The Effect of Foregone Outcomes on Choices From Experience

2012 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eldad Yechiam ◽  
Tim Rakow
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Modeling ◽  
Model Fitting ◽  
Relative Weight ◽  
Simulation Models ◽  
Equal Weight ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Binary Choices ◽  
One Step ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual

We examined the relative weight given to obtained and foregone outcomes (i.e., outcomes from the non-chosen options) in repeated choices using cognitive modeling. Previous modeling studies have yielded mixed results. When participants’ choices are analyzed by models that predict the next choice ahead in a sequence of decisions, the results imply that people give less weight to foregone than to obtained outcomes. In contrast, in simulation models of n trials ahead, the results imply that, on average, people give equal weight to foregone and obtained outcomes. Using datasets of experience-based binary choices with fixed (stationary) payoff distributions (Erev & Haruvy, in press) and dynamic (nonstationary) payoff distributions (Rakow & Miler, 2009), we employed generalization tests at the individual level to examine whether the findings derived from the one-step-ahead method are due to overfitting. The results of trial-ahead model fitting implied that for the nonstationary tasks only, foregone outcomes received lower weight. However, when this dataset was assessed via generalization criteria at the individual level, equal weighting of foregone and obtained outcomes was the best assumption. This implies that overfitting is implicated in the superior fit of models that assume discounting of foregone outcomes.

Dilemmas of Distrust: Conspiracy Beliefs, Elite Rhetoric, and Motivated Reasoning

2021 ◽  
pp. 106591292110345
Author(s):  
Scott Radnitz
Keyword(s):  
Relative Weight ◽  
State Level ◽  
Motivated Reasoning ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Conspiracy Beliefs ◽  
The Individual

Conspiracy theories are playing an increasingly prominent role worldwide in both political rhetoric and popular belief. Previous research has emphasized the individual-level factors behind conspiracy belief but paid less attention to the role of elite framing, while focusing mostly on domestic political contexts. This study assesses the relative weight of official conspiracy claims and motivated biases in producing conspiracy beliefs, in two countries where identities other than partisanship are salient: Georgia and Kazakhstan. I report the results of a survey experiment that depicts a possible conspiracy and varies the content of official claims and relevant contextual details. The results show that motivated reasoning stemming from state-level geopolitical identities is strongly associated with higher conspiracy belief, whereas official claims have little effect on people’s perceptions of conspiracy. Respondents who exhibit higher conspiracy ideation are more likely to perceive a conspiracy but do not weight motivated biases or official claims differently from people with lower conspiratorial predispositions. The findings indicate the importance of (geopolitical) identities in shaping conspiracy beliefs and highlight some of the constraints facing elites who seek to benefit from the use of conspiracy claims.

Nominations, Ratings, and the Dimensions of Sociometric Status

1997 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerard H. Maassen ◽  
Jos L. van der Linden ◽  
Wies Akkermans
Keyword(s):  
Rating Scales ◽  
Rating Scale ◽  
Sociometric Status ◽  
Dimensional Model ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Research Designs ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Group Member

In 1944, U. Bronfenbrenner remarked on the need for a two-dimensional model of sociometric status. The low value of the correlation between the variables liking and disliking-assumed basic dimensions of sociometric status-is often cited as evidence for the correctness of Bronfenbrenner’ssuggestion. Sociometric status is derived from a coalescence of judgements at the individual level. In this article we argue that score attribution at this level (where one group member assesses another) is one-dimensional along the liking-disliking continuum. Two-dimensionality of sociometric status arises at the group level. However, we also show that at this level liking and disliking are not two distinct dimensions, but the poles of just one, the other being visibility (or impact). If the one-dimensional model of liking score attribution on the individual level is accepted, the obvious thing to do is to instruct respondents accordingly. Rating scales are suitable for this. The rating-scale methods we suggested in previous publications (e.g. Maassen, Akkermans, & van der Linden, 1996) are in keeping with this argument. Moreover, these methods may be recommended for their reliability, validity and for the variety of research designs to which they can be applied.

Divinatory failure: the religious and social role of Gisu diviners

Africa ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzette Heald
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
The Other ◽  
Diagnostic Systems ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Social Invisibility ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual

AbstractThe literature has tended to deal with diviners only where they have been seen to play a notable role in the transformation of social relationships. This leads us to overlook their relative social invisibility in many African societies. Yet we may gain insight into the rise of prophets and charismatic healers by looking at the other side of this story in the multitude of very humble practitioners plying their trade. This is the context in which this article explores the role of diviners among the Gisu of Uganda.The privacy of consultation, the search for distant diviners, the way they are approached only at times of crisis and as agents of private counteraction or vengeance, go some way towards explaining why it is difficult for diviners to gain recognition. Added to which are the difficulties of another order which relate to what might here be regarded as divinatory success. For divination may be seen to fail at a number of different levels: in the lack of credibility of a given practitioner, i n a lack of unanimity among those consulted and in the multiplicity of causal agents evoked.An argument put forward here is that scepticism is endemic to the system and, possibly, distinctive to it. We should ask not, as Evans-Pritchard did, how belief i s sustained despite the presence of scepticism but what it is about these beliefs which encourages scepticism. It is not useful to explore this issue in terms of the rationality question or the ‘truth’ of belief systems. If we are to draw a comparison with modern attitudes, of greater significance are the organisation and differentiation of knowledge and its relationship to power. It is suggested that diagnostic systems used by societies such as the Gisu encourage an agnostic attitude in a way i n which those of the modern West do not.In the final part of the article the social role of divination is reconsidered and some of the positive functions proposed for it are questioned. Gisu divination can be seen to have evolved into a very narrow niche whose parameters are bound, on the one hand, by the limits of belief and, on the other, by a system of interpersonal vengeance. We may say that the socially marginal attributes of diviners, exclusively concerned with the negative aspects of social relationships, represent a real social marginality. At best they are agents by which the individual may be reconciled with harshnesses imposed by his own destiny, of ancestral affliction; at worst they are agents of individual vengeance and retribution. This may be taken as more or less disqualifying them from articulating a positive, future-oriented vision on behalf of the community. Clearly it is not impossible but it is a huge jump from these humble practitioners, interpreting the present in terms of the past and trading evil with evil at an individual level, to prophets capable of formulating a positive social vision, a means forward, on behalf of a wider moral or social community.

scholarly journals Do shared values promote social cohesion? If so, which? Evidence from Denmark

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen N. Breidahl ◽  
Nils Holtug ◽  
Kristian Kongshøj
Keyword(s):  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Shared Values ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Community Values ◽  
Liberal Nationalism ◽  
National Values ◽  
Liberal Citizenship ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual

Social scientists and political theorists often claim that shared values are conducive to social cohesion, and trust and solidarity in particular. Furthermore, this idea is at the heart of what has been labeled the ‘national identity argument’, according to which religious and/or cultural diversity is a threat to the shared (national) values underpinning social cohesion and redistributive justice. However, there is no consensus among political theorists about what values we need to share to foster social cohesion and indeed, for example, nationalists, liberals, and multiculturalists provide different answers to this question. On the basis of a survey conducted in Denmark in 2014, this study empirically investigates the relation between, on the one hand, commitments to the community values of respectively conservative nationalism, liberal nationalism, liberal citizenship, and multiculturalism, and on the other, trust and solidarity. First, we investigate in what ways commitments to these four sets of values are correlated to trust and solidarity at the individual level and, then, whether the belief that others share one’s values is correlated to these aspects of social cohesion for individuals committed to these four sets of values. We find that conservative and liberal nationalism are negatively correlated to our different measures of trust and solidarity, whereas liberal citizenship and (in particular) multiculturalism are positively correlated. In broad terms, this picture remains when we control for a number of socio-economic factors and ideology (on a left-right scale). Finally, individuals who believe that others share their values do not, in general, have higher levels of trust and solidarity. Rather, this belief works in different ways when associated with different sets of community values.

scholarly journals Transitive Mate Preferences

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongyi Wang ◽  
Lisheng He
Keyword(s):  
Model Selection ◽  
Bayesian Model ◽  
Bayesian Model Selection ◽  
Romantic Partners ◽  
Mate Preferences ◽  
Systematic Evaluation ◽  
Choice Data ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Binary Choices ◽  
The Individual

Rational mate choices are central to individual happiness and collective social goods. Yet, few studies assess mate choice rationality from the decision-theoretic perspective. Here we present an experimental test of rationality in human mate preferences through the lens of transitivity, a fundamental hallmark of rational decision-making. In the experiment, participants made repeated binary choices between pairs of potential romantic partners in both short-term and long-term mating contexts. We tested the transitivity of mate preferences by systematically comparing four prominent transitive models with four models that allow for intransitive preferences on the choice data. Overall, all transitive models provided better accounts than the intransitive models in Bayesian model selection and strong stochastic transitivity (SST), the most restrictive transitive model, outperformed other transitive models. On the individual level, participants rarely displayed intransitive cycles and most of them were best described by transitive models in Bayesian model selection. Our paper presents a systematic evaluation of transitivity in mate preferences and sheds new light on our understanding of human mating behavior.

scholarly journals Smart Recommendations for Renting Bikes in Bike-Sharing Systems

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (20) ◽  
pp. 9654
Author(s):  
Holger Billhardt ◽  
Alberto Fernández ◽  
Sascha Ossowski
Keyword(s):  
Queuing Theory ◽  
Real Data ◽  
Transport Systems ◽  
Bike Sharing ◽  
Usage Patterns ◽  
One Step ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Recommendation Strategy ◽  
Better Than

Vehicle-sharing systems—such as bike-, car-, or motorcycle-sharing systems—have become increasingly popular in big cities in recent years. On the one hand, they provide a cheaper and environmentally friendlier means of transportation than private cars, and on the other hand, they satisfy the individual mobility demands of citizens better than traditional public transport systems. One of their advantages in this regard is their availability, e.g., the possibility of taking (or leaving) a vehicle almost anywhere in a city. This availability obviously depends on different strategic and operational management decisions and policies, such as the dimension of the fleet or the (re)distribution of vehicles. Agglutination problems—where, due to usage patterns, available vehicles are concentrated in certain areas, whereas no vehicles are available in others—are quite common in such systems, and need to be dealt with. Research has been dedicated to this problem, specifying different techniques to reduce imbalanced situations. In this paper, we present and compare strategies for recommending stations to users who wish to rent or return bikes in station-based bike-sharing systems. Our first contribution is a novel recommendation strategy based on queuing theory that recommends stations based on their utility to the user in terms of lower distance and higher probability of finding a bike or slot. Then, we go one step further, defining a strategy that recommends stations by combining the utility of a particular user with the utility of the global system, measured in terms of the improvement in the distribution of bikes and slots with respect to the expected future demand, with the aim of implicitly avoiding or alleviating balancing problems. We present several experiments to evaluate our proposal with real data from the bike sharing system BiciMAD in Madrid.

Group Belief

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-93
Author(s):  
Domingos Faria ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Group Belief ◽  
Level I ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Group Acceptance

Beliefs are commonly attributed to groups or collective entities. But what is the nature of group belief? Summativism and nonsummativism are two main rival views regarding the nature of group belief. On the one hand, summativism holds that, necessarily, a group g has a belief B only if at least one individual i is both a member of g and has B. On the other hand, non-summativism holds that it is possible for a group g to have a belief B even if no member of g has B. My aim in this paper is to consider whether divergence arguments for non-summativism and against summativism about group belief are sound. Such divergence arguments aim to show that there can be a divergence between belief at the group level and the corresponding belief at the individual level. I will argue that these divergence arguments do not decisively defeat a minimal version of summativism. In order to accomplish this goal, I have the following plan: In section 2, I will analyze the structure of two important counterexamples against the summativist view, which are based on divergence arguments. Such counterexamples are based on the idea that a group decides to adopt a particular group belief, even if none of its members holds the belief in question. However, in section 3, I will show that these counterexamples fail, because they can be explained without the need to posit group beliefs. More specifically, I argue that in these apparent counterexamples, we have only a ‘group acceptance’ phenomenon and not a ‘group belief’ phenomenon. For this conclusion, I advance two arguments: in subsection 3.1, I formulate an argument from doxastic involuntarism, and in subsection 3.2, I develop an argument from truth connection. Thus, summativism is not defeated by divergence arguments. Lastly, in section 4, I will conclude with some advantages of summativism.

Young and Temporary: Youth Employment Insecurity and Support for Right-Wing Populist Parties in Europe

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr Zagórski ◽  
Jose Rama ◽  
Guillermo Cordero
Keyword(s):  
Job Insecurity ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Employment Insecurity ◽  
Recent Success ◽  
Youth Labour Market ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThe recent success of right-wing populist parties (RPPs) in Europe has given rise to different explanations. Economic factors have proven to be significant mainly at the aggregate level. As for the individual level, it has been argued that the so-called ‘losers of globalization’ – the less educated and less skilled, profiles with higher job insecurity – are more likely to support RPPs. Nevertheless, RPPs perform strikingly well in countries less affected by the Great Recession, gathering high levels of support among profiles not considered the losers of globalization. Moreover, the effect of age on support for RPPs is not clear, as, on the one hand, the young are better educated and skilled, but, on the other, they suffered the effects of the economic crisis more. To address this puzzle, we focus on the impact of unemployment and employment insecurity among the youth on voting for RPPs in 17 European countries. We find that youth support for RPPs can be explained by the precariousness of the youth labour market.

scholarly journals Sustainable Social and Individual Implications of Telework: A New Insight into the Romanian Labor Market

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (13) ◽  
pp. 3506 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alina-Mihaela Dima ◽  
Claudia-Elena Țuclea ◽  
Diana-Maria Vrânceanu ◽  
Gabriela Țigu
Keyword(s):  
Latent Variables ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Work Force ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Managerial Implications ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual

This research aims to evaluate the individual and social implications of telework, along with the foreseeable permanent result that could be generated. Consistent with this objective, a survey has been carried out on a sample of 1180 Romanian employees, on which a model has been developed, based on structural equation modelling. The model includes five latent variables, on the one hand targeting telework features and on the other hand, its possible effects on individuals and society. At an individual level, the study results emphasize that telework could contribute to a better work–life balance and could also help teleworkers to develop specific teleworking abilities. At a social level, telework could generate sustainable effects targeting the long-term management of the work force and providing solutions to potential problems at local community levels. The managerial implications of this study are directed toward the need to implement a series of sustainable human resource management strategies and efficient employee training and development programs. Moreover, organizations need to be more proactive in assuming corporate social responsibilities.

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