Hierarchies and Universal Inclusion in Scientific Communities

This chapter explains the genesis of inequalities and hierarchies in modern science. It studies the forms and mechanisms of scientific communication on the basis of which the social structures of science are built: publications, authorship, co- and multiple authorship, citations as units of information and as social rewards, peer review as evaluation of publications (and of projects and careers). This is a network of institutions that seems to guarantee universal access to participation in science to all those who fulfill basic conditions. But the chapter demonstrates how in all these institutional dimensions differences arise between successful and not equally successful participations. Success generates influence and social attractiveness (e.g. as a co-author). Influential and attractive participants are recruited into positions where they assess the achievements of others and thereby limit and control inclusion in publications, funding and careers. Equality at the start is transformed into hierarchies of control. Finally, the chapter asks for potential alternative control structures that transform a conservative hierarchy into decentralized ‘market’ controls that involve everyone in a more dynamic production and evaluation of scientific achievements.

FORMATION AND MANAGEMENT OF REGIONAL AGRI-FOOD CLUSTERS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: CASE OF “AGROTRANSILVANIA” (ROMANIA)

Business clusters are considered to be more applicable in countries classified as developed. However, in modern times developing countries take risks of establishing business clusters and get the expected economic and social rewards. The work observes peculiarities of regional agri-food cluster formation and management in developing countries in the frames of the Romanian “AgroTransilvania” cluster. Based on the empirical analysis and the “CIPM” (“Cluster Initiative Performance Model”) technique, author conducts an expert assessment and finds out how the cluster’s members combine cooperation and competition in order to achieve outstanding results. The research paper encompasses practice-oriented models, including a diamond model for the Romanian agri-food market, a target board of the observed cluster, as well as a map of its members.

An exploration of trolling behaviours in Australian adolescents: an online survey (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Internet trolling (i.e., “trolling”) is an intentional, disruptive antisocial online behaviour, where an individual posts provocative and inflammatory content intended to distress and provoke their targets. Unique characteristics of trolling, such as meaningless disruption, distinguish the behaviour from cyberbullying. To understand why people “troll”, researchers have explored a range of individual differences including personality traits, social reward, and empathy. To date, these studies have primarily been conducted in adult samples. This is despite adolescents being highlighted as a particularly vulnerable group with regards to both experiencing and perpetrating trolling. Given the significant psychosocial impact of experiencing trolling, there is urgency to understand the experience of adolescents. Further, an understanding of why adolescents perpetrate trolling would inform development of effective management and prevention of the antisocial online behaviour. OBJECTIVE There are two primary objectives of the current study. First, we aimed to explore adolescents experience of trolling, by documenting how often they experience and perpetrate trolling and to explore the social media platforms on which this behaviour occurs. Second, we aimed to replicate adult research that has constructed a psychological profile of the Internet troll by exploring the utility of personality traits (i.e., psychopathy and sadism), self-esteem, empathy (cognitive and affective), and social rewards (negative social potency) and to predict perpetration of trolling in a sample of Australian adolescents. METHODS A sample of 209 Australian adolescents (59.1% male, 40.9% female, 0.5% non-binary) aged between 13 and 18 years of age (M = 15.87, SD = 1.60) completed the Adolescent Measure of Empathy and Sympathy (AMES), Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES), Youth Psychopathy Traits Inventory – Short Version (YPI-S), Social Rewards Questionnaire (SRQ), and Short Sadistic Impulse Scale (SSIS). The experience of being trolled and perpetration of trolling was measured via a series of questions. RESULTS Results indicated 34.4% of Australian adolescents reported they had been targeting by trolling in the previous year and 18.2% reported they had perpetrated trolling in the previous year. Experiencing trolling was most likely to occur on Tumblr (44.8%) and Twitter (39.7%) and perpetrating trolling was most likely to occur on WordPress (30.4%) and Twitter (20.5%). Psychopathy, sadism, self-esteem, cognitive empathy, affective empathy, and negative social potency explained 42.4% of variance in adolescents’ perpetration of trolling (p<.001). High negative social potency (β=.15, p=.020), high sadism (β=.29, p=001), high affective psychopathy (β=.17, p=.033) and low cognitive empathy (β=.-.28, p=001) were predictive of trolling. Boys were more likely than girls to troll (β = -.11, p=041). CONCLUSIONS The findings indicate personality and psychological traits important to trolling in adults also play a significant role in perpetrating trolling in adolescence. Future research should continue to examine adolescent trolling behaviour to develop targeted interventions to prevent or manage trolling in adolescence.

Prefrontal cortex interactions with the amygdala in primates

This review addresses functional interactions between the primate prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the amygdala, with emphasis on their contributions to behavior and cognition. The interplay between these two telencephalic structures contributes to adaptive behavior and to the evolutionary success of all primate species. In our species, dysfunction in this circuitry creates vulnerabilities to psychopathologies. Here, we describe amygdala–PFC contributions to behaviors that have direct relevance to Darwinian fitness: learned approach and avoidance, foraging, predator defense, and social signaling, which have in common the need for flexibility and sensitivity to specific and rapidly changing contexts. Examples include the prediction of positive outcomes, such as food availability, food desirability, and various social rewards, or of negative outcomes, such as threats of harm from predators or conspecifics. To promote fitness optimally, these stimulus–outcome associations need to be rapidly updated when an associative contingency changes or when the value of a predicted outcome changes. We review evidence from nonhuman primates implicating the PFC, the amygdala, and their functional interactions in these processes, with links to experimental work and clinical findings in humans where possible.

Using social distancing technology in hotels: a social exchange perspective

Purpose As social distancing procedures can be facilitated by various hotel technologies, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which consumers develop perceptions of value regarding the use of certain hotel technologies for social distancing in hotels. Design/methodology/approach Drawing from the social exchange theory, this study conceptualized the benefits of using technologies for social distancing, health risks, social rewards and privacy concerns as antecedents of value of using technologies for social distancing in hotels. The structural model was validated by using data from more than 1,000 nationwide US consumers. Findings Benefits and consumers’ privacy concerns of using technologies for social distancing in hotels were the strongest predictors of value. Social rewards also had a significant but relatively lower effect on value. Health risks was found to have no influence on value. Originality/value The study is the first to examine the role of technologies in mitigating the effects of coronavirus. Thus, it extends the information technology and hospitality literature by examining the role of these technologies in safeguarding individual and public health.

Transforming a Liability into an Asset: A System Dynamics Model for Free-Ranging Dog Population Management

Using Indian free-ranging dogs (FRD) as a case study, we propose a novel intervention of social integration alongside previously proposed methods for dealing with FRD populations. Our study subsumes population dynamics, funding avenues, and innovative strategies to maintain FRD welfare and provide societal benefits. We develop a comprehensive system dynamics model, featuring identifiable parameters customizable for any management context and imperative for successfully planning a widescale FRD population intervention. We examine policy resistance and simulate conventional interventions alongside the proposed social integration effort to compare monetary and social rewards, as well as costs and unintended consequences. For challenging socioeconomic ecological contexts, policy resistance is best overcome by shifting priority strategically between social integration and conventional techniques. The results suggest that social integration can financially support a long-term FRD intervention, while transforming a “pest” population into a resource for animal-assisted health interventions, law enforcement, and conservation efforts.

The Predictive Utility of Reward-Based Motives Underlying Excessive and Problematic Social Networking Site Use

Compulsive seeking of reward is a hallmark feature of drug addiction, but the role of reward is less well understood in behavioural addictions. The present study investigated the predictive utility of ten reward-based motives, which we identified in the literature, in explaining excessive and problematic use of social networking sites (SNSs). These motives were examined in a cross-sectional survey of 411 young adults, revealing that prolonged use and excessive checking were predicted by distinctly different motives. More frequent checking of SNSs was most closely associated with motives related to obtaining social rewards (impression management/social comparisons/fear of missing out) and the desire to find/consume enjoyable content. In contrast, the amount of time an individual spends on SNSs was predicted by the desire to engage in negative social interactions or to fulfil personal needs (self-expression/documentation of life events). Problematic SNS use was best explained by the motivation to obtain social rewards and to a lesser extent by enjoyment and negative social potency (e.g., trolling) motives. Our results highlight the importance of social reward in explaining excessive and problematic SNS use, suggesting that a focus on reducing the desire to obtain social reward (e.g., through likes, social comparisons, continual connection) may be most beneficial in tackling problematic SNS behaviours.

Distinct Profiles of 50 kHz Vocalizations Differentiate Between Social Versus Non-social Reward Approach and Consumption

Social animals tend to possess an elaborate vocal communication repertoire, and rats are no exception. Rats utilize ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) to communicate information about a wide range of socially relevant cues, as well as information regarding the valence of the behavior and/or surrounding environment. Both quantitative and qualitative acoustic properties of these USVs are thought to communicate context-specific information to conspecifics. Rat USVs have been broadly categorized into 22 and 50 kHz call categories, which can be further classified into subtypes based on their sonographic features. Recent research indicates that the 50 kHz calls and their various subtype profiles may be related to the processing of social and non-social rewards. However, only a handful of studies have investigated USV elicitation in the context of both social and non-social rewards. Here, we employ a novel behavioral paradigm, the social-sucrose preference test, that allowed us to measure rats’ vocal responses to both non-social (i.e., 2, 5, and 10% sucrose) and social reward (interact with a Juvenile rat), presented concurrently. We analyzed adult male Long-Evans rats’ vocal responses toward social and non-social rewards, with a specific focus on 50 kHz calls and their 14 subtypes. We demonstrate that rats’ preference and their vocal responses toward a social reward were both influenced by the concentration of the non-social reward in the maze. In other words, rats showed a trade-off between time spent with non-social or social stimuli along with increasing concentrations of sucrose, and also, we found a clear difference in the emission of flat and frequency-modulated calls in the social and non-social reward zones. Furthermore, we report that the proportion of individual subtypes of 50 kHz calls, as well as the total USV counts, showed variation across different types of rewards as well. Our findings provide a thorough overview of rat vocal responses toward non-social and social rewards and are a clear depiction of the variability in the rat vocalization repertoire, establishing the role of call subtypes as key players driving context-specific vocal responses of rats.

Pupillary Responses to Faces Are Modulated by Familiarity and Rewarding Context

Observing familiar (known, recognisable) and socially relevant (personally important) faces elicits activation in the brain’s reward circuit. Although smiling faces are often used as social rewards in research, it is firstly unclear whether familiarity and social relevance modulate the processing of faces differently, and secondly whether this processing depends on the feedback context, i.e., if it is different when smiles are delivered depending on performance or in the absence of any action (passive viewing). In this preregistered study, we compared pupillary responses to smiling faces differing in subjective familiarity and social relevance. They were displayed in a passive viewing task and in an active task (a speeded visual short-term memory task). The pupils were affected only in the active task and only by subjective familiarity. Contrary to expectations, smaller dilations were observed in response to more familiar faces. Behavioural ratings supported the superior rewarding context of the active task, with higher reward ratings for the game than the passive task. This study offers two major insights. Firstly, familiarity plays a role in the processing of social rewards, as known and unknown faces influence the autonomic responses differently. Secondly, the feedback context is crucial in reward research as positive stimuli are rewarding when they are dependent on performance.