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People with low self-esteem post more negative updates, which makes them less likeable. On the surface, Facebook would seem to offer important benefits to people who have low self-esteem. Sharing is easy and feels safe on Facebook, and sharing is an important way to improve friendships. Having a stable network of social connections helps to improve self-esteem. In reality, though, it may not work out that way. A new study conducted by Amanda Forest and Joanne Wood of the University of Waterloo found that people with low self-esteem tend to post too many negative updates, causing friends to see them as less likeable. The study will be published in the journal Psychological Science . Initially, the researchers, who have a special focus on self-esteem and how it impacts which emotions people express, thought that Facebook would be an ideal venue for people to go to learn social skills and improve friendships. People who have lower self-esteem typically find it hard to share their feelings in a one-on-one setting. However, Facebook allows users to share and have social interactions without the need for face-to-face contact. The researchers found that participants with low self-esteem often view Facebook as a chance to connect and interact with others in a safe setting without the awkwardness they often feel in live, in-person social settings. Participants were also asked to provide the ten most recent updates about their life that they posted for their Facebook friends to see. The updates were rated for negativity, then an undergraduate research assistant went through the updates and indicated how likeable they found the person who made the statements from the updates. Participants who had low self-esteem tended to post updates that were more negative on average. In turn, the assistants who rated their updates tended to find them less likeable than people with higher self-esteem. Although the raters did not know the people who posted the updates, according to Forest, a previous study showed that almost half of the friends people list on Facebook are strangers or mere acquaintances, rather than close friends. The study found that when participants with low self-esteem placed very positive messages on their pages, they received more responses from members of their actual Facebook friends list than they did when they placed negative or neutral messages on Facebook. However, participants who had high self-esteem got more responses from their friends when they posted negative messages. Forest and Wood speculate that this may be because, in both cases, these types of posts are more unusual for these users. The investigators concluded that, while people who have low self-esteem may be more willing to share on Facebook, they might not receive the same benefits from doing so that they would get from face-to-face encounters. This is because people may not be as willing to provide feedback on Facebook the way they might in person. According to Forest, in a live social setting, people may be able to pick up on a friend’s negative reaction to to something they said. “On Facebook, you don’t see most of the reactions.” Related posts: Facebook positively influences education, study says Facebook’s Effect on Interpersonal Relationships [Infographic] Almost Half of Facebook Users Have Profanity on Their Wall

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Don’t Use Facebook If You Have Low Self-Esteem [Study]

How different are we? The issue of whether the differences between men and women are real or imaginary has been a matter of much debate. Now a new study conducted by the University of Turin in Italy and published in the journal PLoS ONE claims to have uncovered evidence that large differences in personality exist between men and women. Previous research has lent little credence to the popular school of thought that men and women are so different that they may as well live on different planets. However, lead author Marco Del Giudice claims to have developed a more accurate method to measure and analyze what he says are significant personality differences between men and women. Under Del Giudice, investigators took personality measurements from more than 5,000 men and 5,000 women. They measured 15 different traits, including warmth and sensitivity. Unlike previous studies, Del Giudice’s project compared comprehensive personality profiles that considered many different traits, rather than focusing upon differences in the incidence of individual traits between the sexes. When the data is looked at this way, very large differences between men and women are seen. Del Giudice admits that these individual differences, taken separately, do appear much less significant. He contends, however, that previous researchers not only neglected to correct for measurement errors, but that their practice of looking at one trait at a time obscured the big picture. As a result, according to Del Giudice, previous investigators failed to recognize the full extent of personality differences between men and women. Related posts: Beautiful people convey personality traits better during first impressions Study Finds Surprising Gender Differences Related to Sexual Harassment Evidence Says Women Are Better Multitaskers Than Men [Study]

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Significant Personality Differences Between Men And Women Found [Study]

Forked Fungus Beetles Maybe they are your younger brother’s gang. Maybe they are the guys you hung out with in high school before you had your growth spurt and went off to college. Regardless of how you know them, chances are you can name a group of guys who live their lives like perpetual middle-schoolers, hanging out with each other but rarely dating and never really establishing long-term romantic relationships. A new study by evolutionary biologists from the University of Virginia’s College of Arts & Sciences takes a closer look at these males who live on the fringes of the social world in order to determine how social interactions shape and are shaped by natural selection. Like many other insects, forked fungus beetles live in complex societies. While most of them live highly engaged social lives, a surprising minority have a lot in common with the former members of your old garage band. You know; the ones who are always trying to get you to ditch the wife and kids and come hang out like you used to back in the good old days. These beetles spend most of their time in small groups composed solely of males. The biologists, led by Vince Formica and Butch Broody, could not help noticing what your wife remarked on from day one: The males in these groups were less likely to have encounters with females that lead to mating and reproduction. Formica and Brodie are interested in what happens in beetle societies because social interactions are inextricably intertwined with natural selection, which is Darwin’s term for the natural process that occurs when members of a species possess characteristics that help them survive and pass those beneficial characteristics on to their offspring. The flip side of the evolutionary coin is that characteristics that tend to get members of a species killed at an early age or that make them less likely to mate often die along with the childless individuals who possess them. Formica and Brodie, both from the University of Virginia’s College of Arts & Sciences, conducted their research on the evolution of social behavior by studying the society-in-miniature that is the milieu of the forked fungus beetle. Specifically, their team wondered whether a beetle’s social role had any connection to its chances of producing offspring. The results of their investigation were published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology . Forked fungus beetles were chosen as subjects because in addition to their rich social life, they were readily available for the researchers to study in the wild and they can easily be captured, tagged and observed. Once the beetles were tagged for easy tracking, the researchers were able to observe and map their social activities. The research team noticed that the beetles with the most active social lives had large social circles and had a lot of sexual encounters, leading to a lot of reproduction on their part. The males with small social circles made up of just a few males rarely had social encounters with females and had little opportunity to pass their genes on to a new generation. According to Formica, learning how social networks operate is crucial to understanding the evolution of societies. “We’ve shown that the trait of sociability is under natural selection, but we don’t know yet if it’s heritable,” he said. “This is one of only a few studies that have shown that position in a social network is a trait that can experience natural selection and therefore has the potential to evolve. It is clear in this study that being central in a large social network is key to high reproductive success. If a trait – such as an individual’s position in a network – is related to reproductive success, you can say it is experiencing natural selection and has the potential to evolve.” Related posts: Social Network Analysis and the Dynamics of Web-Based Networking [Study]

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Want More Sex? Widen Your Social Network, Beetle Research Says

It may be that evolution has molded men to respond with aggression towards anyone they perceive to be an outsider, according to a new study published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Lead researcher Mark van Vugt conducted a review of prior studies in an attempt to support or discredit what has been called the “male warrior hypothesis.” Van Vugt concluded that there was evidence for the existence of an instinct for violence against outsiders. This instinct was very useful during humanity’s hunter-gatherer period, in part because it helped males gain status and improved their access to potential mates. However, it is not as adaptive in today’s world, leading to conflicts that arise over what appear to observers to be trifling issues. These conflicts range from disputes between supporters of rival sports teams to full-scale wars over territorial boundaries. According to Van Vugt, the available evidence suggests that hunter-gatherers frequently fought over resources and took women as the spoils of victory. Men who were more aggressive killed less aggressive men and produced children with their widows, effectively removing from the gene pool men who lacked the genetic predisposition towards belligerence. This trend continued into more recent history, with famous examples including Ghengis Khan, who is believed to have 16 million direct male descendants due to his combined military and sexual conquests, and the Vikings, whose genes made their way to areas as diverse as the Scottish Western Isles and North America. Indeed, a 2008 study conducted by researchers in California showed that genes heavily influence traits like aggression. Women, on the other hand, may have been more likely to survive the upheaval of conquest and enemy occupation if they possessed what researchers call a tendency to “tend and befriend” outsiders. Women who were more likely to resolve conflicts peacefully even at great personal cost may have been more likely to survive and to pass their pacifistic tendencies on to their daughters. Van Vugt asserts that men in every culture throughout history are more apt than women to become violent upon encountering outsiders. He cites evidence that men identify more strongly with their groups and that pulling together to defeat a common enemy helps men to develop stronger relationships with each other. The tendency to respond with aggression towards rival groups probably served to protect the group and make it less vulnerable to attack. Taking the fight away from the women and infants and into the surrounding area before a potential enemy has an opportunity to behave aggressively is an age-old defense tactic, after all. However, in today’s world of professional armies, when most men are no longer the only thing standing between their pregnant wives and infants and invading marauders, this trait often results in unnecessary violence. “A solution to conflict, which is an all too common problem in societies today, remains elusive. One reason for this might be the difficulty we have in changing our mindset, which has evolved over thousands of years,” wrote Van Vugt. “Our review of the academic literature suggests that the human mind is shaped in a way that tends to perpetuate conflict with outsiders.” Related posts: Male and Female Rappers Have Two Different Perspectives About the Definition of the “Independent Woman”

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Male Sex Drive: The Root of World Conflicts [Study]

A British couple who kept their child’s gender a secret for five years have revealed that the child is male. Beck Laxton and Kieran Cooper say that they kept their son’s sex under wraps because they wanted him to grow up free from society’s preconceived ideas about what constitutes gender-appropriate behavior. The couple, who asked their midwives to withhold information even from them about the child’s gender for a half-hour after his birth, named their child Sasha and referred to him as “the infant,” rather than using gender-specific pronouns. Until recently, even most of the child’s relatives were uncertain whether Sasha was a girl or a boy. Sasha’s parents allowed no television in their home and restricted him to gender-neutral toys. Rather than restricting him to gender-neutral clothing, however, they dressed him in boys’ clothing and girls’ clothing on alternate days. Sasha’s enrollment in school prompted the decision to finally reveal his gender. His parents say that it became too difficult to keep Sasha’s gender a secret once he was attending school regularly. Laxton and Cooper are still unwilling to bow to convention, however. Even though his fellow students now know that Sasha is a boy, his school uniform still contains the same shirt girls at his school wear, complete with feminine gathers across the front. Further, his parents encourage him to wear flowered blouses on weekends. In an interview, Laxton stated that she wanted to avoid exposing Sasha to gender stereotyping because she considers it “fundamentally stupid,” and reported that she considers her own early gender conditioning harmful. “Gender affects what children wear and what they can play with, and that shapes the kind of person they become…I just want him to fulfill his potential, and I wouldn’t push him in any direction.” Decades ago, psychologist Sandra Bem pioneered the idea that masculine and feminine gender roles are restrictive and advanced the theory that androgyny is healthier. Although she later revised her theories somewhat, Bem attempted to raise her children without confining them to gender roles. However, she never tried to hide their sex or to force them to be gender neutral. Psychologist Daragh McDermott, of Anglia Ruskin University, said that no one knows how raising a child to be gender neutral will affect the child because there has been little research conducted on the subject. However, he points out that it is impossible to raise a child without exposure to gender conditioning or stereotypes, since school, the media and society in general consciously and unconsciously enforce society’s gender roles. Studies have shown that even parents unconsciously reinforce gender norms during their interactions with their newborn infants. No matter what parents do, he says, children will develop their own gender identification, whether masculine, feminine or gender-neutral. Related posts: Being An Only Child Does Not Hurt Social Skills Gender Gap In Spatial Ability Can Be Reduced Through Training Gender Wage Gap [Infographic]

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Child Raised ‘Gender Neutral’ to Avoid Stereotyping

“The art of storytelling has remained unchanged and for the most part stories are recycled, but the way that humans tell the stories has always evolved with pure consistent novelty,” says iPad storyteller Joe Sabia. From cave walls to books, opera to vaudeville, radio to radio theater, silent films and now 3D movies, we are constantly embracing new technologies that help enhance our stories. Through a story of his own filled with music, video, and pictures all delivered over his iPad, Sabia gives us some insight into the history how stories have evolved over the years. And while he covers many mediums, he gives credit to one man for kickstarting this evolution: Lothar Meggendorfer, the creator of popup books. Related posts: The Art of Purposeful Storytelling

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The Technology of Storytelling