Rational Dictators in the Dictator Game Are Seen as Cold and Agentic but Not Intelligent

2021 ◽  
pp. 014616722110406
Author(s):  
Janna Katrin Ruessmann ◽  
Christian Unkelbach
Keyword(s):  
Dictator Game ◽  
Real Money ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Dictator Games ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Inferences

In Dictator Games, dictators decide how much of a given endowment to send to receivers with no further interactions. We explored the social inferences people draw about dictators from the dictators’ money amount sent and vice versa in 11 experiments ( N = 1,425): Participants rated “unfair” dictators, who sent little or no money, as more agentic, but less communal than “fair” dictators, who sent half of the endowment. Conversely, participants expected more agentic and conservative but less communal dictators to send less money than less agentic, more liberal, or more communal dictators. Participants also rated unfair dictators as less intelligent but expected less intelligent dictators to send more money. When participants played the Dictator Game with real money, only self-reported communion predicted the money amount sent. Thus, participants’ inferences might not reflect reality, but rational social actors should not only fear to appear unfair but also unintelligent.

Entanglements between Agency and Vulnerability in the Phenomenon of Birth. Reflections on Children’s Expressions about ‘Being Born’

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2-2020) ◽  
pp. 135-146
Author(s):  
Catrin Heite ◽  
Veronika Magyar-Haas
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Living Environment ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
Cultural Embeddedness

Analogously to the works in the field of new social studies of childhood, this contribution deals with the concept of childhood as a social construction, in which children are considered as social actors in their own living environment, engaged in interpretive reproduction of the social. In this perspective the concept of agency is strongly stressed, and the vulnerability of children is not sufficiently taken into account. But in combining vulnerability and agency lies the possibility to consider the perspective of the subjects in the context of their social, political and cultural embeddedness. In this paper we show that what children say, what is important to them in general and for their well-being, is shaped by the care experiences within the family and by their social contexts. The argumentation for the intertwining of vulnerability and agency is exemplified by the expressions of an interviewed girl about her birth and by reference to philosophical concepts about birth and natality.

scholarly journals Comparing mind perception in strategic exchanges: human-agent negotiation, dictator and ultimatum games

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minha Lee ◽  
Gale Lucas ◽  
Jonathan Gratch
Keyword(s):  
Ultimatum Game ◽  
Dictator Game ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Moral Standing ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Ultimatum Games ◽  
Mind Perception ◽  
Cognitive Aptitude ◽  
Negotiation Agents ◽  
Emotional Capacity

AbstractRecent research shows that how we respond to other social actors depends on what sort of mind we ascribe to them. In a comparative manner, we observed how perceived minds of agents shape people’s behavior in the dictator game, ultimatum game, and negotiation against artificial agents. To do so, we varied agents’ minds on two dimensions of the mind perception theory: agency (cognitive aptitude) and patiency (affective aptitude) via descriptions and dialogs. In our first study, agents with emotional capacity garnered more allocations in the dictator game, but in the ultimatum game, agents’ described agency and affective capacity, both led to greater offers. In the second study on negotiation, agents ascribed with low-agency traits earned more points than those with high-agency traits, though the negotiation tactic was the same for all agents. Although patiency did not impact game points, participants sent more happy and surprise emojis and emotionally valenced messages to agents that demonstrated emotional capacity during negotiations. Further, our exploratory analyses indicate that people related only to agents with perceived affective aptitude across all games. Both perceived agency and affective capacity contributed to moral standing after dictator and ultimatum games. But after negotiations, only agents with perceived affective capacity were granted moral standing. Manipulating mind dimensions of machines has differing effects on how people react to them in dictator and ultimatum games, compared to a more complex economic exchange like negotiation. We discuss these results, which show that agents are perceived not only as social actors, but as intentional actors through negotiations, in contrast with simple economic games.

scholarly journals The Meaning of the Matrix: Towards a Cybernetic Critical Theory of Capitalism

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Shay Hershkovitz
Keyword(s):  
Social Systems ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
System A ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Entity ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
Operational Logic

Marxist criticism is most discernible; despite the oft-repeated claim that it is now irrelevant, belonging to an age now past. This essay assumes that criticism originating in the Marxist school of thought continue to be relevant also in this present time; though it may need to be further developed and improved by integrating newer critical approaches into the classic Marxist discourse. This essay therefore integrates basic Marxist ideas with key concepts from ‘social systems theory’; especially the theory of the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann's. In this light, capitalism is conceptualized here as a ‘super (social) system’: a meaning-creating social entity, in which social actors, behaviors and structures are realized. This theoretical concept and terminology emphasizes the social construction of control and stability, when discussing the operational logic of capitalism.

scholarly journals Anti-migrant Islamophobia in Europe. Social roots, mechanisms and actors

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (53) ◽  
pp. 25-40
Author(s):  
Fabio Perocco
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Internal Structure ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Social Origins ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Muslim Immigrants ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Mass Media

Abstract During the last two decades of rising anti-migrant racism in Europe, Islamophobia has proven to be the highest, most acute, and widely spread form of racism. The article shows how anti-migrant Islamophobia is a structural phenomenon in European societies and how its internal structure has specific social roots and mechanisms of functioning. Such an articulate and interdependent set of key themes, policies, practices, discourses, and social actors it is intended to inferiorise and marginalise Muslim immigrants while legitimising and reproducing social inequalities affecting the majority of them. The article examines the social origins of anti-migrant Islamophobia and the modes and mechanisms through which it naturalises inequalities; it focuses on the main social actors involved in its production, specifically on the role of some collective subjects as anti-Muslim organizations and movements, far-right parties, best-selling authors, and the mass-media.

scholarly journals Sociology’s Role in the Teaching of Organizational Behavior in Higher Education. The Case of Hospitality Management

Societies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Ferraz
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Behavior ◽  
Work Conditions ◽  
Hospitality Management ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Social ◽  
Organizational Structuring ◽  
Hospitality Organizations ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Productivity Gains

Teaching in universities, especially in management schools, is today orientated to solving-problems and operational skills’ development, short-term productivity gains and to a vocational perspective. This represents an impoverishment of a deeper learning, an obstacle to the development of competences in a broader and integrative sense and the absence of a critical thinking practice. These are important tools to enhance in students and future managers, as specific social actors, abilities to act in a conscious, autonomous and long-term efficacious manner in society. This essay’s objective is to problematize the role that sociology could assume in the overcoming of that impoverishment, namely within the curricular unit of organizational behavior in two ways. First, teaching the social and macro dimensions that contribute to explain organizational structuring and behavior. Secondly, enhancing reflexivity and contextualization on the practices and discourses of all social actors involved and disassembling the dominant ideological, naturalized and simplistic individualized view on the reality of labor, employment and organizations. This is especially relevant in hospitality management studies because the dominant discourse about hospitality organizations hide, under a hegemonic paradigm of naturalized and individualized explanations, the macro-social dimensions of its organizational culture, work conditions, employees’ behaviors, management styles and market labor.

scholarly journals Thai Gender Ideology: A View from Representations of Social Actors in Crime News Headlines

MANUSYA ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-49
Author(s):  
Phennapha Klaisingto ◽  
Wirote Aroonmanakun
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Gender Ideology ◽  
Gender Identities ◽  
Gender Ideologies ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Social ◽  
Crime News ◽  
Study Power ◽  
News Headlines

This study examines the linguistic structure used for uncovering gender ideologies through crime news headlines. It’s based on the idea that languages represent reality and different linguistic choices indicate different points of view of reality. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Fairclough 1990,VanDijk 1995, Simpson 1993) is used in this study. The main objectives of the study are 1) to study the differences of representation between male and female social actors (Van Leeuwan 2008) in crime news headlines and 2) to study power relations, gender identities and the reproduction of patriarchal society through crime news headlines. Samples of 1,815 crime news headlines are analyzed in this study. The result shows that Thai crime news constructs gender identities based on gender ideology. Thai crime news headlines convey a variety of linguistic meanings which allow for varying forms of representation of social actors, including exclusion and inclusion of social actors. The exclusion of male social actors in headlines may be ideologically motivated by obscuring the responsibility of male actors for negative actions, whereas the exclusion of female social actors does not have the same effect because their referents can be inferred from the headline context. In addition, the inclusion of social actors varies according to the social actor’s sex. Male actors are usually referred to using a functionalization form or an appraisement form, whereas female actors are usually referred to using an identification form. These representations reflect the role of masculinity and femininity among men and women in the society.

Pierre Bourdieu, the ‘cultural turn’ and the practice of international history

2008 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER JACKSON
Keyword(s):  
Pierre Bourdieu ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
International History ◽  
Cultural Roots ◽  
Cultural Orientations ◽  
Structural Environment ◽  
The Social ◽  
Collective Actors ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cultural Turn

AbstractThe rise of the ‘cultural turn’ has breathed new life into the practice of international history over the past few decades. Cultural approaches have both broadened and deepened interpretations of the history of international relations. This article focuses on the use of culture as an explanatory methodology in the study of international history. It outlines the two central criticisms often made of this approach. The first is that it suffers from a lack of analytical rigour in both defining what culture is and understanding how it shapes individual and collective policy decisions. The second is that it too often leads to a tendency to exaggerate the importance of the cultural predispositions of individual or collective actors at the expense of the wider structures within which policymaking takes place. The article provides a brief outline of the social theory of Pierre Bourdieu – which focuses on the interaction between the cultural orientations of social actors and the structural environment that conditions their strategies and decisions. It then argues that Bourdieu’s conceptual framework can provide the basis for a more systematic approach to understanding the cultural roots of policymaking and that international historians would benefit from engagement with his approach.

Alcohol norms and their enforcement: an assessment from a socio-legal perspective

2010 ◽  
pp. 92-112
Author(s):  
Franco Prina
Keyword(s):  
Implementation Process ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Protection Time ◽  
Legal Perspective ◽  
The Social ◽  
Alcoholic Drinks ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
The Relationship

The socio-legal perspective on the alcohol legislation, including the norms concerned with the relationship between individuals and alcoholic drinks, helps answering some essentials questions: what was/is the "social construction" of the alcohol problem in different eras and different cultures and, consequently, which objectives are deemed to be worthy of pursuit through the creation or amendment of legislation? Which social actors have the ability, in a given period of time, to inscribe the relevance of innovative alcohol legislation on the political agenda and what kind of dialectic is used among those who champion points of view, competences and above all, different interests? Which interests and values would appear to meet with legislatory protection time after time? What tools, of the ample range available, are chosen to achieve the aims set out? To what extent is legislation implemented (or not implemented), and why? Which aspects of the implementation process prove to be most significant, i.e. define the actual content of the legislation "in force", and are therefore tangibly experienced by the law's end target? How much of an impact does legislation have on behavior which is subject to regulation or on problems which stem from such behavior?

scholarly journals Learning to be selfish? A large-scale longitudinal analysis of Dictator games played on Amazon Mechanical Turk

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Alonso Arechar ◽  
David Gertler Rand
Keyword(s):  
Longitudinal Analysis ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Dictator Game ◽  
Mechanical Turk ◽  
Amazon Mechanical Turk ◽  
Social Setting ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Dictator Games

We investigate whether experience playing the Dictator Game (DG) affects prosociality by aggregating data from 37 experiments run on Amazon Mechanical Turk over a six-year period. While prior evidence has shown a correlation between experience on Amazon Mechanical Turk and selfishness, it is unclear to what extent this is the result of selection versus learning. Examining a total of 27,266 decisions made by 17,791 unique individuals, our data shows evidence of significant negative effects of both selection and learning. First, people who participated in a greater total number of our experiments were more selfish, even in their first game – indicating that people who are more likely to select into our experiments are more selfish. Second, a given individual tends to transfer less money over successive experiments – indicating that experience with the DG leads to greater selfishness. These results provide clear evidence of learning even in this non-strategic social setting.

scholarly journals Resistencia y apropiación de la escuela: estrategias político-educativas del sindicato magisterial mexicano / Resistance and appropriation of the school: political-educational strategies of the Mexican teachers’ union

2020 ◽  
pp. 44-55
Author(s):  
Alberto Colin Huizar
Keyword(s):  
Community Involvement ◽  
School Environment ◽  
Educational Strategies ◽  
National Education ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Teachers Union ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Ethnographic Methodology

En distintos estados de la república mexicana existen proyectos educativos colectivos que en mayor o menor medida se erigen en las aulas de las escuelas públicas de nivel básico fomentando la vinculación comunitaria, el trabajo basado en la colectividad y el impulso de la participación activa de los sujetos educativos. El sentido político y epistémico de los proyectos educativos locales a contracorriente de la educación oficial nacional, se acompaña de los proyectos que persiguen los pueblos y agrupaciones magisteriales, mediante la construcción de sus propios saberes y experiencias a partir de las cuales despliegan estrategias para la apropiación social de la escuela. Dichas alternativas escolares conforman un emergente escenario de acción colectiva donde diversas expresiones de la Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación sintetizan sus proyectos político-educativos. Este artículo se propone revisar desde una metodología etnográfica de las interacciones en el ámbito escolar, cómo dichas iniciativas se implementan en el territorio educativo y cuáles son los principales desafíos en la compleja tarea de resistir al modelo convencional de la escuela del Estado para ponerla al servicio de las luchas magisteriales y populares. Los hallazgos de estas experiencias de educación alternativa constituyen insumos significativos para repensar la forma en que distintos actores sociales recuperan el espacio escolar para alimentar sus propios proyectos de sociedad y transformación sociopolítica que enarbolan a partir de su praxis en el campo educativo. ABSTRACT In different states of the Mexican Republic there are collective educational projects that, to a greater or lesser extent, are set up in public school classrooms at the basic level, promoting community involvement, work based on collectivity and the promotion of active participation by educational subjects. The political and epistemic meaning of local educational projects that go against the grain of official national education is accompanied by the projects pursued by the people and teachers’ groups, through the construction of their own knowledge and experiences from which they deploy strategies for the social appropriation of the school. These school alternatives form an emerging scenario of collective action where diverse expressions of the National Coordinator of Education Workers synthesize their political-educational projects. This article proposes to review, from an ethnographic methodology, the interactions in the school environment, how these initiatives are implemented in the educational territory and what are the main challenges in the complex task of resisting the conventional model of the state school in order to put it at the service of the teachers’ and popular struggles. The findings of these experiences of alternative education constitute significant inputs for rethinking the way in which different social actors recover the school space to feed their own projects of society a

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