Having less,giving less: The effects of unfavorable social comparisons of affluence on people’s willingness to act for the benefit of others

Previous research has found a negative relationship between individual differences in personal relative deprivation (PRD; i.e., resentment stemming from the belief that one is worse off than similar others) and prosociality. Whether PRD causes reductions in people's willingness to act for the benefit of others, however, is yet to be established. Across six studies, we experimentally examined whether experiences of PRD via unfavorable (vs. favorable or lateral) social comparisons of affluence reduced prosociality toward known others and strangers. We found that making hypothetical (Study 1) or real (Study 2) unfavorable social comparisons of affluence in workplace contexts reduced participants’ organizational citizenship behavioral intentions. Furthermore, adverse social comparisons of affluence reduced generosity toward the targets of those comparisons during a Dictator Game (Studies 3 to 6). Across studies, we also measured participants’ subjective and objective socioeconomic status and found, contrary to previous theory and research, no consistent relationship between status and prosociality and no modulation of this relationship by either local or macro-level inequality. These results suggest that local, specific interpersonal comparisons of affluence play a more dominant role in people's willingness to act for the benefit of a comparison target than do their subjective or objective class rank or the prevailing income inequality of the state in which they reside.     

Catholic Social Teaching,Economic Inequality,and American Society

The essay begins with an explanation of the underlying theological vision that supports Catholic social teaching's commitment to the centrality of the common good and the role of solidarity as both a virtue and a norm. The vision of humanity as one family and the church as a sacrament of unity is the foundation for a communitarian ethic that prizes inclusion, participation, and relative equality in the quest for a truly just society. An array of social science studies is then employed to show that economic inequality “bleeds” into other realms of public life to undermine fundamental commitments of American society, namely, equal opportunity and political democracy. The essay concludes that an understanding of Catholic social teaching promotes a critical perspective that is deeply at odds with ongoing trends in the U.S. economy.     

A BIOSEMIOTIC APPROACH TO THE QUESTION OF MEANING

A sign is something that refers to something else. Signs, whether of natural or cultural origin, act by provoking a receptive system, human or nonhuman, to form an interpretant (a movement or a brain activity) that somehow relates the system to this “something else.” Semiotics sees meaning as connected to the formation of interpretants. In a biosemiotic understanding living systems are basically engaged in semiotic interactions, that is, interpretative processes, and organic evolution exhibits an inherent tendency toward an increase in semiotic freedom. Mammals generally are equipped with more semiotic freedom than are their reptilian ancestor species, and fishes are more semiotically sophisticated than are invertebrates. The evolutionary trend toward the production of life forms with an increasing interpretative capacity or semiotic freedom implies that the production of meaning has become an essential survival parameter in later stages of evolution.     

家庭收入与高中生幸福感:社会支持与性别因素的作用

为探讨家庭收入与幸福观的关系，并着力考察性别和社会支持在其中所起的作用，该研究采用家庭收入问卷、社会支持评价量表和总体幸福感量表对520名高中生进行调查，结果发现：（1）高中生家庭收入可显著正向预测总体幸福感；社会支持在两者间起完全中介作用。（2）性别因素对社会支持在家庭收入与总体幸福感之间的中介效应具有调节作用。家庭收入显著正向预测女生的社会支持，而对男生社会支持的预测不显著。研究结果揭示了家庭收入对幸福感的作用机制，可为高中生幸福感提升提供有益指导。     

额叶与非额叶脑肿瘤患者分心记忆和符号数字作业的比较研究

本文以95例额叶、颞叶和顶枕叶脑肿瘤患者为被试,探讨了脑肿瘤部位同分心记忆和符号数字的关系。结果表明,额叶患者的故事意义分的分心消耗值显著高于正常人,其词的分心回忆和分心消耗值显著差于颞叶组,表明额叶在分心作业中较颞叶参与较多。右顶叶也有涉及分心注意较多的趋势,提示大脑前部可能与分心注意关系较密切。“符号数字”作业中,则“写”的作业有颞叶组好于额叶组,“说”的作业颞叶组好于顶枕组的趋势。     

Relative importance of criteria: a quantitative approach

A mathematical definition for the assertion ‘a group of criteria A is more important than a group of criteria B’ is introduced. It is shown how quantitative information on relative importance of criteria allows us to obtain a more precise upper estimate for a set of all non-dominated solutions than the well-known Pareto set. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.