Patriotism's Impact on Cooperation with the State: An Experimental Study on Tax Compliance

Although it seems reasonable to assume that activating patriotism might motivate citizens to cooperate with the state in reaching societal goals, the empirical evidence supporting this contention is based mostly on correlational rather than experimental studies. In addition, little is known on whether patriotism can be manipulated without simultaneously triggering nationalism and on the psychological processes which determine the patriotism‐cooperation relation. This current article reports results of one survey and three experiments that manipulate patriotism by displaying either a national flag or national landscapes or by priming national achievements. The outcomes indicate that reported and manipulated patriotism indirectly increase tax compliance, although the national flag also increases nationalism. National achievements, on the other hand, seemingly increases trust in national public institutions and the voluntary motivation to cooperate, whereas national landscapes only increase the voluntary motivation to cooperate. Hence, it is possible to increase social capital in the form of trust and cooperation through patriotism without fostering nationalism as well.     

Cooperation in repeated interactions: A systematic review of Centipede game experiments, 1992–2016

Cooperation is a fundamental form of social interaction, and turn-taking reciprocity one of its most familiar manifestations. The Centipede game provides a formal model of such alternating reciprocal cooperation, but a backward induction (BI) argument appears to prove logically that instrumentally rational players would never cooperate in this way. A systematic review of experimental research reveals that human decision makers cooperate frequently in this game, except under certain extreme conditions. Several game, situational, and individual difference variables have been investigated for their influence on cooperation. The most influential are aspects of the payoff function (especially the social gain from cooperation and the risk associated with a cooperative move), the number of players, repetitions of the game, group vs. individual decisions, and players’ social value orientations (SVOs). Our review of experimental evidence suggests that other-regarding preferences, including prosocial behavioural dispositions and collective rationality, provide the most powerful explanation for cooperation.     

自我惩罚：影响因素、模型与展望

自我惩罚是个体在违反社会规范后,自愿使自己承受伤害或蒙受损失的行为。自我惩罚会受到负性情绪、补救机会、代偿机会和性别的影响。情绪模型和互惠模型分别从情绪和互惠的角度阐述了自我惩罚的认知机制。根据近期的研究结果,可以推测自我惩罚与前扣带回、脑岛、右外侧眶额叶皮层、背内侧前额叶皮层、伏隔核、腹内侧前额叶皮层有关。未来值得研究的方向有：进一步确认自我惩罚涉及的情绪成分、为互惠模型收集更多实验证据、探究自我惩罚对集体合作的影响以及开展跨文化研究。     

The Role of Subsidies in Coordination Games with Interconnected Risk

Can subsidies promote Pareto‐optimum coordination? We found that partially subsidizing the cooperative actions for two out of six players in a laboratory coordination game usually produced better coordination and higher total social welfare with both deterministic and stochastic payoffs. Not only were the subsidized players more likely to cooperate (choose the Pareto‐optimum action), but the unsubsidized players increased their expectations on how likely others would cooperate, and they cooperated more frequently themselves. After removal of the subsidy, high levels of coordination continued in most groups with stochastic payoffs but declined in deterministic ones. This carry‐over disparity between the deterministic and stochastic settings was consistent with the economic theories that agents were more likely to keep the status quo option under uncertainty than without uncertainty. Hence, players with stochastic payoffs were more likely to keep the high coordination level (status quo) brought by the subsidy in the previous subsidy session. A post‐game survey also indicated that with stochastic payoffs, players focused on risk reduction. Temporary subsidies promoted lasting coordination because even after subsidy was removed, players still assumed that others players would prefer reduced risks from cooperation. With deterministic payoffs, however, the subsidy might crowd out other rationales for coordination, with many players indicating that the subsidy was the only reason for anyone to cooperate. Hence, the coordination level dropped when the subsidy was removed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A 21st century cognitive portrait of the Himba,a remote people of Namibia

This research sketches the cognitive portrait of the Himba, a remote population from Northern Namibia living in a non-industrial society almost completely devoid of modern artefacts. We compared the Himba sample to a French sample, exploring cognitive reflection, moral judgement, cooperative behaviour, paranormal beliefs, and happiness. We looked for both differences and similarities across cultures, and for the way cognitive functioning is associated with a range of demographic variables. Results showed some important group differences, with the Himba being more intuitive, more religious, happier, and less utilitarian than the French participants. Further, the predictors of these beliefs and behaviours differed between the two groups. The present results provide additional support to the recent line of research targeting cultural variations and similarities, and call for the need to expand psychology research beyond the Western world.     

Equilibrium and Harmony of Emotional Conflicts in Cooperation: Between Chinese Traditional Culture and Modern Artificial Intelligence

Equilibrium and harmony elevate human emotions like pleasure, anger, sorrow, and joy to the highest ontological level. We are puppets of our emotions and feelings, without the possibility of parole. By implanting complex emotional reactions in the operating system of sex robots, we have created a virtual relationship that mimics human intimacy. In this way, a thing—in this case, a machine—takes on human characteristics. This could be called the humanization of things. Not only can things be humanized, humans can also be reified. If, by imitating neural networks and deep learning, intelligent robots are to make great strides in their ability to think, they may come into the possession of emotions and feelings. In traditional Chinese culture, equilibrium and harmony form the highest and most pervasive principle, value, and morality for nature, society, and life. The state of equilibrium (zhong 中 ) and harmony (he 和 ) is the fundamental root from which springs the world and the universal path that it must pursue. When we view emotional equilibrium and harmony in light of the theoretical doctrine of harmony and cooperation, the emotional lives of humans and machines are integrated and combined with the state of equilibrium and harmony to achieve the greatest good. Moreover, this can resolve all kinds of crises amid the emotions and feelings of humanoids created by humans, notably by leveraging the outstanding intelligence of humans to maintain the emotions of humanoids in a state of equilibrium and harmony. To this end, we must perform regulatory actions in several aspects. First, we must modulate emotions and feelings. Second, we must achieve a state of equilibrium, which can put all things in the right positions, allowing them to be nourished and flourish. Third, we must strive for mutual empathy between humans and machines, which can pave the way for collaborative creation in harmony, as well as their integration, camaraderie, emotional understanding, mutual respect and harmonious love.     

Bilateral saccades increase intrahemispheric processing but not interhemispheric interaction: Implications for saccade-induced retrieval enhancement

Retrieval of memories is enhanced when bilateral saccades are made immediately before attempting retrieval. One hypothesis is that saccades enhance retrieval by increasing interaction of the brain hemispheres. To test this, subjects viewed arrays of lateralized letters and indicated whether target letters matched either of two probe letters. Matching targets and probes were presented to either the same hemisphere (within-hemisphere trials) or separate hemispheres (across-hemisphere trials). Match detection requires interhemispheric interaction on across-hemisphere trials but primarily intrahemispheric processing on within-hemisphere trials. Subjects performed letter matching following saccades and a fixation control condition. Saccades increased match-detection accuracy on within-hemisphere trials only, suggesting that, counter to the hypothesis, saccades enhance intrahemispheric processing but not interhemispheric interaction. Across-hemisphere accuracy was higher, however, for subjects who were not strongly right-handed, versus those who were, and the absence of strong right-handedness may reflect greater interhemispheric interaction. We discuss implications for accounts of saccade-induced retrieval enhancement.     

Sex differences in face processing: Are women less lateralized and faster than men?

The aim of this study was to determine the influence of sex on hemispheric asymmetry and cooperation in a face recognition task. We used a masked priming paradigm in which the prime stimulus was centrally presented; it could be a bisymmetric face or a hemi-face in which facial information was presented in the left or the right visual field and projected to the right or the left hemisphere. The target stimulus was always a bisymmetric face presented centrally. Faces were selected from Minear and Park’s (2004) database. Fifty-two right-handed students (26 men, 26 women) participated in this experiment, in which accuracy (percentage of correct responses) and reaction times (RTs in ms) were measured. Although accuracy data showed that the percentage of correct recognition – when prime and target matched – was equivalent in men and women, men’s RTs were longer than women’s in all conditions. Accuracy and RTs showed that men are more strongly lateralized than women, with right hemispheric dominance. These results suggest that men are as good at face recognition as women, but there are functional differences in the two sexes. The findings are discussed in terms of functional cerebral networks distributed over both hemispheres and of interhemispheric transmission.     

“Seeing is believing”: The effects of facial expressions of emotion and verbal communication in social dilemmas

In social dilemmas, verbal communication of one's intentions is an important factor in increasing cooperation. In addition to verbal communication of one's intentions, also the communication of emotions of anger and happiness can influence cooperative behavior. In the present paper, we argue that facial expressions of emotion moderate verbal communication in social dilemmas. More specifically, three experiments showed that if the other person displayed happiness he or she was perceived as honest, trustworthy, and reliable, and cooperation was increased when verbal communication was cooperative rather than self‐interested. However, if the other person displayed anger, verbal communication did not influence people's decision behavior. Results also showed interactive effects on people's perceptions of trustworthiness, which partially mediated decision behavior. These findings suggest that emotion displays have an important function in organizational settings because they are able to influence social interactions and cooperative behavior. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sex comparisons of the bilateral deficit in proximal and distal upper body limb muscles

Bilateral deficit (BLD) describes a phenomenon that the force produced during maximal simultaneous bilateral contraction is lower than the sum of those produced unilaterally. The aim of this study was to examine the potential sex-related differences in BLD in upper body proximal and distal limb muscles. Ten men and eight women performed single-joint maximal contractions with their elbow flexors and index finger abductors at separate laboratory visits, during which the maximal isometric voluntary contractions (MVICs) were performed unilaterally and bilaterally with a randomized order in the designated muscle group. Surface electromyographic (EMG) signals were recorded from the prime movers of the designated muscle groups (biceps brachii and first dorsal interosseous) during the maximal contractions. Both men and women demonstrated BLD in their elbow flexors (deficit: men = −11.0 ± 6.3%; women = −10.2 ± 5.0%). Accompanied by this force deficit was the reduced EMG amplitude from the dominant biceps brachii (collapsed across sex: p = 0.045). For the index finger abductors, only men (deficit = −13.7 ± 6.1%), but not women showed BLD. Our results suggested that the BLD in the proximal muscle group is likely induced by the decreased maximal muscle activity from the dominant prime mover. The absence of BLD in women’s index finger muscle is largely due to the inter-subject variability possibly related to the sex hormone flux and unique levels of interhemispheric inhibition.