Private Investigations of White‐Collar Crime Suspicions: A Qualitative Study of the Blame Game Hypothesis

The activity of private investigations by fraud examiners is a business of lawyers, auditors, and other professionals who investigate suspicions of financial crime by white‐collar criminals. This paper presents results from an empirical study of investigation reports. The available sample consists of 28 reports written mostly by auditing firms such as Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and PwC. The blame game can occur at two stages in a private investigation. First, the mandate formulated by a client may point investigators in a specific direction. Next, investigators sometimes suffer from a tunnel view of predetermined opinions. In the sample of 28 investigations reports, more than half of them involve potential blame game victims. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Relative Importance of Personality,Financial Satisfaction,and Autonomy for Different Subjective Well-Being Facets

Abstract

Using a nationally representative sample (N?=?507) from Singapore, this study examined whether personality, financial satisfaction, and autonomy were important to subjective well-being (SWB), and how the importance of these predictors varied across different SWB facets—life satisfaction, happiness, positive feelings, and negative feelings. The findings indicated that neuroticism, financial satisfaction, and autonomy, were important predictors of happiness. Personality was most important for affective well-being (i.e., positive and negative feelings), whereas financial satisfaction was most important for life satisfaction. Specifically, neuroticism accounted for substantial variance in positive and negative feelings, and was the strongest correlate among the Big Five traits. In contrast, financial satisfaction explained most of the variance in life satisfaction. This highlights that the importance of well-being predictors depended on the facet of well-being examined. The findings suggest that residents in an affluent nation like Singapore do not emphasize only postmaterialist values (e.g., autonomy) and disregard materialist concerns (e.g., financial satisfaction). Though certain SWB facets (positive and negative affect) are largely influenced by dispositional factors, other facets (life satisfaction and happiness) are closely related to factors (e.g., financial satisfaction, autonomy) that may be affected by social policies. Policymakers can thus target those aspects to enhance people’s SWB.     

Seeing is not enough: manipulating choice options causes focusing and preference change in multiattribute risky decision‐making

We show that preferences depend on the attributes that can be directly manipulated when people need to integrate multiple sources of information because direct manipulation causes focusing bias. This effect appears even when all relevant information is simultaneously and explicitly presented at the time the decisions are made. Participants decided how much to save, what investment risk to take and observed the future financial consequences in terms of the mean and variability of the expected retirement income. Participants who manipulated only the future income distribution saved more and took less risk. This effect disappears when the risk‐related variables are removed, which indicates that task complexity is a mediator of such focusing effects. A more balanced trade‐off between the choice attributes was selected when all attributes were manipulated. However, when there is a dichotomy between manipulating versus observing choice attributes, then decisions were based mostly on the manipulated attributes. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

时间贴现在神经和行为上的年龄特征

时间贴现的年龄发展具有阶段性。前额皮质, 边缘系统和多巴胺能系统的发展成熟是从儿童期到成人期时间贴现发展变化的神经生物基础。成人期到老年期时间贴现年龄特征的研究结果不一致。概率贴现、未来定向、延迟满足等被用来探讨时间贴现年龄发展特征。可以从大脑不同区域的发展轨迹, 延迟时段的心理意义来进一步深入研究。     

情绪能预测股市吗?

人类的非理性被经济学家Keynes视为是造成经济波动的主要原因, 而情绪是非理性行为的背后推动力之一。那么情绪是否与股票市场波动有关, 甚至预测股市波动？首先, 笔者从心理和神经生理角度出发, 尝试解释决策主体情绪、社会情绪是如何影响个体金融决策的。其次, 笔者将情绪与股市关系研究大致划分为投资者情绪与社会情绪研究。投资者情绪研究主要通过主观调查和客观市场指标构建情绪指标; 而近年来的社会情绪研究, 尤其是基于互联网平台的社会情绪研究, 为情绪与股市关系研究注入了新的活力。关于情绪与股市的关系问题远未定论, 情绪影响股市的内在机制也有待未来研究继续深化。而互联网大数据资源和信息技术在情绪与股市关系这一研究领域中, 将扮演越来越重要的角色。     

延迟满足：基于未来时间洞察力的自我调节

延迟满足是个体为获得更有价值的奖励结果,坚持目标行为而推迟即时性满足的倾向与行为。其产生机制在很大程度上基于未来取向的自我调节。未来时间洞察力对延迟满足的作用可由期望-价值理论、解释水平理论和自我调节周期模型等多种理论进行解释。除行为层面的机制,未来时间洞察力与延迟满足涉及腹侧额叶-纹状体环路等相似的脑机制。未来研究需深化和丰富延迟满足的理论机制,明确与时间洞察力各维度的复杂关系,探究与时间洞察力相同的生理神经机制,促进其应用于社会实践。     

米契尔认知情感的个性系统理论述评

近20年左右,以社会认知理论命名的个性新观点正悄然兴起,并成为心理学重新综合趋势的重要反映。这一研究取向认为人是可以认知的、社会的人,并强调把认知过程看作是理解复杂的、有目的的社会行为的一把钥匙。在个性心理学领域,沃尔特·米契尔(Walter Mischel)是采用认知变量解释个性差异并做出非凡贡献的重要人物之一。该文着重从米契尔的三大重要研究领域:认知原型分类、认知情感的个性系统和自我延迟满足能力出发,详细阐述米契尔认知情感的个性系统理论,并对其个性理论的影响和作用进行简要评价。