Choice and Personal Responsibility: What Is a Morally Relevant Choice?

The principle that people should be held personally responsible for the consequences of their choices is a fundamental moral ideal in Western societies. We report from a large-scale experimental study of how far-reaching this principle is for inequality acceptance. We show that third-party spectators violate minimal conditions for a morally relevant choice when making redistributive decisions for two workers. They accept more inequality when the workers have made nominal and forced choices than when brute luck is the source of inequality. We argue that our findings shed light on important current political debates about personal responsibility and redistributive policies.

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Children’s Group Biases In Third-Party Punishment Are Guided By Norms-Focused Behaviors

10.31234/osf.io/pxyw4 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Maria Luz Gonzalez-Gadea ◽

Antonella Dominguez ◽

Agustin Petroni

Keyword(s):

Developmental Trajectories ◽

Third Party ◽

Controlled Processes ◽

Group Members ◽

Shed Light

Children tend to punish norm transgressions, even when they are mere external observers—a phenomenon known as third-party punishment. This behavior is influenced by group biases, as children unevenly punish in-group and out-group members.Two opposing hypotheses have been proposed to explain group biases during third-party punishment: the Norms-Focused Hypothesis predicts that individuals punish more harshly selfishness by in-group than by out-group members; contrarily, the Mere Preferences Hypothesis predicts that people are more lenient to selfishness by in-group than by out-group members. Here, we tested these hypotheses in children between six and 11 years of age (N=124) and explored the mechanisms underlying group biases during the development of third-party punishment. Our results supported the Norms-Focused Hypothesis: children preferentially punished unfair sharing from in-group members evidencing in-group policing bias, and they were also more willing to punish selfishness directed at in-group members than out-group members, showing in-group favoritism bias. We observed different developmental trajectories and mechanisms associated with these biases: while in-group policing remained stable over childhood as automatic as well as more effortful and controlled processes, in-group favoritism increases with age and was manifested only in the context of more controlled processes. These results shed light on the mechanisms underlying the development of third-party decisions and could be used to plan strategies and interventions to manipulate group biases in children.

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Experimental study of deformation processes in large-scale concrete structures under quasistatic loading

Journal of Mechanics of Materials and Structures ◽

10.2140/jomms.2020.15.619 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 15 (5) ◽

pp. 619-633

Author(s):

Igor Shardakov ◽

Irina Glot ◽

Aleksey Shestakov ◽

Roman Tsvetkov ◽

Valeriy Yepin ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Experimental Study ◽

Large Scale ◽

Concrete Structures ◽

Deformation Processes ◽

Quasistatic Loading

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Brokering Peace in Nuclear Environments

10.11126/stanford/9781503604858.001.0001 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Moeed Yusuf

Keyword(s):

Cold War ◽

Third Party ◽

Bargaining Theory ◽

The Third ◽

China And India ◽

International Setting ◽

Multiple Audiences ◽

Crisis Behavior ◽

The Cold War ◽

Shed Light

This book is the first to theorize third party mediation in crises between regional nuclear powers. Its relevance flows from two of the most significant international developments since the end of the Cold War: the emergence of regional nuclear rivalries; and the shift from the Cold War’s bipolar context to today’s unipolar international setting. Moving away from the traditional bilateral deterrence models, the book conceptualizes crisis behavior as “brokered bargaining”: a three-way bargaining framework where the regional rivals and the ‘third party’ seek to influence each other to behave in line with their crisis objectives and in so doing, affect each other’s crisis behavior. The book tests brokered bargaining theory by examining U.S.-led crisis management in South Asia, analyzing three major crises between India and Pakistan: the Kargil conflict, 1999; the 2001-02 nuclear standoff; and the Mumbai crisis, 2008. The case studies find strong evidence of behavior predicted by the brokered bargaining framework. They also shed light on several risks of misperceptions and inadvertence due to the challenges inherent in signaling to multiple audiences simultaneously. Traditional explanations rooted in bilateral deterrence models do not account for these, leaving a void with serious practical consequences, which the introduction of brokered bargaining seeks to fill. The book’s findings also offer lessons for crises on the Korean peninsula, between China and India, and between potential nuclear rivals in the Middle East.

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Reputation and Gossip in Game Theory

The Oxford Handbook of Gossip and Reputation ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190494087.013.12 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 213-229

Author(s):

Charles Roddie

Keyword(s):

Game Theory ◽

Strategic Behavior ◽

Third Party ◽

The Past ◽

Past Behavior ◽

Future Behavior ◽

The Game Theory ◽

Shed Light

When interacting with others, it is often important for you to know what they have done in similar situations in the past: to know their reputation. One reason is that their past behavior may be a guide to their future behavior. A second reason is that their past behavior may have qualified them for reward and cooperation, or for punishment and revenge. The fact that you respond positively or negatively to the reputation of others then generates incentives for them to maintain good reputations. This article surveys the game theory literature which analyses the mechanisms and incentives involved in reputation. It also discusses how experiments have shed light on strategic behavior involved in maintaining reputations, and the adequacy of unreliable and third party information (gossip) for maintaining incentives for cooperation.

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