The Betrayal Aversion Elicitation Task: An Individual Level Betrayal Aversion Measure

Research on betrayal aversion shows that individuals’ response to risk depends not only on probabilities and payoffs, but also on whether the risk includes a betrayal of trust. While previous studies focus on measuring aggregate levels of betrayal aversion, the connection between an individual’s own betrayal aversion and other individually varying factors, including risk preferences, are currently unexplored. This paper develops a new task to elicit an individual’s level of betrayal aversion that can then be compared to individual characteristics. We demonstrate the feasibility of our new task and show that our aggregate individual results are consistent with previous studies. We then use this classification to ask whether betrayal aversion is correlated with risk aversion. While we find risk aversion and betrayal aversion have no significant relationship, we do observe that risk aversion is correlated with non-social risk preferences, but not the social, betrayal related, risk component of the new task.     

Decisions for Others Become Less Impulsive the Further Away They Are on the Family Tree

Background

People tend to prefer a smaller immediate reward to a larger but delayed reward. Although this discounting of future rewards is often associated with impulsivity, it is not necessarily irrational. Instead it has been suggested that it reflects the decision maker’s greater interest in the ‘me now’ than the ‘me in 10 years’, such that the concern for our future self is about the same as for someone else who is close to us.

Methodology/Principal Findings

To investigate this we used a delay-discounting task to compare discount functions for choices that people would make for themselves against decisions that they think that other people should make, e.g. to accept $500 now or $1000 next week. The psychological distance of the hypothetical beneficiaries was manipulated in terms of the genetic coefficient of relatedness ranging from zero (e.g. a stranger, or unrelated close friend), .125 (e.g. a cousin), .25 (e.g. a nephew or niece), to .5 (parent or sibling).

Conclusions/Significance

The observed discount functions were steeper (i.e. more impulsive) for choices in which the decision-maker was the beneficiary than for all other beneficiaries. Impulsiveness of decisions declined systematically with the distance of the beneficiary from the decision-maker. The data are discussed with reference to the implusivity and interpersonal empathy gaps in decision-making.     

An Exception to the "Image of Limited Good"

Research in southern Mexico indicates that there is a general exception to Foster's Image of Limited Good, in Mexican peasant world view. The limited good concept holds that all desirable material and non-material entities are seen as existing in finite amounts which cannot be augmented. In such communities, however, it is implicitly assumed that one can experience intensified desirable emotions without necessarily suffering a loss in some other area of life, as is implied by the Image of Limited Good.     

Free-Riding Behavior in Vaccination Decisions: An Experimental Study

Individual decision-making regarding vaccination may be affected by the vaccination choices of others. As vaccination produces externalities reducing transmission of a disease, it can provide an incentive for individuals to be free-riders who benefit from the vaccination of others while avoiding the cost of vaccination. This study examined an individual''s decision about vaccination in a group setting for a hypothetical disease that is called “influenza” using a computerized experimental game. In the game, interactions with others are allowed. We found that higher observed vaccination rate within the group during the previous round of the game decreased the likelihood of an individual''s vaccination acceptance, indicating the existence of free-riding behavior. The free-riding behavior was observed regardless of parameter conditions on the characteristics of the influenza and vaccine. We also found that other predictors of vaccination uptake included an individual''s own influenza exposure in previous rounds increasing the likelihood of vaccination acceptance, consistent with existing empirical studies. Influenza prevalence among other group members during the previous round did not have a statistically significant effect on vaccination acceptance in the current round once vaccination rate in the previous round was controlled for.     

Aversion of sheep for handling treatments: Paired-choice studies

Sheep were repeatedly forced to choose among pairs of routine handling treatments to determine if the paired-choice method could be used to measure the relative aversiveness of these treatments. Each sheep was run down a Y-shaped race, and the direction the sheep turned determined which treatment it received. The ranking of the treatments obtained was fully transitive and was, in order of decreasing preference: human contact, physical restraint in the presence of sheep, isolation, capture in isolation, and inversion in isolation. There was a fair degree of consistency across sheep, but differences in preference were found for treatments that were of a similar degree of aversiveness. The method can be used to obtain an ordinal ranking of treatments, but whether an interval-scale measure of the degree of preference can be obtained is uncertain, since choice of the less preferred treatments could result from limitations on the sheep's ability to learn and remember which arm of the race led to which treatment.     

Gender Differences in Sleep Deprivation Effects on Risk and Inequality Aversion: Evidence from an Economic Experiment

Excessive working hours—even at night—are becoming increasingly common in our modern 24/7 society. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is particularly vulnerable to the effects of sleep loss and, consequently, the specific behaviors subserved by the functional integrity of the PFC, such as risk-taking and pro-social behavior, may be affected significantly. This paper seeks to assess the effects of one night of sleep deprivation on subjects’ risk and social preferences, which are probably the most explored behavioral domains in the tradition of Experimental Economics. This novel cross-over study employs thirty-two university students (gender-balanced) participating to 2 counterbalanced laboratory sessions in which they perform standard risk and social preference elicitation protocols. One session was after one night of undisturbed sleep at home, and the other was after one night of sleep deprivation in the laboratory. Sleep deprivation causes increased sleepiness and decreased alertness in all subjects. After sleep loss males make riskier decisions compared to the rested condition, while females do the opposite. Females likewise show decreased inequity aversion after sleep deprivation. As for the relationship between cognitive ability and economic decisions, sleep deprived individuals with higher cognitive reflection show lower risk aversion and more altruistic behavior. These results show that one night of sleep deprivation alters economic behavior in a gender-sensitive way. Females’ reaction to sleep deprivation, characterized by reduced risky choices and increased egoism compared to males, may be related to intrinsic psychological gender differences, such as in the way men and women weigh up probabilities in their decision-making, and/or to the different neurofunctional substrate of their decision-making.     

Decisions in Force Field Development: An Alternative to Those Described by Roterman et al.

Abstract

We attempt to give an alternate point of view of the analysis by Roterman et al. (J. Biolmol. Struct. Dyn. 7, 415 (1989)). In particular, we argue for the use of flexible geometry and explicit inclusion of solvent effects in analyzing φ psi; maps of peptides.     

When One Form is Between Two Others: An Application of Biorthogonal Analysis

SYNOPSIS. This essay presents a method for measuring the degreeto which one biological outline form lies in between two others.The procedure does not measure forms separately, but rathercompares pairs of tensors expressing D'Arcy Thompson's "Cartesiantransformations" according to the biorthogonal formalism ofBookstein. In analogy with conventional methods, betweennessis computed as a similarity score, the cosine of a non- Euclideanangle between the tensors. The new quantities, size-betweennessand shapebetweenness, enable comparisons of form series againsta priori orderings intra- and interspecifically     

Reflexive Ethnography: A Guide to Researching Selves and Others

Reflexive Ethnography:. Guide to Researching Selves and Others. Charlotte Aull Davies. New York: Routledge, 1999.257 pp.     

A Moist Crevice for Word Aversion: In Semantics Not Sounds

Why do people self-report an aversion to words like “moist”? The present studies represent an initial scientific exploration into the phenomenon of word aversion by investigating its prevalence and cause. Results of five experiments indicate that about 10–20% of the population is averse to the word “moist.” This population often speculates that phonological properties of the word are the cause of their displeasure. However, data from the current studies point to semantic features of the word–namely, associations with disgusting bodily functions–as a more prominent source of peoples’ unpleasant experience. “Moist,” for averse participants, was notable for its valence and personal use, rather than imagery or arousal–a finding that was confirmed by an experiment designed to induce an aversion to the word. Analyses of individual difference measures suggest that word aversion is more prevalent among younger, more educated, and more neurotic people, and is more commonly reported by females than males.     

Beyond Profiling: Using ADMET Models to Guide Decisions

ADMET Models, whether in silico or in vitro, are commonly used to ‘profile’ molecules, to identify potential liabilities or filter out molecules expected to have undesirable properties. While useful, this is the most basic application of such models. Here, we will show how models may be used to go ‘beyond profiling’ to guide key decisions in drug discovery. For example, selection of chemical series to focus resources with confidence or design of improved molecules targeting structural modifications to improve key properties. To prioritise molecules and chemical series, the success criteria for properties and their relative importance to a project's objective must be defined. Data from models (experimental or predicted) may then be used to assess each molecule's balance of properties against those requirements. However, to make decisions with confidence, the uncertainties in all of the data must also be considered. In silico models encode information regarding the relationship between molecular structure and properties. This is used to predict the property value of a novel molecule. However, further interpretation can yield information on the contributions of different groups in a molecule to the property and the sensitivity of the property to structural changes. Visualising this information can guide the redesign process. In this article, we describe methods to achieve these goals and drive drug‐discovery decisions and illustrate the results with practical examples.