Now for Me,Later for Us? Effects of Group Context on Temporal Discounting

Delayed rewards are less valuable than immediate rewards. This well‐established finding has focused almost entirely on individual outcomes. However, are delayed rewards similarly discounted if they are shared by a group? The current article reports on three experiments exploring the effect of group context on delay discounting. Results indicate that discount rates of individual and group rewards were highly correlated, but that respondents were more willing to wait (decreased discounting) for shared outcomes than for individual outcomes. An explanatory model is proposed suggesting that decreased discount rates in group contexts may be due to the way the effects of both delay and social discounting are combined. That is, in a group context, a person values both a future reward (discounted by delay) and a present reward to another person (discounted by the social distance between them). The results are explained by a combined discount function containing a delay factor and a factor representing the social distance between the decision maker and group members. Practical implications of the fact that shared consequences can increase individual self‐control are also discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Behavioral contrast in a two-option analogue task of financial decision making

The effects of an alternative course of action on sustained escalation and persistence in the face of failure was investigated using a computerized stock investment task. Subjects invested in "stock" in two "markets" that yielded returns according to two-component multiple variable-interval schedules. Both markets yielded equal but intermittent return rates during the first phase. In the second phase, one market ceased to yield returns, while the return rate for the other market was unchanged. During the second phase, behavioral contrast effects were evident. Investing in the market that ceased to yield returns dropped precipitously, and investing in the unchanged market increased significantly. Although the behavior may be economically "irrational," it is predictable from the matching law and shows that interactions among a history of intermittent returns in a course of action, current return rate, and currently available alternative courses of action are important determinants of persisting in, or withdrawing from, a failing course of action.     

The decapitation of Slovenia’s Catholic Church: social factors and consequences

This article discusses the financial collapse of Slovenia’s Catholic Church, a scandal which resulted in the deposition of the country’s archbishops, and its impact on religious belief and on the relations within the Slovenian Catholic establishment and community. Trust in the Church and religious participation have dropped markedly in Slovenia over recent years. While there are no significant changes in religious belief, other religious indicators continue to reflect an ongoing moderate trend towards secularisation that is characteristic of Slovenia in the post-socialist era. The public discourse of the Church’s leadership and lay Catholics reveals tensions on the reasons behind the fall of the Church’s financial empire and on the question of responsibility in the removal of Slovenia’s archbishops. Two general types of reactions were identified in a content analysis of texts from a five-month period after the last depositions. Views within the Slovene Catholic Church, which uphold the institution’s traditional stance, tend to explain these developments as part of a conspiracy against the Church. Others that are more open and reflective are critical towards the actions of the Church and demand change from within the institution.     

儿童自我控制研究述评

儿童自我控制指的是儿童对优势反应的抑制和劣势反应的唤起的能力.文章概述了近年来国外该领域研究的一些主要成果及研究动态,包括自控涵义上的争论、早期发生的认知基础及其表现、稳定性与性别差异上的表现、注意及语言与自控的关系、父母抚养方式对自控形成的影响等.最后,对该领域未来的发展趋势作了展望.     

传承动机对金融冒险行为的影响:未来自我连续性的中介

人们普遍拥有“期待不朽、被人铭记”的传承动机, 文章通过4个实验探讨了该动机如何通过未来自我连续性的影响作用于个体的金融冒险行为。实验1发现传承动机能够提升个体对未来自我的连续性感知。实验2在此基础上发现传承动机会弱化个体金融冒险行为(2a), 并且该效应被自我连续性感知中介(2b)。实验3进一步考察个体社会经济地位对上述中介效应的调节, 结果发现上述中介效应只出现在社会经济地位相对较高(vs.较低)的个体身上。     

Financial product sensitivity predicts financial health

Recent research has aimed to understand how people consider financial decisions because they have important consequences for well-being. Yet existing research has largely failed to examine how attitudes and behaviors vary as a function of the specific financial product (e.g., debt type). We ask to what extent people differentiate between similarly categorized financial products (e.g., debt or investment) as a function of their terms (e.g., interest costs and expected returns) and whether such differentiation predicts financial health. Across four studies, we find not only that there are individual differences in attitudes toward similar financial products (e.g., two distinct loans), but also that the extent to which a consumer is averse to high-cost versus low-cost products predicts financial health. This relationship cannot be fully explained by financial literacy, numeracy, or intertemporal discounting. In addition, nudging people toward differentiating between financial products promotes decisions that are aligned with financial health.     

Role of maternal affect and regulatory strategies in toddlers’ emotion and behavior regulation

Using a moment-to-moment multilevel approach, we examined the relative effectiveness of (a) toddlers’ lagged (i.e., previous-interval) regulatory strategies and toddlers’ lagged expression of negative emotion, as moderated by maternal affect, and (b) maternal lagged regulatory strategies, on toddlers’ current-interval (1) expression of negative emotion, and, (2) ability to delay gratification during a wait task. Two-level random coefficient models, with twelve repeated-measurement occasions (10 s-intervals) of observed behaviors (N = 1571) nested within 134 mother-toddler dyads from low-income families (67 girls; M_age = 25.77 months, SD_age = 1.60) were examined. Cross-level interactions revealed that maternal positive affect buffered severity of toddlers’ expression of negative emotion between lagged and current-intervals, while maternal negative affect disrupted toddlers’ effective utilization of lagged regulatory strategies on current-interval expression of negative emotion. However, regardless of maternal affect, toddlers who displayed higher expression of negative emotion and utilized more regulatory strategies in lagged-intervals displayed greater delay of gratification in current-intervals. Also, as mothers displayed greater minimization of toddlers' emotional distress, higher physical restraint, and used fewer distractions, toddlers displayed more intense expression of negative emotion in subsequent intervals. Similarly, as mothers used higher physical restraint and fewer distractions, toddlers were less able to wait in subsequent intervals. Results illustrate the disruptive roles of maternal negative affect and unsupportive regulatory strategies on toddlers' emotion and behavior regulation. Together, these findings point to targeting maternal positive affect in combination with supportive regulatory strategies to promote toddlers’ transition from external- to internal-regulation.     

“仁者”还是“智者”：第三方惩罚对惩罚者声誉的影响

第三方惩罚会对惩罚者的声誉产生显著影响, 然而就影响的方向而言, 现有文献给出了不同答案。上述问题的一个潜在原因是先前研究未能区分声誉的不同维度以及惩罚的不同动机与形式。通过将温暖-能力双维度结构引入惩罚者的声誉, 实验结果显示, 第三方惩罚从总体上降低了人们对惩罚者在温暖维度上的评价而提高了对其在能力维度上的评价。调节效应分析表明, 动机被归因为集体聚焦的惩罚进一步提升了其对能力的正面作用而减缓了对温暖的负面作用, 并且惩罚者的合作水平越高, 其动机被归因为集体聚焦的程度也越高。针对不同惩罚形式的进一步分析显示, 当惩罚动机被归因为个体聚焦时, 经济惩罚对温暖的负面作用显著高于社会惩罚, 而在集体聚焦的归因下经济惩罚对能力的正面作用显著低于社会惩罚。     

大学生未来取向与学习自主性的关系研究:学业延迟满足和时间管理倾向的多重中介作用

本研究旨在探讨未来取向和学习自主性的关系,分析学业延迟满足、时间管理倾向的作用.采用问卷法对731名大学生进行调查,研究表明:(1)大学生未来取向、学业延迟满足、时间管理倾向和学习自主性之间均存在显著相关;(2)大学生学业延迟满足、时间管理倾向在未来取向和学习自主性间存在中介效用,即未来取向直接影响大学生的学习自主性,...     

Foregoing the labor for the fruits: The effect of just world threat on the desire for immediate monetary rewards

Previous theorizing and research suggest that the need to believe in a just world develops when children begin to understand the benefits of foregoing their immediate gratifications for more desirable, long-term outcomes. Drawing on this previous work, we propose that an extant just world threat may induce a desire for smaller, immediate rewards at the expense of larger, delayed rewards. Participants were exposed to the suffering of an innocent or non-innocent victim and then, in a different context, completed a temporal discounting task that assessed, across six time delays, their preferences for smaller, immediate monetary rewards versus a constant, larger, delayed reward. Consistent with our reasoning, participants exposed to the suffering of an innocent versus non-innocent victim more steeply discounted the value of the delayed reward—that is, they were willing to accept smaller immediate rewards in place of the larger, delayed reward. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.