Important Social Outcomes Research Articles

Further evidence that averageness and femininity, rather than symmetry and masculinity, predict facial attractiveness judgments

Facial attractiveness influences important social outcomes and most studies investigating possible predictors of facial attractiveness have tested for effects of shape symmetry, averageness (i.e., the converse of distinctiveness), and sexual dimorphism (i.e., masculinity–femininity). These studies have typically either tested for these possible effects by experimentally manipulating shape characteristics in faces images or have tested only for bivariate correlations between shape characteristics and attractiveness judgments. However, these two approaches have been criticised for lacking ecological validity and providing little insight into the independent contributions of symmetry, averageness, and sexual dimorphism, respectively. Moreover, the few studies that have investigated the independent contributions of symmetry, averageness, and sexual dimorphism have reported mixed results. Here we measured shape symmetry, averageness, and sexual dimorphism from face images and assessed their independent contribution to attractiveness ratings. Linear mixed effects models showed that facial attractiveness was significantly predicted by averageness in male and female faces and femininity in female faces, but not by masculinity in male faces or symmetry. These results are consistent with other recent work suggesting that averageness and femininity, rather than symmetry and masculinity, predict facial attractiveness.

Preferences for facial femininity/masculinity across culture and the sexual orientation spectrum.

Judgments of attractiveness have many important social outcomes, highlighting the need to understand how people form these judgments. One aspect of appearance that impacts perceptions of attractiveness is facial femininity/masculinity (sexual dimorphism). However, extant research has focused primarily on White, Western, heterosexual participants' preferences for femininity/masculinity in White faces, limiting generalizability. Indeed, recent research indicates that these preferences vary by culture, and other work finds differences between gay/lesbian and heterosexual individuals. Aspects of identity, such as culture and sexual orientation, do not exist in isolation from one another but rather intersect, leaving a critical gap in understanding. Our research therefore bridged across these hitherto separate areas of inquiry to provide a more comprehensive understanding of facial femininity/masculinity preferences. We tested how White British and East Asian Japanese individuals' culture and sexual orientation (including, crucially, bisexual individuals) predict their femininity/masculinity preferences for White and East Asian women's and men's faces, using two experimental tasks (forced-choice, interactive). Results show that individuals' culture and sexual orientation consistently interact to predict their preferences for femininity/masculinity in women's and men's faces, and we furthermore reveal bisexual individuals' preferences to differ from those of other sexual orientations. We also find differences between experimental tasks, with greater preferences for femininity emerging in the interactive task compared to the forced-choice task. Altogether, our findings highlight the importance of considering intersecting identities, consequences of methods of measurement, and shortcomings of extant explanations for preferences for facial femininity/masculinity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Editorial on the Special Issue “Changes in Educational Homogamy and Its Consequences”

Recent decades have seen major changes in the educational profiles of the populations of Western industrialised countries, notably a sharp rise in educational attainment and a reversal of the gender gap in education. These trends are likely to have affected patterns of educational assortative mating and its consequences. In this editorial, we first review the empirical evidence on educational assortative mating patterns over the last two decades. Specifically, we examine whether educational homogamy has increased among the highly educated, whether women are now less likely to marry upward across cohorts, and whether the rates of relative educational homogamy in populations have increased. We also examine the factors that explain trends and cross-country differences in educational homogamy. Second, we review the consequences of educational homogamy for several important social outcomes, in particular partnership stability and union dissolution, fertility, and children’s educational attainment. Is educational homogamy increasingly affecting these outcomes, and if so, in what ways and why? Third, we identify research gaps regarding educational assortative mating and its consequences. The six empirical studies in this special issue attempt to fill some of these gaps. We briefly outline these studies and their main findings and point to implications for future research. * This editorial has been peer reviewed.

Can Social Identities Improve Working Students’ Academic and Social Outcomes? Lessons from Three Studies

Previous research has linked working for pay while attending university with negative academic and health outcomes; yet, working students are often resilient when experiencing such adverse circumstances. This makes it crucial to explore potential psychological mechanisms that transform adverse experiences into sources of motivation and persistence for working students. We explore one mechanism—social identification—and its different foci—identifying as a student, employee, working student, or a student of one’s discipline of study—as potential predictors of important academic (academic self-efficacy, approaches to learning, and academic achievement) and social (status in society) outcomes in three cross-sectional studies. In Study 1, part-time working hours (but not identification processes) were associated with academic self-efficacy. In Study 2, discipline identification and part-time working hours were associated with using deep approaches to learning. In Study 3, student identification was associated with increased status in society. Overall, discipline identification may be solely linked to academic outcomes, but student identification should be explored further as a potential enhancer of social and graduate outcomes. We discuss additional mechanisms that can help to transform working students’ experiences through their social identities and suggest boundary conditions that can affect the link between these identities and important outcomes.

Yes, we can (but for different reasons): Collective narcissism is linked to different values but similar pro-ingroup collective action tendencies among disadvantaged and advantaged ethnic groups.

Collective narcissism, a belief that one's group is exceptional and entitled to special treatment but underappreciated by others, is related to important social and political outcomes but has been predominantly studied in advantaged groups. The present research compares the motivational correlates (through values) of collective narcissism in ethnic groups of different status (advantaged and disadvantaged) and explores its associations with attitudes towards, and intention to engage in collective action. Three studies examined these processes in different national and intergroup contexts (total N = 16,275). Overall, ethnic collective narcissism was linked to self-protective values (power, and less consistently, conservation) in advantaged groups but to universalism in disadvantaged groups. Moreover, in both advantaged and disadvantaged groups, ethnic collective narcissism was related to more positive attitudes towards, and intentions of pro-ingroup actions but not to attitudes towards (other) disadvantaged groups (i.e., intergroup solidarity). These studies suggest that collective narcissism may be associated with different motivations, yet linked to similar intergroup attitudes among advantaged and disadvantaged groups.

A comparative analysis of COVID-19 physical distancing policies in South Africa and Uganda.

COVID-19 responses internationally have depended on physical distancing policies to manage virus transmission, given the initial absence of treatments and limitations on vaccine availability. Different jurisdictions have different contexts affecting their responses such as past epidemic experience, ratings of epidemic preparedness, and income level. COVID-19 responses in African countries have not been well-studied. A qualitative multiple embedded case study design was used to examine the COVID-19 policies in South Africa and Uganda from January 2020 to November 2021. This study included a documentary review using government websites and reports, news articles, and peer-reviewed journal articles to obtain data on policy responses and contextual factors. Epidemiological data were collected from public sources. Key informant interviews with relevant stakeholders were used to confirm findings and cover missing information. A comparative analysis was conducted to explore differences in implementation of different types of physical distancing policies and potential consequences of lifting or prolonging public health measures. South African and Ugandan policy responses included physical distancing measures such as lockdown, international travel bans, school closures, public transportation measures, and curfew, in addition to socioeconomic relief programs and vaccinations. Differences between jurisdiction policy responses existed in terms of overarching strategy, timing, and stringency. This study provided in-depth comparisons of COVID-19 policy responses and relevant contextual factors in South Africa and Uganda. The study showed how contextual factors such as population age, geographic distribution, and recent epidemic response experience can influence COVID-19 transmission and response. The study also showed differences in overall strategy, timing, and strictness of epidemic management policies in these jurisdictions. These findings suggest it may be important to have sustained, strict measures to limit the spread of COVID-19 and manage the course of a pandemic, which need to be further explored alongside other important social and economic pandemic outcomes.

Decoding the language of first impressions: Comparing models of first impressions of faces derived from free-text descriptions and trait ratings.

First impressions formed from facial appearance predict important social outcomes. Existing models of these impressions indicate they are underpinned by dimensions of Valence and Dominance, and are typically derived by applying data reduction methods to explicit ratings of faces for a range of traits. However, this approach is potentially problematic because the trait ratings may not fully capture the dimensions on which people spontaneously assess faces. Here, we used natural language processing to extract 'topics' directly from participants' free-text descriptions (i.e., their first impressions) of 2222 face images. Two topics emerged, reflecting first impressions related to positive emotional valence and warmth (Topic 1) and negative emotional valence and potential threat (Topic 2). Next, we investigated how these topics were related to Valence and Dominance components derived from explicit trait ratings. Collectively, these components explained only ~44% of the variance in the topics extracted from free-text descriptions and suggested that first impressions are underpinned by correlated valence dimensions that subsume the content of existing trait-rating-based models. Natural language offers a promising new avenue for understanding social cognition, and future work can examine the predictive utility of natural language and traditional data-driven models for impressions in varying social contexts.

No evidence that averaging voices influences attractiveness

Vocal attractiveness influences important social outcomes. While most research on the acoustic parameters that influence vocal attractiveness has focused on the possible roles of sexually dimorphic characteristics of voices, such as fundamental frequency (i.e., pitch) and formant frequencies (i.e., a correlate of body size), other work has reported that increasing vocal averageness increases attractiveness. Here we investigated the roles these three characteristics play in judgments of the attractiveness of male and female voices. In Study 1, we found that increasing vocal averageness significantly decreased distinctiveness ratings, demonstrating that participants could detect manipulations of vocal averageness in this stimulus set and using this testing paradigm. However, in Study 2, we found no evidence that increasing averageness significantly increased attractiveness ratings of voices. In Study 3, we found that fundamental frequency was negatively correlated with male vocal attractiveness and positively correlated with female vocal attractiveness. By contrast with these results for fundamental frequency, vocal attractiveness and formant frequencies were not significantly correlated. Collectively, our results suggest that averageness may not necessarily significantly increase attractiveness judgments of voices and are consistent with previous work reporting significant associations between attractiveness and voice pitch.

User-Generated Content Shapes Judicial Reasoning: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial on Wikipedia

User-generated content, for example, on Wikipedia, is easily accessed but has uncertain reliability. This makes it attractive to use but also creates risk, so there should be limits to who uses Wikipedia and for what purposes. In this paper, we use a randomized control trial to show that Wikipedia’s influence extends to judicial decision making, a field that is highly professional and supposed to follow strict procedures. This causal evidence further emphasizes the widespread influence of Wikipedia and other frequently accessed user-generated content on important social outcomes. Our findings also reveal boundaries to user-generated content’s influence. Although Wikipedia’s influence does extend to courts of “first instance” (where the case is first decided), it does not extend to higher courts (Court of Appeals, Supreme Court). These results suggest that normative prohibitions do seem to be sufficient to keep Wikipedia from influencing the most-important, well-resourced parts of law but that these prohibitions are insufficient in areas where time and resource pressures are greater. By showing that Wikipedia is influencing such an important and formal domain, our paper reinforces the importance of improving the accuracy and reliability of user-generated content, especially in domains with far-reaching societal consequences. Because there is no obvious way to prevent individuals from taking advantage of user-generated content professionally or nonprofessionally, our findings also contribute to the ongoing discussion of how to build public repositories of knowledge into more reliable storehouses.

Personalized functional brain network topography is associated with individual differences in youth cognition

Individual differences in cognition during childhood are associated with important social, physical, and mental health outcomes in adolescence and adulthood. Given that cortical surface arealization during development reflects the brain’s functional prioritization, quantifying variation in the topography of functional brain networks across the developing cortex may provide insight regarding individual differences in cognition. We test this idea by defining personalized functional networks (PFNs) that account for interindividual heterogeneity in functional brain network topography in 9–10 year olds from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development℠ Study. Across matched discovery (n = 3525) and replication (n = 3447) samples, the total cortical representation of fronto-parietal PFNs positively correlates with general cognition. Cross-validated ridge regressions trained on PFN topography predict cognition in unseen data across domains, with prediction accuracy increasing along the cortex’s sensorimotor-association organizational axis. These results establish that functional network topography heterogeneity is associated with individual differences in cognition before the critical transition into adolescence.

Impact of individual, household, and area characteristics on health and social care outcomes for people with multimorbidity: Protocol for a multilevel analysis.

Multimorbidity is one of the greatest challenges facing health and social care systems globally. It is associated with high rates of health service use, adverse healthcare events, and premature death. Despite its importance, little is known about the effects of contextual determinants such as household and area characteristics on health and care outcomes for people with multimorbidity. This study protocol presents a plan for the examination of associations between individual, household, and area characteristics with important health and social care outcomes. The study will use a cross-section of data from the SAIL Databank on 01 January 2019 and include all people alive and registered with a Welsh GP. The cohort will be stratified according to the presence or absence of multimorbidity, defined as two or more long-term conditions. Multilevel models will be used to examine covariates measured for individuals, households, and areas to account for social processes operating at different levels. The intra-class correlation coefficient will be calculated to determine the strength of association at each level of the hierarchy. Model outcomes will be any emergency department attendance, emergency hospital or care home admission, or mortality, within the study follow-up period. Household and area characteristics might act as protective or risk factors for health and care outcomes for people with multimorbidity, in which case results of the analyses can be used to guide clinical and policy responses for effective targeting of limited resources.

Assessing the roles of shape prototypicality and sexual dimorphism in ratings of the trustworthiness of faces

Perceptions of the trustworthiness of faces predict important social outcomes, including economic exchange and criminal sentencing decisions. However, the specific facial characteristics that drive trustworthiness perceptions remain poorly understood. Here we investigated this issue by exploring possible relationships between ratings of the trustworthiness of face images and objective assessments of two aspects of face shape that researchers have previously argued are important for perceptions of trustworthiness: distinctiveness and sexual dimorphism. Here we report that faces with more distinctive shapes are rated as less trustworthy, but that sexual dimorphism of face shape is not significantly correlated with trustworthiness ratings. These results suggest that distinctiveness of face shape plays a more important role in trustworthiness perceptions than does sexual dimorphism and suggest that perceptions of trustworthiness may stem, at least in part, from the ‘anomalous-is-bad’ stereotype.

Enhancing health outcomes for Māori elders through an intergenerational cultural exchange and physical activity programme: a cross-sectional baseline study.

The study offers baseline data for a strengths-based approach emphasizing intergenerational cultural knowledge exchange and physical activity developed through a partnership with kaumātua (Māori elders) and kaumātua service providers. The study aims to identify the baseline characteristics, along with correlates of five key outcomes. The study design is a cross-sectional survey. A total of 75 kaumātua from six providers completed two physical functioning tests and a survey that included dependent variables based in a holistic model of health: health-related quality of life (HRQOL), self-rated health, spirituality, life satisfaction, and loneliness. The findings indicate that there was good reliability and moderate scores on most variables. Specific correlates included the following: (a) HRQOL: emotional support (β = 0.31), and frequent interaction with a co-participant (β = 0.25); (b) self-rated health: frequency of moderate exercise (β = 0.32) and sense of purpose (β = 0.27); (c) spirituality: sense of purpose (β = 0.46), not needing additional help with daily tasks (β = 0.28), and level of confidence with cultural practices (β = 0.20); (d) life satisfaction: sense of purpose (β = 0.57), frequency of interaction with a co-participant (β = -0.30), emotional support (β = 0.25), and quality of relationship with a co-participant (β = 0.16); and (e) lower loneliness: emotional support (β = 0.27), enjoyment interacting with a co-participant (β = 0.25), sense of purpose (β = 0.24), not needing additional help with daily tasks (β = 0.28), and frequency of moderate exercise (β = 0.18). This study provides the baseline scores and correlates of important social and health outcomes for the He Huarahi Tautoko (Avenue of Support) programme, a strengths-based approach for enhancing cultural connection and physical activity.

Identifying the important social outcomes for childhood cancer survivors: an e-Delphi study protocol

IntroductionOptimising the health of childhood cancer survivors is important given the high long-term survival rate coupled with a significant late effects burden. Included within the WHO’s definition of ‘Health’ are...

Do Leaders Matter ? Evidence from 56 Years of U.S. Governor Successions

Societies are facing numerous grand challenges and leaders are increasingly counted on to provide solutions. Top-level institutional leaders are implicitly assumed to have an effect on important social and organizational outcomes. But can top-level leaders affect outcomes that unfold across space and time via various pathways? Some research streams have suggested that organizational outcomes may not be caused by, but are simply ascribed to the leader; leadership may merely be a social construction. We provide a rigorous test to determine whether leaders matter by exploiting a very controlled, though unusual leadership context, where leader discretion is large; that of U.S. state governors. This context allows us to estimate precisely what role top-level leaders may play in determining institutional outcomes, measured on a standard metric. We quantify the “leadership effect” in a sample of 500 governors across the 50 states of the U.S. and the district of Columbia. We use a custom likelihood function to implement state-of-the-science methodical advances in variance decomposition on a sample of 2,985 governor-time observations, covering the periods 1963 to 2019, to explain variance in real yearly Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth. After having partialed out time effects (0.47 of the variance in real yearly GDP growth), we show that governors are responsible for 4.45% of the variation in real GDP growth, while state-effects only account for 1.45% of the variation in real yearly GDP growth. Our results contradict earlier research suggesting that top-level leadership may not matter (e.g., Salancik & Pfeffer, 1977). Keywords: Leadership, Variance decomposition, Economic growth, Leader performance, GDP, Political Leadership, Maximum likelihood, Autoregression.

Contests with gender bias: evidence from a culinary competition

ABSTRACT Multi-round contest competition determines many important social and economic outcomes such as employment, promotion, political office, as well as singing, debate, and culinary championships. The competitors in such a contest often belong to different groups based on race, ethnicity, and gender. We examine how favouritism in beliefs about ability affects both who wins the contest and the timing of being voted out. The results are tested using novel data from the culinary competition Chopped. We find that female contestants are more likely to be voted out early, but females who survive to the second half of the contest have a good chance to win. These results support an argument of gender bias by the judges.

Patients’ experiences with rehabilitation care: a qualitative study to inform patient-centred outcomes

Purpose To explore patients’ experiences with rehabilitation, with a particular focus on outcomes that are perceived to be of value. Materials and methods Semi structured interviews were conducted with adults who recently had rehabilitation for a chronic health condition in a hospital or community setting. Banja’s definition of rehabilitation (personally fulfilling, socially meaningful and functionally effective) informed the enquiry and interpretation of the findings. Thematic analysis was used to categorise the data into codes and themes. Results 16 people (40–84 years, 69% male, n = 11) participated in individual telephone-interviews, describing their perspectives on what mattered to them about rehabilitation. The themes generated from the data suggested that participants focused on important social, functional and personal outcomes, but also required two fundamental features in their rehabilitation, namely a personalised and relational experience and a clear understanding of their own progress delivered in a way that is meaningful to them. Conclusions People who undertake rehabilitation express diverse expectations when assessing their outcomes and progress, although common elements could be identified. Participants valued a number of key features about the delivery and evaluation of their rehabilitation. These features revolved around the personalisation of the process and having clarity about progress. Implications for rehabilitation Rehabilitation therapists should encourage ongoing personalised discussions about progress to promote clear and shared understanding of what clients and therapists expect, alongside the use of current available measures. Rehabilitation therapists should consider providing opportunities for participants to self-reflect about their experiences and modify their goals based on personal progress and deeper understanding of their circumstances. Rehabilitation therapists should consider assessing the extent to which the individual feels satisfied with and capable of achieving these outcomes before departing from the rehabilitation service. Overall, rehabilitation teams should think about spending more time with the patient to prioritise and understand their individual goals and values.

Imaginary worlds are awesome: Awe provides a key to understanding the individual and social functions of imaginary worlds.

Awe arises when one experiences something so extraordinary that it defies current understanding, prompting efforts to comprehend the initially incomprehensible. We situate awe within Dubourg and Baumard's framework for the prevalence and psychological underpinnings of imaginary worlds. We argue that imaginary worlds are powerful catalysts of awe, which, in turn, drive important individual and social outcomes.

Copresence With Virtual Humans in Mixed Reality: The Impact of Contextual Responsiveness on Social Perceptions.

Virtual humans (VHs)—automated, three-dimensional agents—can serve as realistic embodiments for social interactions with human users. Extant literature suggests that a user’s cognitive and affective responses toward a VH depend on the extent to which the interaction elicits a sense of copresence, or the subjective “sense of being together.” Furthermore, prior research has linked copresence to important social outcomes (e.g., likeability and trust), emphasizing the need to understand which factors contribute to this psychological state. Although there is some understanding of the determinants of copresence in virtual reality (VR) (cf. Oh et al., 2018), it is less known what determines copresence in mixed reality (MR), a modality wherein VHs have unique access to social cues in a “real-world” setting. In the current study, we examined the extent to which a VH’s responsiveness to events occurring in the user’s physical environment increased a sense of copresence and heightened affective connections to the VH. Participants (N = 65) engaged in two collaborative tasks with a (nonspeaking) VH using an MR headset. In the first task, no event in the participant’s physical environment would occur, which served as the control condition. In the second task, an event in the participants’ physical environment occurred, to which the VH either responded or ignored depending on the experimental condition. Copresence and interpersonal evaluations of the VHs were measured after each collaborative task via self-reported measures. Results show that when the VH responded to the physical event, participants experienced a significant stronger sense of copresence than when the VH did not respond. However, responsiveness did not elicit more positive evaluations toward the VH (likeability and emotional connectedness). This study is an integral first step in establishing how and when affective and cognitive components of evaluations during social interactions diverge. Importantly, the findings suggest that feeling copresence with VH in MR is partially determined by the VHs’ response to events in the actual physical environment shared by both interactants.

Infusing disability into coach education and development: a critical review and agenda for change

ABSTRACT Background The training of coaches is considered central to sustaining and improving the quality of sports provision. In Parasport, coaches are recognised at the highest level of international sport policy as performing a central role in achieving important sporting and social outcomes related to disabled people. However, an emerging body of evidence suggests that formal coach education plays only a minor role in Parasport coaches’ development. To ensure equitable access and quality experiences and opportunities for disabled people in sport there is an ongoing challenge to theorise and implement the optimal structure for educating coaches. Purpose The purpose of this paper is to address the central theme of disability and coach education reform in sport. The aim is to review critically the emerging literature on coach development in Parasport to provide some clarity and consensus on existing pathways and models for coach development, before outlining some potential ways forward for coach education. Discussion and Conclusions Starting with a critical review of existing research on coaches’ learning and development in Parasport, we then examine potential approaches to coach education, providing examples from existing research in coaching and the wider field of education. This is followed by some modest suggestions for coach education reform as it pertains to the inclusion of disability.