Medieval Kazakh History in Arab and Persian Sources

The relevance of this topic lies in the analysis of the study of medieval Kazakh history. After gaining independence, the processes of the revival of national identity, reinstatement of primitive spiritual and moral values and human mentality, which were sharply suppressed during the period of the Soviet totalitarian system, became widespread. Therewith, the widely discussed national-historical structure of the population, the knowledge of ethnic roots, the restoration of traditions and customs, which served as a connecting link, as well as the specificity and originality of the approach are of particular importance. Currently, the problem of objective reading, coverage, and popularisation of the ancient and medieval Kazakh history and culture is acute. By rejecting one-sided interpretations of historical events, established clichés require impartial, academic analysis based on evidence drawn from a wide range of sources. The purpose of this study is to identify the problems of the history of Kazakhstan in the 13th-14th centuries, the general laws of world historical development and the features of the historical process, folk traditions by using a scientific and systematic approach. Based on the systematisation and classification of data from the geographical and Arab historical records of the 13th-14th centuries, the analysis of written monuments is performed, their interdependence is established, and the degree of completeness and reliability of the data in the works of the narrative is determined in an integral system. Due to the scientific expeditions and research trips to Mongolia, China, and Germany, Kazakh orientalists analysed and performed the first systematic processing of archival materials and historical evidence of the early history of resettlement based on the ancient Turkic manuscript, ancient Indian, and Chinese sources that formed a picture of the proto and ancient history. For example, the features of stone figures give an idea of the military hierarchy, military operations, the settlement of ethnic groups (ethnogeography), the worldview of the Turks, etc.

Moses or Noah? A case of ‘potato-potahto’ when using a foreign language

Research among bilinguals suggests a foreign language effect for various tasks requiring a more systematic processing style. For instance, bilinguals seem less prone to heuristic reasoning when solving problem statements in their foreign (FL) as opposed to their native (NL) language. The present study aimed to determine whether such an effect might also be observed in the detection of semantic anomalies. Participants were presented NL and FL questions with and without anomalies while their eye movements were recorded. Overall, they failed to detect the anomaly in more than half of the trials. Furthermore, more illusions occurred for questions presented in the FL, indicating an FL disadvantage. Additionally, eye movement analyses suggested that reading patterns for anomalies are predominantly similar across languages. Our results therefore substantiate theories suggesting that FL use induces cognitive load, causing increased susceptibility to illusions due to partial semantic processing.

Analytical Comparison of Clustering Techniques for the Recognition of Communication Patterns

The systematic processing of unstructured communication data as well as the milestone of pattern recognition in order to determine communication groups in negotiations bears many challenges in Machine Learning. In particular, the so-called curse of dimensionality makes the pattern recognition process demanding and requires further research in the negotiation environment. In this paper, various selected renowned clustering approaches are evaluated with regard to their pattern recognition potential based on high-dimensional negotiation communication data. A research approach is presented to evaluate the application potential of selected methods via a holistic framework including three main evaluation milestones: the determination of optimal number of clusters, the main clustering application, and the performance evaluation. Hence, quantified Term Document Matrices are initially pre-processed and afterwards used as underlying databases to investigate the pattern recognition potential of clustering techniques by considering the information regarding the optimal number of clusters and by measuring the respective internal as well as external performances. The overall research results show that certain cluster separations are recommended by internal and external performance measures by means of a holistic evaluation approach, whereas three of the clustering separations are eliminated based on the evaluation results.

Systematic Processing of COVID-19 Information: Relevant Channel Beliefs and Perceived Information Gathering Capacity as Moderators

Applying the risk information seeking and processing (RISP) model, this study investigates the sociopsychological factors associated with systematic processing. Results reveal interesting moderating effects for relevant channel beliefs and perceived information gathering capacity. These findings suggest that science communication surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic needs to attend to the target audience’s beliefs about specific information channels, as well as their ability to process relevant information. However, the unsupported hypotheses also call for scholarly attention on the applicability of the RISP model to non-Western cultural contexts.

The Influence of Situational Constraints on Consumers’ Evaluation and Use of Online Reviews: A Heuristic-Systematic Model Perspective

Online reviews help consumers make informed product choices by serving as a valuable source of information for a buying decision. However, consumer’s situational constraints such as time pressure or purchase uncertainty negatively impact the way in which buyers evaluate and use online reviews, reducing their effectiveness. This study examines the influence of situational constraints, namely perceived time pressure and purchase uncertainty, on consumers’ evaluation and use of online reviews for information search. This empirical study used an online survey to collect data from 560 Amazon Mechanical Turk users. Findings indicate that both perceived time pressure and perceived purchase uncertainty are positively associated with heuristic processing of online reviews but negatively associated with systematic processing of online reviews. Moreover, while both heuristic and systematic information processing increased buyers’ self-confidence in their purchase decisions, systematic processing led to greater buyer self-confidence than did heuristic processing. This study concludes with a discussion of practical and academic implications, as well as future research directions.

Taking Cues from the Government: Heuristic versus Systematic Processing in a Constitutional Referendum

One of the main criticisms of direct democracy is that it places excessive demands on voters. Are citizens competent enough to vote directly on policy issues? When stakes are high, do citizens mainly follow elites’ signals or do they decide in line with their issue preferences? This article addresses these questions in a multi-method setting by combining observational and experimental data from an original three-wave panel survey conducted during the 2016 Italian constitutional referendum. In particular, Finite Mixture Models are employed to model voters’ heterogeneous strategies of information processing. Findings show that heuristic voting based on government evaluation prevails over policy-related voting. More specifically, less politically sophisticated and partisan voters relied on government assessment as a heuristic, while sophisticated and independent voters based their decisions mostly on their assessment of the reform. Implications for the question of citizens’ competence in direct democracy are discussed.

The (Null) Effects of Happiness on Affective Polarization, Conspiracy Endorsement, and Deep Fake Recognition: Evidence from Five Survey Experiments in Three Countries

Affective polarization is a key concern in America and other democracies. Although past evidence suggests some ways to minimize it, there are no easily applicable interventions that have been found to work in the increasingly polarized climate. This project examines whether irrelevant factors, or incidental happiness more specifically, have the power to reduce affective polarization (i.e., misattribution of affect or “carryover effect”). On the flip side, happiness can minimize systematic processing, thus enhancing beliefs in conspiracy theories and impeding individual ability to recognize deep fakes. Three preregistered survey experiments in the US, Poland, and the Netherlands (total N = 3611) induced happiness in three distinct ways. Happiness had no effects on affective polarization toward political outgroups and hostility toward various divisive social groups, and also on endorsement of conspiracy theories and beliefs that a deep fake was real. Two additional studies in the US and Poland (total N = 2220), also induced anger and anxiety, confirming that all these incidental emotions had null effects. These findings, which emerged uniformly in three different countries, among different partisan and ideological groups, and for those for whom the inductions were differently effective, underscore the stability of outgroup attitudes in contemporary America and other countries.

A Causal Configuration Analysis of Payment Decision Drivers in Paid Q&A

PurposeThis paper examines factors of payment decision as well as the role each factor plays in casual configurations leading to high payment intention under systematic and heuristic information processing routes.Design/methodology/approachBased on heuristic-systematic model (HSM), we propose a configurational analytic framework to investigate complex casual relationships between influencing factors and payment decision. In line with this approach, we use fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to analyze data crawled from Zhihu.com.FindingsThe number of previous consultations is a necessary element in all five equivalent configurations which lead to high intention in payment decision. The heuristic processing route plays a core role while the systematic processing route plays a peripheral role in payment decision-making process.Research limitationsResearch is limited in that moderating effect of professional fields has not been considered in the framework.Practical implicationsConfigurations in results can assist managers of knowledge communities and paid Q&A service providers in the management of information elements to motivate more payment decision.Originality/valueThis paper is one of the few studies to apply HSM theory and fsQCA method with respect to the payment decision in paid Q&A.