Predictors of Helping Behavior Toward Coworkers With Disabilities

We partially test and extend Stone & Colella's (1996 ) model of factors affecting the treatment of persons with disabilities. We conducted a laboratory experiment designed to predict helping behavior toward a coworker with a disability on a reward-independent task. Data were collected in a survey designed to measure some of our predictors. The experiment included a confederate, in whom we manipulated the presence and type of a disability (no disability, mental disability, and physical disability) and 133 participants. We ran a manipulation check on 84 participants in a holdout sample. Results indicate that impression management, equity preference, and type of disability were significantly related to helping behavior, but presence of disability and feminine gender-role identity were not.     

Tötungsdelinquenten im Normalvollzug unter besonderer Berücksichtigung psychiatrisch unauffälliger Mörder

We collected data on 121 cases of homicide and manslaughter in the normal penitentiary system and counted the cases of perpetrators with, and without, psychiatric diagnosis. About 30% of the sample consisted in perpetrators without any psychiatric diagnosis; in contrast, about 40% were diagnosed as personality disorder; some few cases (7%) were classified as alcoholism or polytoxicomania, respectively; and the rest (23%) were cases of both personality disorder and alcoholism/polytoxicomania. Perpetrators without psychiatric diagnosis differed in systematic ways from perpetrators with psychiatric diagnosis. The former committed their offenses more on victims in partnership and family, while perpetrators with psychiatric diagnosis frequently offended strangers. Perpetrators lacking a diagnosis used poison, and striking to dead, relatively more frequently while homicide and manslaughter by stabbing, shooting, or some combination thereof were committed mainly by perpetrators with psychiatric diagnosis. Diagnosed perpetrators had more frequently been previously convicted (nearly 70%). In sum we found a considerable percentage of perpetrators who lacked a psychiatric diagnosis. We argue that this group can properly be distinguished from perpetrators who have some psychiatric diagnosis.     

An experimental analysis of satisficing in saving decisions

Uncertainty of one’s future is the essential problem of saving decisions. Unlike previous experimental studies, we capture this crucial uncertainty by a scenario-based satisficing approach. Decision makers first form aspirations for a few relevant scenarios, and then search for consumption plans guaranteeing these aspirations. Our aim is to investigate whether agents make satisficing choices and, if so, how satisficing relates to optimality. We find that satisficing allocations can be reached easily when aspirations are incentivized, although aspiration levels are rather far from what optimality suggests.     

From Paul Flechsig to the Paul Flechsig Institute for Brain Research. Development of brain research at the Karl Marx University]

A review is given on the development of the brain research institute of the Karl-Marx-University of Leipzig during the directorates of Paul Flechsig (1883-1920), Richard Arwed Pfeifer (1925-1957), and Wolfgang Wünscher (1957-1971).     

Contingency in Nature

Contingencies in Nature may be explained, but such explanations refer to other contingencies (pt. I). Is there a way to “explain away” all contingencies? The first physical theory of modern times, Newton’s theory of gravitation, was received in a way that leaves this question open (pt. II), while Kepler’s theory of cosmological harmony arrived at a positive solution (pt. III). However, later developments in science outdated Kepler’s approach (pt. IV).