From ecology to ecosophy,from science to wisdom

Eco‐science (ecology) is not enough. Eco‐wisdom (ecosophy) is needed: How to live on Earth enjoying and respecting the full richness and diversity of life‐forms of the ecosphere.

The cold acknowledgement of dependency upon ecosystems is not enough to motivate responsible policies. To replenish the Earth, we need thejoy of interaction with life and within life. This implies deep reaction against the narrowly utilitarian outlook. We need integration of all levels: abstract and fundamental premises of a philosophy or religion, the derivation of general guideline of global action from these premises, and the conclusion of particular decisions in concrete situations in everyday life. In short: ecosophical total views are called for.     

Heightened interpersonal security diminishes the monetary value of possessions

People may value their possessions, in part, because ownership of goods promotes feelings of security. If so, increasing their sense of security should reduce the value they place on possessions. In two studies we tested this prediction. In Study 1, participants who were assigned randomly to write about an instance of receiving social support placed less monetary value on a blanket they owned relative to participants who were assigned randomly to write about a pleasant restaurant experience. In Study 2, participants who were unobtrusively primed with security-related words placed less monetary value on a pen they just received relative to participants who were primed with positive or neutral words. Results suggest that enhancing interpersonal security reduces valuing possessions.     

Power and loss aversion

Four experiments tested the prediction that power reduces loss aversion by increasing the anticipated value of gains and shrinking the negative anticipated value of losses. Experiment 1 provided initial support for the prediction that those in power are less loss averse by replicating a classic paradigm of loss aversion in riskless choice and demonstrating moderation by power. Experiments 2 and 3 expanded on this finding by breaking apart the components of loss aversion to determine how power may reduce it: via gains, losses, or both. Across two scenarios and two different measures of anticipated value, power reduced the anticipated threat associated with a loss. However, the prediction that power increases the anticipated value of gains was not supported. Finally, Experiment 4 replicated the results of Experiments 2 and 3 in the context of a choice with real consequences for the participants. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

How Should What Economists Call “Social Values” Be Measured?

Most economists and some philosophers distinguish individual utilities from interpersonal social values. Even if challenges to that conceptual distinction can be met, further philosophically interesting questions arise. I pursue three in this paper, using, as context for the discussion, health economics and its attempt to discern empirically a social welfare function to help guide rationing decisions. (1) To discern these utilities and values in a manner that is morally appropriate if they are to influence rationing decisions, who should be queried? To discern individual health state utilities, persons in precisely those states should be asked (generically, “patients”), but for social values, representatives of the general public should be. (2) To discern social values, what should representatives of the public be asked? They should be asked “person trade-off” (PTO) questions that encompass their own self-interest, not PTO questions that focus only on others. (3) What must public representatives understand before they respond to such questions? Despite the philosophically complex problem of patient adaptation, they should understand (among other things) the health state utilities elicited from actual patients with the conditions at issue.     

Checking for Systematic Value Preferences Using the Method of Triads

Value preferences have long been central to research in political science and psychology. Despite their well‐established theoretical importance, however, their measurement is still an open question. Early research on values relied heavily on ranking instruments for data collection, but more recent work calls this measurement technique into question. Specifically, it is argued that traditional ranking instruments are (1) too long, (2) too complex, and (3) may force respondents to make ad hoc differentiations between values of similar importance, behind which there is no systematic preference. As a result, the reliability of the measure is called into question, and measurement error remains a concern. In this article, we discuss the method of triads—a technique used to gather rankings data that affords the researcher the opportunity to assess the extent to which random error affects preference rankings. Using the method of triads to collect preference data on five values central to American political culture, we find that Americans' value preferences are clearly structured and driven by systematic preferences, even when psychological theory suggests they may not. We also compare the predictive validity of the data collected with the method of triads against that of the data collected with traditional importance ratings. We show that models of ideology, party identification, presidential approval, and vote‐choice fit to “triads” data explain more variance than models fit to ratings data.     

Relationships among several methods of linearly constrained correspondence analysis

This paper shows essential equivalences among several methods of linearly constrained correspondence analysis. They include Fisher's method of additive scoring, Hayashi's second type of quantification method, ter Braak's canonical correspondence analysis, Nishisato's type of quantification method, ter Braak's canonical correspondence analysis, Nishisato's ANOVA of categorical data, correspondence analysis of manipulated contingency tables, Böckenholt and Böckenholt's least squares canonical analysis with linear constraints, and van der Heijden and Meijerink's zero average restrictions. These methods fall into one of two classes of methods corresponding to two alternative ways of imposing linear constraints, the reparametrization method and the null space method. A connection between the two is established through Khatri's lemma.The work reported in this paper has been supported by grant A6394 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to the first author. We wish to thank Carolyn Anderson, Ulf Böckenholt, Henk Kiers, Shizuhiko Nishisato, Jim Ramsay, Tadashi Shibayama, Cajo ter Braak, and Peter van der Heijden for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.     

以社会主义核心价值体系引领当代社会思潮

从核心意识形态对民众意识的重要引导作用看,社会主义核心价值体系对当代社会思潮具有重要的引领价值,即用核心价值体系塑造人们的信仰、理想、道德观念,调动大众的主体积极性、主动性,使其成为社会主义核心价值体系的思想上的认同者,行动上的践行者。     

共享心理模型的前因变量研究：群体合成特征的视角

以192个被试组成64个三人团队,通过计算机完成团队合成任务,从群体合成特征的视角出发探讨共享心理模型的前因变量。结果表明:团队成员的价值取向合成特征和初始心理模型合成特征对于共享心理模型的形成具有显著的主效应;群体合成特征与合作任务的信息分布特征形成了显著的交互效应,表明共享心理模型的形成存在潜在的信息分布依存性。最后对研究结果在共享心理模型理论研究上的意义和进一步研究的方向进行了讨论。     

A test of the quasi-circumplex structure of human values

Schwartz’s value system (SVS) has been widely used in different disciplines (e.g., psychology, management, and marketing). Although the value structure seems to be validated when data are analyzed through multidimensional scaling, we show that the quasi-circumplex structure of human values is not supported when confirmatory analysis approaches (e.g., CIRCUM and constrained confirmatory factor analysis) are used. Based on two samples of French and Swiss respondents, confirmatory tests of SVS provide little support for its quasi-circumplex structure, mainly due to problems of construct and discriminant validity resulting from multicollinearity between value types.