Shoes as a source of first impressions

Surprisingly minimal appearance cues lead perceivers to accurately judge others’ personality, status, or politics. We investigated people’s precision in judging characteristics of an unknown person, based solely on the shoes he or she wears most often. Participants provided photographs of their shoes, and during a separate session completed self-report measures. Coders rated the shoes on various dimensions, and these ratings were found to correlate with the owners’ personal characteristics. A new group of participants accurately judged the age, gender, income, and attachment anxiety of shoe owners based solely on the pictures. Shoes can indeed be used to evaluate others, at least in some domains.     

Re-reading Anscombe on ‘I’

According to a ‘Straight’ reading of Elizabeth Anscombe’s (1975 Anscombe, E. 1975. “The First Person.” In her Mind and Language, edited by S. Guttenplan, 45–65. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]) ‘The First Person’, she holds a radically non-referring view of ‘I’. Specifically, ‘I’ is analogous to the expletive ‘it’ in ‘It’s raining’. I argue that this is not her conclusion. Her substantive view, rather is that if what you mean by ‘reference’ is a certain rich and recherché notion tracing to Frege, then ‘I’ is not a referring term. Her methodological point is that one shouldn’t be ‘bewitched by language’ into thinking that ‘I’, because of its syntax, must exhibit ‘reference’ in this sense.     

Confidence of social judgments is not just error: Individual differences in the structure,stability, and social functions of perceptual confidence

The present research uses a Social Relations Model approach to focus on individual differences in perceptual confidence – a person’s confidence in her or his impressions of others. Across two samples of group interactions, we found that the majority of variance in perceptual confidence was explained by individual differences in how people tended to perceive others (i.e., perceiver effects). A smaller percentage of variance was explained by differences in how people tended to be perceived by others (i.e., target effects). Both these individual differences were stable over time, were related to relevant personality measures, and group outcomes. Together, these results demonstrate that although perceptual confidence may not be substantially related to accuracy, it exists as a stable individual difference dimension that has important consequences for social interactions.     

THE CLASSICAL CONFUCIAN POSITION ON THE LEGITIMATE USE OF MILITARY FORCE

Focusing on the thought of Mencius and Xunzi, this essay reconstructs and examines the classical Confucian position on the legitimate use of military force. It begins by sketching historically important political concepts, such as types of political leaders, politics of the kingly way versus politics of the hegemonic way, and the controversial role of lords‐protector. It then moves on to explore Confucian criteria for justifying resort to the use of force, giving special attention to undertaking punitive expeditions to interdict and punish aggression and tyranny. Following this discussion, the essay then attends to important Confucian moral constraints on how military force is properly employed, including prohibitions on attacking the defenseless, indiscriminate slaughter of enemy forces, destruction of civilian infrastructure, prisoner abuse, and non‐consensual annexation of territory. The essay concludes by first discussing an illustrative case from Mencius and then comparing its reconstruction of the Confucian position to those offered by other scholars.     

Are some first dates easier to read than others? The role of target well-being in distinctively accurate first impressions

Some people are open books, with their distinctive personalities being accurately perceived after a brief interaction, whereas others are harder to read. Such open books have in turn been found to have greater well-being, at least within lower-stakes, platonic getting-acquainted interactions. Do individual differences in expressive accuracy emerge in higher-stakes settings, such as first dates, and are people higher in well-being still easier to read? Using a speed-dating paradigm (N = 372; N_dyads = 4723), accuracy on average was significant but relatively low. Nevertheless, strong individual differences in expressive accuracy emerged and were associated with well-being. In sum, although it may be more difficult to form accurate impressions on first dates, targets higher in well-being may make the task easier.     

Mental health and quality of life in non-binary transgender adults: a case control study

Abstract

Background: The social challenges that non-binary people experience, due in part to social intolerance and the lack of validation of non-binary gender identities, may affect the mental health and quality of life of this population. However, studies that have distinguished between non-binary and binary transgender identities are lacking.

Aim: To compare the mental health and quality of life of a community sample of non-binary transgender adults with controls (binary transgender people and cisgender people) matched on sex assigned at birth.

Method: A total of 526 participants were included. Ninety-seven were classified as non-binary and were compared with two control groups: 91 people classified as binary and 338 cisgender people. Only transgender people not on gender affirming hormone treatment or who had not undergone gender affirming surgery were included. Participants were invited to complete an online survey that included mental health and quality of life measures.

Results: Non-binary people reported significantly better mental health than binary transgender people, but worse than cisgender people. Overall, there were no significant differences in quality of life between non-binary and binary transgender participants assigned male at birth and transgender females, but non-binary assigned males at birth had better scores on the psychological and social domains of quality of life than transgender males. Quality of life was better across all domains in cisgender people than transgender groups.

Conclusion: There is an inequality with regard to mental health and quality of life between non-binary (and binary) transgender people and the cisgender population that needs to be addressed. The better mental health scores in non-binary people may reflect lower levels of body dissatisfaction among the non-binary population. Mental health problems and poor quality of life are likely to have social causes and hence legislative measures and broader government-led inclusive directives should be put in place to recognize and to validate non-binary identifying people.