Bonus and Penalty in Common Pool Resource Dilemmas under Uncertainty

Common pool resource (CPR) dilemmas constitute a class of social dilemmas in which equilibrium behavior results in Pareto deficient outcomes that are not at all desirable by the group. We focus on a class of CPR dilemmas that, in addition to strategic uncertainty about the harvesting behavior of the other group members, include environmental uncertainty about the size of the CPR. In an attempt to decrease the rate of requests from the common pool, and thereby increase individual payoffs, we extend previous research-both theoretically and experimentally-in two different directions. In the bonus treatment, a reward is given to the agent(s) who requests the least, and in the penalty treatment, a charge is imposed on the agent(s) who requests the most. We show that under equilibrium play the bonus treatment decreases total group request, whereas the penalty treatment increases it. Our experimental results do not support this prediction. Rather, both treatments considerably decrease the rate of request and, therefore, increase the rate of provision. The penalty treatment is shown to be more effective in reducing individual requests and enhancing provision rates than the bonus treatment. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.     

Am I the Only One This Supervisor is Laughing at? Effects of Aggressive Humor on Employee Strain and Addictive Behaviors

Prior literature on humor primarily documents its positive effects on employees’ attitudes and behaviors, though increasing research on aggressive humor suggests some conflicting viewpoints. This paper proposes a model based on social comparison and attribution theories to examine the influence of supervisors’ aggressive humor on employees’ strain and addictive behaviors. The tests of the research model entailed a 2‐wave study with 243 frontline employees from 4 manufacturing companies of a group corporation in China. The results showed that supervisors’ aggressive humor with employees related positively to employees’ strain. This positive association became stronger when the supervisors did not use aggressive humor with the peers of the focal employees. Employees’ strain mediated the interactive effects of supervisors’ aggressive humor with the focal employees and those with their peers on employees’ addictive behaviors (e.g., problematic use of Internet, alcohol, and tobacco). As well as having practical implications, this study offers theoretical insights for research into humor, leadership, and addictive behaviors.     

Greater emotional empathy and prosocial behavior in late life

Emotional empathy and prosocial behavior were assessed in older, middle-aged, and young adults. Participants watched two films depicting individuals in need, one uplifting and the other distressing. Physiological responses were monitored during the films, and participants rated their levels of emotional empathy following each film. As a measure of prosocial behavior, participants were given an additional payment they could contribute to charities supporting the individuals in the films. Age-related linear increases were found for both emotional empathy (self-reported empathic concern and cardiac and electrodermal responding) and prosocial behavior (size of contribution) across both films and in self-reported personal distress to the distressing film. Empathic concern and cardiac reactivity to both films, along with personal distress to the distressing film only, were associated with greater prosocial behavior. Empathic concern partially mediated the age-related differences in prosocial behavior. Results are discussed in terms of our understanding both of adult development and of the nature of these vital aspects of human emotion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

The price of anarchy in social dilemmas: Traditional research paradigms and new network applications

Research on social dilemmas has largely been concerned with whether, and under what conditions, selfish decisions by autonomous individuals jointly result in socially inefficient outcomes. By contrast, considerably less emphasis has been placed on the extent of the inefficiency in those outcomes relative to the social optimum, and how the extent of inefficiency in theory compares with what is observed in experiments or practice. In this expository article, we introduce and subsequently extend the price of anarchy (PoA), an index that originated in studies on communication in computer science, and illustrate how it can be used to characterize the extent of inefficiency in social dilemmas. A second purpose of our article is to introduce a class of social dilemmas that occur when individuals selfishly choose routes in networks, and illustrate how the concept of PoA can be helpful in studying them.     

Motivation for Reading and Middle School Students' Performance on Standardized Testing in Reading

This study examined middle school students' reading motivation and its relations to their performance on a standardized test (ISTEP+) in reading. Participants included 388 sixth- and eighth-grade students from two public middle schools. There were 229 females and 159 males. Participants responded to the Reading Motivation Questionnaire after they had completed the ISTEP+ test. Results showed that students who had high self-efficacy in their reading, read challenging material, and read for aesthetic enjoyment did better on the ISTEP+ test. Students who read mostly for social reasons did poorly on the ISTEP+ test. Grade, gender, and racial differences were found.     

Motivation for Reading and Upper Primary School Students’ Academic Achievement in Reading in Kenya

This study examined primary school students' reading motivation and performance on the standardized exam. Participants included 901 seventh and eighth grade students from Kenya. There were 468 females and 433 males. Contrary to previous studies, results showed reading challenge and aesthetics, but not efficacy, predicted reading achievement, indicating reading motivation may not influence achievement similarly across cultures. Gender differences were found in reading achievement but not motivation, an indication of a complex relationship between reading motivation and achievement. Students who read mostly for compliance and recognition did poorly in reading. Eighth graders did better in both reading motivation and achievement.     

The Modulation of Visual and Task Characteristics of a Writing System on Hemispheric Lateralization in Visual Word Recognition—A Computational Exploration

Through computational modeling, here we examine whether visual and task characteristics of writing systems alone can account for lateralization differences in visual word recognition between different languages without assuming influence from left hemisphere (LH) lateralized language processes. We apply a hemispheric processing model of face recognition to visual word recognition; the model implements a theory of hemispheric asymmetry in perception that posits low spatial frequency biases in the right hemisphere and high spatial frequency (HSF) biases in the LH. We show two factors that can influence lateralization: (a) Visual similarity among words: The more similar the words in the lexicon look visually, the more HSF/LH processing is required to distinguish them, and (b) Requirement to decompose words into graphemes for grapheme‐phoneme mapping: Alphabetic reading (involving grapheme‐phoneme conversion) requires more HSF/LH processing than logographic reading (no grapheme‐phoneme mapping). These factors may explain the difference in lateralization between English and Chinese orthographic processing.     

THE EFFECTS OF FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS TEST SESSIONS ON SUBSEQUENT RATES OF PROBLEM BEHAVIOR IN THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT

The present study was conducted to determine whether elevated response rates that occurred in an experimental functional analysis were correlated with higher post‐session response rates in the natural environment. Functional analyses indicated that the problem behavior of four children with developmental disabilities was maintained by common sources of reinforcement. Observational assessment in the natural environment showed no differences in post‐session rates compared with pre‐session rates for three participants, and the data for the fourth participant were equivocal. Overall, no convincing evidence was found to suggest that functional analyses might worsen post‐session problem behavior in the natural environment. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Haptic and Visual Influences on Grasp Point Selection

When using precision grip to pick up objects, there are many possible pairs of grasp points that permit the thumb and index finger to exert opposed forces for secure grip. Previously, it was shown that individuals select grasp points so that the line between them (grasp axis) passes through or near the center of mass (CoM), thus minimizing the torque around the grasp axis during lifting. The accuracy of grasp axis selection depended on object spatial symmetry, indicating the importance of vision. The authors investigated how grasp point selection is influenced by haptic as well as visual information. Ten participants lifted cuboids whose CoM was located either symmetrically in the geometric center or asymmetrically toward one end. Results for the asymmetric cuboid revealed that grasp points migrated toward the asymmetric CoM from the geometric center. This was more pronounced in the presence of visual cues that reliably indicated the location of CoM. The results suggest that grasp point selection is influenced by a multimodal representation of CoM.