scholarly journals Economic Games: An Introduction and Guide for Research

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabel Thielmann ◽  
Robert Böhm ◽  
Marion Ott ◽  
Benjamin E. Hilbig

Prosocial behaviors constitute vital ingredients for all types of social interactions and relationships as well as for society at large. Corresponding to this significance, the study of prosocial behaviors has received considerable attention across scientific disciplines. A striking feature of this research is that most disciplines rely on economic games to measure actual prosocial behavior in controlled experimental settings. However, empirical research often fails to fully exploit the richness of this class of paradigms. The current work aims to overcome this issue by providing a theory-driven overview of and introduction to the variety of economic games for researchers in psychology and beyond. Specifically, we introduce prominent theories of games (Game Theory and Interdependence Theory) and show how the concepts from these theories can be integrated in a unifying theoretical framework considering games as providing specific situational affordances for behavior. Additionally, we describe several games in detail, including their structural features, the affordances they involve, the social motives that may guide behavior, the flexibility they entail to manipulate specific situational aspects and, thus, affordances, and typical research findings. We conclude that tailored selection and combination of games and game variants allows to obtain a unique understanding of the underlying psychological processes involved in prosocial behavior. As a practical tool for researchers, we also provide standardized game instructions and guidelines for the implementation of games in future research. Ultimately, the review can foster optimal use of economic games in future work and thereby set the stage for high-class, replicable, and innovative research on human prosociality.

2021 ◽  
pp. 014616722110072
Author(s):  
Jiafang Chen ◽  
Barbara Nevicka ◽  
Astrid C. Homan ◽  
Gerben A. van Kleef

Narcissists have a relatively higher proclivity for displaying antisocial rather than prosocial behaviors, suggesting a comparatively higher tendency for unfavorably impacting societies. However, maintenance of social order also depends on appropriate responses to others’ social behavior. Once we focus on narcissists as observers rather than actors, their impact on social functioning becomes less clear-cut. Theoretical arguments suggest that narcissists could be either hypo-responsive or hyper-responsive to others’ social behavior. Across four studies, we examined narcissists’ responsiveness to variations in others’ antisocial and prosocial behaviors. Results showed that narcissists differentiated less between others’ antisociality/prosociality, as reflected in their subsequent moral character evaluations (Studies 1–4) and reward and punishment (Studies 3 and 4). These results suggest that narcissists are hypo-responsive to others’ social behaviors. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 23-34
Author(s):  
Petra Trávníčková

Abstract Introduction: In recent years, teaching is no longer perceived only as a job, but as a profession. The study focuses on student’s view on the teacher’s profession, which is important in the context of becoming a teacher. During their university studies, student teachers are at the beginning of their professional careers. Their attitudes, values and principles are still evolving. Methods: Building on previous studies, qualitative methodology was applied. The main goals of the research were to describe the changing views of student teachers on the teacher’s profession, and to compare their views in the first and third years of study. Therefore, thematic writing was chosen. Results: The results show that the student teacher’s views change significantly during their university studies. While in the first year, student teachers focus more on the importance of childhood, their own practical experience and the teacher’s influence on a child’s life; in the last year of bachelor´s study, the emphasis is on the teacher’s personality, teaching professionalism and on the teacher as a learner can be observed. This paper can provide evidence that university education for kindergarten teachers is important and it most likely influences their future work. Discussion: The research findings show that it is appropriate to pay attention to how views about the teacher’s profession change. This could broaden the view of the development of the teacher profession concept and could also be a useful tool for modifying the content of future teachers’ education. Limitations: A certain limit of research can be sen in using one method. It would certainly be appropriate to supplement the research with interviews with participants. In my future research I will focus on this issue. Conclusion: 1. The student teachers’ views change significantly during their university studies, 2. The focus moves from their practical experience to the didactic theory. 3. There is a shift from focusing on personality of teachers to their abilities.


2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 655-673 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Columbus ◽  
Isabel Thielmann ◽  
Daniel Balliet

Individual differences in prosocial behaviour are well–documented. Increasingly, there has been a focus on the specific situations in which particular personality traits predict prosocial behaviour. HEXACO Honesty–Humility—the basic trait most consistently linked to prosocial behaviour in prior studies—has been found to predict prosociality most strongly in situations that afford the exploitation of others. Importantly, though, it may be the subjectively perceived situation that affords the behavioural expression of a trait. Following this reasoning, we tested the proposition that Honesty–Humility would predict prosocial behaviour more strongly in situations characterised by, and perceived to contain, two dimensions of interdependence that can afford exploitation: high conflict and high power. However, across a series of incentivised economic games and two large experience sampling studies, we only found inconsistent evidence for the association between Honesty–Humility and prosocial behaviour. Furthermore, the link between Honesty–Humility and prosociality was neither conditional on objective interdependence nor on subjective perceptions of interdependence. Nonetheless, perceptions of conflict and power tracked objective properties of economic games and were related to prosocial behaviour in the lab and field. Future research should take individuals’ subjective understanding of situations into account, which may also help understand the (generalisability of the) effect of Honesty–Humility on prosocial behaviour. © 2019 The Authors. European Journal of Personality published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Association of Personality Psychology


Challenges ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauriane Suyin Chalmin-Pui ◽  
Alistair Griffiths ◽  
Jenny J. Roe ◽  
Ross W. F. Cameron

This perspective article proposes an agenda to investigate the impacts of front gardens (yards) on health and well-being. As front gardens are increasingly being paved over, significant ecological benefits will be lost. In addition, urban green infrastructure has a measurable role to play in addressing major public health issues related to mental health, chronic stress, inflammatory, and cardiovascular diseases. The social value of front gardens remains un-quantified. Future research can contribute to assessing the psycho-socio-cultural value of front gardens, and fostering healthy environments for people to live, work, and play in. A better understanding of the health impacts of front gardens can provide a relatable argument to protect permeable surfaces and spaces for nature, as well as to discourage the general public from paving over their front gardens. We propose eight central research questions to be addressed in future work, and elaborate on further variables, lines of inquiry, and suggested intervention trials and observational studies. Potential research findings will have implications for decision-making in fields of horticulture, landscape architecture, urban planning, and public health.


2021 ◽  
pp. 155708512098763
Author(s):  
Emily M. Wright ◽  
Gillian M. Pinchevsky ◽  
Min Xie

We consider the broad developments that have occurred over the past decade regarding our knowledge of how neighborhood context impacts intimate partner violence (IPV). Research has broadened the concept of “context” beyond structural features such as economic disadvantage, and extended into relationships among residents, collective “action” behaviors among residents, cultural and gender norms. Additionally, scholars have considered how the built environment might foster (or regulate) IPV. We now know more about the direct, indirect, and moderating ways that communities impact IPV. We encourage additional focus on the policy implications of the research findings.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdulkadir Tasdelen ◽  
Baha Sen

AbstractmiRNAs (or microRNAs) are small, endogenous, and noncoding RNAs construct of about 22 nucleotides. Cumulative evidence from biological experiments shows that miRNAs play a fundamental and important role in various biological processes. Therefore, the classification of miRNA is a critical problem in computational biology. Due to the short length of mature miRNAs, many researchers are working on precursor miRNAs (pre-miRNAs) with longer sequences and more structural features. Pre-miRNAs can be divided into two groups as mirtrons and canonical miRNAs in terms of biogenesis differences. Compared to mirtrons, canonical miRNAs are more conserved and easier to be identified. Many existing pre-miRNA classification methods rely on manual feature extraction. Moreover, these methods focus on either sequential structure or spatial structure of pre-miRNAs. To overcome the limitations of previous models, we propose a nucleotide-level hybrid deep learning method based on a CNN and LSTM network together. The prediction resulted in 0.943 (%95 CI ± 0.014) accuracy, 0.935 (%95 CI ± 0.016) sensitivity, 0.948 (%95 CI ± 0.029) specificity, 0.925 (%95 CI ± 0.016) F1 Score and 0.880 (%95 CI ± 0.028) Matthews Correlation Coefficient. When compared to the closest results, our proposed method revealed the best results for Acc., F1 Score, MCC. These were 2.51%, 1.00%, and 2.43% higher than the closest ones, respectively. The mean of sensitivity ranked first like Linear Discriminant Analysis. The results indicate that the hybrid CNN and LSTM networks can be employed to achieve better performance for pre-miRNA classification. In future work, we study on investigation of new classification models that deliver better performance in terms of all the evaluation criteria.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1326-1349
Author(s):  
Siti Nurul Akmal Yusof ◽  
Nor Azwadi Che Sidik ◽  
Yutaka Asako ◽  
Wan Mohd. Arif Aziz Japar ◽  
Saiful Bahri Mohamed ◽  
...  

Abstract Nanofluid is a colloidal mixture consisting of nano-sized particles dispersed in a liquid medium. It improves heat transfer properties and promotes high energy efficiency in a wide spectrum of engineering applications. In recent years, particularly in the automotive industry, the addition of nanofluid in diesel/biodiesel as an additive for ICE has become an attractive approach to promote enhanced combustion efficiency and emission reduction due to their superior thermophysical properties. Many researchers have previously demonstrated that the addition of nanoparticles in diesel/biodiesel fuel improved the overall engine combustion characteristics. As a whole, this study aims to summarize the recent research findings related to the effect of nanoparticles on the fuel properties and engine combustion efficiency. Furthermore, different types of additive blended with varying fuel properties are also compared and discussed. Lastly, the advantages and prospects of using nanofluid as an additive fuel are summarized for future research opportunities.


2021 ◽  
pp. 016502542199075
Author(s):  
Laura K. Taylor ◽  
Gustavo Carlo

The introduction highlights a developmental perspective on children’s and youth prosocial behavior in risky and vulnerable contexts. The six empirical papers published in this Special Section are considered within a multilevel, multidimensional framework and reflect a diversity of methodological approaches. The studies each provide foundational work that informs theory, builds our knowledge base, and has important intervention implications. We highlight the contributions of each study and present recommendations for future developmental research on prosocial behaviors.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 847-857 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kun Zhao ◽  
Eamonn Ferguson ◽  
Luke D. Smillie

Growing evidence has highlighted the importance of social norms in promoting prosocial behaviors in economic games. Specifically, individual differences in norm adherence—captured by the politeness aspect of Big Five agreeableness—have been found to predict fair allocations of wealth to one’s partner in the dictator game. Yet, most studies have used neutrally framed paradigms, where players may default to norms of equality in the absence of contextual cues. In this study ( N = 707), we examined prosocial personality traits and dictator allocations under salient real-world norms of equity and need. Extending on the previous research, we found that—in addition to politeness—the compassion aspect of agreeableness predicted greater allocations of wealth when they were embedded in real-world norms. These results represent an important step in understanding the real-world implications of laboratory-based research, demonstrating the importance of both normative context and prosocial traits.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shamkant B. Badgujar ◽  
Vainav V. Patel ◽  
Atmaram H. Bandivdekar

Foeniculum vulgareMill commonly called fennel has been used in traditional medicine for a wide range of ailments related to digestive, endocrine, reproductive, and respiratory systems. Additionally, it is also used as a galactagogue agent for lactating mothers. The review aims to gather the fragmented information available in the literature regarding morphology, ethnomedicinal applications, phytochemistry, pharmacology, and toxicology ofFoeniculum vulgare. It also compiles available scientific evidence for the ethnobotanical claims and to identify gaps required to be filled by future research. Findings based on their traditional uses and scientific evaluation indicates thatFoeniculum vulgareremains to be the most widely used herbal plant. It has been used for more than forty types of disorders. Phytochemical studies have shown the presence of numerous valuable compounds, such as volatile compounds, flavonoids, phenolic compounds, fatty acids, and amino acids. Compiled data indicate their efficacy in severalin vitroandin vivopharmacological properties such as antimicrobial, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, antimutagenic, antinociceptive, antipyretic, antispasmodic, antithrombotic, apoptotic, cardiovascular, chemomodulatory, antitumor, hepatoprotective, hypoglycemic, hypolipidemic, and memory enhancing property.Foeniculum vulgarehas emerged as a good source of traditional medicine and it provides a noteworthy basis in pharmaceutical biology for the development/formulation of new drugs and future clinical uses.


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