Effects of financial incentives on the breakdown of mutual trust

Disagreements between psychologists and economists about the need for and size of financial incentives continue to be hotly discussed. We examine the effects of financial incentives in a class of interactive decision-making situations, called centipede games, in which mutual trust is essential for cooperation. Invoking backward induction, the Nash equilibrium solution for these games is counterintuitive. Our previous research showed that when the number of players in the centipede game is increased from two to three, the game is iterated in time, the players are rematched, and the stakes are unusually high, behavior approaches equilibrium play. Results from the present study show that reducing the size of the stakes elicits dramatically different patterns of behavior. We argue that when mutual trust is involved, the magnitude of financial incentives can induce a considerable difference.     

AFFECT IN PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY: DISCUSSION OF ANDRÉ GREEN'S “ON DISCRIMINATING AND NOT DISCRIMINATING BETWEEN AFFECT AND REPRESENTATION”1

André Green's 1999 programmatic essay on affect and representation, an attempt to extend Freud's model of the neuroses (where affect and representation have different vicissitudes) to non‐neurotic cases is submitted to critical reading. Green wishes to restore the importance of representation; to use the second topographical theory, where id, psychical impulse and object‐cathexis replace the unconscious and the ideational representation in order to conceptualise borderline disturbance, and to show how ultimately the ‘non‐discrimination’ affect‐representation obtains in non‐neurotic cases as well. The author, interested in the question posed in Green's essay as to what we have to sell our borderline patients, addresses the various reasons why this project fails. Among the problematic points are the paradox of Green's model of unconscious affect, that does not allow the analyst to generate meaning with borderline patients, the view of ‘representation’ as replacing presence and perception of the object that does not allow the analyst to be a nonabsent object, and the inabilty to conceptualise affect‐representatives and to work out the definition of affect as ‘the anticipation of a meeting with the other's body’ which does not allow the analyst to function as an ‘anticipatory object’ or ‘an object of affect’.     

Infant responsiveness and maternal confidence in the neonatal period

Responsiveness in prematurely and term-born infants was studied cross-sectionally in relation to maternal confidence. Orientation and arousal were measured in 140 prematurely (mean BW 1,398 g, GA 30.1 weeks) and 75 term-born infants (mean BW 3,613 g, GA 39.3 weeks) with the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scales. Mothers filled out the Maternal Confidence Questionnaire and a modified version of the Parenting Stress Index. Prematurely born infants had a significantly lower level of arousal than term-born neonates. Responsiveness was not associated with maternal confidence. Lower confidence was associated with primiparity in both groups of mothers. Multiparous mothers of prematurely born infants had significantly lower levels of confidence than multiparous mothers of term-born infants. Confidence was significantly associated with stress for mothers of prematurely and term-born infants, and may be focused in follow-up after giving birth. Prematurely born infants should be examined more thoroughly in aspects of arousal at the time of discharge.     

Coping styles and personality: a biometric analysis

Previous research suggests that coping styles are modestly heritable and that this genetic influence is shared in large part with genetic influences on personality. To test this hypothesis, we estimated the heritable basis of the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations in a sample of 91 monozygotic and 80 dizygotic twin pairs. Task-oriented, emotion-oriented, and social diversion coping styles were modestly heritable (h(2)=.17 to .20), whereas the use of distraction appeared to be influenced solely by environmental factors. Multivariate analyses showed that genetic contributions to coping styles were, at best, only modestly related to genetic contributions to personality (r=-.03 to .35). Environmental contributions to personality were unrelated to environmental factors in coping style. These results suggest that coping style is not merely a manifestation of basic personality traits but does support the possibility that the genetic factors in personality influences have a modest influence on an individual's preferred coping style or strength (e.g., rigidity vs flexibility).     

Opioids: from physical pain to the pain of social isolation

The opioid systems play an important role in mediating both physical pain and negative affects (eg, the pain of social isolation). From an evolutionary perspective, it is not surprising that the neurocircuitry and neurochemistry of physical pain would overlap with that involved in complex social emotions. Exposure to trauma as well as a range of gene variants in the opioid system may be associated with alterations in opioid systems function, with changes in reward processing, and with vulnerability to substance abuse. A role for interventions with opioid agents in depression and anxiety disorders has been suggested.     

A systematic review of algorithm aversion in augmented decision making

Despite abundant literature theorizing societal implications of algorithmic decision making, relatively little is known about the conditions that lead to the acceptance or rejection of algorithmically generated insights by individual users of decision aids. More specifically, recent findings of algorithm aversion—the reluctance of human forecasters to use superior but imperfect algorithms—raise questions about whether joint human-algorithm decision making is feasible in practice. In this paper, we systematically review the topic of algorithm aversion as it appears in 61 peer-reviewed articles between 1950 and 2018 and follow its conceptual trail across disciplines. We categorize and report on the proposed causes and solutions of algorithm aversion in five themes: expectations and expertise, decision autonomy, incentivization, cognitive compatibility, and divergent rationalities. Although each of the presented themes addresses distinct features of an algorithmic decision aid, human users of the decision aid, and/or the decision making environment, apparent interdependencies are highlighted. We conclude that resolving algorithm aversion requires an updated research program with an emphasis on theory integration. We provide a number of empirical questions that can be immediately carried forth by the behavioral decision making community.     

Impact of a social influence intervention on condom use and sexually transmitted infections among establishment-based female sex workers in the Philippines: a multilevel analysis.

The authors assessed the relative impact of structural and social influence interventions on reducing sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV risk behavior among female sex workers in the Philippines (N = 897). Four conditions included manager influence, peer influence, combined manager-peer influence, and control. Intervention effects were assessed at the establishment level in multilevel models because of statistical dependencies among women employed within the same establishments. Control group membership predicted greater perceived risk, less condom use, less HIV/AIDS knowledge, and more negative condom attitudes. Combination participants reported more positive condom attitudes, more establishment policies favoring condom use, and fewer STIs. Manager-only participants reported fewer STIs, lower condom attitudes, less knowledge, and higher perceived risk than peer-only participants. Because interventions were implemented at the city level, baseline and follow-up city differences were analyzed to rule out intervention effects due to preexisting differences.