Conservative or Aggressive? The Dynamic Adjustment of the Feed-in Tariff Policy for Photovoltaic Power Generation in China

With the technological progress of photovoltaic (PV) enterprises, the subsidy standard of PV power generation in China is declining. However, the conservative adjustment of feed-in tariff (FIT) policy is considered to increase the financial burden of the government, while the aggressive adjustment will have a serious impact on the PV enterprises and may reduce the research and development (R&D) investment of them. By constructing a game model between the government and PV enterprises, this article analyzes the relationship between the adjustment of government subsidy policy and R&D investment of PV enterprises. The evolution path and strategic stability of the system have been studied through evolutionary analysis and numerical simulation. Results show that three strategies may become the evolutionary stability strategy (ESS) of the system under certain conditions. Firstly, the investigation of these conditions reveals the strategy that the government chooses conservative adjustment and enterprises choose to increase R&D investment is more likely to be an ESS. Secondly, the initial preference of the government and enterprises cannot change the final result of system evolution, but only changes the speed of reaching it. Finally, the research on the interaction between government and enterprises illustrates that when the degree of influence is small, the ESS is that the government chooses aggressive adjustment and enterprises choose to increase R&D investment. But when the degree of influence is large enough, the government is more inclined to choose conservative adjustment and enterprises choose to increase R&D investment. The decision-making of the government should be focused on the interaction between the government and enterprises. The encouraging cooperation among PV enterprises, universities, and research institutions can promote the technological progress of the PV industry, so as to achieve the purpose of subsidy policies more effectively.

The hierarchical sensitivity to social misalignment during decision-making under uncertainty

Social misalignment occurs when a person’s attitudes and opinions deviate from those of others. We investigated how individuals react to social misalignment in risky (outcome probabilities are known) or ambiguous (outcome probabilities are unknown) decision contexts. During each trial, participants played a forced-choice gamble, and they observed the decisions of four other players after they made a tentative decision, followed by an opportunity to keep or change their initial decision. Behavioral and event-related potential data were collected. Behaviorally, the stronger the participants’ initial preference, the less likely they were to switch their decisions, whereas the more their decisions were misaligned with the majority, the more likely they were to switch. Electrophysiological results showed a hierarchical processing pattern of social misalignment. Misalignment was first detected binarily (i.e. match/mismatch) at an early stage, as indexed by the N1 component. During the second stage, participants became sensitive to low levels of misalignment, which were indexed by the feedback-related negativity. The degree of social misalignment was processed in greater detail, as indexed by the P3 component. Moreover, such hierarchical neural sensitivity is generalizable across different decision contexts (i.e. risky and ambiguous). These findings demonstrate a fine-grained neural sensitivity to social misalignment during decision-making under uncertainty.

Selective exposure in action: Do visitors of product evaluation portals select reviews in a biased manner?

Most people in industrialized countries regularly purchase products online. Consumers often rely on previous customers’ reviews to make purchasing decisions. The current research investigates whether potential online customers select these reviews in a biased way and whether typical interface properties of product evaluation portals foster biased selection. Based on selective exposure research, potential online customers should have a bias towards selecting positive reviews when they have an initial preference for a product. We tested this prediction across five studies (total N = 1376) while manipulating several typical properties of the review selection interface that should – according to earlier findings – facilitate biased selection. Across all studies, we found some evidence for a bias in favor of selecting positive reviews, but the aggregated effect was non-significant in an internal meta-analysis. Contrary to our hypothesis and not replicating previous research, none of the interface properties that were assumed to increase biased selection led to the predicted effects. Overall, the current research suggests that biased information selection, which has regularly been found in many other contexts, only plays a minor role in online review selection. Thus, there is no need to fear that product evaluation portals elicit biased impressions about products among consumers due to selective exposure.

No preference for prosocial ‘helping’ behavior in rats with concurrent social interaction opportunities

Abstract‘Helping behavior’ tasks are proposed to assess prosocial or ‘empathic’ behavior in rodents. This paradigm characterizes the behavior of subject animals presented with the opportunity to release a conspecific from a distressing situation. Previous studies found a preference in rats for releasing restrained or distressed conspecifics over other controls (e.g., empty restrainers or inanimate objects). An empathy account was offered to explain the observed behaviors, claiming subjects were motivated to reduce the distress of others based on a rodent homologue of empathy. An opposing account attributes all previous results to subjects seeking social-contact. To dissociate these two accounts for helping behavior, we presented subject rats with three simultaneous choice alternatives: releasing a restrained conspecific, engaging a non-restrained conspecific, or not socializing. Subjects showed an initial preference for socializing with the non-restrained conspecific, and no preference for helping. This result contradicts the empathy account, but is consistent with the social-contact account of helping behavior.

Refugees Unwelcome? Changes in the Public Acceptance of Immigrants and Refugees in Germany in the Course of Europe’s "Immigration Crisis"

Based on an innovative design, combining a multi-factorial survey experiment with a longitudinal perspective, we examine changes in the public acceptance of immigrants in Germany from the beginning of the so-called ‘migration crisis’ to after the sexual assaults of New Year’s Eve (NYE) 2015/2016. In contrast to previous studies investigating similar research questions, our approach allows to differentiate changes along various immigrant characteristics. Derived from discussions making up the German immigration discourse during this time, we expect reduced acceptance especially of those immigrants who were explicitly connected to the salient events, like Muslims and the offenders of NYE. Most strikingly, we find that refugees were generally highly accepted and even more so in the second wave, whereas the acceptance of immigrants from Arab or African countries further decreased. Moreover, female respondents’ initial preference for male immigrants disappeared. Contrary to our expectations, we find no changes in the acceptance of Muslims. We conclude that (i) public opinion research is well advised to match the particular political and social context under investigation to a fitting outcome variable to adequately capture the dynamics of anti-immigrant sentiment and that (ii) the vividly discussed upper limits for refugees seem to be contrary to public demands according to our data.

Young chicks quickly lose their spontaneous preference to aggregate with females

It is not clear when and how animals start to discriminate between male and female conspecifics and how this distinction drives their social behaviour. A recent study on pheasants found that one-week-old chicks (Phasianus colchicus) preferentially aggregated with same-sex peers and this trend became more pronounced through development, suggesting that sexual segregation increases during ontogeny. However, it remains unclear whether this ability depends on experience or develops spontaneously. Using a similar experimental protocol, we investigated whether sex discrimination is present at birth in domestic chickens (Gallus gallus) by testing the aggregation preferences of young chicks with clutch mates. We measured the amount of time spent close to male and female conspecifics in visually inexperienced chicks. Soon after hatching, both males and females preferentially aggregated with females. To clarify whether the experience with conspecifics modifies the initial preference for females we used an imprinting procedure. We exposed chicks to conspecifics of the same sex, different sex or both sexes for three days and then tested their preferences to aggregate with males or females. No sex preference was observed after three days of imprinting exposure. The disappearance of the initial sex preference shows that, although chicks can discriminate between conspecifics of different sex, sex segregation does not influence aggregation in the first week of life. We suggest that the absence of sexual assortment in the first week of age can enhance the social cohesion of the flock.

Choice boosts curiosity

In our connected era, we spend significant time and effort pursuing our curiosity. Often, we choose which information we seek, but on occasion, the selection is made for us. Hence, understanding whether and how choice influences curiosity is a key question. Prior evidence indicates that humans exhibit a preference for options they have freely chosen over equally valued options that they have not. Based on these findings, we hypothesized that we also exhibit enhanced curiosity in the context of choice compared with that of no-choice. To test this hypothesis, we designed a task in which participants saw two lotteries on each trial. On some trials, participants chose which lottery would be played. On other trials, the lottery was selected for them. Participants then indicated their curiosity about the outcome of the lottery that would be played in terms of self-report ratings (Experiment 1) or willingness to wait decisions (Experiment 2). As predicted, we found that participants exhibited higher curiosity ratings and higher willingness to wait for the outcome of lotteries they had chosen than for lotteries that had been selected for them (controlling for initial preference). These findings demonstrate that choice boosts curiosity, which may have implications for how to boost learning, memory, and motivation, for example in educational settings.

Introducing Feedback Informed Preference Accommodation (FIPA): A Case Study in Clinical Practice

Psychotherapy is a successful modality for those who engage in and complete a course of treatment. However, attrition rates and negative outcomes make up a significant and under discussed proportion of clinicians’ case load in routine practice. Innovative and novel methods to address these issues have been identified within the extant literature. However, their uptake can be impacted by issues such as utility and brevity. The present paper seeks to establish a framework for integrating Feedback Informed Treatment (FIT) and the Cooper-Norcross Inventory of Preferences (C-NPI) in clinical practice. That is, using the C-NPI for initial preference accommodation and following this up on a session to session basis to monitor the process and outcome of therapy. An overview of both approaches is provided, and a rationale for their integration elucidated. The author terms this integration, Feedback Informed Preference Accommodation (FIPA). A Case Study is put forward to demonstrate this process in clinical practice.

Effects of an adenosine A2A agonist on the rewarding associative properties of nicotine and neural plasticity in a rodent model of schizophrenia

Background: Adenosine A2a receptors form a mutually inhibitory heteromeric complex with dopamine D2 receptors such that each receptor exhibits lower sensitivity to its agonist after the opposing receptor agonist is bound. This study analyzed the effects of CGS 21680, an adenosine A2A agonist, on nicotine conditioned place preference (CPP) in adolescence using a rodent model of schizophrenia (SZ). Methods: Rats were treated from postnatal day (P) 1 to P21 with saline or the dopamine D2/D3 agonist quinpirole (NQ treatment) and raised to P41. After an initial preference test, rats were conditioned with saline or nicotine (0.6 mg/kg base) from P43 to P51. CGS 21680 (0.03 or 0.09 mg/kg) was given 15 minutes before nicotine was administered. The post-conditioning test was administered on P52. On P53, the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) was analyzed for brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and glial cell-lined neurotrophic factor (GDNF). Results: Results revealed that NQ treatment enhanced nicotine CPP, and both doses of CGS 21680 alleviated this enhancement. Nicotine also resulted in a CPP in controls, which was alleviated by both doses of CGS 21680. BDNF closely followed the behavioral results: CGS 21680 alleviated the enhancement in NAcc BDNF in NQ-treated animals, and eliminated the increase in NAcc BDNF produced by nicotine in controls. NQ-treated animals conditioned to nicotine resulted in an increase of NAcc GDNF, but this was eliminated by CGS 21680. Both BDNF and GDNF correlated with CPP performance. Conclusions: Results revealed that an adenosine A2A agonist decreased the rewarding aspects of nicotine and its accompanying neural plasticity changes in a model of SZ.

Inertial reproduction: is the two-child psychology the rule in Costa Rica?

This paper uses data from National Surveys on Sexual and Reproductive Health to test whether variables related to identity, sexuality and contraceptive knowledge are associated with the preference and demand for children in Costa Rica. Both the preferred and actual number of children are estimated with a double hurdle model. The findings indicate that preferences for children seem to be quite fixed around two children and are mainly associated with religious beliefs and the person’s gender, but they are not found to be associated with human capital. In contrast, the probability of having a child and the number of children are related to investment in human capital and sex education. Hence, human capital might be relevant in bringing a child into the world, but not in the initial preference.