Explaining Social Disparities in Mathematical Achievement: The Role of Motivation

This study examined the role of motivation as a mediator of the relationship between parents' socio‐economic status (SES) and children's standardized test achievement in math. We employed a one‐year longitudinal approach using Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2003 and a follow‐up exam in 2004. The sample consisted of N = 6020 German students (mean age 15.5 years, SD = .55) who continued school after Grade 9 (PISA 2003) and were in Grade 10 at the time of PISA 2004. Children completed measures related to their parents' SES, math‐specific self‐concept, task‐specific and global self‐efficacy, and interest, intelligence and mathematical competence. We found a small to moderate correlation between parents' SES and children's achievement. All motivational constructs partially mediated the relationship between father's SES as well as a family index for SES (economic, social, and cultural status) and children's mathematical competence, but only math‐specific self‐concept and self‐efficacy were significant mediators for mother's SES. Even when simultaneously considering the mediating effect of children's intelligence and prior achievement, the mediation effects of motivation remained significant. These results are important for our understanding of educational equality. Copyright © 2016 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Feasibility of Undertaking Off‐Site Infant Eye‐Tracking Assessments of Neuro‐Cognitive Functioning in Early‐Intervention Centres

Recent work suggests that differences in functional brain development are already identifiable in 6‐ to 9‐month‐old infants from low socio‐economic status (SES) backgrounds. Investigation of early SES‐related differences in neuro‐cognitive functioning requires the recruitment of large and diverse samples of infants, yet it is often difficult to persuade low‐SES parents to come to a university setting. One solution is to recruit infants through early intervention children's centres (CCs). These are often located in areas of high relative deprivation to support young children. Given the increasing portability of eye‐tracking equipment, assessment of large clusters of infants could be undertaken in centres by suitably trained early intervention staff. Here, we report on a study involving 174 infants and their parents, carried out in partnership with CCs, exploring the feasibility of this approach. We report the processes of setting up the project and participant recruitment. We report the diversity of sample obtained on the engagement of CC staff in training and the process of assessment itself. We report the quality of the data obtained, and the levels of engagement of parents and infants. We conclude that this approach has great potential for recruiting large and diverse samples worldwide, provides sufficiently reliable data and is engaging to staff, parents and infants. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

经济决策中人际信任博弈的理论模型与脑机制

信任是指个体在缺乏足够信息来判断他人动机、意图和行为的情况下,将社会资源交给对方处置并承担相应风险的意愿。作为一种基本的社会信号机制,信任对于发展和维持良好社会关系具有重要作用。借助信任博弈范式,研究者揭示了人际信任的认知神经机制并建构了多种理论,包括背叛厌恶理论、社会规范理论、道德规范理论和默认行为模型。脑成像研究发现信任行为主要涉及内侧前额叶、尾状核、杏仁核和脑岛等脑区,其中内侧前额叶主要参与心理推理、情绪认知与调控等过程,尾状核参与同伴值得信赖性的习得与编码,杏仁核和脑岛则主要参与风险、不确定性和背叛恐惧加工。今后研究应侧重不同理论之间的补充与整合,强化不同脑区之间的功能连接与整体性,并注重信任行为中的个体差异。     

What a Feeling: The Role of Immediate and Anticipated Emotions in Risky Decisions

The risk‐as‐feelings hypothesis argues that many risky decisions are not only predicted by anticipated emotions, as most consequentialistic decision making theories would presume, but also by immediate emotions. Immediate emotions refer to the “hot” visceral feelings people feel as they contemplate a specific decision option at the cusp of making a decision, whereas anticipated emotions are those emotions that people forecast that they will feel once they experience possible consequences of that decision. Four studies focused on the role of both types of emotions in decisions under risk and uncertainty. Decisions were substantively predicted by immediate emotional states beyond anticipated emotions or the subjective probability attached to outcomes. Thus, risky choices may be prompted, in part, by how people feel about the “riskless” portion of the decision—specifically, the various decision options they are contemplating—rather than the potential outcomes those options may produce. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Enacting Actuarial Fairness in Insurance: From Fair Discrimination to Behaviour-based Fairness

ABSTRACT

In line with developments in the personalisation of risk, the idea that insurance products should above all be ‘fair’ to the policyholders is increasingly voiced by commentators. The performativity thesis in Science and Technology Studies usually used to study economic markets can be used to investigate different enactments of ‘actuarial fairness’ in insurance practice. Actuarial fairness functions as a technical economic concept and was coined by the neoclassical micro-economist Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017). Faced with anti-discrimination legislation, the insurance industry has, since the 1980s, advanced the principle of actuarial fairness to legitimise their medico-actuarial technologies to discriminate between risk groups. In the absence of this actuarial fairness, it is assumed that dynamics of adverse selection—derived from neoclassical assumptions about economic actors— will result in the bankruptcy of insurance providers. The paradigmatic case of Fairzekering, a showcase of contemporary behaviour-based personalisation in car insurance, demonstrates an important shift in how actuarial fairness is enacted through behaviour-based calculative devices. Here, policyholders are enacted as being personally in control of their driving style while an interactive discount-infrastructure is set up to provide real-time feedback to incentivize policyholders towards ‘good behaviour.’ This enactment of behaviour-based fairness simultaneously implies a shift in the enactment of the economic actors involved, constitutive of the making of new economic ideas in behavioural economics.     

Rethinking the paradigm of enterprise: A global and evolutionary perspective

The most elementary law of nature, the principle that best explains how the world works, is that actions have consequences. The consequences of enterprise (or business) will be as profitable or detrimental as the actions behind them. The rapidly approaching new millennium forces society to assess where we are (the consequences) and how we got here (the actions). The standard of living in the western world is a direct consequence of past and present enterprise, but the actions taken to get to this plateau and their associated costs may far over‐shadow the gains. A major issue facing those who study the development and evolution of enterprise is whether past merits and mistakes can be used to develop a new paradigm that is more reflective of what is currently experienced and most likely to occur in the future.

This paper discusses some of the shortcomings in current economic thinking, how current developments in economic thinking need to become the norm and the future of socio‐ecologically behavior and patterns of growth for enterprise.     

Rediscovering Meaning

The present crisis of the Western countries involves not just the world of politics, finance, and the economy, but also the ecosystem balance, the world of the values on which the model of social organization and economic development is based. The crisis is therefore systemic, epoch-making, and overcoming it will require radical changes, above all in the way we think, in our scale of values, and therefore our culture. On the other hand, for decades the world—in particular the West—has been experiencing a cultural sea-change that is challenging many of the pillars of society that have stood for centuries. The young people of today and their use of technological social networks to develop non-profit initiatives for social change may create a more positive future while maintaining our human values.     

Is Fear of Crime Mainly Social and Economic Insecurity in Disguise? A Multilevel Multinational Analysis

Using the 2006 Eurobarometer data (representative sample of the European population, N = 16 306, 27 countries), we performed a multilevel analysis aimed at predicting fear of crime. A significant proportion of the variation in fear of crime was at country level. Of the individual predictors included, being a woman, being poorly educated, being unemployed, and being an urban dweller showed positive relations with fear of crime. Fear was highest among people who considered themselves to be socially marginal, among people with negative expectations regarding themselves and their country's future, and among people who considered their nation's welfare system to be unsatisfactory. Among the ecological predictors we took into consideration, nations' degree of economic inequality and low expenditure on education and on social protection showed a positive association with fear of crime, whereas the crime, immigration, and employment rates did not. Implications and limitations of this research are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Transcendental Meditation and Social Psychological Attitudes

Students who practiced Transcendental Meditation (TM) from four university and college campuses were individually matched on seven variables with students from the general population of the same campuses (N # 23 matches). Results of a questionnaire designed to tap six social psychological attitudes indicated significant differences between these groups on five attitudes, with meditating students indicating more positive attitudes. In addition, matched meditating students (N # 6 matches) were compared on the variables of exposure to the TM philosophy and length of time meditating. Results on the exposure dimension found no significant difference between those with high or low exposure on the measured attitudes. Results on the length dimension found long term meditators with significantly more positive attitudes than short term meditators.