scholarly journals Isolated individuals and groups show opposite preferences toward humidity

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.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Payne ◽  
Heidi A. Vuletich ◽  
Kristjen B. Lundberg

The Bias of Crowds model (Payne, Vuletich, & Lundberg, 2017) argues that implicit bias varies across individuals and across contexts. It is unreliable and weakly associated with behavior at the individual level. But when aggregated to measure context-level effects, the scores become stable and predictive of group-level outcomes. We concluded that the statistical benefits of aggregation are so powerful that researchers should reconceptualize implicit bias as a feature of contexts, and ask new questions about how implicit biases relate to systemic racism. Connor and Evers (2020) critiqued the model, but their critique simply restates the core claims of the model. They agreed that implicit bias varies across individuals and across contexts; that it is unreliable and weakly associated with behavior at the individual level; and that aggregating scores to measure context-level effects makes them more stable and predictive of group-level outcomes. Connor and Evers concluded that implicit bias should be considered to really be noisily measured individual construct because the effects of aggregation are merely statistical. We respond to their specific arguments and then discuss what it means to really be a feature of persons versus situations, and multilevel measurement and theory in psychological science more broadly.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana Adela Martin ◽  
Eddie Conlon ◽  
Brian Bowe

AbstractThis paper aims to review the empirical and theoretical research on engineering ethics education, by focusing on the challenges reported in the literature. The analysis is conducted at four levels of the engineering education system. First, the individual level is dedicated to findings about teaching practices reported by instructors. Second, the institutional level brings together findings about the implementation and presence of ethics within engineering programmes. Third, the level of policy situates findings about engineering ethics education in the context of accreditation. Finally, there is the level of the culture of engineering education. The multi-level analysis allows us to address some of the limitations of higher education research which tends to focus on individual actors such as instructors or remains focused on the levels of policy and practice without examining the deeper levels of paradigm and purpose guiding them. Our approach links some of the challenges of engineering ethics education with wider debates about its guiding paradigms. The main contribution of the paper is to situate the analysis of the theoretical and empirical findings reported in the literature on engineering ethics education in the context of broader discussions about the purpose of engineering education and the aims of reform programmes. We conclude by putting forward a series of recommendations for a socio-technical oriented reform of engineering education for ethics.


2021 ◽  
pp. 073563312110308
Author(s):  
Fan Ouyang ◽  
Si Chen ◽  
Yuqin Yang ◽  
Yunqing Chen

Group-level metacognitive scaffolding is critical for productive knowledge building. However, previous research mainly focuses on the individual-level metacognitive scaffoldings in helping learners improve knowledge building, and little effort has been made to develop group-level metacognitive scaffolding (GMS) for knowledge building. This research designed three group-level metacognitive scaffoldings of general, task-oriented, and idea-oriented scaffoldings to facilitate in-service teachers’ knowledge building in small groups. A mixed method is used to examine the effects of the GMSs on groups’ knowledge building processes, performances, and perceptions. Results indicate a complication of the effects of GMSs on knowledge building. The idea-oriented scaffolding has potential to facilitate question-asking and perspective-proposing inquiry through peer interactions; the general scaffolding does not necessarily lessen teachers’ idea-centered explanation and elaboration on the individual level; the task-oriented scaffolding has the worst effect. Pedagogical and research implications are discussed to foster knowledge building with the support of GMSs.


2013 ◽  
Vol 129 (1) ◽  
pp. 333-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henrik Jacobsen Kleven ◽  
Camille Landais ◽  
Emmanuel Saez ◽  
Esben Schultz

Abstract This article analyzes the effects of income taxation on the international migration and earnings of top earners using a Danish preferential foreigner tax scheme and population-wide Danish administrative data. This scheme, introduced in 1991, allows new immigrants with high earnings to be taxed at a preferential flat rate for a duration of three years. We obtain two main results. First, the scheme has doubled the number of highly paid foreigners in Denmark relative to slightly less paid—and therefore ineligible—foreigners. This translates into a very large elasticity of migration with respect to 1 minus the average tax rate on foreigners, between 1.5 and 2. Second, we find compelling evidence of a negative effect of the scheme-induced reduction in the average tax rate on pretax earnings of foreign migrants at the individual level. This finding can be rationalized by a matching frictions model with wage bargaining where there is a gap between pay and marginal productivity.


2022 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Paul Schneider ◽  
Ben van Hout ◽  
Marike Heisen ◽  
John Brazier ◽  
Nancy Devlin

Introduction Standard valuation methods, such as TTO and DCE are inefficient. They require data from hundreds if not thousands of participants to generate value sets. Here, we present the Online elicitation of Personal Utility Functions (OPUF) tool; a new type of online survey for valuing EQ-5D-5L health states using more efficient, compositional elicitation methods, which even allow estimating value sets on the individual level. The aims of this study are to report on the development of the tool, and to test the feasibility of using it to obtain individual-level value sets for the EQ-5D-5L. Methods We applied an iterative design approach to adapt the PUF method, previously developed by Devlin et al., for use as a standalone online tool. Five rounds of qualitative interviews, and one quantitative pre-pilot were conducted to get feedback on the different tasks. After each round, the tool was refined and re-evaluated. The final version was piloted in a sample of 50 participants from the UK. A demo of the EQ-5D-5L OPUF survey is available at: https://eq5d5l.me Results On average, it took participants about seven minutes to complete the OPUF Tool. Based on the responses, we were able to construct a personal EQ-5D-5L value set for each of the 50 participants. These value sets predicted a participants' choices in a discrete choice experiment with an accuracy of 80%. Overall, the results revealed that health state preferences vary considerably on the individual-level. Nevertheless, we were able to estimate a group-level value set for all 50 participants with reasonable precision. Discussion We successfully piloted the OPUF Tool and showed that it can be used to derive a group-level as well as personal value sets for the EQ-5D-5L. Although the development of the online tool is still in an early stage, there are multiple potential avenues for further research.


Author(s):  
Gabriel Franklin ◽  
Tibérius O. Bonates

This chapter describes an agent-based simulation of an incentive mechanism for scientific production. In the proposed framework, a central agency is responsible for devising and enforcing a policy consisting of performance-based incentives in an attempt to induce a global positive behavior of a group of researchers, in terms of number and type of scientific publications. The macro-level incentive mechanism triggers micro-level actions that, once intensified by social interactions, lead to certain patterns of behavior from individual agents (researchers). Positive reinforcement from receiving incentives (as well as negative reinforcement from not receiving them) shape the behavior of agents in the course of the simulation. The authors show, by means of computational experiments, that a policy devised to act at the individual level might induce a single global behavior that can, depending on the values of certain parameters, be distinct from the original target and have an overall negative effect. The agent-based simulation provides an objective way of assessing the quantitative effect that different policies might induce on the behavior of individual researchers when it comes to their preferences regarding scientific publications.


Author(s):  
Greger Henriksson ◽  
Minna Räsänen

This chapter is based on the assumption that keeping the number and length of business and commuting trips at reasonable levels could contribute to reaching targets of environmental sustainability. The authors highlight a couple of options for reducing or avoiding business trips and commuting through workplace location or improved use of communications. They present case studies concerning travel and communications, carried out by using diaries and interviews. They also present relevant literature on social practices and sustainability goals in relation to use of ICT. The aim is to shed light on variation in the use of travel and communications on an individual level in work life. The case studies illustrate that such variation is mainly due to the concrete practices involved in execution of professional duties and roles. Duties that involve a clearly defined end result or product being delivered regularly by the member of staff are correlated to clearly defined needs for communications. Less clearly defined end results of the work duties seem to make it harder for the individual to plan and perform communication and travel in a more energy saving way. The difference in professional duties can thus be expressed in terms of clarity and maturity. Another factor that affect who can replace travel with ICTs is relations of power, e.g., when a purchaser dictates the terms for a subcontractor concerning how and where to “deliver” his working time, service or product. The importance of clarity, maturity and power aspects means that professional practices need to be studied at a detailed level to find out who could substitute ICTs for travel and how this could be done.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominic Burbidge ◽  
Nic Cheeseman

AbstractPolitical economy comparisons of Kenya and Tanzania have often found the political salience of ethnicity to be far higher in the former than the latter, with a negative impact on intercommunal trust. This difference has tended to be explained on the basis of the different kinds of leadership that the two countries experienced after independence. However, these findings have typically been demonstrated using aggregate or survey data. This paper assesses the salience of ethnicity at the individual level for the first time, deploying monetized two-round trust games in urban Kenya and Tanzania. The experimental games isolate the comparative impact of common knowledge of ethnicity and integrity among a quasi-random selection of 486 citizens. Verifying previous findings, we observe higher levels of trust and trustworthiness in Tanzania as compared with Kenya. Further, in comparison with Kenya, any shared knowledge of ethnic identities in Tanzania leads players to transfer fewer resources, while common knowledge that both players are “honest” led to higher transfers there than in Kenya. These results provide robust evidence of higher levels of trust in Tanzania, and of the negative effect in that country of common knowledge of ethnicity on levels of cooperation. The findings demonstrate the way in which political context can shape the impact of ethnic diversity, and encourage further experimental research that looks at the intersubjective dynamics of social cooperation.


2012 ◽  
Vol 114 (2) ◽  
pp. 621-637 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edsel L. Beja ◽  
David B. Yap

Games ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Gbetonmasse Somasse ◽  
Alexander Smith ◽  
Zachary Chapman

We conducted a dynamic common pool resource experiment and found large differences among groups in the total benefits (surplus) obtained from the resource. To shed light on the factors underlying the differences, we characterized individual appropriation decisions as irresponsible, sustainable, or constructive, and defined a measure of the intensity of such actions. We then examined the relationships between group-level success and the frequency and intensity of the individual actions, finding that the average intensity of irresponsible actions was the best predictor of group success. We interpreted this as suggestive evidence that policies aimed at preserving and maximizing the benefits of renewable resources should above all else aim to reduce the intensity of irresponsible actions.


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