Punishment under threat: The role of personality in costly punishment

It is often assumed that people engage in costly punishment of third parties for prosocial reasons. In this study, we examined to what extent people engage in costly punishment of third parties in response to a perceived punishment threat rather than due to prosocial reasons. Using a modified public goods game with a punishment stage, we show that personality plays an important role in determining which of these processes drive costly punishment. We found that Honesty-Humility, which is related to prosociality, facilitates costly punishment independent of expected punishment to oneself, while Emotionality, which is related to fearfulness, facilitates punishment that is mediated by expected punishment. Agreeableness, which is related to anger and displaced aggression, had no effect on costly punishment.     

On the empirical indistinguishability of knowledge structures

In recent years a number of articles have focused on the identifiability of the basic local independence model. The identifiability issue usually concerns two model parameter sets predicting an identical probability distribution on the response patterns. Both parameter sets are applied to the same knowledge structure. However, nothing is known about cases where different knowledge structures predict the same probability distribution. This situation is referred to as ʻempirical indistinguishabilityʼ between two structures and is the main subject of the present paper. Empirical indistinguishability is a stronger form of unidentifiability, which involves not only the parameters, but also the structural and combinatorial properties of the model. In particular, as far as knowledge structures are concerned, a consequence of empirical indistinguishability is that the existence of certain knowledge states cannot be empirically established. Most importantly, it is shown that model identifiability cannot guarantee that a certain knowledge structure is empirically distinguishable from others. The theoretical findings are exemplified in a number of different empirical scenarios.     

Personality and space: Introversion and seclusion

Two studies examined whether extraversion was associated with different types of geographical preferences. During the first study, participants were given free time and directed to return to the designated location after 45 min, where they completed a questionnaire. This study found that extraversion is inversely associated with the seclusion level of the space in which participants preferred to spend this free time. In Study 2 participants in various university campus locations completed a personality questionnaire. Extraversion was positively associated with the openness of the location, and inversely associated with the distance from the center of the campus. These findings suggest that extraversion is systematically associated with different space preferences and use.     

The functional theory of human values: From intentional overlook to first acknowledgement—A reply to Schwartz (2014)

Schwartz has been aware of the Functional Theory of Values for over a decade. For the first time, Schwartz (2014) acknowledges the Gouveia theory and provides considerations based on the Gouveia, Milfont, and Guerra (2014) study. In this reply we present a historical overview of the development of the theory, noting unwarranted barriers to the publication of our work. We then address his comments, focusing on the theoretical innovations of the theory and remarking that recent refinements of Schwartz’s model were already evident in the Gouveia theory. Hypotheses tested in Gouveia et al. (2014) are also re-tested and supported with European Social Survey data using the Schwartz PVQ-21. We conclude by summarizing current projects that offer further opportunities to continue the theoretical debate.     

Survival from the Brain's Perspective

The concern about man's harmful impact on the environment focuses attention on the external environment, i.e., the real world out there, which may not survive in a form to support life. But supporting life of an individual is in the hands of that individual's brain, which is primarily concerned with various needs of the internal environment, also referred to as the self. Confronted with diverse and often competing needs, the brain has evolved a complexity in man, which makes it doubtful that any one collective strategy may be effective in preserving the external environment.     

Mapping morality with a compass: Testing the theory of ‘morality-as-cooperation’ with a new questionnaire

Morality-as-Cooperation (MAC) is the theory that morality is a collection of biological and cultural solutions to the problems of cooperation recurrent in human social life. MAC uses game theory to identify distinct types of cooperation, and predicts that each will be considered morally relevant, and each will give rise to a distinct moral domain. Here we test MAC's predictions by developing a new self-report measure of morality, the Morality-as-Cooperation Questionnaire (MAC-Q), and comparing its psychometric properties to those of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ). Over four studies, the results support the MAC-Q's seven-factor model of morality, but not the MFQ's five-factor model. Thus MAC emerges as the best available compass with which to explore the moral landscape.