategies, which should be based on a sound understanding of genotype distribution and the potential for spillover from the source population. Studies on tick biology in the natural and domestic cycle, including genetics and systematics, represent another important knowledge gap. Considering the rapidly changing dynamics affecting the African continent (demographic growth, agricultural expansion, habitat transformation), anthropogenic factors influencing tick population distribution and ASF virus (ASFV) evolution in Africa are anticipated and have been recorded in southern Africa. This dynamic context, together with the current global trends of ASFV dissemination, highlights the need to prioritize further investigation on the acarological aspects linked with ASF ecology and evolution.

Comparing Foodie Calls in Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States: A Registered Replication Report.

Collisson et al. (2020) found Dark Triad traits and gender role beliefs predicted "foodie calls," a phenomenon where people go on a date with others, to whom they are not attracted, for a free meal. Because gender roles and dating norms differ across cultures, we conducted a registered replication across different cultures by surveying 1838 heterosexual women from Poland, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US). Relying on the structural equation modeling, as conducted in the original study, our findings revealed gender role beliefs best predicted foodie calls and their perceived acceptability, whereas the Dark Triad's general factor was nonsignificant. Analyses at the country level yielded mixed results. The original findings were replicated in the UK and Poland, but not in the US, where only narcissism predicted foodie calls. In the US, gender role beliefs predicted foodie call acceptability, but the Dark Triad general factor did not. Potential reasons for why traditional gender roles, but not the Dark Triad, predicted foodie calls in the US are discussed.

Consistency of Eye Coloration Across Different Relationship Partners.

Studies have indicated that people are attracted to partners who resemble themselves or their parents, in terms of physical traits including eye color. We might anticipate this inclination to be relatively stable, giving rise to a sequential selection of similar partners who then represent an individual's "type". We tested this idea by examining whether people's sequential partners resembled each other at the level of eye color. We gathered details of the eye colors of the partners of participants (N = 579) across their adult romantic history (N = 3250 relationships), in three samples, comprising two samples which made use of self-reports from predominantly UK-based participants, and one which made use of publicly available information about celebrity relationship histories. Recorded partner eye colors comprised black (N = 39 partners), dark brown (N = 884), light brown (N = 393), hazel (N = 224), blue (N = 936), blue green (N = 245), grey (N = 34), and green (N = 229). We calculated the proportion of identical eye colors within each participant's relationship history, and compared that to 100,000 random permutations of our dataset, using t-tests to investigate if the eye color of partners across an individual's relationship history was biased relative to chance (i.e., if there was greater consistency, represented by higher calculated proportions of identical eye colors, in the original dataset than in the permutations). To account for possible eye color reporting errors and ethnic group matching, we ran the analyses restricted to White participants and to high-confidence eye color data; we then ran the analyses again in relation to the complete dataset. We found some limited evidence for some consistency of eye color across people's relationship histories in some of the samples only when using the complete dataset. We discuss the issues of small effect sizes, partner-report bias, and ethnic group matching in investigating partner consistency across time.

Are we measuring loneliness in the same way in men and women in the general population and in the older population? Two studies of measurement equivalence.

BACKGROUND: High levels of loneliness are associated with negative health outcomes and there are several different types of interventions targeted at reducing feelings of loneliness. It is therefore important to accurately measure loneliness. A key unresolved debate in the conceptualisation and measurement of loneliness is whether it has a unidimensional or multidimensional structure. The aim of this study was to examine the dimensional structure of the widely used UCLA Loneliness Scale and establish whether this factorial structure is equivalent in men and women. METHODS AND SAMPLE: Two online UK-based samples were recruited using Prolific. The participants in Study 1 were 492 adults, selected to be nationally representative by age and gender, whilst the participants in Study 2 were 290 older adults aged over 64. In both studies, participants completed the UCLA Loneliness Scale (Version 3) as part of a larger project. RESULTS: In both studies, the best fitting model was one with three factors corresponding to 'Isolation,' 'Relational Connectedness,' and 'Collective Connectedness.' A unidimensional single factor model was a substantially worse fit in both studies. In both studies, there were no meaningful differences between men and women in any of the three factors, suggesting measurement invariance across genders. CONCLUSION: These results are consistent with previous research in supporting a multidimensional, three factor structure to the UCLA scale, rather than a unidimensional structure. Further, the measurement invariance across genders suggests that the UCLA scale can be used to compare levels of loneliness across men and women. Overall the results suggest that loneliness has different facets and thus future research should consider treating the UCLA loneliness scale as a multidimensional scale, or using other scales which are designed to measure the different aspects of loneliness.

Meteorological and climatic variables predict the phenology of Ixodes ricinus nymph activity in France, accounting for habitat heterogeneity.

Ixodes ricinus ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) are the most important vector for Lyme borreliosis in Europe. As climate change might affect their distributions and activities, this study aimed to determine the effects of environmental factors, i.e., meteorological, bioclimatic, and habitat characteristics on host-seeking (questing) activity of I. ricinus nymphs, an important stage in disease transmissions, across diverse climatic types in France over 8 years. Questing activity was observed using a repeated removal sampling with a cloth-dragging technique in 11 sampling sites from 7 tick observatories from 2014 to 2021 at approximately 1-month intervals, involving 631 sampling campaigns. Three phenological patterns were observed, potentially following a climatic gradient. The mixed-effects negative binomial regression revealed that observed nymph counts were driven by different interval-average meteorological variables, including 1-month moving average temperature, previous 3-to-6-month moving average temperature, and 6-month moving average minimum relative humidity. The interaction effects indicated that the phenology in colder climates peaked differently from that of warmer climates. Also, land cover characteristics that support the highest baseline abundance were moderate forest fragmentation with transition borders with agricultural areas. Finally, our model could potentially be used to predict seasonal human-tick exposure risks in France that could contribute to mitigating Lyme borreliosis risk.

The role of self-efficacy and self-esteem in mediating positive associations between functional social support and psychological wellbeing in people with a mental health diagnosis.

BACKGROUND: Previous research has observed positive associations between perceived quality of social support and mental well-being. Having access to functional social support that provides sources of care, compassion and helpful information have shown to be beneficial for mental health. However, there is a need to identify the psychological processes through which functional social support can elicit therapeutic outcomes on mental well-being. AIMS: The present cross-sectional study aimed to examine the extent to which self-efficacy and self-esteem mediated the association between functional social support and mental well-being. METHOD: Seventy-three people with a mental health diagnosis, who attended group-based activities as facilitated by a third sector community mental health organisation, took part in the present study. Participants were required to complete measures that assessed perceived quality of functional social support, self-efficacy, self-esteem, and subjective mental well-being. RESULTS: A multiple mediation analysis revealed that self-efficacy and self-esteem fully mediated the positive association between perceived functional social support and mental well-being. CONCLUSIONS: The implications of these results are that social interventions, which aim to facilitate the delivery of functional social support, could enhance mental well-being via their positive effects on self-efficacy and self-esteem.

An exploration of the impact of contextual information on the emotion recognition ability of autistic adults.

Studies of non-autistic individuals and people with an intellectual disability show that contextual information impacts positively on emotion recognition ability, however, this area is not well researched with autistic adults. We investigated this using a static emotion recognition task. Participants completed an emotion recognition task in person or online. In total, 46 autistic participants and 379 non-autistic participants completed the task. A linear mixed model showed that autistic adults had significantly lower accuracy when identifying emotions across all contexts, compared to control participants, even when contextual information was present. No significant effect of context was found in either group, nor was gender shown to be an influential variable. A supplementary analysis showed that higher scores on the Autism-Spectrum Quotient led to lower scores on the emotion recognition task; no effect of context was found here either. This research adds to the limited work investigating the influence of contextual factors in emotion recognition in autistic adults. Overall, it shows that context may not aid emotion recognition in this group in the same way as it does for non-autistic individuals.

Methodological issues when using face prototypes: A case study on the Faceaurus dataset.

Prototype faces, created by averaging faces from several individuals sharing a common characteristic (for example a certain personality trait), can be used for highly informative experimental designs in face research. Although the facial prototype method is both ingenious and useful, we argue that its implementation is associated with three major issues: lack of external validity and non-independence of the units of information, both aggravated by a lack of transparency regarding the methods used and their limitations. Here, we describe these limitations and illustrate our claims with a systematic review of studies creating facial stimuli using the prototypes dataset 'Faceaurus'. We then propose some solutions that can eliminate or reduce these problems. We provide recommendations for future research employing this method on how to produce more generalisable and replicable results.

Egocentric network characteristics of persons with Type 1 diabetes and their relationships to perceived social support and well-being.

Objectives: The size of one's support network is positively related to health and well-being. It is therefore important to understand this association in people with Type 1 diabetes, as this could inform interventions. Moreover, the type of support (emotional, instrumental, informational) offered likely varies by gender of both the person seeking support and offering support. We thus examine the relationship between the composition of (perceived) social support networks and well-being in a sample of 121 persons with Type 1 diabetes. Design: An egocentric social network survey, combined with survey measures. Main outcome(s): The size and composition of support networks and well-being. Measures: Participants indicated the type of support individuals in their contact network offered and their gender, alongside measures of perceived social support and well-being. They indicated which individuals offered which types of support (emotional, instrumental, informational). Results: Perceived support was associated with the actual size of the emotional support network. Further, the size of the emotional support network was associated with well-being. Using multilevel models we examined assortment by gender in social support networks. Compared to women, men were more inclined to list the opposite gender as support, especially for emotional and informational support. Conclusion: Mapping out an individual's multidimensional support network paints a more complete picture of support than single item measures of support. We therefore recommend relying on a social network methodology to gain a more complete understanding of support networks. The findings highlight that an association exists between emotional network size and wellbeing. Given the potential implications of this finding for the quality of life of diabetes patients, it is important to establish the causality of this relationship.

Fat talk is predicted by body dissatisfaction and social comparison with no interaction effect: Evidence from two replication studies.

Verbal denigration of personal body size and shape ("fat talk") is correlated with, and can have a causal influence on body dissatisfaction and disordered eating. What is less clear is who is most likely to fat talk. To address this, Corning and Gondoli (2012) conducted a study confirming that a woman's body dissatisfaction directly predicted their fat talk. But this effect was scaled so that the likelihood of engaging in fat talk intensified if she had a stronger tendency to socially compare: the relationship was multiplicative. Here, we carried out two replications of Corning and Gondoli's (2012) study, the first with 189 UK participants and the second with 371 US participants. We found that multiple regression models predicting fat talk showed additive, but not multiplicative relationships. A robust Bayesian meta-analysis combining the results of our two studies with the results of the original study confirmed this. In conclusion, these studies show an additive relationship between fat talk and social comparison on fat talk.

3D visualisation of psychometric estimates for the ideal male body.

Psychological concerns are frequently indexed by psychometric questionnaires but the mental representations that they seek to quantify are difficult to visualise. We used a set of questionnaires designed to measure men's concept of their bodies including: the Drive for Muscularity Scale (DMS; McCreary & Sasse, 2000), the Perceived Sociocultural Pressures Scale (PSPS; Stice, Nemeroff, & Shaw, 1996a), the Body Appreciation Scale (BAS-2; Tylka & Wood-Barcalow, 2015), and the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire-3 (SATAQ-3; Thompson, van den Berg, Roehrig, Guarda, & Heinberg, 2004). We combined their use with an interactive 3D modelling programme to allow men to create computer-generated representations of their ideal bodies. We used a principal component analysis to extract those shape components of our participants' CGI ideal bodies that were predicted by the questionnaires and reconstructed the body shapes that these questionnaires were capturing. Moving from the lowest to the highest score on both the DMS and SATAQ corresponded with changes in muscularity, particularly muscle mass and definition. This approach allows us to demonstrate the actual body features that are being captured by a particular questionnaire.

Temperate and tropical coastal waters share relatively similar microbial biofilm communities while free-living or particle-attached communities are distinct.

Free-living (FL) marine microbial communities differ from those attached to particles (PA). Likewise, biofilms (B) colonizing artificial surfaces, including plastics or ship hulls, hardly resemble their planktonic surroundings. However, few studies have examined the effect of the environment on these lifestyles and on the source of organisms colonizing marine surfaces. Using 16S rRNA gene metabarcoding, we identified specificities of marine prokaryotic community lifestyles (FL, PA or B) sampled in three coastal polluted locations with dissimilar environmental conditions: the North-Western Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Biofilms developed over polyvinyl chloride (PVC) were found to be significantly different from FL or PA collected during the immersions. Alpha-diversity increased from FL to PA and to B, illustrating the integrative aspect of the latter, with little proportion of operational taxonomic units shared with the first two. Beta-diversity clustered first the lifestyles and then the sites. FL and PA were more affected by water quality, especially by trace metal contamination, whereas B were as sensitive to trace metals as to nutrients. Although biofilms should be supplied by the planktonic (ultra) rare biosphere, source tracking could only detect small contributions of FL or PA taxa to B communities.

Update on the intricate tango between tick microbiomes and tick-borne pathogens.

The recent development of high-throughput NGS technologies, (ie, next-generation sequencing) has highlighted the complexity of tick microbial communities-which include pathogens, symbionts, and commensals-and also their dynamic variability. Symbionts and commensals can confer crucial and diverse benefits to their hosts, playing nutritional roles or affecting fitness, development, nutrition, reproduction, defence against environmental stress and immunity. Nonpathogenic tick bacteria may also play a role in modifying tick-borne pathogen colonization and transmission, as relationships between microorganisms existing together in one environment can be competitive, exclusive, facilitating or absent, with many potential implications for both human and animal health. Consequently, ticks represent a compelling yet challenging system in which to investigate the composition and both the functional and ecological implications of tick bacterial communities, and thus merits greater attention. Ultimately, deciphering the relationships between microorganisms carried by ticks as well as symbiont-tick interactions will garner invaluable information, which may aid in some future arthropod-pest and vector-borne pathogen transmission control strategies. This review outlines recent research on tick microbiome composition and dynamics, highlights elements favouring the reciprocal influence of the tick microbiome and tick-borne agents and finally discusses how ticks and tick-borne diseases might potentially be controlled through tick microbiome manipulation in the future.