Category: All

Perspective-taking—or putting yourself in our partner’s shoes—reduces the temptation to cheat, research finds.

It also inoculates against other partnership-destroying behaviors, according to the study in the Journal of Sex Research on the findings from three double-blind, randomized experiments.

People cheat for a variety of reasons, according to lead author Gurit Birnbaum, a professor of psychology at Reichman University’s Ivcher School of Psychology in Israel. Birnbaum notes that while people may be satisfied with their relationships, they may still betray their partners. For example, so-called “avoidant types” who feel uncomfortable with intimacy may try to maintain distance and control in their relationship by cheating.

Context is key.

“People often cheat not because they planned to do so,” Birnbaum says. “Rather, the opportunity presented itself and they were too depleted—too tired, too drunk, too distracted—to fight the temptation.”

Coauthor Harry Reis, a professor at the University of Rochester, agrees that there are multiple reasons for cheating. One of the more interesting ones, says Reis, author of Relationships, Well-Being and Behaviour (Routledge, 2018), is that men are more likely to cheat because they feel that their sexual needs are not being met. The evidence has shown that women, on the other hand, are more likely to cheat because they feel that their emotional needs aren’t met.

Across three studies, the 408 total participants (213 Israeli women and 195 Israeli men, ranging in age from 20 to 47) were randomly assigned to either adopt the perspective of their partner or not. The participants were uniformly in monogamous, mixed-sex relationships of at least four months. As part of the experiments, the participants evaluated, encountered, or thought about attractive strangers while the psychologists recorded their expressions of interest in these strangers, as well as their commitment to and desire for their current partners.

The researchers found that adopting a partner’s perspective increased commitment and desire for the partner, while simultaneously decreasing sexual and romantic interest in alternative mates. The findings suggest that perspective taking discourages people from engaging in behaviors that may hurt their partners and damage their relationship.

“Both partners may feel more satisfied with their relationship,” says Birnbaum, “and therefore might be less likely to cheat on each other, even if only one of them adopts this strategy.”

“Perspective taking doesn’t prevent you from cheating, but it lessens the desire to do so,” says Reis. Ultimately, he says, cheating means “prioritizing one’s own goals over the good of the partner and the relationship, so seeing things from the other person’s perspective gives one a more balanced view of these situations.”

According to Birnbaum, the findings can help people understand how to resist short-term temptations: “Active consideration of how romantic partners may be affected by these situations serves as a strategy that encourages people to control their responses to attractive alternative partners and derogate their attractiveness.”

The team did not test if the benefits of perspective taking extended to the participants’ romantic partners who were not part of the experiment. But the researchers have a hunch, because perspective taking generally promotes empathy, understanding, closeness, and caring.

“Both partners may feel more satisfied with their relationship,” says Birnbaum, “and therefore might be less likely to cheat on each other, even if only one of them adopts this strategy.”

Besides reducing the likelihood of infidelity, perspective taking motivates people to have compassion for their partners’ emotions and to seek to strengthen the bond with that partner, thereby boosting the existing relationship.

“People invariably feel better understood, and that makes it easier to resolve disagreements, to be appropriately but not intrusively helpful, and to share joys and accomplishments,” Reis says. “It’s one of those skills that can help people see the ‘us’—rather than the ‘me and you’—in a relationship.”

The research had support from the Israel Science Foundation and the Binational Science Foundation.

Source: University of Rochester

Geochemical evidence suggests that carbon dioxide levels may have been much lower millions of years before the emergence of large forests.

Over 400 million years ago, primitive shrub-like plants covered Earth’s continents. It was during the Devonian period, around 385 million years ago, when shrubs evolved into small trees and forests emerged.

From providing wildlife habitat to reducing erosion and absorbing CO₂ from the air, trees play an important role in maintaining a livable environment. So before trees, you might think CO₂ levels were higher, right?

The new findings, published in Nature Communications, run contrary to that assumption and previous estimates.

Christopher Junium, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences at Syracuse University and his collaborators, including the study’s lead author Tais W. Dahl, associate professor from the Globe Institute at the University of Copenhagen, found that the earliest vascular plants substantially reduced CO₂ levels long before the evolution of forests. This early CO₂ decline may have led to significant global cooling and glaciation during this period.

The team analyzed modern descendants of club mosses, plant fossils, and geochemical data and found that 410–380 million years ago, CO₂ levels were only modestly elevated compared to the present day—about 1.5 times greater than current levels, compared to up to 10 times greater, as previously estimated.

Using paleoclimate and earth systems modeling, they found that CO₂ decline and simultaneous oxygen (O₂) increase, even by the earliest land plants, was enough to have led to significant climatic cooling and partial glaciation, consistent with geological evidence.

Junium’s work on the project involved analyzing Early Devonian Period fossil plant materials for their carbon stable isotope composition. By comparing ratios of carbon, researchers can determine how plants incorporated carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into their tissues during photosynthesis.

“The specific values (of carbon isotopes) can help us determine the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,” says Junium, who conducted the research in his lab using an isotope-ratio mass spectrometer, which has been custom modified to allow for analysis of extremely precise nanomolar quantities of fossil carbon.

“The 410- to 380-million-year-old plant materials we analyzed were some of the oldest fossil vascular plants that colonized land before the rise of large forests. The analyses revealed that the ancient plant materials had carbon isotope compositions that were surprisingly similar to modern plants and suggested that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the Early Devonian was not as high as we had thought.”

The new analyses served as a starting point for a deep reexamination of the evidence for high carbon dioxide concentrations prior to the expansion of large forests.

“A new method has enabled us to calculate the CO₂ level in the atmosphere in the past based on plant fossils,” writes Dahl. “We initially applied the method to the time before forests emerged—a time which researchers agreed was characterized by high levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere. We used to think that the emergence of forests reduced the amount of atmospheric CO₂ on Earth. But instead of 4,000 parts per million (ppm), which is the amount researchers assumed was found on the planet back then, we have shown that the figure is close to 600 ppm, which is not far from the level we are approaching today.”

The team ultimately found that the emergence of large forests later in the Devonian may not have played as important of a role in decreasing carbon dioxide as previously thought, despite the fact that evidence suggests that the climate cooled considerably from the Early to the Late Devonian.

“The growth of smaller plants like those we analyzed appear to have induced changes in the terrestrial biosphere sufficient to decrease carbon dioxide and increase oxygen through the growth of soils and weathering of nutrient-rich rocks,” says Junium.

In terms of the study’s impact for the future of climate change, it underscores the growing consensus that Earth’s climate is highly sensitive to CO₂ levels and that efforts to limit further CO₂ increase can only improve the future outlook.

“Just because our results suggest that expansion of forests in the Devonian did not cause a dramatic decrease in carbon dioxide does not mean that afforestation—planting new forests on land without trees—is something we should not do,” says Junium. “Rather, climate mitigation practices need to involve decreasing emissions and multiple means for removing CO₂ from the atmosphere. Planting trees and evaluating ways to increase weathering will be important tools for long-term carbon dioxide reduction and stabilization.”

Dahl adds, “To understand how this works on a global scale, and what the consequences are, it is a good idea to look at what happened in the past when the Earth saw major changes and these mechanisms changed. And that is what this study does.”

Source: Syracuse University

The pace and extent of ice destabilization along West Antarctica’s coast varies according to differences in regional climate, according to a new study.

The researchers combined satellite imagery and climate and ocean records to obtain the most detailed understanding yet of how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet—which contains enough ice to raise global sea level by 11 feet, or 3.3 meters—is responding to climate change.

The findings in Nature Communications show that while the West Antarctic Ice Sheet continues to retreat, the pace of retreat slowed in a key region between 2003 and 2015, driven by ocean temperatures, which were in turn caused by variations in offshore winds.

The marine-based West Antarctic Ice Sheet, home to the vast and unstable Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers, sits on an underwater landmass peaking 1.5 miles, or 2.5 kilometers, below the ocean’s surface.

Since the early 1990s, scientists have observed an abrupt acceleration in ice melt, retreat, and speed in this area, which is attributed in part to human-induced climate change over the past century.

Previous studies indicated that the observed changes could be the onset of an irreversible, ice-sheet-wide collapse, which would continue independently of any further climate-driven influence.

“The idea that once a marine-based ice sheet passes a certain tipping point it will cause a runaway response has been widely reported,” says lead author Frazer Christie at Cambridge University. “Despite this, questions remain about the extent to which ongoing changes in climate still regulate ice losses along the entire West Antarctic coastline.”

Using observations collected by an array of satellites, the new study found pronounced regional variations in how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has changed since 2003 due to climate change, with the pace of retreat in the Amundsen Sea Sector, an area of West Antarctica facing the Pacific Ocean, having slowed significantly. That’s in contrast to the neighboring Bellingshausen Sea Sector, closer to the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, where glacier retreat accelerated during that time.

By analyzing climate and ocean records, the researchers linked these regional differences to changes in the strength and direction of offshore surface winds. When the prevailing westerly winds are stronger, more of the deeper, warmer ocean water reaches the surface and increases the rate of ice melt.

Researchers found that winds near the Amundsen Sector slackened between 2003 and 2015, because of a deepening of the Amundsen Sea low pressure system. This system is the key atmospheric circulation pattern in the region, and its center—near which changes in offshore wind strength are greatest—typically sits offshore of its namesake coast for most of the year.

The researchers found that the accelerated response of the glaciers flowing from the Bellingshausen Sea Sector can be explained by more constant winds there, causing more persistent ocean-driven melt.

Ultimately, the study illustrates the complexity of the competing ice, ocean, and atmosphere interactions driving shorter-term changes across West Antarctica, and raises important questions about how quickly the icy continent will evolve in a warming world.

“Ocean and atmospheric forcing mechanisms still really, really matter in West Antarctica,” says coauthor Eric Steig, a professor of earth and space sciences at the University of Washington. “That means that ice-sheet collapse is not inevitable. It depends on how climate changes over the next few decades, which we could influence in a positive way by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

And while the strength of the low-pressure cell in the Amundsen Sea is not necessarily tied to levels of greenhouse gases—itself an active area of study—the system’s influence shows that even the West Antarctic ice sheet is sensitive to weather and climate shifts.

Results show that changes in ocean, driven by changes in the winds, can slow down and even reverse the loss of ice, Steig says. But he points out that the effect is local and unlikely to last for more than a few decades.

“Only the most aggressive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions can plausibly turn the situation around in the long term,” Steig says.

Additional coauthors are from the University of Edinburgh. Support for the study came from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland; the Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment and Society; the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation; the UK Natural Environment Research Council; the US National Science Foundation; the joint UK/US International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration project; and the European Space Agency.

Source: University of Washington