James' World 2

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CLIMATEWIRE | One week in, the Trump administration is broadening its assault on the functions of government and shifting control of the federal purse strings further away from members of Congress.

President Donald Trump’s budget office Monday ordered a total freeze on “all federal financial assistance” that could be targeted under his previous executive orders pausing funding for a wide range of priorities — from domestic infrastructure and energy projects to diversity-related programs and foreign aid.

In a two-page memo obtained by POLITICO, the Office of Management and Budget announced all federal agencies would be forced to suspend payments — with the exception of Social Security and Medicare.

“The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve,” according to the memo, which three people authenticated.

The new order could affect billions of dollars in grants to state and local governments while causing disruptions to programs that benefit many households. There was also widespread confusion over how the memo would be implemented and whether it would face legal challenges.

While the memo says the funding pause does not include assistance “provided directly to individuals,” for instance, it does not clarify whether that includes money sent first to states or organizations and then provided to households.

The brief memo also does not detail all payments that will be halted. However, it broadly orders federal agencies to “temporarily” stop sending federal financial assistance that could be affected by Trump’s executive actions.

That includes the president’s orders to freeze all funding from the Democrats’ signature climate and spending law — the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure package enacted in 2021. It also imposes a 90-day freeze on foreign aid.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in a statement decried the announcement as an example of “more lawlessness and chaos in America as Donald Trump’s Administration blatantly disobeys the law by holding up virtually all vital funds that support programs in every community across the country.”

The New York Democrat urged the administration to lift the freeze.

“They say this is only temporary, but no one should believe that,” he said. “Donald Trump must direct his Administration to reverse course immediately and the taxpayers’ money should be distributed to the people. Congress approved these investments and they are not optional; they are the law.”

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Being a single parent is one of the hardest jobs in the world, regardless of gender. Research from the Pew Research Center shows that the rate of single-father households has grown significantly since the 1960s, and the world’s perception of a father’s role within the household is evolving.

Society no longer places the sole responsibility of providing for the family entirely on men, and their role as equal caregivers is increasingly recognized. As a result, more fathers are stepping into the role of single parenthood when their co-parent is no longer present or willing to contribute to childcare.

Today, both single moms and dads juggle work, parenting, and personal challenges, often with limited support and endless responsibilities. Yet, society doesn’t always view them through the same lens. Have you ever noticed how single dads are often celebrated as “heroes” for doing what single moms are expected to do every day without the same fanfare?

This difference isn’t just a passing observation—it reflects deeper sociocultural norms and biases that shape how we view parenthood.

Here are three reasons why single dads are often viewed more positively than single moms, according to research.

1. The Intensive Mothering Problem

As much as we’ve come a long way in our view of parenting, there are still some very obvious differences between what is expected from a mother and what is expected from a father, with mothers facing much more scrutiny.

The term “intensive mothering,” coined by Sharon Hays in the 1996 book The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood, highlights this difference. Intensive mothering is a cultural ideology that emphasizes a child-centered, time-intensive, and emotionally absorbing approach to parenting, where mothers are expected to devote extraordinary amounts of time, energy, and resources to their children’s well-being and development.

It’s the belief that mothers are expected to prioritize their children above all else, often at the expense of their own needs. This belief disproportionately places the burden of child-rearing on women and often implies that “good” mothering requires self-sacrifice and perfection.

Society tends to expect mothers—even single moms juggling two jobs just to make ends meet—to maintain an “intensive mothering” level of parenting without question.

2. Money Helps When It Comes To Parenting

Most parents would agree that raising children tends to be expensive. Research shows that raising a child from birth to the age of 18 can cost roughly $233,610. As kids grow older, their needs and wants often become more expensive, adding extra strain to a household budget.

The challenge is even greater in a country where the gender pay gap remains significant. For single mothers, this means running a single-income household can be far more economically demanding compared to their male counterparts.

Research published in the Journal of Divorce & Remarriage states that “single fathers had better resources than single mothers. Single mothers have less education, less prestigious jobs, lower incomes and more economic strain than other parents.”

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Being a single parent is undoubtedly hard. However, not all single parents are treated equally. Here … [+]  Getty

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A skilled card player—eyes hidden by dark shades and features kept as still as possible—looks at their hand. Any small giveaway that they’re bluffing or holding great cards could lose them a painfully large sum of money. Sometimes it helps to have a “poker face.”

Yet in day-to-day life—when socializing with family, friends, and new acquaintances, for example—you might be better served letting your features fly free. Our research shows that moving your face in some way, whether you’re smiling, raising an eyebrow, or wrinkling your nose, may help people warm to you more.

In a recent study, we found that people who were more facially expressive were more liked by a new social partner, which could explain why humans have evolved to have such expressive faces. Indeed, our species is likely more facially expressive than any other. People produce, on average, 101 facial movements per minute in a typical social interaction.

To understand why facial expressivity is so beneficial, we first need to emphasize just how crucial social bonding is to human survival. Throughout most of our evolutionary history, our species has relied on tight-knit communities to keep ourselves fed, sheltered, and protected from predators and dangerous outsiders. Managing social relationships was literally a matter of life or death. Otherwise, you might have faced the tiger in the bushes alone. Any skill or behavior that improved someone’s ability to create and keep lifesaving bonds was likely to persist in our gene pool and cultural repertoires over the generations. And our research suggests that facial expressivity may fall in this category.

In our study, 52 people were filmed in an online social interaction with a researcher who posed as another participant. These dialogues played out over a video platform, so people could see one another’s face. Unbeknownst to the real participants, the researcher orchestrated various challenging social scenarios, such as telling an awful joke or demanding 80 percent of a reward in a negotiation. These situations mimicked everyday experiences, such as social conflict, embarrassment or an attempt to make a good impression.

Throughout, we observed how people’s face moved. We also obtained recordings of more than 1,300 participants in free-flowing conversations with other (real) participants online. Automated software then coded the small facial muscle movements they made during these interactions.

Interestingly, more agreeable, extraverted or neurotic people, as measured by a questionnaire, were more facially expressive. People with these personality traits may devote more time and energy to social interactions—whether because they enjoy socializing or have greater-than-average concerns about how they come across to others. And that added effort could be worthwhile, we found. After these interactions, the participants and their social partners rated how much they liked each other—as did 176 other participants who viewed video clips of these people. The pattern was clear: people who were more facially expressive were more liked by others.

But why would facial expressivity improve someone’s ability to build social bonds? Imagine meeting someone new and trying to figure out if they’re a good fit as a friend, colleague, or romantic partner. You might wonder if you can trust them, if they will help you or harm you—and whether you can even understand one another. Someone who is easier to read may seem to be a more appealing prospect than someone who is more guarded.

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Narcissism has been something of a mystery to psychologists. With narcissists, things tend to be extreme: the good is really good, and

the bad is really bad. Narcissism expert W. Keith Campbell compares interacting with narcissists to eating chococate cake: “When I eat chococlate cake, 20 minutes later I’m under my desk wanting to die. When I eat broccoli, in 20 minutes I feel good. But given the choice I always eat the cake.”

On the one hand, the narcissist’s charisma and self-confidence can be highly alluring. Psychologists Mitja Back and colleagues found that narcissists are indeed more popular at first acquaintance, and its due to four particular cues that make up their “charismatic air”*:

• Attractiveness (flashy, neat attire)
• Competence (self-assured behavior)
• Interpersonal Warmth (charming glances at strangers)
• Humor (witty verbal expressions)

On the other hand, research shows that the initial popularity of narcissists at the early stages of interpersonal interactions depends on the behavioral pathway that is triggered: expressive and dominant behaviors are associated with a positive evaluation, whereas arrogant and combative behaviors are associated with a negative evaluation. According to this research, narcissists may be more popular at first acquaintance because they are more likely to display behaviors that trigger a positive pathway, perhaps because they are trying to make a good first impression.

In line with this idea, W. Keith Campbell and Stacy Campbell proposed a new model of narcissism in which they argue that two particular time points are important. The “emerging zone” includes situations involving unacquainted individuals, early-stage relationships, and short-term contexts. In contrast, the “enduring zone” involves situations involving acquainted individuals, continuing relationships, and long-term consequences.

The costs of narcissism are seen primarily in the “enduring zone.” As the relationship develops, narcissists start displaying behaviors that are evaluated negatively, such as arrogance and aggression. Narcissists cyclically return to the emerging zone because they are addicted to the positive social feedback and emotional rush they get from this zone. They live in this zone. As a result, they are good at being popular, making new friends, and acquiring social status, but are really quite terrible at sustaining anything meaningful and intimate.

This handy chart shows the benefits and costs (for self and others) in both the emerging zone and the enduring zone. A landmark study by Delroy Paulhus (an expert on dark personalities) supports that model. Paulhus brought strangers together to engage in weekly 20-minute group discussion over a period of seven weeks.

They had people rate how they perceived others in the group after week one and then again at the last session (after seven weeks). He found that narcissism was initially related to positive evaluations, such as “assertive”, “confident”, “entertaining”, “exciting”, and “intelligent”. Seven weeks later, however, the same narcissists were evaluated much more negatively, receiving much higher ratings on characteristics such as “arrogant”, “tendency to brag”, and “hostile”. These findings provided some of the first evidence for narcissists’ declining popularity in social groups. But the question still remained: why the loss in popularity?

To get to the bottom of this mystery, Mitja Back and colleagues conducted a study in which they tracked changes in popularity over several time points. They drew on their new theory of narcissism, called the “Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Concept”. According to their theory, narcissists’ overarching goal of maintaining a grandiose self is pursued by 2 separate pathways: narcissistic admiration (assertive self-enhancement) and narcissistic rivalry (antagonistic self-protection). Despite being positively related to each other, these two different components of narcissism differentially predict interpersonal orientations,

reactions to transgressions in friendships and romantic relationships, interpersonal perceptions during group interactions, and observed behaviors in experimental observations.

Adopting this framework, the researchers had 311 college students engage in tasks with increasing levels of intimacy and self-disclosure. Participants first introduced themselves and later engaged in tasks requiring them to work together as a team and, finally, played a game in which they discussed each other’s personalities. Over a period of just three weeks, the researchers found that the association of narcissism with popularity among peers became more and more negative.

But they didn’t stop there. They were also able to pinpoint the cause of this loss in popularity. Narcissistic admiration explained initial popularity, while a decrease in narcissistic admiration and an increase in narcissistic rivalry over time was responsible for the decline in popularity. By the end of a three week period and several social interactions, narcissists were regarded as untrustworthy by their peers.

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Narcissists are really quite terrible at sustaining anything meaningful and intimate. Photo by francescoch/Getty Images

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