Beyond gains and losses: the effect of need on risky choice in framed decisions

Substantial evidence suggests people are risk-averse when making decisions described in terms of gains and risk-prone when making decisions described in terms of losses, a phenomenon known as the framing effect. Little research, however, has examined whether framing effects are a product of normative risk-sensitive cognitive processes. In 5 experiments, it is demonstrated that framing effects in the Asian disease problem can be explained by risk-sensitivity theory, which predicts that decision makers adjust risk acceptance on the basis of minimal acceptable thresholds, or need. Both explicit and self-determined need requirements eliminated framing effects and affected risk acceptance consistent with risk-sensitivity theory. Furthermore, negative language choice in loss frames conferred the perception of high need and led to the construction of higher minimal acceptable thresholds. The results of this study suggest that risk-sensitivity theory provides a normative rationale for framing effects based on sensitivity to minimal acceptable thresholds, or needs.     

Language proficiency does not modulate executive control in older bilinguals

ABSTRACT

We examined if language proficiency modulates performance in tasks that measure executive control in older Telugu-English bilinguals (n = 50, mean age = 57.15 years). We administered numerical Stroop task, Attention Network Task, Dimensional Change Card Sorting task, and stop-signal task that are known to tap into different aspects of executive functioning on healthy aging Telugu-English bilinguals. Second language (English) proficiency was calculated as a cumulative score that considered both subjective and objective measures of L2 fluency and use. Bilinguals were divided into two groups based on the cumulative score and compared on each task. We did not find any effect of language proficiency on any of the executive control measures. The additional Bayesian analysis also supported these findings. Therefore, the results do not support the claim that bilingual language proficiency modulates executive control, at least in the elderly population. We discuss the results with regard to the issue of bilingual advantage in executive control and the role of age and language use.     

Attention in Sentence Processing: A Review

This review looks at the relationship between attention and language. There have been many studies that have shown a certain role of attention on sentence and spoken word processing. At the same time some other studies have observed that language processing is autonomous. In this review an attempt has been made to review the empirical evidence from sentence processing in reading, auditory processing and speaking domains to see if attentional manipulations cause interference with processing. The review suggests currently available evidence is rather mixed and it is still a long way to fully explore the attentional basis of sentence processing.     

Associations Between Delay Discounting and Risk‐Related Behaviors,Traits, Attitudes,and Outcomes

Delay discounting—preference for immediate, smaller rewards over distal, larger rewards—has been argued to be part of the “generality of deviance”, which describes the co‐occurrence of various forms of impulsive and risky behaviors among individuals. Some studies have linked laboratory‐measured delay discounting to behaviors, traits, attitudes, and outcomes associated with risk, but these associations have been inconsistent. Furthermore, many of these studies have been conducted with exclusively undergraduate samples, or in samples offering low statistical power. In a large community sample (n = 328) diverse in age and socioeconomic status, we examined associations between two measures of behavioral delay discounting (single‐shot and canonical k‐parameter estimation) and behavioral risk‐taking, personality traits associated with risk, domain‐specific risk attitudes, gambling and problem gambling, antisocial behavior, and criminal outcomes. In addition, we explored whether a novel response time latency measure of delay discounting explained variance in these risk‐related outcomes. Results indicated that behavioral delay discounting was consistently associated with all variables related to impulse control: high trait impulsivity, low trait self‐control, risk‐averse attitudes toward financial investment, risk‐prone attitudes toward gambling and health/safety risks, gambling and problem gambling, antisocial conduct, and criminal outcomes. Latency‐measured delay discounting was inconsistently associated with behavioral delay discounting and risk‐related measures. Together, results suggest that delay discounting is associated with poor impulse control consistent with a generality of deviance account. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Spirituality and Religiosity and Its Role in Health and Diseases

Religiosity is a factor involved in the management of health and diseases/patient longevity. This review article uses comprehensive, evidence-based studies to evaluate the nature of religiosity that can be used in clinical studies, thus avoiding contradictory reports which arise from misinterpretation of religiosity. We conclude that religiosity is multidimensional in nature and ultimately associated with inherent protection against diseases and overall better quality of life. However, a number of untouched aspects of religiosity need to be investigated further before we can introduce religiosity in its fully functional form to the realm of health care.     

Personal and Social Factors in Achievement-Related Cognition: A Study of Attribution,Appraisal, and Emotion among University Students in Delhi

In recent years, achievement-related cognition and emotion have received a lot of attention from all sections of researchers. A number of researchers have tried to empirically study the determinants and consequences of achievement-related cognition. The explanations given range between individualistic explanations and sociocultural explanations. It is believed that both personal and social factors interact together in bringing about variations in achievement-related cognition and emotion. It is widely accepted that there are variations in human behavior, which are generally believed to be the result of generation-old cultural changes. Cultural factors are believed to exert influence on human behavior and psyche. When one talks about culture, it is mostly treated as a homogeneous entity. Variations within cultures and intra-cultural differences due to various social factors are largely ignored. Researchers world over have started believing in the fact that exposure not only to varying cultural conditions but also to different social factors affects individuals’ psychological functioning. Present research is directed towards exploring variations in achievement-related cognition and emotion due to personal and social factors. Eighty students from a university in Delhi participated in the research. The personal factor of self-construal and social factors like gender, social setting, perceived social class, and family were taken into account. Findings of the study corroborated the hypothesis that both personal and social factors have an impact on achievement-related cognition and emotion.     

Assessing the value of choice in a token system

Responding of 4 children was assessed under conditions in which (a) no programmed contingencies were arranged for target behavior, (b) responding produced tokens that could be exchanged for a single highly preferred edible item, and (c) responding produced a token that could be exchanged for a variety of preferred edible items. After assessing the effects of these contingencies, the preferences of 3 participants were assessed using a concurrent-chains schedule. Preference for the opportunity to choose from the same or qualitatively different edible items varied across participants, and findings were generally consistent with those of Tiger, Hanley, and Hernandez (2006).     

The Influence of Hero and Villain Labels on the Perception of Vice and Virtue Products

The placement of heroes and villains is ubiquitous on labels and packages in the marketplace. In this research, we examine the influence of a hero versus a villain label on the preference for virtue versus vice products. Across seven laboratory and field studies, we find that consumers derive higher utility for a hero (villain) label with a vice (virtue) food than from a hero (villain) label with a virtue (vice) food. Relying on a coherence‐based explanation, we propose that a hero label adds a beneficial aspect to vice foods, making them appear less harmful, whereas a villain label adds an edgy aspect to virtue foods, making them appear more fun. This research provides insights into the effect of hero and villain branding and offers implications for marketing strategy and public policy.     

Adaptive aspirations and contributions to a public good: Generic advertising as a response to decline

Generic advertising, the promotion of an entire product or service category, is a common form of inter-firm cooperation. Voluntary participation in such a campaign represents contribution to a public good. Based on the pattern of recent campaigns, we argue that this cooperation is dependent on adaptive aspirations and an increased willingness to consider alternative courses of action in light of declining sales within an industry. Three experiments are reported that tested these ideas. In each study, subjects assigned to four person groups chose how many resources to contribute to a generic advertising campaign the effectiveness of which depended on total funding levels. Each group member represented a different “store” in the same mall. The instructions framed the problem by presenting varying sales trends for the stores—Positive, Negative, or Neutral. The first two experiments were one-shot games with a dominant strategy of non-contribution and free riding. The results showed that subjects confronting the declining trend contributed significantly more than those in either of the other two conditions. A declining sales trend also positively influenced their expectations that others would contribute as well. The third experiment demonstrated that a decline-induced equilibrium persisted over trials of a finitely repeated game with a known stopping point. Contributions remained high even in the final round. Surprisingly, the specific identification of a competitor mall as the cause of the decline in sales actually resulted in lower levels of contribution. The implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Ecology,language, and performance on spatial cognitive tasks

The study of the orientation systems that people use in different cultures to describe the location of objects in space has drawn some interest of researchers in the fields of anthropology, psycholinguistics, and cognitive psychology. There has been a rethinking of the “linguistic relativity hypothesis,” and some empirical studies tend to support the notion that language is the major determinant of encoding and cognitive performance on spatial tasks. This paper reports a cross‐cultural study carried out with 545 children aged 4 to 14 years, both schooled and unschooled, in India and Nepal. The field sites were selected taking into consideration how reference to spatial locations is organized in the language as well as in the local cultural practices. In a village near Varanansi in India, people organize spatial locations mainly with reference to cardinal directions, but in the city of Varanasi, relative references are also used, although people in both the locations speak the same language (i.e., Hindi). In a village in Nepal, on the other hand, the “uphill‐downhill” geocentric frame of reference is the most compelling. We test the relationship between ecology, culture, and language, encoding of spatial information, and performance on some Piagetian spatial tasks, taking age and schooling into account. Berry's eco‐cultural model is used to discuss the findings that support linguistic relativism at the group but not at the individual level. Les systèmes d'orientation spatiale utilisés dans différentes sociétés pour décrire la localisation d'objets ont attiré L'attention de chercheurs en anthropologie, en psycholinguistique et en psychologie cognitive. L'hypothèse du relativisme linguistique a été remise à L'ordre du jour et des études empiriques ont montré que la langue était un déterminant majeur de L'encodage spatial et de la performance à des épreuves de cognition spatiale. Cet article porte sur une étude interculturelle comparative effectuée avec 545 enfants de 4 à 14 ans, scolarisés ou non, en Inde et au Népal. Les trois terrains ont été sélectionnés en tenant compte de la façon dont les références spatiales sont organisées aussi bien dans la langue que dans les pratiques culturelles locales. Dans un village près de Bénares, en Inde, les objets sont localisés selon les points cardinaux, alors que dans la ville de Bénares, des références relatives (droite, gauche, devant, derrière) sont également utilisées, alors que la langue parlée est la même (le Hindi). Dans un village au Népal, le système spatial le plus utilisé est un cadre de référence géocentrique formé par L'opposition «en haut vers la montagne/en bas vers la vallée». Nous étudions les relations entre L'écologie, la culture et la langue, L'encodage d'informations spatiales et la performance à des épreuves spatiales dérivées de la théorie de Piaget, en tenant compte de L'âge et de la scolarisation. Le modèle éco‐culturel de Berry est utilisé comme cadre théorique pour mettre en perspective les résultats, qui confirment le relativisme linguistique au niveau du groupe mais pas au niveau individuel. El estudio de los sistemas de orientación espacial utilizados en diversas culturas para describir la localización de los objetos ha atraído la atención de los investigadores en antropología, psicolingüística y psicología cognitiva. A partir de una renovación de la hipótesis del relativismo lingüístico, algunos estudios empíricos parecen apoyar la noción de que el lenguaje es el determinante más importante de la codificación y el desempeño cognitivo en tareas espaciales. El presente artículo informa sobre un estudio transcultural comparativo, efectuado con 545 niños de 4 a 14 años, escolarizados o no, urbanos y rurales, en India y en Nepal. Los sitios en donde se llevó a cabo el trabajo de campo se seleccionaron tomando en cuenta la forma en que se hace referencia a localizaciones espaciales en la lengua y en las prácticas culturales. En un pueblo de las planicies del Ganges, los habitantes organizan el espacio de manera geocéntrica, según los puntos cardinales, mientras que en la ciudad de Benares, también se utilizan referencias relativas (izquierda/derecha), aún cuando la lengua es la misma (el hindú). En un pueblo de Nepal, el cuadro de referencia geocéntrica “arriba/abajo” es predominante. El presente estudio examinó las relaciones entre la ecología, la cultura, la lengua, la codificación de la información espacial y el desempeño en algunas tareas espaciales de Piaget, teniendo en cuenta la edad y la escolarización. Este estudio está basado en el marco teórico eco‐cultural de Berry. Los resultados confirman una forma moderada de relativismo lingüístico a nivel grupal, más no así a nivel individual.