Being there: a brief visit to a neighbourhood induces the social attitudes of that neighbourhood

Desperation and inequality increase stealing: evidence from experimental microsocieties

People facing material deprivation are more likely to turn to acquisitive crime. It is not clear why it makes sense for them to do so, given that apprehension and punishment may make their situation even worse. Recent theory suggests that people should be more willing to steal if they are on the wrong side of a 'desperation threshold'; that is, a level of resources critical to wellbeing. Below such a threshold, people should pursue any risky behaviour that offers the possibility of a short route back above, and should be insensitive to the severity of possible punishments, since they have little left to lose. We developed a multi-round, multi-player economic game with a desperation threshold and the possibility of theft as well as cooperation. Across four experiments with 1000 UK and US adults, we showed that falling short of a desperation threshold increased stealing from other players, even when the payoff from stealing was negative on average. Within the microsocieties created in the game, the presence of more players with below-threshold resources produced low trust, driven by the experience of being stolen from. Contrary to predictions, our participants appeared to be somewhat sensitive to the severity of punishment for being caught trying to steal. Our results show, in an experimental microcosm, that some members of society falling short of a threshold of material desperation can have powerful social consequences.

Opening the black box of the relationship between neighborhood socioeconomic status and mental health: Neighborhood social-interactive characteristics as contextual mechanisms

Previous studies have linked low neighborhood socioeconomic status (NSES) to mental health problems. However, few studies have investigated the mechanisms underlying this association and most focused on the association with negative indicators of mental health, such as symptoms of depression or anxiety. This paper investigated whether neighborhood social characteristics (social interaction, trust, safety, organization participation, and attachment) mediate the association between NSES and mental health. We combined Danish register data with survey data from the North Denmark Region Health Survey 2017. Mental health was assessed with the Rand 12-item Short-form Survey (SF-12). The sample consisted of 14,969 individuals nested in 1047 neighborhoods created with an automated redistricting algorithm. We fitted multilevel structural equation mediation models and used a Monte Carlo simulation method to estimate confidence intervals for the indirect effects. NSES was positively associated with mental health. Neighborhood trust significantly mediated this relationship, accounting for 34% of the association after controlling for other mediators. These results indicate that higher levels of mental health in more affluent neighborhoods are partially explained by higher levels of trust. Improving neighborhood trust could mitigate sociogeographic inequalities in mental health.

Understanding urbanicity: how interdisciplinary methods help to unravel the effects of the city on mental health

Twenty-first century urbanization poses increasing challenges for mental health. Epidemiological studies have shown that mental health problems often accumulate in urban areas, compared to rural areas, and suggested possible underlying causes associated with the social and physical urban environments. Emerging work indicates complex urban effects that depend on many individual and contextual factors at the neighbourhood and country level and novel experimental work is starting to dissect potential underlying mechanisms. This review summarizes findings from epidemiology and population-based studies, neuroscience, experimental and experience-based research and illustrates how a combined approach can move the field towards an increased understanding of the urbanicity-mental health nexus.

Neighbourhood wealth, not urbanicity, predicts prosociality towards strangers

Urbanization is perhaps the most significant and rapid cause of demographic change in human societies, with more than half the world's population now living in cities. Urban lifestyles have been associated with increased risk for mental disorders, greater stress responses, and lower trust. However, it is not known whether a general tendency towards prosocial behaviour varies across the urban-rural gradient, or whether other factors such as neighbourhood wealth might be more predictive of variation in prosocial behaviour. Here, we present findings from three real-world experiments conducted in 37 different neighbourhoods, in 12 cities and 12 towns and villages across the UK. We measured whether people: (i) posted a lost letter; (ii) returned a dropped item; and (iii) stopped to let someone cross the road in each neighbourhood. We expected to find that people were less willing to help a stranger in more urban locations, with increased diffusion of responsibility and perceived anonymity in cities being measured as variables that might drive this effect. Our data did not support this hypothesis. There was no effect of either urbanicity or population density on people's willingness to help a stranger. Instead, the neighbourhood level of deprivation explained most of the variance in helping behaviour with help being offered less frequently in more deprived neighbourhoods. These findings highlight the importance of socio-economic factors, rather than urbanicity per se, in shaping variation in prosocial behaviour in humans.

Environmental adversity is associated with lower investment in collective actions

Environmental adversity is associated with a wide range of biological outcomes and behaviors that seem to fulfill a need to favor immediate over long-term benefits. Adversity is also associated with decreased investment in cooperation, which is defined as a long-term strategy. Beyond establishing the correlation between adversity and cooperation, the channel through which this relationship arises remains unclear. We propose that this relationship is mediated by a present bias at the psychological level, which is embodied in the reproduction-maintenance trade-off at the biological level. We report two pre-registered studies applying structural equation models to test this relationship on large-scale datasets (the European Values Study and the World Values Survey). The present study replicates existing research linking adverse environments (both in childhood and in adulthood) with decreased investment in adult cooperation and finds that this association is indeed mediated by variations in individuals’ reproduction-maintenance trade-off.

Brief Exposure to Pictures Depicting Poor Environments Leads to Increased Consumption of Beer in Adult Social Drinkers

Previous studies have suggested a trait-like association between neighborhood deprivation and alcohol consumption. However, it is not known whether temporarily manipulating poverty and affluence states by exposure to stimuli signifying resource-scarcity or resource-wealth would influence alcohol-seeking behavior. Here, we aimed to investigate whether implicit exposure to affluence and poverty-related pictures would influence beer consumption. Participants in a "poverty" group viewed pictures depicting impoverished environments, and participants in an "affluence" group viewed images of wealthy environments. After priming, participants were provided with nonalcoholic beer (which they were told was alcohol-containing beer) and orange juice under the guise of a bogus taste test, to measure their alcohol-seeking behavior. Results showed that priming participants with a resource-scarce environment led to an increase in beer consumption (as a percentage of total fluid consumed), compared to priming with a resource-rich environment. The same pattern of results was obtained in both a Western European sample (Experiment 1) and a West Indian sample (Experiment 2). In Experiment 2, we also tested whether risk-taking behavior, measured by the Balloon Analogue Risk Task, was influenced by the environmental priming; no differences between groups were observed. These results provide the first experimental evidence that manipulation of poverty-affluence state, by brief exposure to pictures of impoverished or wealthy neighborhoods, can influence alcohol-seeking behavior in adult social drinkers.

Perceived neighbourhood affluence, mental health and wellbeing influence judgements of threat and trust on our streets: An urban walking study

This study aimed to understand how people respond to different urban neighbourhoods. We explored whether participants' mental health and wellbeing, judgements of resident wealth, family SES and sentiments reflected in descriptions of place features predicted in situ sense of threat and trust. Forty-six student participants walked in groups through 2 urban neighbourhoods, separated by a park, in the North West of England, noting responses at pre-determined stops. Significant differences existed in participants' sense of trust and threat between the 2 neighbourhoods along with differences in perceived resident wealth and sentiments expressed. Participants' levels of persecutory ideas and their sense of residents' wealth predicted in situ trust in both neighbourhoods while level of personal resilience predicted the extent of threat felt in the more deprived neighbourhood. Demonstrating the value of the method, these findings have implications for the governance of urban neighbourhoods whereby obvious cues signalling a harsh environment need to be minimised to create more positive psychological responses to places.

General trust impedes perception of self-reported primary psychopathy in thin slices of social interaction

Little is known about people's ability to detect subclinical psychopathy from others' quotidian social behavior, or about the correlates of variation in this ability. This study sought to address these questions using a thin slice personality judgment paradigm. We presented 108 undergraduate judges (70.4% female) with 1.5 minute video thin slices of zero-acquaintance triadic conversations among other undergraduates (targets: n = 105, 57.1% female). Judges completed self-report measures of general trust, caution, and empathy. Target individuals had completed the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy (LSRP) scale. Judges viewed the videos in one of three conditions: complete audio, silent, or audio from which semantic content had been removed using low-pass filtering. Using a novel other-rating version of the LSRP, judges' ratings of targets' primary psychopathy levels were significantly positively associated with targets' self-reports, but only in the complete audio condition. Judge general trust and target LSRP interacted, such that judges higher in general trust made less accurate judgments with respect to targets higher in primary and total psychopathy. Results are consistent with a scenario in which psychopathic traits are maintained in human populations by negative frequency dependent selection operating through the costs of detecting psychopathy in others.

Human Life History Strategies

Human life history (LH) strategies are theoretically regulated by developmental exposure to environmental cues that ancestrally predicted LH-relevant world states (e.g., risk of morbidity-mortality). Recent modeling work has raised the question of whether the association of childhood family factors with adult LH variation arises via (i) direct sampling of external environmental cues during development and/or (ii) calibration of LH strategies to internal somatic condition (i.e., health), which itself reflects exposure to variably favorable environments. The present research tested between these possibilities through three online surveys involving a total of over 26,000 participants. Participants completed questionnaires assessing components of self-reported environmental harshness (i.e., socioeconomic status, family neglect, and neighborhood crime), health status, and various LH-related psychological and behavioral phenotypes (e.g., mating strategies, paranoia, and anxiety), modeled as a unidimensional latent variable. Structural equation models suggested that exposure to harsh ecologies had direct effects on latent LH strategy as well as indirect effects on latent LH strategy mediated via health status. These findings suggest that human LH strategies may be calibrated to both external and internal cues and that such calibrational effects manifest in a wide range of psychological and behavioral phenotypes.

Knowing your neighbourhood: local ecology and personal experience predict neighbourhood perceptions in Belfast, Northern Ireland

Evolutionary theory predicts that humans should adjust their life-history strategies in response to local ecological threats and opportunities in order to maximize their reproductive success. Cues representing threats to individuals' lives and health in modern, Western societies may come in the form of local ages at death, morbidity rate and crime rate in their local area, whereas the adult sex ratio represents a measure of the competition for reproductive partners. These characteristics are believed to have a strong influence over a wide range of behaviours, but whether they are accurately perceived has not been robustly tested. Here, we investigate whether perceptions of four neighbourhood characteristics are accurate across eight neighbourhoods in Belfast, Northern Ireland. We find that median age at death and morbidity rates are accurately perceived, whereas adult sex ratios and crime rates are not. We suggest that both neighbourhood characteristics and personal experiences contribute to the formation of perceptions. This should be considered by researchers looking for associations between area-level factors.

Effects of local extrinsic mortality rate, crime and sex ratio on preventable death in Northern Ireland

Variation in preventable death can be understood from an evolutionary life history perspective. However, previous studies have failed to isolate ecological effects on preventable death. We use population-wide Census data from Northern Ireland and find that extrinsic mortality rate and crime, but not sex ratio, impacts on male preventable death.

Background and objectives: Individual investment in health varies greatly within populations and results in significant differences in the risk of preventable death. Life history theory predicts that individuals should alter their investment in health (somatic maintenance) in response to ecological cues that shift the perceived fitness payoffs to such investments. However, previous research has failed to isolate the effects of different ecological factors on preventable death, and has often relied on macro-level data without individual controls. Here, we test some key predictions concerning the local ecology—that higher extrinsic mortality rate (EMR), crime rate and mate-scarcity (male/female-biased sex ratio) at the ward-level—will be associated with a higher risk of preventable death.

Methodology: We use census-based data from Northern Ireland (n = 927 150) on preventable death during an 8.7-year period from the 2001 Census and run Cox regressions for (i) accident/suicide or alcohol-related death and (ii) deaths from preventable diseases, for men and women separately, controlling for a wide range of individual variables.

Results: We find evidence of ward-level EMR and crime rate being positively associated with preventable death among men, particularly men with low socioeconomic position. There was a tentative relationship between male-biased sex ratio and preventable death among women, but not among men.

Conclusion and implications: Both behaviours that might lead to ‘risky’ death and health neglect might be adaptive responses to local ecologies. Efforts to reduce crime might be as effective as those to reduce extrinsic mortality, and both could have positive effects on various health behaviours.

The association between social capital and quality of life among type 2 diabetes patients in Anhui province, China: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND

To investigate the association between social capital and quality of life among type 2 diabetes patients in Anhui province, China.

METHODS

In a cross-sectional study, 436 adults with type 2 diabetes were interviewed. The two domains of Quality of life, physical component summary (PCS) and mental component summary (MCS), were measured using the Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36). A modified instrument scale was used to measure cognitive and structural social capital. Multiple logistic regression models were used to assess the associations between social capital and quality of life, adjusting for social economic status and risk factors for health.

RESULTS

24.3 % of participants (106) were in poor PCS and 25.0 % (109) in poor MCS. The proportions of participants who had low cognitive and structural social capital were 47.0 % (205) and 64.4 % (281), respectively. Results of logistic regression models showed that cognitive social capital was positively associated with PCS (OR = 1.84; 95 % CI: 1.12, 3.02) and MCS (OR = 1.65; 95 % CI: 1.03, 2.66). However, the associations between structural social capital and PCS (OR = 0.80, 95 % CI: 0.48, 1.34) and MCS (OR = 0.62; 95 % CI: 0.38, 1.01) were not statistically significant.

CONCLUSIONS

It is the first study in China to investigate associations between quality of life and social capital in type 2 diabetes. Findings document that cognitive social capital is associated with the quality of life of type 2 diabetes patients. Our study suggests that the social capital theory may provide a new approach to increase physical resources in diabetes prevention and control, especially in Low and Middle Income countries (LMICs).

Childhood socioeconomic deprivation, but not current mood, is associated with behavioural disinhibition in adults

There is evidence to suggest that impulsivity is predicted by socioeconomic background, with people from more deprived backgrounds tending to be more impulsive, and by current mood, with poorer mood associated with greater impulsivity. However, impulsivity is not a unitary construct, and previous research in this area has focused on measures of ‘waiting’ impulsivity rather than behavioural disinhibition. We administered a standard measure of behavioural disinhibition, the stop-signal task, to 58 adult participants from a community sample. We had measured socioeconomic background using participant postcode at age 16, and assigned participants to receive either a neutral or a negative mood induction. We found no effects of mood on behavioural disinhibition, but we found a significant effect of socioeconomic background. Participants who had lived in more deprived postcodes at age 16 showed longer stop-signal reaction times, and hence greater behavioural disinhibition. The pattern was independent of participant age and overall reaction time. Though caution is required inferring causality from correlation, it is possible that that experiencing socioeconomic deprivation in childhood and adolescence may lead to greater behavioural disinhibition in adulthood.

The impact of social deprivation on paranoia, hallucinations, mania and depression: the role of discrimination social support, stress and trust

The negative implications of living in a socially unequal society are now well documented. However, there is poor understanding of the pathways from specific environmental risk to symptoms. Here we examine the associations between social deprivation, depression, and psychotic symptoms using the 2007 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey, a cross-sectional dataset including 7,353 individuals. In addition we looked at the mediating role of stress, discrimination, trust and lack of social support. We found that the participants' neighbourhood index of multiple deprivation (IMD) significantly predicted psychosis and depression. On inspection of specific psychotic symptoms, IMD predicted paranoia, but not hallucinations or hypomania. Stress and trust partially mediated the relationship between IMD and paranoid ideation. Stress, trust and a lack of social support fully mediated the relationship between IMD and depression. Future research should focus on the role deprivation and social inequalities plays in specific manifestations of psychopathology and investigate mechanisms to explain those associations that occur. Targeting the mediating mechanisms through appropriate psychological intervention may go some way to dampen the negative consequences of living in an unjust society; ameliorating economic injustice may improve population mental health.

Local norms of cheating and the cultural evolution of crime and punishment: a study of two urban neighborhoods

The prevalence of antisocial behavior varies across time and place. The likelihood of committing such behavior is affected by, and also affects, the local social environment. To further our understanding of this dynamic process, we conducted two studies of antisocial behavior, punishment, and social norms. These studies took place in two neighborhoods in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England. According to a previous study, Neighborhood A enjoys relatively low frequencies of antisocial behavior and crime and high levels of social capital. In contrast, Neighborhood B is characterized by relatively high frequencies of antisocial behavior and crime and low levels of social capital. In Study 1, we used an economic game to assess neighborhood differences in theft, third-party punishment (3PP) of theft, and expectation of 3PP. Participants also reported their perceived neighborhood frequency of cooperative norm violation (“cheating”). Participants in Neighborhood B thought that their neighbors commonly cheat but did not condone cheating. They stole more money from their neighbors in the game, and were less punitive of those who did, than the residents of Neighborhood A. Perceived cheating was positively associated with theft, negatively associated with the expectation of 3PP, and central to the neighborhood difference. Lower trust in one’s neighbors and a greater subjective value of the monetary cost of punishment contributed to the reduced punishment observed in Neighborhood B. In Study 2, we examined the causality of cooperative norm violation on expectation of 3PP with a norms manipulation. Residents in Neighborhood B who were informed that cheating is locally uncommon were more expectant of 3PP. In sum, our results provide support for three potentially simultaneous positive feedback mechanisms by which the perception that others are behaving antisocially can lead to further antisocial behavior: (1) motivation to avoid being suckered, (2) decreased punishment of antisocial behavior, and (3) decreased expectation of punishment of antisocial behavior. Consideration of these mechanisms and of norm psychology will help us to understand how neighborhoods can descend into an antisocial culture and get stuck there.