What you don’t know won’t hurt me: Costly (but quiet) exit in dictator games

We used simple economic games to examine pro-social behavior and the lengths that people will take to avoid engaging in it. Over two studies, we found that about one-third of participants were willing to “exit” a $10 dictator game and take $9 instead. The exit option left the receiver nothing, but also ensured that the receiver never knew that a dictator game was to be played. Because most social utility models are defined over monetary outcomes, they cannot explain choosing the ($9, $0) exit outcome over the dominating $10 dictator game, since the game includes outcomes of ($10, $0) and ($9, $1). We also studied exiting using a “private” dictator game. In the private game, the receiver never knew about the game or from where any money was received. Gifts in this game were added innocuously to a payment for a separate task. Almost no dictators exited from the private game, indicating that receivers’ beliefs are the key factor in the decision to exit. When, as in the private game, the receivers’ beliefs and expectations cannot be manipulated by exit, exit is seldom taken. We conclude that giving often reflects a desire not to violate others’ expectations rather than a concern for others’ welfare per se. We discuss the implications of our results for understanding ethical decisions and for testing and modeling social preferences. An adequate specification of social preferences should include “psychological” payoffs that directly incorporate beliefs about actions into the utility function.     

Character mediation of story generation via protagonist insertion

The current study set out to examine how the presence or absence of depicted characters in visual narratives influences the degree of character-related content in improvised stories. The experiment consisted of trials of oral storytelling that were prompted by wordless comics. The degree of character content in the storylines was varied from being character-based—showing people engaging in social interactions—to being characterless, for example scenes depicting natural phenomena. An intermediate “character-implied” condition was also investigated, exemplified by the scene of a tornado passing through a town, where no people were depicted but in which their presence was strongly suggested. Linguistic content analysis of 472 stories demonstrated indistinguishable use of third-person pronouns (she/he) between character-implied and character-containing scenarios. An analysis of character presence demonstrated that storytellers inserted protagonists into the character-implied stories as vehicles for the actions taking place. This phenomenon reveals the character-driven nature of story creation.     

Spiritual resilience: Understanding the protection and promotion of well-being in the later life

Spirituality is important to a large percentage of the older adult population and serves as a key factor of resilience. Using qualitative research, we conducted and analyzed interviews with 64 participants willing to discuss their experiences with adversity. Participants ranged in age from 52 to 93 with a mean age of 74. For the purposes of this study, we analyzed 46 of the 64 interviews, selecting participants who indicated that spirituality was an important resource for managing hardship. The researchers examined the connections between spirituality and resilience. Using in-depth interviews, we explored the interplay between spirituality and resilience and the importance spirituality plays in dealing with adversity and hardship. A grounded theory analysis of the 46 interviews was performed. Major findings include participants’ use of spirituality as a tool to promote and maintain resilience in late life in five key domains: reliance on relationships, spiritual transformation, spiritual coping, power of belief, and commitment to spiritual values and practices. Results are presented as an interpretation of the participants’ perceptions of their spirituality, and indicate their reliance on spirituality to overcome hardship. In addition, we discuss the connections between spirituality and resilience and how these connections play out in the lives of older adults when considering their generational and cohort status. The roles these two constructs play in the lives of older adults are considered.     

The Narrative Architecture of Political Forgiveness

Although there is widespread agreement with the argument that Hannah Arendt made more than half a century ago, that forgiveness is “one of the human faculties that make social change possible” (Misztal, 2011, p. 201), beyond this, there is little consensus of what it means. Applying a narrative structure to this discussion, there is a lack of clarity around questions of who, what, where, when, and why to forgive. This article will explore the politics of forgiveness in East Germany, where these issues have been hotly contested for more than 25 years. The data examined in this article suggest that the fraught process of forgiveness embodies not consensus but contest, as people disagree on key questions such as who has the right to forgive whom, for what, how long the window for the opportunity of forgiveness stays open, and even why these questions matter, not only for individuals but for the whole of society.     

Evaluation of an imputed pitch velocity model of the auditory tau effect

This article extends an imputed pitch velocity model of the auditory kappa effect proposed by Henry and McAuley (2009a) to the auditory tau effect. Two experiments were conducted using an AXB design in which listeners judged the relative pitch of a middle target tone (X) in ascending and descending three-tone sequences. In Experiment 1, sequences were isochronous, establishing constant fast, medium, and slow velocity conditions. No systematic distortions in perceived target pitch were observed, and thresholds were similar across velocity conditions. Experiment 2 introduced to-be-ignored variations in target timing. Variations in target timing that deviated from constant velocity conditions introduced systematic distortions in perceived target pitch, indicative of a robust auditory tau effect. Consistent with an auditory motion hypothesis, the magnitude of the tau effect was larger at faster velocities. In addition, the tau effect was generally stronger for descending sequences than for ascending sequences. Combined with previous work on the auditory kappa effect, the imputed velocity model and associated auditory motion hypothesis provide a unified quantitative account of both auditory tau and kappa effects. In broader terms, these findings add support to the view that pitch and time relations in auditory patterns are fundamentally interdependent.     

Trust,social categories,and individuals: The case of gender

While the cooperate vs. defect choice in the prisoner's dilemma is not an appropriate paradigm for the study of trust and trusting behavior, the play vs. not play choiceis. We show that femalesas a category are more trusted to cooperate — by both male and female judges — than males. Yet neither male nor female judges use gender to predict cooperation from particular individuals (trust) or as a criterion for choosing to play (trusting behavior) when they have the option of not playing particular prisoner's dilemma games. Further, in our experimental context, female and male did not differ in their cooperation rates. We speculate (a) that subjects' generalized expectations are a response to gender-based role differences outside the laboratory, (b) that subjects' failure to make individual-by-individual discriminations by gender is a response to the fact that the experimental context made such natural-world roles irrelevant, and (c) that our findings about the irrelevance of genderper se in trusting relationships will be true for other social categoriesper se.The research reported in this paper was supported by the National Science Foundation grant SES-9008157 to Orbell and Dawes; any opinions, conclusions or recommendations are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Pamela Ferrara played an important role in administering all stages of the experiments; Jean Stockard gave us a helpful methodological and substantive critique; and Debbie Elvin, Tom Morikawa, Matthew Mulford, and Catherine Shatto each helped at several stages of the paper.     

Effects of methylphenidate (Ritalin) on information processing in hyperactive children

The effect of methylphenidate on information-processing efficiency was studied in 12 hyperactive, nonretarded children. Performance on six efficiency tasks (Posner Letter Matching, Reaction Time, Memory Search, Category Verification, Item Identification, and Word-Span) and a general measure of on-task behavior were compared for children receiving methylphenidate or a placebo. The median drug dosage was .38 mg/kg, and it was ingested 1 1/2 hours prior to testing. Children blind to the drug-placebo condition were tested on 4 days. In general, methylphenidate-related improvements in attention to on-task behaviors were found. An overall analysis of processing speed suggested that methylphenidate improved efficiency. Methylphenidate significantly decreased reaction times to simple and complex stimulus arrays; differences due to the drug remained even when on-task attentive behaviors were statistically removed. Significantly fewer identification errors occurred on the Posner task in the methylphenidate condition. Results indicated that methylphenidate improved general attentional behaviors and positively influenced processes that define perceptual efficiency.The first author was supported by NIH Training Grant No. HD 07184. We appreciate the assistance of Dr. Robert Sweeney in carrying out this research and the useful comments of Ellen B. Ryan and Jeanne D. Day.     

Case vignette: to share or not to share

For years, the notion that researchers should share data freely with fellow scientists has been discussed widely. Some argue that this is especially true when the data are generated in federally funded projects. A recent provision in the reauthorization bill for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) would ensconce this principle in law. NIH grantees would be required, on demand, to furnish their data to other researchers. According to the proposed legislation, research data would have to be preserved and made avilable for 3 years after the completion of a project, and for 5 years following publication of the results in a scientific journal. One objective, according to a congressional aide, would be to make it easier for scientists with dissenting views to obtain and reanalyze data collected with public funds. It would also facilitate publication of alternative analyses. Personal records and patent applications would be exempted, but other data from clinical, behavioral, or epidemiological research focused on the evaluation or efficacy of a drug, medical device, or treatment of any sort would be covered immediately. Is such mandatory sharing of data ethical and appropriate scholarship? Does it raise potential for abuse? Should colleagues be required to provide such access to data, whether or not federal support was used in its collection?