More equal than others: Equity norms as an integration of cognitive heuristics and contextual cues in bargaining games

Behavior in one-shot bargaining games, like the Ultimatum Game (UG), has been interpreted as an expression of social preferences, such as inequity aversion and negative reciprocity; however, the traditional UG design limits the range of possible psychological interpretation of the results. Here, we employed three different designs for ultimatum games, finding support for a more comprehensive theory: behavior is driven by cognitive factors implementing rules such as equal splitting, speaking up for the idea that equity works as a cognitive heuristic, applicable when the environment provides no reason to behave otherwise. Instead subjects deviate from this rule when environment changes, as, for instance, when personal interest is at stake.Results show that behavior varies systematically with contextual cues, balancing the self-interest with the automatic application of the equity heuristic. Thus, the context suggests the rule to be applied in a specific situation.     

An Inter‐ and Intraindividual Perspective of the Substitutability of Fairness Rules for Trust Within Teams

The present study longitudinally assesses fairness allocation rule importance and equity allocation preference under conditions of evolving team trust. We predicted an interchangeable relationship between trust and allocation rules using an uncertainty management theory framework ( Lind & Van den Bos, 2002 ; Van den Bos & Lind, 2002 ). From an interindividual perspective, lower initial trust toward team members predicted a higher degree of importance for the use of preferred allocation rules and greater use of the equity heuristic. An intraindividual change in trust predicted an inverse change in use of the equity heuristic, but not the expected change in allocation rule importance. Implications of these results for future research and practice are discussed.     

Distributive justice beliefs and group idea generation: Does a belief in equity facilitate productivity?

The equity rule is favored by groups that emphasize productivity, but there is limited support for the notion that equity actually facilitates productivity in groups (Deutsch, 1985). We propose that the relationship between equity and productivity may depend on whether individual group members have an independent or interdependent self-construal. This prediction was tested in an experiment in which groups endorsed either an equity rule or an equality rule for distributing resources and then generated ideas as a group. The results showed that equity facilitated productivity (e.g. the number of ideas generated) but only in groups whose members had been primed with an independent self-construal. The results of both self-report and video-tape data support competition as the mechanism that explains this productivity gain. This work contributes to research on both distributive justice and small group performance by specifying more clearly the conditions under which a belief in equity will stimulate productivity.     

Equality ratio equity,general linear equity and framing effects in judgments of allocation divisions

It is argued here that there is not necessarily a contradiction between the general linear and equal ratio approaches to equity, and the two may be integrated to make more precise predictions. It was hypothesized that, (a) equity is best represented by a limited equal ratio rule; (b) the more a linear distribution systematically deviates from equal input/outcome ratios, the more unfair it will be judged, but (c) subjects will prefer a distribution that accords with a general linear formula in certain cases where an equal ratio distribution of available outcomes would actually infringe a preeminent or established equal ratio distribution. Four studies are presented, the results of which seem broadly to support these ideas. However, the results also suggest that equity judgments can be strongly influenced by framing effects.     

Age and outcome allocation: A new test of the subtractive model

The no, moderate, and large differences between shares of outcome allocated to the high and low performers are interpreted as the respective rules of equality, ordinal equity, and proportional equity. The ability to employ the proportional rule is also believed to develop around the age of 13 years. The authors hypothesized that: (i) the rule of outcome allocation is subtraction; and (ii) age differences in outcome allocation are mediated by age differences in perceived inputs. In an experiment on Chinese aged 8–20 years, measures of perceived inputs were taken after or before outcome allocation. Results from the input-allocation order supported the hypotheses. Obviously, age effects in outcome allocations by Asians can sometimes be mediated by age differences in the ability to perceive the inputs accurately.     

投资决策进化心理学的研究：预期的私人资金分配和父母对子女的差异性精力投入

投资决策的进化心理学研究着眼于辨认人类获得进化适应的特定环境中经常出现的典型性风险,探寻为了应对这些风险而进化出的信息处理机制,并验证现时的社会因素和个体因素对这些心理机制的激活或抑制作用。在研究一中,被试预测了与自己同龄的男人或女人如何分配一笔中彩的奖金给自己和其他可能的受益人。研究发现：（1）钱数的分配大体由亲缘关系的疏密程度决定;（2）两性被试都假想男性比女性更慷慨,但实际上男性表现得更自利;（3）女性被试预测男性中奖人的金钱分配比男性被试预测女性中奖人的金钱分配更为准确;（4）女性被试的受益人更多,分享的社会范围更广。研究二探讨了父母对子女投入精力的不同取决于家庭的相对财富而非绝对财富的进化心理学假说。用哺乳与否和生育间隔期为测量指标,研究结果显示：（1）家庭实际收入影响父母对子女的总投入;（2）与邻里家庭相比,父母对于自己家庭相对收入的认知影响了对子女有别的差异性精力投入。基于男性普遍在财富和生育数量上比女性有更大的变异度,投资儿子比投资女儿更具博弈性。两项研究表明,人类的理性决策既受限于社会关系又适应于相对的财富状况     

Speciesism as a Moral Heuristic

In the last decade, the study of moral heuristics has gained in importance. I argue that we can consider speciesism as a moral heuristic: an intuitive rule of thumb that substitutes a target attribute (that is difficult to detect, e.g. “having rationality”) for a heuristic attribute (that is easier to detect, e.g. “looking like a human being”). This speciesism heuristic misfires when applied to some atypical humans such as the mentally disabled, giving them rights although they lack rationality. But I argue that it is not necessarily irrational or inconsistent to hold on to this heuristic rule, because we have to take time and knowledge constraints, uncertainty aversion and emotional costs into account. However, this “heuristic defense” of speciesism uses a target attribute (rationality) that has implications of disrespect towards some atypical humans. Therefore, based on notions of impartiality and compassion, I argue for a morally better target attribute: sentience (“having a sense of well-being”). “Being a vertebrate” is suitable as a corresponding heuristic attribute because it is easy to detect and has a strong correlation with the target attribute of sentience.     

Assessing the empirical validity of the "take-the-best" heuristic as a model of human probabilistic inference

The boundedly rational 'Take-The-Best" heuristic (TTB) was proposed by G. Gigerenzer, U. Hoffrage, and H. Kleinb?lting (1991) as a model of fast and frugal probabilistic inferences. Although the simple lexicographic rule proved to be successful in computer simulations, direct empirical demonstrations of its adequacy as a psychological model are lacking because of several methodical problems. In 4 experiments with a total of 210 participants, this question was addressed. Whereas Experiment 1 showed that TTB is not valid as a universal hypothesis about probabilistic inferences, up to 28% of participants in Experiment 2 and 53% of participants in Experiment 3 were classified as TTB users. Experiment 4 revealed that investment costs for information seem to be a relevant factor leading participants to switch to a noncompensatory TTB strategy. The observed individual differences in strategy use imply the recommendation of an idiographic approach to decision-making research.     

Sex differences in behavioral and hormonal response to social threat: commentary on Taylor et al. (2000)

Taylor and colleagues proposed that women uniquely respond to stressors by tending to children and befriending other women rather than by fighting or fleeing (S. E. Taylor et al., 2000). In this article, the authors expand Taylor et al.'s evolutionary frame and incorporate several unique aspects of human social dynamics. First, humans are characterized by extensive paternal investment, and thus men's tending is predicted and observed in some stressful contexts. Second, the dynamics of women's befriending suggest an evolutionary elaboration of the mechanisms that support reciprocal altruism. Third, coalitional male-male competition indicates that men's befriending is a predicted component of their fight-or-flight response. Finally, men's tending should result in the evolution of female-female competition over this form of parental investment.     

A Cognitive Model of Customer‐Based Brand Equity for Frequently Purchased Products: Conceptual Framework and Empirical Results

The main purpose of this research is to identify the underlying cognitive structure of brand equity. Existing research on brand equity is used to identify 4 cognitive “components” of customer‐based brand equity. These are labeled as global brand attitude, strength of preference, brand knowledge, and brand heuristic. A conceptual framework of how these components (or subconstructs) are interrelated is proposed and empirically tested using data from 2 frequently purchased product categories. Covariance structure modeling is used as the analysis methodology. The results indicate that all the identified cognitive components are important determinants of customer‐based brand equity. Specifically, the brand heuristic component serves as an important mediator in 2 “cognitive chains” that link global brand attitude to brand knowledge and global brand attitude to strength of preference, respectively. The study findings have important implications for designing equity maintenance strategies for frequently purchased products.     

An Attempted Replication of the Relationships between Birth Order and Personality

According to Sulloway (1996), firstborn children hold positions of dominance and parental favor relative to laterborn children and, as a consequence, develop personality characteristics that coincide with parental interests. Laterborns develop personality characteristics that differ from firstborns in an effort to secure parental investment. Sulloway (1996, in press) reported support for the hypotheses that firstborn status correlates positively with Surgency and Conscientiousness and correlates negatively with Agreeableness, Emotional Stability, and Openness after controlling for sex, age, sibship size, and socioeconomic status. The authors attempt to replicate these findings with self-report data provided by several hundred young adults, including a sample of full genetic siblings and a sample of mixed (half-, step-, or adoptive) siblings. For the complete sample and the full sibling sample, they replicate the negative relationship between firstborn status and Agreeableness. Contradicting Sulloway's findings, the authors document in the complete sample and in the mixed sibling sample a positive relationship between firstborn status and Openness. They find no relationships between firstborn status and Surgency, Conscientiousness, or Emotional Stability. Discussion situates the results of the current research with previous attempts to replicate Sulloway's (1996) findings.     

Decisions among time saving options: when intuition is strong and wrong

When people judge the time that can be saved by increasing the speed of an activity, they are often victims of a time saving bias. That is, they overestimate the time that can be saved by increasing the speed. Judgments of time savings following speed increase when driving follow the Proportion heuristic [Svenson, O. (1970). A functional measurement approach to intuitive estimation as exemplified by estimated time savings. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 86, 204-210]. In a choice between time saving options, this heuristic simplifies to the Ratio rule. The first study tested this rule and found that the Ratio rule predicted incorrect decisions when planning to save traveling time in road traffic. The second study showed that the time saving bias was also present in planning of health care; to specify, in decisions about which one of two clinics to reorganize to save more of the doctors' time for personal contacts with patients. To further test the Ratio rule, Study 3 used a matching procedure in which two decision alternatives were made equal by the participants. The results supported the Ratio rule. Practical implications of the results are discussed including the Planning fallacy. In conclusion, the present set of studies have illustrated a time saving bias and provided evidence explaining why people make systematic errors when judging and deciding about time saved following a speed increase.     

货币幻觉的心理机制与影响因素

货币幻觉是指经济交易活动中,人们因倾向于以货币的名义价值而非实际价值思考而对其消费和投资行为造成影响的一种认知偏差。大量研究表明,货币幻觉普遍存在于房地产投资、股票投资、组织管理以及捐赠等领域中。目前,研究者主要从决策框架、锚定与调整启发式、数目启发式以及神经心理机制这四个方面解释货币幻觉的形成机制。研究发现,货币幻觉的影响因素有心境、货币兑换率、通货膨胀率、情感依恋和先前经验。未来的研究可以从深入探讨货币幻觉的心理机制、影响因素和探索货币幻觉的应对策略这三个方面展开。     

Fluency heuristic: a model of how the mind exploits a by-product of information retrieval

Boundedly rational heuristics for inference can be surprisingly accurate and frugal for several reasons. They can exploit environmental structures, co-opt complex capacities, and elude effortful search by exploiting information that automatically arrives on the mental stage. The fluency heuristic is a prime example of a heuristic that makes the most of an automatic by-product of retrieval from memory, namely, retrieval fluency. In 4 experiments, the authors show that retrieval fluency can be a proxy for real-world quantities, that people can discriminate between two objects' retrieval fluencies, and that people's inferences are in line with the fluency heuristic (in particular fast inferences) and with experimentally manipulated fluency. The authors conclude that the fluency heuristic may be one tool in the mind's repertoire of strategies that artfully probes memory for encapsulated frequency information that can veridically reflect statistical regularities in the world.     

What Does It Mean to Be Relational? A Framework for Assessment and Practice

The authors begin with a question regarding how to better draw upon relational thinking in making case assessments and treatment plans. They first address issues regarding the cultural construction of self and relationships, integrating women's psychology, family systems, and collectivist culture literatures within a discussion of power. Then they present a heuristic framework for how individuals orient themselves within relationships that includes two dimensions--focus and power--and evolves out of the social context. From these two dimensions, a typology of four basic relational orientations is presented: position directed, rule directed, independence directed, and relationship directed. Case examples from couple's therapy and suggestions for practice are provided.     

The similarity heuristic

Decision makers often make snap judgments using fast‐and‐frugal decision rules called cognitive heuristics. Research into cognitive heuristics has been divided into two camps. One camp has emphasized the limitations and biases produced by the heuristics; another has focused on the accuracy of heuristics and their ecological validity. In this paper we investigate a heuristic proposed by the first camp, using the methods of the second. We investigate a subset of the representativeness heuristic we call the “similarity” heuristic, whereby decision makers who use it judge the likelihood that an instance is a member of one category rather than another by the degree to which it is similar to others in that category. We provide a mathematical model of the heuristic and test it experimentally in a trinomial environment. In this environment, the similarity heuristic turns out to be a reliable and accurate choice rule and both choice and response time data suggest it is also how choices are made. We conclude with a theoretical discussion of how our work fits in the broader “fast‐and‐frugal” heuristics program, and of the boundary conditions for the similarity heuristic. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Parental investment in schooling: Evidence from a subsistence farming community in South Africa

Interviews were carried out amongst a cohort of 488 parents who lived as subsistence farmers in a remote and very poorly resourced region of South Africa. The majority of respondents had invested heavily in the education of their children, contrary to what might have been predicted from large family sizes and the economic and ecological pressures that families faced. There was little evidence of child specialization, in which educational investment might have been targeted more to some children than others in a family. However, relatively wide birth spacing may have made the financial and opportunity costs of schooling more manageable. This speculation is given some support by two findings: first, that the number of grades of schooling children complete before leaving increases significantly as birth spacing increases; second, that children who are still in school progress more rapidly as birth interval increases. Greater opportunities for the schooling of sons (made possible by low rates of migrant labour in the community), coupled with high opportunity costs associated with the schooling of daughters, made it likely that sons would be educated to a higher level than daughters. However, there was consistent evidence for gender equity in schooling patterns. This is attributed to the lower risk of financial and opportunity losses that are associated with rearing daughters in this particular community. Birth order exerted only modest effects on the decisions parents made about schooling their offspring. The investment strategy as a whole could be interpreted as “bet‐hedging” under conditions where events outside parental control prevented them from targeting investment to children who could be readily identified as having favourable educational and employment prospects. It is concluded that parents invest in their sons and daughters in a manner that can only be understood when the complexities of their particular social, economic, and ecological contexts are taken into account.     

The mapping model: a cognitive theory of quantitative estimation

How do people make quantitative estimations, such as estimating a car's selling price? Traditionally, linear-regression-type models have been used to answer this question. These models assume that people weight and integrate all information available to estimate a criterion. The authors propose an alternative cognitive theory for quantitative estimation. The mapping model, inspired by the work of N. R. Brown and R. S. Siegler (1993) on metrics and mappings, offers a heuristic approach to decision making. The authors test this model against established alternative models of estimation, namely, linear regression, an exemplar model, and a simple estimation heuristic. With 4 experimental studies the authors compare the models under different environmental conditions. The mapping model proves to be a valid model to predict people's estimates.     

Evolution, Traits, and the Stages of Human Courtship: Qualifying the Parental Investment Model

ABSTRACT Individual differences are explicitly connected to social interaction in Darwin's notion of sexual selection Traits that increase the probability of successful reproduction will tend to increase in frequency This process operates partly through differential choice, by one sex, of certain traits in the other According to the parental investment model, females frequently have more stringent criteria for the traits they will accept in a mate because they have a relatively larger investment in each offspring Because human mating arrangements often involve a substantial commitment of resources by the male, it is necessary to invoke a distinction between the selectivity involved during casual mating opportunities and the selectivity exercised when choosing a long-term partner Ninety-three undergraduate men and women rated their minimum criteria on 24 partner characteristics at four levels of commitment In line with an unqualified parental investment model, females were more selective overall, particularly on status-linked variables In line with a qualified parental investment model, males' trait preferences depended upon the anticipated investment in the relationship Males had lower requirements for a sexual partner than did females, but were nearly as selective as females when considenng requirements for a long-term partner