Barking Up The Wrong Tree

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Over the past thirty years changes in divorce law have significantly increased access to divorce. The different timing of divorce law reform across states provides a useful quasi-experiment with which to examine the effects of this change. We analyze state panel data to estimate changes in suicide, domestic violence, and spousal murder rates arising from the change in divorce law. Suicide rates are used as a quantifiable measure of wellbeing, albeit one that focuses on the extreme lower tail of the distribution. We find a large, statistically significant, and econometrically robust decline in the number of women committing suicide following the introduction of unilateral divorce. No significant effect is found for men. Domestic violence is analyzed using data on both family conflict resolution and intimate homicide rates. The results indicate a large decline in domestic violence for both men and women in states that adopted unilateral divorce. We find suggestive evidence that unilateral divorce led to a decline in females murdered by their partners, while the data revealed no discernible effects for men murdered. In sum, we find strong evidence that legal institutions have profound real effects on outcomes within families.

Source: “Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law: Divorce Laws and Family Distress” from Stanford GSB Research Paper Series, #1828

This is the PhD thesis of the always interesting Justin Wolfers and Betsey Stevenson.

I found it in Tim Harford’s wonderful book The Logic of Life.

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This research analyses the effects of endorsers’ beardedness (i.e., the state of being bearded) on their perceived credibility and consumers’ purchase intention for various categories of products. According to Ohanian (1990), credibility is a construct with three sub-dimensions: attractiveness, the degree to which the source’s physical appearance and/or its perceived personality is appealing; expertise, the extent to which the communicator is perceived as a source of valid assertions; and trustworthiness, the degree of confidence aroused in perceivers. Recent research has demonstrated the possibility of associating the three sub-dimensions of credibility with different categories of products, depending on whether these latter ones possess specific characteristics that are congruent with one or another sub-dimension. In line with this approach, results show that bearded endorsers are perceived to be more credible and to have a positive influence on purchase intention, but these effects occur only in relation to specific kinds of advertised products. Theoretical and operational implications for communication strategies are discussed.

Source: “Beardedness in advertising: effects on endorsers’ credibility and purchase intention” from Journal of Marketing Communications

So what were those products? The Chronicle of Higher Education has the answer:     

...Participants thought the men with beards had greater expertise and were significantly more trustworthy when they were endorsing products like cell phones and toothpaste.

But, oddly, men with beards were slightly less effective than smooth-cheeked fellows in underwear advertisements. Apparently we don’t want Zach Galifianakis selling us boxers.

Is this just limited to endorsers? Maybe not:

The researchers say the implications of their findings could extend far beyond advertisements. For instance, male politicians might want to consider not shaving because the “presence of a beard on the face of candidates could boost their charisma, reliability, and above all their expertise as perceived by voters, with positive effects on voting intention.”

One caveat:

Important note: The study looked only at neat, medium-length beards. You can’t just go all ZZ Top and expect people to trust you.

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Both men and women deepen their voice when talking to someone they find attractive:

We examined how individuals may change their voices when speaking to attractive versus unattractive individuals, and if it were possible for others to perceive these vocal changes. In addition, we examined if any concurrent physiological effects occurred when speaking with individuals who varied in physical attractiveness. We found that both sexes used a lower-pitched voice and showed a higher level of physiological arousal when speaking to the more attractive, opposite-sex target. Furthermore, independent raters evaluated the voice samples directed toward the attractive target (versus the unattractive target) as sounding more pleasant when the two voice samples from the same person presented had a reasonably perceptually noticeable difference in pitch. These findings may have implications for the role voice plays in mate selection and attraction.

Source: “Vocal and Physiological Changes in Response to the Physical Attractiveness of Conversational Partners” from Journal of Nonverbal Behavior

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