Behavioral science and the Nobel Prize: a history

The Nobel Prizes began a little over a century ago, established by the last will and testament of Alfred Nobel to recognize those individuals "who. shall have conferred the greatest benefits on mankind" (R. M. Friedman, 2001, p. 13). No social science prizes were established among the original five categories, consequently behavioral research has received little recognition. Using archival records from several locations, particularly the Nobel committee records from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, which selects the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, this article provides a history of the scientists whose work was related to psychology and who won or lost the attempt for Nobel fame. It concludes with a discussion of the importance of behavioral science in the 21st century in the context of the subject domains of the Nobel Prizes.     

诺贝尔医学奖与幽门螺杆菌

瑞典皇家科学院宣布了今年的化学、物理和医学诺贝尔奖获得者。获得医学奖的是两位澳大利亚科学家。他们因发现幽门螺杆菌而获奖。就幽门螺杆菌的实验研究过程和临床应用作一简介。     

Discussion of Petri Meronen's paper, "The Return of Narcissism: Heinz Kohut in the Context of the History of Ideas"

In the 100-year-old history of the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology, there are several fields whose practitioners have not received the prize. Among the unlucky candidates for the Nobel Prize, Sigmund Freud (18561939) is probably the most prominent and best known. He is also the one proposed for the prize during the longest period of time, almost a quarter of a century, or more precisely, between 1915 and 1938. In this article I will examine the nominations of Freud and the evaluations of his work by what is perhaps the most science centered of medical institutions, the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine. I will place these in the context of the reception of Freud's work by Swedish psychiatrists. Here the influence of the most prominent psychiatrist at the time, Bror Gadelius, deserves special attention.     

Risk preferences in young children: early evidence of individual differences in reaction to potential gains and losses

New methods were developed for studying risky decision making in children as young as age five. Each child was given a block of ‘gain’ trials, for example, a choice between a sure gain of one prize and a 50:50 chance of gaining either two prizes or no prize, and a block of ‘loss’ trials, for example, a choice between a sure loss of one prize and a 50:50 chance of losing either two prizes or no prize. We were thus able to compare risky choice for gains and losses at the level of the individual child. In each of two experiments a variety of individual difference variables were measured, including in Experiment 2, the child's parent's scores on the same task. Across experiments, the preponderance of choices was of the risky option. However, most children and adults made more risky choices in the domain of losses than in the domain of gains. Predictors of individual differences in children included shyness, impulsivity, and the risk taking of the child's parent. We suggest that methods are now in place to encourage further studies of decision processes in young children. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Why do High IQ Societies Differ in Intellectual Achievement? The Role of Schizophrenia and Left-Handedness in Per Capita Scientific Publications and Nobel Prizes

Previous research has attempted to understand why countries with relatively favorable conditions and high estimated average IQs (such as Finland and Japan) have a relatively low per capita number of scientific Nobel prizes. In the present study, we examine whether there is a relationship between national schizophrenia and left-handedness prevalence, on the one hand, and per capita scientific and literary achievement, on the other hand, in countries with IQ estimates of at least 90. We found that per capita science and literature Nobel prizes and scientific publications are strongly negatively associated with schizophrenia and strongly positively correlated with left-handedness. There also was a very pronounced negative correlation between schizophrenia rate and left-handedness rate. These results suggest that genius can be regarded as a combination of very high IQ, aspects of high-functioning autism (specifically low empathy) plus relatively low impulse control, consistent with observations of intellectually outstanding individuals, and the fact that schizophrenia appears to constitute the opposite pole of these aspects of autism spectrum. We posit differences in androgen levels as a possible underlying explanation for these findings.     

Quantity versus uncertainty: When winning one prize is better than winning two

We predicted that a state of uncertainty would prolong a positive mood, but that people would not anticipate this when making affective forecasts. In Study 1, participants learned that they had won one prize (certain condition), two prizes (two-gift condition), or one of two prizes (uncertain condition). People in the uncertain condition were in a positive mood longer than people in the other two conditions. In Study 2, forecaster participants underestimated the benefits of uncertainty and overestimated the benefits of quantity (getting two gifts instead of one). Under some circumstances, and contrary to people’s predictions, uncertainty can prolong positive mood, and winning one prize under a state of uncertainty can bring more short-term pleasure than winning two prizes.     

Non-verbal communication enables children’s coordination in a “Stag Hunt” game

This study assessed the role of non-verbal communication in 4-year-old children’s decisions to coordinate with others. During a “Stag Hunt” game, the child and an adult individually and continually collected low-value prizes (hares). Occasionally, an alternative option of collecting a high-value prize (stag) cooperatively with the adult arose, but entailed a risk: a lone attempt on this prize by either player would leave that player empty handed. Children coordinated with the adult to obtain the high-value prize more often when that adult made mutual eye contact and smiled at them than when she attended to the prizes only. This suggests that neither verbal nor gestural communication are necessary for coordination: Minimal, non-verbal communication enables children’s coordination with others towards joint goals.     

The proliferation of prizes: Nobel complements and Nobel surrogates in the reward system of science

In the last two decades, prizes in the sciences have proliferated and, in particular, rich prizes with large honoraria. These developments raise several questions: Why have rich prizes proliferated? Have they greatly changed the reward system of science? What effects will such prizes have on scientists and on science? The proliferation of such prizes derives from marked limitations on the numbers and types of scientists eligible for Nobel prizes and consequent increases in the number of uncrowned laureate-equivalents. These would-be surrogates for Nobel prizes extend the reward system of science in its upper reaches but this change is not fundamental. The spread of rich prizes to new fields provides added incentives to potential winners, which has its own disutilities; it reinforces competitiveness, concern for priority and attendant secrecy, all this amplifying ambivalence toward the reward system in science. There may also be modest positive effects of such new awards in the form of heightened popular esteem for science and interest in it.     

传统、浮躁、道德及其它--医域随感

多年来我一直从事外科医、教、研和科室管理工作,并兼任一些专业杂志的编辑和审稿工作.记不清楚由什么时候开始,逐渐感觉到平时熟悉的情况出现了一些微妙的变化,特别是近几年,可能是市场经济大环境的影响或是社会上漂浮的灰尘飞落到医院和学术界,不太寻常的现象似有所增多.其中有些情况均为所见所闻,间或偶尔与同道议论过,现结合当前事态发展,重新认识一下,可能有益无害.     

Attraction and delay of gratification

The present study examined the degree to which differential attraction to the prizes could explain children's decisions in a delay of gratification situation. After rating the attractiveness of prizes, each child responded to four delay choice situations. While significant effects were obtained on only one choice pair, the results generalized to the other choices: nondelayers consistently perceived less discrepancy in attraction between the immediate and delayed rewards than did delayers. In general, the smaller discrepancy among nondelayers was due to a greater attraction to the immediate prize. As predicted, these results held only for “inconsistent” children and not for children who consistently delayed or did not delay across all four choices. The implications of this finding for trait-situation explanations of delay are discussed. While it was predicted that differential attraction would explain previously reported SES differences in delay tendencies, middle and lower SES children responded similarly, both in level of attraction to the prizes and actual delay behavior.     

Children's judgements of gambles: a disordinal violation of utility

Violations of utility are often attributed to people's differential reactions to risk versus certainty or uncertainty, or more generally to the way that people perceive outcomes and consequences. However, a core feature of utility is additivity, and violations may also occur because of averaging effects. Averaging is pervasive in intuitive riskless judgement throughout many domains, as shown with Anderson's Information Integration approach. The present study extends these findings to judgement under risk. Five‐ to 10‐year old children showed a disordinal violation of utility because they averaged the part worths of duplex gambles rather than add them, as adults do, and as normatively prescribed. Thus adults realized that two prizes are better than one, but children preferred a high chance to win one prize to the same gamble plus an additional small chance to win a second prize. This result suggests that an additive operator may not be a natural component of the intuitive psychological concept of expected value that emerges in childhood. The implications of a developmental perspective for the study of judgement and decision are discussed. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

National-level Indicators of Androgens are Related to the Global Distribution of Scientific Productivity and Science Nobel Prizes

There are national differences in scientific activity that are not well accounted for by economic and intellectual factors alone. We examine the novel hypothesis that androgen levels may also play a role. Androgens are often referred to as male hormones, but are present in both men and women, and have been linked to performance in other domains, such as sports and entrepreneurship. National-level empirical data on scientific productivity, in terms of numbers of publications, and science Nobel laureates were compared to seven national-level androgen indicators; namely androgenic body hair, the length of the CAG repeat on the androgen receptor gene, prostate cancer incidence, male and female 2D:4D finger ratio, and sex frequency and number of partners. The majority of these indicators were associated in the expected direction with per capita number of scientific publications and Nobel prizes. Moreover, several indicators significantly interacted with national-level estimates of intelligence, such that androgen levels are related to measures of the scientific achievement only when the level of intelligence is relatively high. These findings may partly explain the global distribution of scientific productivity, achievements, and Nobel prizes.     

蛋白质相互作用研究的哲学思考

蛋白质相互作用几乎是所有生物学过程都必需的重要的生理过程,已成为国内外生命科学研究的热点之一.近十年来,多个诺贝尔生理医学奖项目与蛋白质相互作用研究有关.从蛋白质相互作用的特点和重要性出发,结合我们实践中的点滴体会,列举有关实例与数据说明:为什么蛋白质相互作用研究是细胞通讯网络途径中的重要研究环节,从而提出:蛋白质与蛋白质相互作用研究具有丰富的哲学内涵.     

The effects of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards in a risk-taking situation

This study varied both the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards associated with performing a task in a risk taking situation. When the task performed to win a prize provided little if any intrinsic reward, subjects liked and tried for prizes that were easy to obtain. In contrast, when the task was intrinsically rewarding, subjects liked and tried for those prizes that were somewhat more difficult to obtain. In addition, subjects were more likely to like and try for prizes easier to obtain when the extrinsic reward was high.     

从诺贝尔生理与医学奖提名看亚洲的医学地位

诺贝尔生理与医学奖是生命科学领域声誉最高的一个奖项,获得者的多少常被作为衡量一个国家科技实力的一项指标.至今,亚洲的科学家仅有1人获得了该项荣誉,但是已经有多名科学家获得了提名,通过描述从1901年到1951年之间诺贝尔生理与医学奖的提名情况来评价亚洲的医学地位.     

医学创新的跨学科特征分析

以诺贝尔生理学和医学奖获奖者群体为样本,从该群体的知识背景、研究方法、科研协作方面入手,进行计量分析和实证研究,揭示医学创新研究的跨学科特征,认为跨学科知识背景是获得创新性成果的前提和基础,进而指出医学创新研究最终会导致新的医学跨学科体系的建构,推动整个医学的发展。     

EFFECT OF REINFORCEMENT PROBABILITY AND PRIZE SIZE ON COCAINE AND HEROIN ABSTINENCE IN PRIZE‐BASED CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT

Although treatment outcome in prize‐based contingency management has been shown to depend on reinforcement schedule, the optimal schedule is still unknown. Therefore, we conducted a retrospective analysis of data from a randomized clinical trial (Ghitza et al., 2007) to determine the effects of the probability of winning a prize (low vs. high) and the size of the prize won (small, large, or jumbo) on likelihood of abstinence until the next urine‐collection day for heroin and cocaine users (N = 116) in methadone maintenance. Higher probability of winning, but not the size of individual prizes, was associated with a greater percentage of cocaine‐negative, but not opiate‐negative, urines.     

An Invitation to Behavior Analysts: Review of in Search of Memory: The Emergence of A New Science of Mind by Eric R. Kandel

This fascinating autobiography and multifaceted case history in neuroscience research is accessible to laymen and potentially instructive to working scientists. Kandel takes the reader through his thought processes as he describes experiments that led to some of the past decades'' major neuroscience discoveries (some highlights of which are summarized in the review''s Appendix), and eventually to his Nobel Prize. The review analyzes some of the terminological and conceptual issues that have often inhibited communication between behavior analysts and neuroscientists, with special attention to some of Bennett and Hacker''s admonitions viewed from the perspective of language evolution and linguistics. The review then discusses opportunities for behavior analysts to collaborate with neuroscientists by applying behavioral contingency analysis to help specify the independent variables of neuroscience experiments described by Kandel. Finally, it examines Kandel''s provocative heuristics for locating important research problems, and the lessons that can be gleaned from the book regarding the attributes of potentially great achievers.     

The development of the experience and anticipation of regret

Although recent studies have established that children experience regret from around 6 years, we do not yet know when the ability to anticipate this emotion emerges, despite the importance of the anticipation of regret in decision-making. We examined whether children will anticipate they will feel regret if they were to find out in a box-choosing game that, had they made a different choice, they would have obtained a better prize. Experiment 1 replicated Guttentag and Ferrell's study in which children were asked what they hoped was in a non-chosen box. Even 8- to 9-year olds find this question difficult. However, when asked what might make them feel sadder, 7- to 8-year olds (but not younger children) predicted that finding the larger prize in the unchosen box would make them feel this way. In Experiments 2 and 3, children predicted how they would feel if the unchosen box contained either a larger or smaller prize, in order to examine anticipation of both regret and of relief. Although 6- to 7-year olds do experience regret when they find out they could have won a better prize, they do not correctly anticipate feeling this way. By around 8 years, the majority of children are able to anticipate both regret and relief.     

Reflections on peer review practices in committees selecting laureates for prestigious awards and prizes: Some relevant and irrelevant criteria

An important function in all scholarly and academic activities is the participation in the peer review system. One aspect of this peer review evaluation is service on committees judging candidates for important awards, prizes and fellowships. Some reflective observations on this process are made in which a number of factors determining the final choice are identified. It is pointed out that the decisions of such committees are based not only on relevant and objective criteria but are also influenced by a number of irrelevant criteria; caution must be exercised to minimize the effect of the latter factors in order to maintain the highest ethical standards in the selection process. The ranking practices of awards committees, national academies and learned societies are briefly reviewed by pointing out some ethical pitfalls, anecdotal incidents, and the ways to avoid the tarnishing of the selection process. Dr. Vijh is a physical chemist whose research interests include interfacial electrochemistry and the chemical physics of solid surface s.