What motivates men to offer sperm donation via the internet?

To investigate why men offer sperm donation via the internet, a questionnaire was disseminated via 39 Dutch-language websites thought to be visited by potential sperm donors. Nine internet donors completed the survey, men who typically knew the women they were donating to. Their responses were compared with those of a control group of 35 general sperm bank donors who were recruited using flyers in Dutch sperm banks, and who were typically unaware of the identity of the eventual recipients. The findings shed light on the motives and attitudes of internet donors. Both groups of donors indicated that their primary motivation for donating was altruism (>80% of all respondents). However, internet donors had a more pronounced desire to procreate than sperm bank donors (6 out of 9, i.e. 66 vs. 22%, respectively) and more often felt that they had good genes they wished to pass on (5 out of 9, i.e. 55 vs. 31%, respectively). The main reason internet donors gave for donating via the internet was that they wanted to know the prospective parents and be kept up to date on the progress of the offspring conceived from their donations. This distinguishes them significantly from sperm bank donors. A further finding was that they were not prompted to avoid the formal donation circuit for which, by law in the Netherlands, pregnancies resulting from donations have to be registered in a central database. This study is subject to several, in some cases inevitable, limitations, but it provides an interesting starting point that future studies can seek to confirm and extend.     

Assessing the role of alternative response rates and reinforcer rates in resistance to extinction of target responding when combining stimuli

Studies of behavioral momentum reveal that reinforcing an alternative response in the presence of a target response reduces the rate of target responding but increases its persistence, relative to training the target response on its own. Because of the parallels between these studies and differential‐reinforcement techniques to reduce problem behavior in clinical settings, alternative techniques to reduce problem behavior without enhancing its persistence are being explored. One potential solution is to train an alternative response in a separate stimulus context from problem behavior before combining the alternative stimulus with the target stimulus. The present study assessed how differences in reinforcement contingencies and rate for alternative responding influenced resistance to extinction of target responding when combining alternative and target stimuli in pigeons. Across three experiments, alternative stimuli signaling a response–reinforcer dependency and greater reinforcer rates more effectively decreased the persistence of target responding when combining alternative and target stimuli within the same extinction tests, but not when compared across separate extinction tests. Overall, these findings reveal that differences in competition between alternative and target responding produced by contingencies of alternative reinforcement could influence the effectiveness of treating problem behavior through combining stimulus contexts.     

Some conditions affecting the choice to cooperate or compete

Three experiments investigated conditions affecting the choice to cooperate or compete. Experiment I compared the effects first of an individual activity, then of a competitive task as an alternative to cooperation. For both comparisons, subjects could earn more by cooperating. Choice of competition, but not individual activity, was found to depend on the task choice contingencies. Competition predominated when both subjects could compete if either or both chose competition. Previously competitive pairs cooperated when both subjects could cooperate if either or both chose cooperation. Experiment II investigated the effects of differences in magnitude of the reinforcers for cooperating or competing. Choice between the two alternatives was manipulated in all pairs by varying reinforcer difference. Competition was chosen over cooperation only within the limits within which competition was potentially profitable. Experiment III replicated the findings of Experiment II using triads. Subjects in triads, however, were more likely to withdraw from the experiment. Thus, the data for pairs and triads suggest an orderly relation between reinforcer difference for cooperating or competing and task choice. Motivation of subjects to maximize relative gain by competing can be overridden by moderate reinforcer differences favoring cooperation.     

Switching from competition to sharing or cooperation at large response requirements: competition requires more responding

Two pairs of high-school students matched-to-sample for money. On each trial, a subject could either respond on one lever to take the matching-to-sample problem himself (taking response) or respond on a second lever to give the problem to his coactor (giving response). The first subject to complete the response requirement determined the distribution of the problem. Competition maximizes the amount of responding over trials, i.e., both subjects make taking responses on each trial. Sharing and cooperation minimize responding: only one subject makes a taking response (sharing) or a giving response (cooperation) on each trial, and the subjects alternate responding such that there is an equitable distribution of responses and reinforcers over trials. Large increases in the fixed-ratio response requirement to distribute problems produced: (1) a switch from competition to sharing or cooperation, (2) the expected concomitant change from inequitable to equitable distributions of reinforcers, and (3) a reduction in the amount of responding for three of the four subjects. Previous animal research has shown that large response requirements may have aversive properties. Switching from competition to sharing or cooperation at large response requirements allows a reduction in responding and, at the same time, a moderate number of reinforcers for each subject.     

Acquisition and maintenance of trusting behavior

This study determined whether a two-person exchange situation contained natural contingencies for trusting behavior or whether external contingencies were necessary. Pairs of college students worked matching-to-sample problems for money. On each trial there was one problem and the subjects determined which of them would solve it. Trusting behavior was defined as an increase in the number of consecutive problems each subject allowed his partner to work during sessions that also ended with an equitable distribution. Simply, trust was a temporary deviation from equity. A subject could give the problem to the other person (cooperate), or not respond and let the other person take the problem (share). Other possibilities were for both subjects to try to take the problem (complete), or for neither subject to respond and thereby let the person who worked the last problem also work the next one (passive trust). When only four lever pulls were required to distribute a problem (no external contingencies to reach either equity or trust) subjects reached equity, but only minimal trust (strict alternation of single problems) developed in 18 sessions. When 30 or 60 lever pulls were required to distribute a problem (smaller response requirement for passive trust and therefore a contingency for trust), trusting behavior developed after a few sessions (fixed ratio 30) or after several trials of the first session (fixed ratio 60) and it ordinarily expanded gradually to 10 to 15 consecutive problems through passive trust. The aversiveness of the inequity involved in trusting appears to necessitate a contingency for acquisition. Once trust develops, however, this aversiveness is reduced as subjects learn the inequity is only temporary (e.g., once trust was acquired at fixed ratio 60 it was maintained at fixed ratio 4, which would not initially produce it), and the direction of the inequity appears to become of questionable importance (e.g., being behind was alternated over rather than within sessions and usually not in a systematic manner).     

结果冲突与作业难度对双重作业绩效的影响

运用单作业和双作业操作探讨结果冲突与作业难度对双重作业绩效的影响。结果表明：（１）信息干扰对双作业操作有着明显的影响。信息干扰越大,结果冲突效应越大,双作业操作绩效越差。（２）作业难度对双作业绩效有明显影响。作业难度越大,双作业操作绩效越差。根据实验结果,本研究提出了双因素假设：信息干扰和资源竞争是影响双作业操作绩效的两个主要因素。     

Shortcomings of the behavioral competition theory of contrast: Reanalysis of McLean (1992)

McLean (1992) presented significant data showing that the occurrence of behavioral contrast in a multiple schedule was correlated with shifts in the frequency of reinforcers from a second source between components of the schedule, and interpreted his results as showing that contrast was due to changes in the degree of response competition within the constant component of the multiple schedule. Reanalysis of his data shows that there was an effect of reinforcement in the alternative component of the schedule independent of the shifts in reinforcers between components. Thus, the effect of relative rate of reinforcement cannot be ascribed, at least entirely, to the mechanisms proposed by the behavioral competition theory of contrast.     

On the Concept of Fair Competition Prevalent in Today’s European Soccer Leagues

The notion of competition depicted in sport literature appears to be inconsistent with the goals of current European soccer competitions. This paper examines two misconceptions of fair competition which are prevalent in these competitions. First, it aims at refuting the view that professional soccer only requires some basic equality of chances beyond the differences in players’ skills and managers’ knowledge of game strategy. In other words, it refutes the view that professional soccer only demands a notion of fair competition understood as fair play. Second, the paper also aims at refuting the view that fair competition, in professional soccer, is simply a matter of financial viability. Hence, it calls for both genuine legal and ethical reforms, since professional soccer competition requires a notion of equality as both a goal and a right. Such a notion, we argue, must conceive of the differences in players’ skills and managers’ knowledge of game strategy as one of the primary factors in establishing a platform founded in fair competition. Therefore, this paper calls for a radical change of attitude toward or a radical approach to fair competition among European sport fans, policy-makers, and administrators.     

Emergent Processes in Group Behavior

ABSTRACT— Just as neurons interconnect in networks that create structured thoughts beyond the ken of any individual neuron, so people spontaneously organize themselves into groups to create emergent organizations that no individual may intend, comprehend, or even perceive. Recent technological advances have provided us with unprecedented opportunities for conducting controlled laboratory experiments on human collective behavior. We describe two experimental paradigms in which we attempt to build predictive bridges between the beliefs, goals, and cognitive capacities of individuals and patterns of behavior at the group level, showing how the members of a group dynamically allocate themselves to resources and how innovations diffuse through a social network. Agent-based computational models have provided useful explanatory and predictive accounts. Together, the models and experiments point to tradeoffs between exploration and exploitation—that is, compromises between individuals using their own innovations and using innovations obtained from their peers—and the emergence of group-level organizations such as population waves, bandwagon effects, and spontaneous specialization.