A unified fixed point approach to study the existence and uniqueness of solutions to the generalized stochastic functional equation emerging in the psychological theory of learning

<abstract><p>The model of decision practice reflects the evolution of moral judgment in mathematical psychology, which is concerned with determining the significance of different options and choosing one of them to utilize. Most studies on animals behavior, especially in a two-choice situation, divide such circumstances into two events. Their approach to dividing these behaviors into two events is mainly based on the movement of the animals towards a specific choice. However, such situations can generally be divided into four events depending on the chosen side and placement of the food. This article aims to fill such gaps by proposing a generic stochastic functional equation that can be used to describe several psychological and learning theory experiments. The existence, uniqueness, and stability analysis of the suggested stochastic equation are examined by utilizing the notable fixed point theory tools. Finally, we offer two examples to substantiate our key findings.</p></abstract>

Moral Conscientiousness and the Subjectivism/Objectivism Debate about Moral Wrongness

The Subjectivism/Objectivism debate is a debate about the facts the an action’s moral status is grounded in. Subjectivists maintain that an action’s moral status is grounded in the subjective circumstances of the agent at the time of its performance. Objectivists deny this. This chapter defends the Objectivist view against a recent argument against it by championing a picture of moral conscientiousness which is at odds with a central premise of that argument. The picture of moral conscientiousness defended is one that crucially sees the morally conscientious person’s concern not to act wrongly as degreed and sensitive to the degrees of wrongness of the options facing the morally conscientious agent. After motivating this particular conception of moral conscientiousness and defending Objectivism against the argument against it, the chapter further develops the Objectivist picture of the moral status of actions and explains the Objectivist’s conception of the relation between moral wrongness and what a morally conscientious person ought to do in her choice situation.

Four Flavours of Customers: A dual-system perspective on self-service technology use

Self-service technologies (SSTs) increasingly permeate retail spaces. To make their SST investments worthwhile, retailers need to turn enough customers into SST users. Previous research has uncovered the significance of habitual behaviour stemming from prior experience and situational factors from the environment on SST use. However, consumers are likely to vary regarding the extent they are driven by either habit or situational factors, suggesting that different types of consumers might exist in this regard. In this paper, we probe these consumer types in a real-life choice situation by studying the choice of selecting a checkout option (either staffed or self-checkout). We conduct a field study employing mixed qualitative methods by observing and interviewing customers checking out from retail stores. We discover four distinct customer types regarding the extent of reflexive (automatic) and reflective (deliberate) processing they use in their checkout selection: habitual traditional checkout users, habitual SCO users, situational users, and drifting users. We discuss the implications of our findings by linking the cognitive processing styles to the different stages of technology acceptance. Our main contribution lies in the development of a typology of consumers based on their selection between SST and human-delivered service.

Progeny fitness determines the performance of the parasitoid Therophilus javanus, a prospective biocontrol agent against the legume pod borer

Therophilus javanus (Bhat & Gupta) is an exotic larval endoparasitoid newly imported from Asia into Africa as a classical biological control agent against the pod borer Maruca vitrata (Fabricius). The parasitoid preference for the five larval instars of M. vitrata and their influence on progeny sex ratio were assessed together with the impact of larval host age at the time of oviposition on development time, mother longevity and offspring production. In a choice situation, female parasitoids preferred to oviposit in the first three larval instars. The development of immature stages of the parasitoid was observed inside three-day-old hosts, whereby the first two larval instars of T. javanus completed their development as endoparasites and the third larval instar as ectoparasite. The development time was faster when first larval instars (two- and three-day-old) of the host caterpillars were parasitized compared to second larval instar (four-day-old). The highest proportion of daughters (0.51) was observed when females were provided with four-day-old hosts. The lowest intrinsic rate of increase (r) (0.21 ± 0.01), the lowest rate of increase (λ) (1.23 ± 0.01), and the lowest net reproductive rate (Ro) (35.93 ± 6.51) were recorded on four-day-old hosts. These results are discussed in the light of optimizing mass rearing and release strategies.

Weighing the costs: the epistemic dilemma of no-platforming

Abstract‘No-platforming’—the practice of denying someone the opportunity to express their opinion at certain venues because of the perceived abhorrent or misguided nature of their view(s)—is a hot topic. Several philosophers have advanced epistemic reasons for using the policy in certain cases. Here we introduce epistemic considerations against no-platforming that are relevant for the reflection on the cases at issue. We then contend that three recent epistemic arguments in favor of no-platforming fail to factor these considerations in and, as a result, offer neither a conclusive justification nor strong epistemic support for no-platforming in any of the relevant cases. Moreover, we argue that, taken together, our epistemic considerations against no-platforming and the three arguments for the policy suggest that no-platforming poses an epistemic dilemma (i.e., a difficult choice situation involving two equally undesirable options). While advocates and opponents of no-platforming alike have so far overlooked this dilemma, it should be addressed not only to prevent that actual no-platforming decisions create more epistemic harm than good, but also to put us into a better position to justify the policy when it is indeed warranted.

IT-INDUSTRY LEADERS: AN EXPERIENCE OF NARRATIVE INTERVIEW ANALYSIS

The paper considers interviews of 100 leaders in the rating of key persons of the Russian Internet market, published by the Tagline agency during 2020. Only publicly available data with links to the original texts of the interviews was used for the narrative analysis. The use of the narrative method made it possible to capture general trends through the unique details of a person’s life. The purpose of the task was to determine whether there are behavioral features and motives for the decisions made in the choice situation. The main attention was paid to the leader’s life trajectory, habitual patterns of behavior and reaction to events, used business strategies, ways of achieving success and justification of actions choice. There was a gender bias: only 3 representatives of the rating were women. In addition, the opinion that the leaders of the young IT industry are mainly young people has not been confirmed. Average age 44 years, minimum 26 years, maximum 71 years. The three generations represented in the ranking differ in basic principles in their approach to business. By place of birth, the sample is biased towards Moscow and St. Petersburg. Moreover, St. Petersburg is represented only in the younger and middle age groups. Intergenerational transition enhances the effect of centralization. In almost all interviews, various aspects and expectations from the development of technology were highlighted, causing anxiety about the strong impact on a person’s personal space. It was noted that even businesses with the largest capitalization in the Russian rating are not included in the top world ratings. And those that were included are gradually falling in the ratings compared to the rapidly growing giants from China and the United States. A tendency of relocation, primarily in the United States, to search for investors and overcome distrust in Russian businessmen was noted. It is concluded that the experience of business development is mediated by the norms of personal interaction with people to a greater extent than with the market.

Life priorities of modern senior pupils.

Today we acknowledge the requirement for scientific theory of youth self- determination, taking into account the development trends of Russian society and changes in the value consciousness of student youth. The problem of life goals and priorities choice in the process of youth self-determination is recognized as the most important and complex. The authors consider life priorities as phenomena, facts and actions, which a person prefers in a choice situation. The goal of research is to reveal the priorities in different groups of needs satisfying and their interconnection with life satisfaction and basic believes. The research is based on the leading positions of the axiological and personal-activity approaches. The authors use a complex of diagnostic methods and techniques to reveal the priority needs, basic believes and person life satisfaction. The study includes 100 senior schools pupils of Krasnodar Region and Republic of Bashkortostan. Results. The research revealed priority needs (in accordance with A. Maslow pyramid) that meet active and passive positions of schoolboys and girls. It as well established the relationship of life satisfaction indicators, basic believes and their corresponding needs together with its correlation analysis. The internal mechanisms of school youth life prioritization were also revealed. The conclusions about the necessity to create conditions for actualization and realization of needs that correspond to active life position were made. The results of this study determine the directions of further researches of psychological and pedagogical conditions of school youth life prospects building and life prioritizing.

EXPRESS: Studying Heterogeneity in the Subsistence Consumer Market: A Context-Sensitive Approach

This multi-method study develops a context-sensitive approach to subsistence consumer segmentation as advocated in the international market segmentation literature. Building on the theory of consumption values, the authors conduct multi-sited rapid ethnography research to collect primary data from urban subsistence consumers in South Africa and India who were presented with a simulated product choice situation. The authors convert the data into quantifiable segmentation variables for further analysis. This approach is particularly useful in subsistence consumer markets that are characterized by a dearth of quantifiable consumer data. The study reveals four distinct subsegments—Family-Oriented Workers, Low-Skilled Price-Sensitives, Young Performers, and Conscious Conservatives—that differ significantly in education level, number of children, age, consumption values, and purchase behavior. A detailed discussion of the context-sensitive segmentation approach applied in this study facilitates scholars and practitioners to deploy and adapt it to different environments and requirements.

The Effect of Regret-Based Risky Route Choice on the Traffic Equilibrium for Emergency Evacuation

Following the research on human decision-making under risk and uncertainty, the purpose of this paper is to analyze evacuees’ risky route decision behavior and its effect on traffic equilibrium. It examines the possibility of applying regret theory to model travellers’ regret-taking behavior and network equilibrium in emergency context. By means of modifying the utility function in expected utility theory, a regret-based evacuation traffic equilibrium model is established, accounting for the evacuee’s psychological behavior of regret aversion and risk aversion. Facing two parallel evacuation routes choice situation, the effect of evacuees’ risk aversion and regret aversion on traffic equilibrium is numerically investigated as well as the road capacity reduction from natural disaster. The findings reveal that evacuees prefer the riskless route with the lower travel time as the increase of the regret aversion degree. The equilibrium tends to be achieved when more evacuees choose the safer route jointly affected by risk aversion and regret aversion. Moreover, an optimization model for disaster occurring possibility is formulated to assess the traffic system performance for evacuation management. These findings are helpful for understanding how the regret aversion and risk aversion influence traffic equilibrium.

Extending the Choice Architecture Toolbox: The Choice Context Mapping

The role of context in behavioral interventions is indisputable, yet few intervention studies start with a systematic mapping of the influencing contextual factors. This is mostly due to the lack of a methodology that researchers can employ for this aim. Recognizing this current limitation of the field, we developed a procedure, the Choice Context Mapping, to provide researchers a tool to examine the contextual factors of a targeted behavior. We demonstrate the steps of Choice Context Mapping on the behavioural choice situation of stairs vs. elevator use. Potential contextual factors were collected from laypeople as well as experts, and two surveys were created to measure both the behavior and choice, as well as the beliefs of participants. We estimated the effect of contextual factors on the participants’ behavior and managed to identify the most influential ones regarding their contribution to the studied choice. Using Choice Context Mapping, we obtained an accurate prediction of whether one chooses the stairs or elevator based on contextual information in 93.26% of the cases, on previously unseen data. We also ascertained that participants differed in their beliefs about what influences them in this particular choice, and that they can be divided into different groups based on their beliefs. Our results indicate that Choice Context Mapping is a useful procedure for the collection and assessment of contextual factors in a given choice setting which can help the planning of behavioral interventions by considerably lowering the number of possible interventions that are plausibly effective.