Prior experience and patterning in a prisoner's dilemma game

Female college students first played a pseudo-prisoner's dilemma (PPD) game with the experimenter, who followed a fixed strategy. In the first experiment the experimenter's strategies for different groups of subjects were: (a) play tit-for-tat; (b) play randomly; (c) always cooperate; (d) always defect (‘cooperation’ and ‘defection’, defined as in an actual prisoner's dilemma game). Only the tit-for-tat group increased cooperation over trials; other groups decreased cooperation. After playing the PPD with the experimenter, subjects played an actual prisoner's dilemma (PD) game with each other. In the PD game, subjects began cooperating moderately but cooperation deteriorated regardless of what the experimenter's strategy had been in the earlier (PPD) game. In a second experiment, subjects again played a PPD game with the experimenter and then played a PD game with each other. Half played one trial at a time as in the first experiment while half played in patterns of four trials at a time. In the PD game, patterning of trials retarded the development of mutual defection regardless of previous experience. The cooperation-preserving effect of patterning of trials in this social task is compared with similar effects on individual tasks involving self-control and risk-aversion. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

论爱因斯坦的伦理思想和道德实践

爱因斯坦不仅是20世纪最伟大的科学家和思想家,而且也是一位伟大的人。他的伦理思想丰富而深邃,他的道德实践切实而感人。这位知行合一的伟人不愧是世人做人的楷模。     

影响儿童至老年人“位置法”记忆训练效果的因素探析

１１８名儿童、少年、青年、中年和老年被试参加＂位置法＂记忆训练,在训练前后对被试进行了一些认知功能的测查,以探讨被试的年龄及认知能力诸因素对记忆训练效果的影响及其预测性。结果表明：①训练前字词和图形记忆成绩、＂数字符号＂测验成绩与训练后记忆成绩相关极其显著,＂词汇＂测验成绩和想象力与训练后记忆成绩的相关也达到显著性水平;②年龄与训练后记忆效果的关系是非线性的;③除＂词汇＂成绩外,各项认知成绩均可预测训练后字词记忆成绩,训练后的图形记忆迁移效果可由＂数字符号＂测验成绩预测。     

Decision making in the prisoner's dilemma game: The effect of exit on cooperation and social welfare

The prisoner's dilemma game is a mixed‐motive game that offers two players the simultaneous choice between a cooperative and a defective alternative. An often neglected aspect of such a binary‐choice game, however, is that in many real‐life encounters, people can choose not only to cooperate or defect, but they also have a third option: to exit the social dilemma. Although in the literature a consensus has emerged that the addition of an exit opportunity benefits cooperation, there is only scant research into its effect on social welfare. In order to allow a direct comparison of cooperation rates and welfare levels across binary‐choice and trinary‐choice games, in this study, we used a design in which the same participants played similar games with and without an exit option (i.e., a within‐subjects design), and this in a range of structural variations. The findings of our study indicated that the aggregated outcome of both players is generally lower in games with an exit option than in games without an exit option. Moreover, our results showed that the efficiency of the exit option strongly depends on the specific outcome structure of the game (in terms of its endowment size, (a)symmetry, and level of noncorrespondence). In the discussion, it is argued that the implementation of an exit option as a strategy to increase social welfare should be critically assessed.     

JOURNEY OF THE UNIVERSE: WEAVING SCIENCE WITH THE HUMANITIES

This article discusses Journey of the Universe as a project that consists of a film, book, conversation series, online classes, and a website. It describes how the creators worked to integrate science and humanities, not privilege or elevate science. It refutes arguments made in Lisa Sideris's Consecrating Science: Wonder, Knowledge, and the Natural World that suggest that Journey overlooks religion and distorts wonder. The article observes that Journey does not dismiss religion but includes it in explicit ways. It does not dictate wonder; it evokes wonder. In short, Journey is a living or functional cosmology with implications for mutually enhancing human–Earth relations.     

The effects of physical contact and decision type on moral decision making: A study of harm to save moral behavior

This study examined the relationship between physical contact and decision type in predicting “harm to save” behavior. Participants were assigned to making either a judgment or a choice involving moral dilemmas. All participants were presented with dilemmas that either required or did not require having physical contact with potential victims. Participants were asked to decide whether to sacrifice fewer people to save more (utilitarian responses) or not to do so and thus more people would die (deontological responses). The study sample included 345 participants who completed a set of self‐report measures. Results indicated an interaction between physical contact and decision type. In the choice condition only, participants reported significantly less utilitarian responses to the dilemmas that required having physical contact with the person to be harmed than to dilemmas that did not require physical contact. This difference was not found in the judgment condition. These results contribute to a greater understanding of the nature and potential malleability of human morality.     

The Impact of PREP Training on Marital Conflicts Reduction: A Randomized Controlled Trial With Iranian Distressed Couples

The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of the Prevention and Relationship Education Program (PREP) training on marital conflict and marital satisfaction among a sample of distressed couples in Iran. The research procedure was experimental with a pretest, posttest, and follow-up design, including a control group. The sample included 76 volunteer couples among a sample of distressed couples who were randomly selected and assigned to the experimental or control group. They completed demographic questions, the Marital Conflicts questionnaire, and a revised Marital Satisfaction Inventory in pretest, posttest and at the 1-year follow-up. Results showed that PREP training effectively led to decreased marital conflict and improvement of marital satisfaction of couples at posttest and at the 1-year follow-up. The result of covariance analysis showed significant differences between the experimental and the control groups' marital conflict and marital satisfaction at posttest and at the 1-year follow-up.     

Agent causation as a solution to the problem of action

My primary aim is to defend a nonreductive solution to the problem of action. I argue that when you are performing an overt bodily action, you are playing an irreducible causal role in bringing about, sustaining, and controlling the movements of your body, a causal role best understood as an instance of agent causation. Thus, the solution that I defend employs a notion of agent causation, though emphatically not in defence of an account of free will, as most theories of agent causation are. Rather, I argue that the notion of agent causation introduced here best explains how it is that you are making your body move during an action, thereby providing a satisfactory solution to the problem of action.