scholarly journals Independent and Interacting Value Systems for Reward and Information in the Human Brain

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene Cogliati Dezza ◽  
Axel Cleeremans ◽  
William Alexander
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Clinical Population ◽  
Value Systems ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Decision Neuroscience ◽  
Subcortical Regions ◽  
Fmri Analysis

Theories of Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) as optimizing reward value have been widely deployed to explain its activity in a diverse range of contexts, with substantial empirical support in neuroeconomics and decision neuroscience. Theoretical frameworks of brain function, however, suggest the existence of a second, independent value system for optimizing information during decision-making. To date, however, there has been little direct empirical evidence in favor of such frameworks. Here, by using computational modeling, model-based fMRI analysis, and a novel experimental paradigm, we aim at establishing whether independent value systems exist in human PFC. We identify two regions in the human PFC which independently encode distinct value signals. These value signals are then combined in subcortical regions in order to implement choices. Our results provide empirical evidence for PFC as an optimizer of independent value signals during decision-making under realistic scenarios, with potential implications for the interpretation of PFC activity in both healthy and clinical population.

Two Is Not Always Better Than One

2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 533-550 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gideon Keren ◽  
Yaacov Schul
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Cognition ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Predictive Power ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Scientific Advance ◽  
System Models ◽  
The Past ◽  
Better Than

Over the past two decades, there has been an upsurge in theoretical frameworks alluding to the existence of two different processing systems that supposedly operate according to different rules. This article critically examines the scientific advance offered by these theories (in particular advances in the domains of reasoning, decision making, and social cognition) and questions their theoretical coherence as well as the evidence for their existence. We scrutinize the conceptual underpinnings of two-system models and explicate the assumptions underlying these models to see whether they are reasonable. We also evaluate the empirical paradigms used to validate two-system models and ponder about their explanatory strength and predictive power. Given the popularity of these models, we discuss the appeal of two-system theories and suggest potential reasons for their prevalence. We comment on the potential costs associated with these models and allude to the desired nature of potential alternatives. We conclude that two-system models currently provide little scientific advance, and we encourage researchers to adopt more rigorous conceptual definitions and employ more stringent criteria for testing the empirical evidence in support for two-system theories.

Minimizing Missed Opportunities: Modeling Relationships between the State and Business in Russia

2009 ◽  
pp. 42-61
Author(s):  
A. Oleynik
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Common Good ◽  
The State ◽  
Power Relationships ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
Missed Opportunities ◽  
Power Domination ◽  
Individual Decision Making ◽  
Optimal Outcomes

Power involves a number of models of choice: maximizing, satisficing, coercion, and minimizing missed opportunities. The latter is explored in detail and linked to a particular type of power, domination by virtue of a constellation of interests. It is shown that domination by virtue of a constellation of interests calls for justification through references to a common good, i.e. a rent to be shared between Principal and Agent. Two sources of sub-optimal outcomes are compared: individual decision-making and interactions. Interactions organized in the form of power relationships lead to sub-optimal outcomes for at least one side, Agent. Some empirical evidence from Russia is provided for illustrative purposes.

Diversity and Integration in Private International Law

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
International Law ◽  
Value Systems ◽  
Private International Law ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
And Shifts ◽  
Substantive Law

This book opens a cross-regional dialogue and shifts the Eurocentric discussion on diversity and integration to a more inclusive engagement with South America in private international law issues. It promotes a contemporary vision of private international law as a discipline enabling legal interconnectivity, with the potential to transcend its disciplinary boundaries to further promote the reality of cross-border integration, with its focus on the ever-increasing cross-border mobility of individuals. Private international law embraces legal diversity and pluralism. Different legal traditions continue to meet, interact and integrate in different forms, at the national, regional and international levels. Different systems of substantive law couple with divergent systems of private international law (designed to accommodate the former in cross-border situations). This complex legal landscape impacts individuals and families in cross-border scenarios, and international commerce broadly conceived. Private international law methodologies and techniques offer means for the coordination of this constellation of legal orders and value systems in cross-border situations. Bringing together world-renowned academics and experienced private international lawyers from a wide range of jurisdictions in Europe and South America, this edited collection focuses on the connective capabilities of private international law in bridging and balancing legal diversity as a corollary for the development of integration. The book provides in-depth analysis of the role of private international law in dealing with legal diversity across a diverse range of topics and jurisdictions.

Is the Deductive Falsification Approach a Better Basis for Clinical Trial Appraisal?

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 224-228
Author(s):  
Steffen Mickenautsch
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Trial ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Clinical Decision Making ◽  
Inductive Reasoning ◽  
Clinical Decision ◽  
Future Trial ◽  
Grading Systems ◽  
Component Scores ◽  
Current Clinical Trial

Background: Inductive reasoning relies on an infinite regress without sufficient factual basis and verification is at any time vulnerable to single contrary observation. Thus, appraisal based on inductive verification, as applied in current clinical trial appraisal scales, checklists or grading systems, cannot prove or justify trial validity. Discussion: Trial appraisal based on deductive falsification can identify invalid trials and give evidence for the recommendation to exclude these from clinical decision-making. Such appraisal remains agnostic towards corroborated trials that pass all appraisal criteria. The results of corroborated trials cannot be considered more robust than falsified trials since nothing within a particular set of complied trial criteria can give certainty for trial compliance with any other appraisal criterion in future. A corroborated trial may or may not reflect therapeutic truth and may thus be the basis for clinical guidance, pending results of any future trial re-appraisal. Conclusion: Trial grading following appraisal based on deductive falsification should be binary (0 = Invalid or 1 = Unclear) and single component scores should be multiplied. Appraisal criteria for the judgment of trial characteristics require a clear rationale, quantification of such rationale and empirical evidence concerning the effect of trial characteristics on trial results.

A Comparative Analysis of Investor and Auditor Materiality Judgments

2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 149-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Todd DeZoort ◽  
Travis P. Holt ◽  
Jonathan D. Stanley
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Professional Standards ◽  
Policy Capturing ◽  
Cue Utilization ◽  
Critical Domain ◽  
Extant Literature

SUMMARY Materiality remains a challenging concept for auditors to implement in practice. The challenges underlying auditor materiality assessments are compounded by the fact that courts, regulation, and professional standards emphasize that materiality should be based on a “reasonable investor” perspective. Despite the investor orientation and ambiguous nature of the “reasonable investor” criterion, the extant literature lacks empirical evidence about investor materiality judgments and decision-making. To address this problem, we model sophisticated and unsophisticated investors' materiality judgments in a policy-capturing study and compare them to experienced auditors charged with assessing materiality from an investor perspective. The results indicate significant differences in materiality judgments, judgment consensus, and cue utilization among the three participant groups. We conclude the paper with discussion of the study's implications, highlighting that the overall results suggest the need for further consideration of ways to help auditors meet standards and expectations in this critical domain.

scholarly journals Skill and strategic control

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen Fridland
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Sports Psychology ◽  
Mental Practice ◽  
Strategic Control ◽  
Cognitive Representations ◽  
Personal Level ◽  
The Right ◽  
Better Than

AbstractThis paper provides an account of the strategic control involved in skilled action. When I discuss strategic control, I have in mind the practical goals, plans, and strategies that skilled agents use in order to specify, structure, and organize their skilled actions, which they have learned through practice. The idea is that skilled agents are better than novices not only at implementing the intentions that they have but also at forming the right intentions. More specifically, skilled agents are able formulate and modify, adjust and adapt their practical intentions in ways that are appropriate, effective, and flexible given their overall goals. Further, to specify the kind of action plans that are involved in strategic control, I’ll rely on empirical evidence concerning mental practice and mental imagery from sports psychology as well as evidence highlighting the systematic differences in the cognitive representations of skills between experts and non-experts. I’ll claim that, together, this evidence suggests that the intentions that structure skilled actions are practical and not theoretical, that is, that they are perceptual and motor and not abstract, amodal, or linguistic. Importantly, despite their grounded nature, these plans are still personal-level, deliberate, rational states. That is, the practical intentions used to specify and structure skilled actions are best conceived of as higher-order, motor-modal structures, which can be manipulated and used by the agent for the purpose of reasoning, deliberation, decision-making and, of course, the actual online structuring and organizing of action.

scholarly journals Public health decisions in the COVID-19 pandemic require more than ‘follow the science’

2021 ◽  
pp. medethics-2020-107134
Author(s):  
Thana Cristina de Campos-Rudinsky ◽  
Eduardo Undurraga
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Public Health Policy ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Ethical Reasoning ◽  
Reliable Data ◽  
Good Decision

Although empirical evidence may provide a much desired sense of certainty amidst a pandemic characterised by uncertainty, the vast gamut of available COVID-19 data, including misinformation, has instead increased confusion and distrust in authorities’ decisions. One key lesson we have been gradually learning from the COVID-19 pandemic is that the availability of empirical data and scientific evidence alone do not automatically lead to good decisions. Good decision-making in public health policy, this paper argues, does depend on the availability of reliable data and rigorous analyses, but depends above all on sound ethical reasoning that ascribes value and normative judgement to empirical facts.

Eupsychian Versus Authoritarian Leadership: Existential–Humanistic Underpinnings and Empirical Support

2021 ◽  
pp. 002216782110106
Author(s):  
Andrew M. Bland ◽  
Brett A. Swords
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
Applied Psychology ◽  
Authoritarian Leadership ◽  
Cultural Conditions ◽  
Psychology Literature

This article surveys Maslow’s views on eupsychian leadership and how his vision of eupsychia may be regarded as a contemporary expression of the Greek philosophical notion of the Good. This involves actively and ongoingly cultivating cultural conditions that promote awe-based creative living in accordance with human nature, authentic freedom, and social justice in the interest of developing character via self-determination. Then we outline essential qualities of Maslow’s notion of eupsychia as they have been empirically validated by Rego et al.’s qualitative study of the characteristics and outcomes of eupsychian (humanistic) versus antieupsychian (authoritarian) leadership. The findings thereof also provide a heuristic framework for integrating the results of numerous quantitatively-based research studies in recent international applied psychology literature. This applied leadership literature both (a) satisfies Maslow’s call for empirical research to guide perspective-taking and decision-making when considering the possible practical implementation of a eupsychian society and (b) provides empirical support for his dynamic systemic and synergistic theorizing on leadership.

Working Women’s Decision-Making Power at Home: Evidence from Four North Indian Urban Clusters

Urbanisation ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 245574712110258
Author(s):  
Megan Maxwell ◽  
Milan Vaishnav
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Working Women ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Significant Heterogeneity ◽  
Household Decision ◽  
Household Decision Making ◽  
Theoretical Foundations ◽  
Shed Light

Do working women enjoy greater levels of human agency? While the theoretical foundations underlying this connection are clear, the empirical evidence is quite mixed. We leverage detailed, new data on intra-household decision-making and labour market behaviour from four north Indian urban clusters to shed light on this question. We find that women who work exercise greater say in important decisions around the home. However, this ‘work advantage’ exhibits significant heterogeneity across decision types, decision-making domains, and definitions of work.

“Going Virtual Helped Me Learn That I Can Handle Everything”: Campus Magazine Production as a High Impact Practice During the COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 107769582110232
Author(s):  
Zoe L. Lance ◽  
Chelsea J. Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
High Impact ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
Course Planning ◽  
Virtual Instruction ◽  
Professional Self ◽  
Working Media ◽  
High Impact Practice

This case study documents a large, 4-year university magazine’s transition to virtual instruction during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using theoretical frameworks from Kuh’s work on high impact practices (HIPs), this analysis offers empirical evidence that virtual student newsrooms may provide impactful learning experiences during crisis situations. Based on interviews, surveys, and newsroom observation, 23 magazine staff members reported improvements in their professional self-efficacy as they overcame logistics challenges and interpersonal hurdles similar to working media professionals. The case study also identifies strengths and weaknesses of crisis pedagogy. Implications for post-pandemic pedagogy and course planning are discussed.

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