Enacting Actuarial Fairness in Insurance: From Fair Discrimination to Behaviour-based Fairness

ABSTRACT

In line with developments in the personalisation of risk, the idea that insurance products should above all be ‘fair’ to the policyholders is increasingly voiced by commentators. The performativity thesis in Science and Technology Studies usually used to study economic markets can be used to investigate different enactments of ‘actuarial fairness’ in insurance practice. Actuarial fairness functions as a technical economic concept and was coined by the neoclassical micro-economist Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017). Faced with anti-discrimination legislation, the insurance industry has, since the 1980s, advanced the principle of actuarial fairness to legitimise their medico-actuarial technologies to discriminate between risk groups. In the absence of this actuarial fairness, it is assumed that dynamics of adverse selection—derived from neoclassical assumptions about economic actors— will result in the bankruptcy of insurance providers. The paradigmatic case of Fairzekering, a showcase of contemporary behaviour-based personalisation in car insurance, demonstrates an important shift in how actuarial fairness is enacted through behaviour-based calculative devices. Here, policyholders are enacted as being personally in control of their driving style while an interactive discount-infrastructure is set up to provide real-time feedback to incentivize policyholders towards ‘good behaviour.’ This enactment of behaviour-based fairness simultaneously implies a shift in the enactment of the economic actors involved, constitutive of the making of new economic ideas in behavioural economics.     

The intergenerational transmission of need for closure underlies the transmission of authoritarianism and anti-immigrant prejudice

Previous research has identified need for closure (NFC) as an important motivational-cognitive basis of authoritarianism and prejudice. However, to date, the role of NFC in the intergenerational similarity in authoritarianism and prejudice has remained unclear. In a sample of 169 parent–child dyads, we investigated the similarity between parents and children in NFC and tested whether this intergenerational similarity may account for the intergenerational similarity in authoritarianism and anti-immigrant prejudice. Our results revealed that parental levels of NFC were indeed concordant with the levels of NFC in their children. Even more importantly, parental NFC was indirectly related to child authoritarianism and prejudice in two ways. The first pathway proceeded through the direct relationships between parental and children’s levels of authoritarianism and prejudice. The second pathway, however, bypassed parental levels of authoritarianism and prejudice and proceeded through the intergenerational similarity in NFC. Our findings thus indicate that a significant portion of children’s levels of authoritarianism and anti-immigrant prejudice can be explained by parent–child similarity in motivated cognition. Implications for developmental theories of prejudice acquisition are discussed.     

Effects on High School Students of a Teaching Module for Reducing Homophobia

Outcomes of an antihomophobia teaching unit for 130 high school students were evaluated in a pretest-posttest follow-up design, with gender and school type as independent variables. Dependent variables were cognition (Modified Attitudes Toward Homosexuality Scale; Price, 1982); homophobic guilt, homophobic anger, and delight (Affective Reactions to Homosexuality Scale; Van de Ven, Bornholt, & Bailey, in press); behavioral intentions (Homophobic Behavior of Students Scale; Van de Ven et al., in press); and short-story responses. Multivariate analyses of variance revealed that participants' anger (p < .05) and behavioral intentions (p < .0005) were significantly less homophobic at posttest and follow-up. Analyses of the cognition variable showed that hostility toward homosexuals was significantly reduced for girls (p < .0005) and initially for boys (p < .0005); however, boys reverted to previous levels of homophobia on this variable at 3-month follow-up. Similarly, analyses of the delight variable for students in single-sex schools showed that girls became less hostile (p < .05) and maintained their reduced levels of homophobia, whereas boys became less hostile initially (p < .05) but then regressed. The intervention had no effect on students' guilt and no effect on delight for coeducational students. Analysis of all participants' short-story content using sign tests indicated that the instruction had the desired effect (p < .005). However, only the female, coeducational school cohort yielded significant results (p < .05). The findings reinforce the importance of using multiple dependent measures of homophobic response and of collecting follow-up data. They also imply that extensions of the unit are warranted, especially in the absence of longer term impact for boys.     

The Effects of Video and Paper Resumes on Assessments of Personality,Applied Social Skills,Mental Capability,and Resume Outcomes

In this laboratory experiment we examined the effect of resume format (paper resume only, video resume only, or both) on applicant evaluation. Differences in applicant personality trait evaluation were found for extraversion and agreeableness when video resumes were reviewed compared to when only paper resumes were reviewed. In addition, social skill and mental capability ratings were lower when only video resumes were reviewed. These findings indicate that video resumes may result in different assessments of applicant personality and harsher evaluations of applicant skills and abilities than paper resumes. Human resource personnel are cautioned in the use of video resumes until more research has been completed.     

Signals for threat modulate attentional capture and holding: Fear-conditioning and extinction during the exogenous cueing task

This experiment investigated whether acquired signals for threat capture and hold visual attention. Cues that were presented in an exogenous attentional cueing task were emotionally modulated using a fear-conditioning paradigm. During acquisition, undergraduate students (55 women, 11 men) learned that one cue (CS+) of the attentional task was a signal for an aversive white noise burst (UCS, 100 dBA) and that another cue (CS?) signalled its nonoccurrence. In a subsequent extinction phase, no UCSs were presented anymore during the cueing task. Results indicated that during acquisition, the CS+ cues strongly captured and held visual attention in comparison with the CS? cues, and that these effects diminished during extinction.     

Difficulties in disengaging attentional resources from self-generated thoughts moderate the link between dysphoria and maladaptive self-referential thinking

Negative emotions increase self-focused attention, a core feature of depression and anxiety-related disorders. However, the cognitive mechanisms associated with the tendency to self-focus—and, conversely, with the ability to voluntarily disengage attentional resources from the self and direct them towards the external environment—remain poorly understood. Thus, this study aimed to examine whether a specific cognitive control mechanism that directs attention between self-generated thoughts and external information might moderate the relationship between dysphoria and maladaptive self-referential thinking. Results showed that dysphoria increases the frequency of rumination, self-blame, and catastrophising, especially for participants who have more difficulty in switching from self-generated thoughts to information provided by the environment. These results shed new light on the cognitive mechanisms underlying maladaptive self-referential thinking associated with dysphoria. More specifically, this specific cognitive mechanism might play a key role in the maintenance or amplification of a depressed mood.     

Emotion and the construal of social situations: Inferences of cooperation versus competition from expressions of anger,happiness, and disappointment

The notion that emotional expressions regulate social life by providing information is gaining popularity. Prior research on the effects of emotional expressions on observers’ inferential processes has focused mostly on inferences regarding the personality traits of the expresser, such as dominance and affiliation. We extend this line of research by exploring the possibility that emotional expressions shape observers’ construal of social situations. Across three vignette studies, an interaction partner's expressions of anger, compared to expressions of happiness or disappointment, led observers to construe hypothetical situations as less cooperative, both in dyads and groups. These effects occurred even when factual information regarding the cooperativeness or competitiveness of the situation was provided, attesting to the power of emotional expressions in shaping the construal of social situations. Results are discussed in relation to appraisal theory, reverse appraisals, emotions as social information theory, and the emergence of cooperation in groups and cultures.     

Determinants of the shape of emotion intensity profiles

It has been shown that variability in the shape of emotion intensity profiles can be described in terms of three functional features, namely steepness at onset, skewness and number of peaks. However, it remains unclear which factors account for variability in each of these features. In the present study participants were asked to report intensity profiles of positive and negative emotions on a daily basis. Information was further collected regarding potential determinants of the functional features of the intensity profiles at three levels: trait-, episode-, and moment-determinants. Regarding steepness at onset, it was found for positive and negative emotions that intensity profiles have an especially explosive start when the eliciting stimulus is important, when the stimulus is still present during the beginning of the episode, and, in case of positive emotions, when the participant is an extravert. Concerning skewness, it was found for positive and negative emotions that profiles reach their peak more often towards the end when the eliciting stimulus is important, when the stimulus is absent during the beginning of the episode but present towards the end, and, in case of negative emotions, when the stimulus is uncontrollable. Regarding the number of peaks, it was found that profiles more often have multiple peaks when the eliciting stimulus is absent during the middle of the emotional episode.     

Using guided reading to teach internet inquiry skills: a case study of one elementary school teacher’s experience

Employees in the twenty-first century must be equipped to effectively process information from print and online sources; yet, many students struggle with online research and comprehension skills, making them ill-prepared in college and careers. Utilizing a qualitative exploratory case study design, this study describes how a fourth-grade teacher developed her students’ online research and comprehension skills in small groups using the guided reading framework to frame her instruction. Key findings suggest that the teacher adapted many components of the guided reading framework to develop students’ online inquiry skills. Both the teacher and students experienced role changes and challenges related to the experience, yet students demonstrated high rates of engagement and collaboration. This paper provides a situated example of how a teacher adapted an existing instructional context in her classroom and implications for adapting other popular instructional context, frameworks, and models for supporting teachers in developing students’ digital literacy skills.     

Self-transcendent positive emotions increase spirituality through basic world assumptions

Spirituality has mostly been studied in psychology as implied in the process of overcoming adversity, being triggered by negative experiences, and providing positive outcomes. By reversing this pathway, we investigated whether spirituality may also be triggered by self-transcendent positive emotions, which are elicited by stimuli appraised as demonstrating higher good and beauty. In two studies, elevation and/or admiration were induced using different methods. These emotions were compared to two control groups, a neutral state and a positive emotion (mirth). Self-transcendent positive emotions increased participants' spirituality (Studies 1 and 2), especially for the non-religious participants (Study 1). Two basic world assumptions, i.e., belief in life as meaningful (Study 1) and in the benevolence of others and the world (Study 2) mediated the effect of these emotions on spirituality. Spirituality should be understood not only as a coping strategy, but also as an upward spiralling pathway to and from self-transcendent positive emotions.