Multi-level selection, social signaling, and the evolution of human suffering gestures: The example of pain behaviors

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob M. Vigil ◽  
Eric Kruger

AbstractPain suffering has been naturally selected to be experienced and expressed within a wider social system. The communication of pain improves group coordination and decision-making about engaging in resource dependent and potentially risky endeavors. Recent findings warrant the development of a cohesive framework for understanding the reciprocal nature of pain expression and individual and group-level outcomes that can generate novel predictions on the heuristical expression of human suffering in naturalistic and clinical settings.

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guliz Coskun ◽  
Laura W. Jodice ◽  
DeWayne Moore

Purpose Through application of multi-level structural equation modeling as the data analysis technique, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the group-level impacts on a couple’s food choices during travel at a coastal destination. Design/methodology/approach Researchers obtained 380 individual questionnaires from 190 mixed gender couples (who eat oysters) in Charleston and Beaufort County, South Carolina, USA. Data were collected from both members of the couple during their vacation. Due to missing data and normality issues 5 couples and 30 individuals were eliminated. The remaining data were analyzed with SPSS 21 and EQS 6.2 with advanced confirmatory factor analysis and multi-level (ML) regression techniques. Findings The study results indicated that while women have a more negative attitude than men toward oysters, their intention to eat oysters during vacation is not different from their partner. By detecting the interdependency of responses of individuals within a couple, this study revealed that a ML approach is a more powerful way to understand the decision-making process of couples. Additionally the difference in the results of single- and ML models showed that the latter approach lowers the chance of Type 2 error and provides more accurate results. Originality/value In tourism decision-making literature, the focus has been mostly on the individual despite the collectivistic nature of tourism activity. The current study is the first to analyze a couple’s decision-making process at the group level. Furthermore by collecting data from both members of the group during their vacation, this study has distinguished itself from previous studies.


Author(s):  
Stephanie Collins

Moral duties are regularly attributed to groups. We might think that the United Kingdom has a moral duty to defend human rights, that environmentalists have a moral duty to push for global systemic reform, or that the affluent have a moral duty to alleviate poverty. This book asks (i) whether such groups are apt to bear duties and (ii) what this implies for their members. It defends a ‘Tripartite Model’ of group duties, which divides groups into three fundamental categories. First, combinations are collections of agents that do not have any goals or decision-making procedures in common. Combinations cannot bear moral duties. Instead, we should re-cast their purported duties as a series of duties—one held by each agent in the combination. Each duty demands its bearer to ‘I-reason’: to do the best they can, given whatever they happen to believe the others will do. Second, coalitions are groups whose members share goals but lack decision-making procedures. Coalitions also cannot bear duties, but their alleged duties should be replaced with members’ several duties to ‘we-reason’: to do one’s part in a particular group pattern of actions, on the presumption that others will do likewise. Third, collectives have group-level procedures for making decisions. They can bear duties. Collectives’ duties imply duties for collectives’ members to use their role in the collective with a view to the collective doing its duty.


2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (7) ◽  
pp. 1649-1668 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petru Lucian Curseu ◽  
Sandra G. L. Schruijer ◽  
Oana Catalina Fodor

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test the influence of collaborative and consultative decision rules on groups’ sensitivity to framing effect (FE) and escalation of commitment (EOC). Design/methodology/approach – In an experimental study (using a sample of 233 professionals with project management experience), the authors test the effects of collaborative and consultative decision rules on groups’ sensitivity to EOC and FE. The authors use four group decision-making tasks to evaluate decision consistency across gain/loss framed decision situations and six decision tasks to evaluate EOC for money as well as time as resources previously invested in the initial decisions. Findings – The results show that the collaborative decision rule increases sensitivity to EOC when financial resources are involved and decreases sensitivity to EOC when time is of essence. Moreover, the authors show that the collaborative decision rule decreases sensitivity to FE in group decision making. Research limitations/implications – The results have important implications for group rationality as an emergent group level competence by extending the insights concerning the impact of decision rules on emergent group level cognitive competencies. Due to the experimental nature of the design, the authors can probe the causal relations between the investigated variables, yet the authors cannot generalize the results to other settings. Practical implications – Managers can use the insights of this study in order to optimize the functioning of decision-making groups and to reduce their sensitivity to FEs and EOC. Originality/value – The study extends the research on group rationality and it is one of the few experimental attempts used to understand the role of decision rules on emergent group level rationality.


Modern Italy ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Foradori ◽  
Paolo Rosa

SummaryThe article looks at the role of Italy in the decision-making arena of the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), analysing the initiatives it put in place to address and influence the construction of a common defence. The article aims to explain the ability or inability of Italy to build up a consensus around its proposals. By studying two initiatives in the field of European defence and security, it seeks to determine the factors which resulted in the differing outcomes of Italian actions at the European level.


2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-70
Author(s):  
Snjezana Prijic-Samarzija

The new and vibrant field of the epistemology of democracy, or the inquiry about the epistemic justification of democracy as a social system of procedures, institutions, and practices, as a cross-disciplinary endeavour, necessarily encounters both epistemologists and political philosophers. Despite possible complaints that this kind of discussion is either insufficiently epistemological or insufficiently political, my approach explicitly aims to harmonize the political and epistemic justification of democracy. In this article, I tackle some fundamental issues concerning the nature of the epistemic justification of democracy and the best theoretical framework for harmonizing political and epistemic values. I also inquire whether the proposed division of epistemic labour and the inclusion of experts can indeed improve the epistemic quality of decision-making without jeopardizing political justification. More specifically, I argue in favour of three theses. First, not only democratic procedures but also the outcomes of democracy, as a social system, need to be epistemically virtuous. Second, democracy?s epistemic virtues are more than just a tool for achieving political goals. Third, an appropriate division of epistemic labour has to overcome the limitations of both individual and collective intelligence.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariano Calvo Martín ◽  
Stamatios C. Nicolis ◽  
Isaac Planas-Sitjà ◽  
Jean-Christophe de Biseau ◽  
Jean-Louis Deneubourg

AbstractCockroaches, like most social arthropods, are led to choose collectively among different alternative resting places. These decisions are modulated by different factors, such as environmental conditions (temperature, relative humidity) and sociality (groups size, nature of communications). The aim of this study is to establish the interplay between environmental conditions and the modulation of the interactions between individuals within a group leading to an inversion of preferences. We show that the preferences of isolated cockroaches and groups of 16 individuals, on the selection of the relative humidity of a shelter are inversed and shed light on the mechanisms involved. We suggest that the relative humidity has a multi-level influence on cockroaches, manifested as an attractant effect at the individual level and as a negative effect at the group level, modulating the interactions.


2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 1283-1302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Manata ◽  
Franklin J. Boster ◽  
Gwen M. Wittenbaum ◽  
Daniel E. Bergan

Although there is some evidence in the political arena that pooling information can overcome individual biases to improve decision-making accuracy, research from the group communication and psychology arenas suggests otherwise. Specifically, research on the hidden profile, a group-level decision-making problem, suggests that groups are decidedly biased when making decisions. This laboratory experiment tested whether or not partisan biases manifest at the group level of analysis. In the main, it was found that groups composed of either all Republican or all Democratic group members were likely to make a decision that was consonant with their party’s political ideology, which ultimately impacted hidden profile solution rates (i.e., decision accuracy). Moreover, supplemental analyses suggest that Republican and Democratic groups reached their biased decisions through different means. A discussion is provided in which the implications of these results are considered.


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