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.

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.

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.

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.

Experienced Demand Does Not Affect Subsequent Sleep and the Cortisol Awakening Response.

PURPOSE: Stress is associated with subjective and objective sleep disturbances; however, it is not known whether stress disrupts sleep and relevant physiological markers of stress immediately after it is experienced. The present study examined whether demand, in the form of cognitive tasks, disrupted sleep and the cortisol awakening response (CAR), depending on whether it was experienced or just anticipated. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: Subjective and objective sleep was measured in 22 healthy adults on three nights (Nights 0-2) in a sleep laboratory using sleep diaries and polysomnography. Saliva samples were obtained at awakening, +15, +30, +45 and +60 minutes on each subsequent day (Day 1-3) and CAR measurement indices were derived: awakening cortisol levels, the mean increase in cortisol levels (MnInc) and total cortisol secretion (AUCG). On Night 1, participants were informed that they were required to complete a series of demanding cognitive tasks within the sleep laboratory during the following day. Participants completed the tasks as expected or unexpectedly performed sedentary activities. RESULTS: Compared to the no-demand group, the demand group displayed significantly higher levels of state anxiety immediately completing the first task. There were no subsequent differences between the demand and no-demand groups in Night 2 subjective sleep continuity, objective sleep continuity or architecture, or on any Day 3 CAR measure. CONCLUSION: These results indicate that sleep and the CAR are not differentially affected depending on whether or not an anticipated stressor is then experienced. This provides further evidence to indicate that the CAR is a marker of anticipation and not recovery. In order to disrupt sleep, a stressor may need to be personally relevant or of a prolonged duration or intensity.

No evidence that middleborns feel less close to family and closer to friends than other birth orders.

Middleborns have been argued to be the neglected birth order. The present study aimed to test whether the emotional closeness to parents, siblings or friends differed between middleborns and otherborns, across two different datasets. Using a between family design this study accounted for gender, nationality, educational attainment, age and sibship size via matching. We found no evidence to suggest that middleborns differ from otherborns in familial sentiment. The sign of closeness to friends was in the opposite direction than predicted, with middleborns being less close than other birth orders. The findings are discussed with reference to current literature on birth order and familial sentiment.

Jealousy as a Function of Rival Characteristics: Two Large Replication Studies and Meta-Analyses Support Gender Differences in Reactions to Rival Attractiveness But Not Dominance.

Jealousy is a key emotion studied in the context of romantic relationships. One seminal study (Dijkstra, P., & Buunk, B. (1998). Jealousy as a function of rival characteristics: An evolutionary perspective. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24 (11), 1158-1166. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672982411003) investigated the interactions between a participant's gender and their reactions to the attractiveness or dominance of a romantic rival. In a vignette-based study, it was found that women's jealousy was more responsive than men's to a rival's attractiveness, whereas in contrast, the rival's dominance evoked more jealousy from men than from women. Here, we attempt to replicate these interactions in two samples (N = 339 and N = 456) and present subsequent meta-analyses (combined Ns = 5,899 and 4,038, respectively). These meta-analyses showed a small, significant effect of gender on jealousy provoked by rival attractiveness, but no such response to rival dominance. We discuss the potential reasons for these findings and future directions for research on jealousy and rival characteristics.

Referee height influences decision making in British football leagues.

BACKGROUND: Male height is positively associated with social dominance, and more agonistic/competitive behaviours. However, the 'Napoleon complex' or 'small man syndrome' suggests that smaller males are more assertive and punitive to compensate for lack of height and social dominance. Here, we assess possible relationships between height and punitive behaviours in a real-world setting. METHODS: Using a non-experimental correlational design, we analysed data on 61 male association football referees from four professional leagues in England, and explored relationships between their height and punitive behaviours in the form of yellow cards, red cards and penalties given during an entire season. RESULTS: Overall there was no effect of referee height on fouls awarded. However, there was a main effect of height on yellow cards awarded, with shorter referees issuing more yellow cards. The same effect was found for red cards and penalties, though this was moderated by league. In the lower leagues, more red cards and penalties were awarded by relatively shorter referees, but in the higher leagues more red cards and penalties were awarded by relatively taller referees. CONCLUSIONS: These findings from real-life public dominance encounters show that height is associated with punitive behaviours, but is sensitive to context.

Hungry people prefer larger bodies and objects: The importance of testing boundary effects.

Several lab-based studies have indicated that when people are hungry, they judge larger women's bodies as more attractive, compared to when they are satiated. These satiety-dependent judgements are assumed to provide explanatory power when it comes to the noted cross-cultural differences in attitudes towards women's adiposity, whereby people who live in regions that are under greater nutritional stress tend to have more favourable attitudes towards bigger bodies. However, it is premature to assume that women's bodies are the proper or actual domain of the satiety-dependent judgement shifts found within research study testing contexts until stimuli other than female bodies have also been tested: The research programme falls into the trap of confirmation bias unless we also seek out disconfirmatory evidence and test the boundaries of the effects of hunger. Accordingly, we collected attractiveness judgements of female and male bodies manipulated to vary in size by varying level of adiposity, and objects manipulated to vary in size, from 186 participants who also reported their current hunger level. We found that larger sizes of stimuli in general, and women's bodies in particular, especially when judged by women, were judged as more attractive by the hungrier participants. We discuss these patterns in the context of the Insurance Hypothesis, the Environmental Security Hypothesis, and the impact of hunger on acquisition.

Comedians' Trait Level and Stage Personalities: Evidence for Goal-Directed Personality Adaptation.

Recent findings have shown that both trait levels of personality and situational variability in its expression are of importance. So here, the Big Five personality traits of 77 professional and 125 amateur stand-up comedians were compared with two large matched samples (N > 100,000). The comedians were also observed while performing, which enabled a comparison of their stage personalities with situational requirements on 10 selected NEO-PIR facets. Both amateurs and professionals showed higher openness-to-experience, extraversion, and lower conscientiousness than their norm samples, while professionals also evidenced greater neuroticism. Irrespective of trait standing, with regard to most NEO-PIR facets, professionals expressed the appropriate on-stage persona and were better able to regulate their personality to conform to situational requirements than amateurs. This is consistent with research showing that individuals regulate their personality to conform to situational and goal requirements, and adds the finding that successful comedians demonstrate enhanced adaptability compared with amateurs.

Are attitudinal and perceptual body image the same or different? Evidence from high-level adaptation.

We used a high-level adaptation paradigm to distinguish between two hypotheses: (1) perceptual and attitudinal body image measurements reflect conceptually different mechanisms which are statistically independent of each other; (2) attitudinal (e.g., questionnaire) and perceptual (e.g., visual yes-no) body image tasks represent two different ways of measuring exactly the same construct. Forty women, with no history of eating disorders, carried out the experiment. Each participant carried out five adaptation blocks, with adapting stimuli representing female bodies at: extreme-low body mass index (BMI), mid-low BMI, actual BMI of the observer, mid-high BMI, and extreme-high BMI. Block order was randomized across participants. The main outcome variable was percentage error in participants' self-estimates of body size, measured post-adaption. In regressions of this percentage error on the strength of the adapting stimuli together with observers' attitudinal body image as a covariate, we found positive regression slopes and no evidence for any interaction between the fixed effects. Therefore, we conclude that perceptual and attitudinal body image mechanisms are indeed independent of each other. In the light of this evidence, we discuss how people with eating disorders, like anorexia nervosa, may come to over-estimate their body size.

When Better Seems Bigger: Perceived Performance of Adult Professional Football Players Is Positively Associated With Perceptions of Their Body Size.

Research has shown a positive association between cues of physical formidability and perceptions of status, supporting a generic "bigger-is-better" heuristic. However, does better also lead to appraisals as bigger? Recent research suggests that the perceptual association between body size and social status can also be explained in terms of prestige. To test whether perceptions of prestige lead to higher appraisals of body size, we examined whether people apply a "better is bigger bias" (BBB) in football, where performance and body size tend to be uncorrelated. In two studies, we examined real coalitional sports groups on a national (Study 1) and team level (Study 2), and we manipulated target performance in an experimental third study. Results suggest that perceived performance significantly predicted both the perceived height (Studies 2 and 3) and perceived weight (Studies 1 and 2) of professional football players, supporting the BBB. Support for the team had a positive effect on body size estimations of the players; however, we did not find any support for winner or loser effects. We discuss these results in light of individual versus team performance and coalitional affiliation.