Ecological Origins of Freedom: Pathogens, Heat Stress, and Frontier Topography Predict More Vertical but Less Horizontal Governmental Restriction.

What kinds of physical environments make for free societies? The present research investigates the effect of three different types of ecological stressors (climate stress, pathogen stress, and frontier topography) on two measurements of governmental restriction: Vertical restriction involves select persons imposing asymmetrical laws on others, while horizontal restriction involves laws that restrict most members of a society equally. Investigation 1 validates our measurements of vertical and horizontal restriction. Investigation 2 demonstrates that, across both U.

The biological roots of complex thinking: are heritable attitudes more complex?

Are highly heritable attitudes more or less complex than less heritable attitudes? Over 2,000 participant responses on topics varying in heritability were coded for overall integrative complexity and its 2 subcomponents (dialectical complexity and elaborative complexity). Across different heritability sets drawn from 2 separate prior twin research programs, the present results yielded a consistent pattern: Heritability was always significantly positively correlated with integrative complexity. Further analyses of the subcomponents suggested that the manner in which complexity was expressed differed by topic type: For societal topics, heritable attitudes were more likely to be expressed in dialectically complex terms, whereas for personally involving topics, heritable attitudes were more likely to be expressed in elaboratively complex terms.

Two ways to be complex and why they matter: implications for attitude strength and lying.

Integrative complexity broadly measures the structural complexity of statements. This breadth, although beneficial in multiple ways, can potentially hamper the development of specific theories. In response, the authors developed a model of complex thinking, focusing on 2 different ways that people can be complex within the integrative complexity system and subsequently developed measurements of each of these 2 routes: Dialectical complexity focuses on a dialectical tension between 2 or more competing perspectives, whereas elaborative complexity focuses on complexly elaborating on 1 singular perspective.