Evaluating Time Streams of Income: Discounting What?

For decisions whose consequences accrue over time, there are several possible techniques to compute total utility. One is to discount utilities of future consequences at some appropriate rate. The second is to discount per-period certainty equivalents. And the third is to compute net present values (NPVs) of various possible streams and to then apply the utility function to these net present values. We find that the best approach is to first compute NPVs of various possible income streams and then take the utility of such NPVs. We show the drawbacks of other alternative models of evaluating income streams. The article discusses the advantages of the power and logarithmic forms in the modeling of time preference. These are the only forms for which utility of income and utility of consumption are strategically equivalent. Further, these forms permit the flexibility in the choice of a time period (e.g., monthly or quarterly) without modifying the utility function, thus simplifying analysis.     

Discounting health and money: New evidence using a more robust method

This study compares discounting for money and health in a field study. We applied the direct method, which measures discounting independent of utility, in a representative French sample, interviewed at home by professional interviewers. We found more discounting for money than for health. The median discount rates (6.5% for money and 2.2% for health) were close to market interest rates, suggesting that at the aggregate level the direct method solves the puzzle of unrealistically high discount rates typically observed in applied economics. Constant discounting fitted the data better than the hyperbolic discounting models that we considered. The substantial individual heterogeneity in discounting was correlated with age and occupation.     

Hate Speech: Asian American Students' Justice Judgments and Psychological Responses

Two experiments using Asian American university student participants examined the distinctive characteristics of responses to racist hate speech relative to responses to other forms of offense. The studies varied the target of insulting speech (Asian, African, and Overweight person) or the nature of offence (petty theft vs. insulting speech). Participant variables included collective self-esteem and social identification. Results indicate that hate speech directed at ethnic targets deserves more severe punishment than other forms of offensive speech and petty theft. Hate speech also results in more extreme emotional responses and, in the case of an Asian target, has a depressing influence on collective self-esteem. Ethnic identification moderated punishment responses in study 1 only. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.     

Intergenerational Relations: Themes, Prospects, and Possibilities

This commentary provides an examination of the articles within this issue with a focus on common themes throughout. Each article is briefly reviewed in the context of how it contributes to four overarching themes of current intergenerational research. The articles within this issue also have implications for developing policy that fosters intergenerational relationships. This commentary concludes with a discussion of the complex issues that arise in creating such policy and utilizes Allport's (1954) "contact hypothesis" as a framework to guide future policy work addressing the myriad of issues within the realm of intergenerational relationships.     

Fundraising of Nonprofit Organizations: Specifics and New Possibilities

Fundraising can be viewed as a systematic activity aimed primarily at raising financial resources for the activities of either an organization or an individual. The inconsistency of this effort usually cannot be blamed on internal factors within an organization, but rather phenomena of a macroeconomic, legislative or societal nature. In an effort to gain an insight into the measure of utilizing fundraising principles in nonprofit organizations, extensive research was conducted for the ninth time among nonprofit organizations in the Czech Republic, the sample of which consisted of 313 fully completed questionnaires. Based on the research results focusing on fundraising, measures were proposed to expand the possibilities of ensuring effective multisource funding for a selected nonprofit organization. One of these options and at the same time the current trend in marketing not only for the nonprofit sector is crowdfunding. Crowdfunding is a new concept of funding projects that has seen a significantly growing trend in the fundraising is part of marketing activities, or at least it is very closely connected with them.     

Judgmental Discounting and Environmental Risk Perception: Dimensional Similarities, Domain Differences, and Implications for Sustainability

Environmental risks constitute a special category of risks because they often involve consequences that are highly uncertain, strongly delayed, occurring at distant places, and—therefore—mostly borne by others. Economic, decision–theoretic, and psychological research about the way people deal with such consequences is reviewed. Two major findings are presented: first, there is evidence that discounting mechanisms are stable across different preference dimensions (uncertainty, temporal, spatial, and social distance). Second, discount rates tend to vary across different problem domains (e.g., environmental vs. health vs. financial risks). In particular, it appears that temporal discounting is less pronounced for environmental risks than in other domains. Several factors are identified that affect the nature of the risk evaluation process, and it is argued that environmental risks differ from other risks on such factors. These environmental-risk characteristics may have important implications for policy strategies to promote environmental sustainability. Contrary to other domains, appealing to the public's long-term preferences may be successful. Also in policy making, insights from standard economic decision theory to environmental decision making should be applied with caution.     

Curriculum Designs for Social Work Education: Some Problems and Possibilities

Correspondence to Ms V. Coulshed, Head of School, School of Social Work, Tasmanian Institute of Technology, Tasmania 7250, Australia Summary Internationally, social work programmes continue to seek curriculumdesigns which are coherent, integrated and encourage the transferof learning from one knowledge area to another. In the UK, theCentral Council for Education and Training in Social Work (CCETSW),has proposed a new form of training: by lengthening the periodof training, collaborating more closely with agencies and ensuringspecial competence in at least one sphere, the CCETSW plansto provide the l99( with a highly competent work-force. Thispaper explores the feasibility of so doing within a three-yearfoundation course. It examines some of the existing problemsin course content and structure which the new programmes, farfrom remedying, may actually worsen. Some beginning thoughtson models of curriculum design, which offer possibilities forcoherence, integration and knowledge transfer are suggested.     

Risk Assessment Using Psychological Profiling Techniques: An Evaluation of Possibilities

Correspondence to John Hopton, 64 Peveril Close, Whitefield, Manchester M45 6NR, UK. Summary In this paper the writer reviews the available literature onpsychological profiling, discusses the differences between thefacet approach to psychological profiling and other techniqueswhich have been labelled ‘psychological profiling’,and discusses the applications of the facet approach. This discussionis followed by a critical evaluation of the potential of thefacet approach as a means of assessing whether or not a personsuffering from mental distress should be regarded as a riskto herself/himself or to other people. Finally, there is a discussionof issues around anti-oppressive and and-discriminatory practice,and the writer concludes that, in the light of recent mentalhealth legislation and mental health policy decisions, the useof psychological profiling as a means of risk assessment couldreduce the number of mentally distressed persons subjected tointrusive surveillance and/or compulsorily admitted to secureaccommodation.     

罪行·救赎·男子气概——莫里森新作《家》中的叙事判断与伦理归旨

本文从修辞性叙事层面解读诺贝尔文学奖得主莫里森2012年推出的新作《家》,重点讨论小说中人物、叙述者与读者对主人公弗兰克·莫尼(Frank Money)“坦白罪行,重埋尸骨”重要事件所做出的阐释判断、伦理判断和审美判断.三种叙事判断相互作用,推动故事进程,不仅展现了主人公男子气概形象的重建,还实现了莫里森叙事的伦理归旨.     

Involving Young Service Users as Co-Researchers: Possibilities, Benefits and Costs

This article seeks to contribute to the debate concerning thebenefits and costs of involving young service users in research.The paper locates involvement within a continuum of consultation,collaboration and user-controlled research. The mandate forchildren and young people’s involvement is identified.In particular, the paper focuses on the benefits and costs inrelation to: research and development, research disseminationand service development, service users and researchers. Thepaper does not suggest that these benefits and costs can bemeasured arithmetically but argues that if the costs in termsof resources, training, support, timescale and remunerationare not addressed, the research will be undermined and in dangerof becoming tokenistic. The article argues that the involvementof young service users as co-researchers is worthwhile, butthat it should not be entered into lightly and that furtherwork needs to be undertaken on which parts of the process youngservice users can be included in and where their involvementresults in change in service delivery or service outcomes.     

De Finetti was Right: Probability Does Not Exist

De Finetti's treatise on the theory of probability begins with the provocative statement PROBABILITY DOES NOT EXIST, meaning that probability does not exist in an objective sense. Rather, probability exists only subjectively within the minds of individuals. De Finetti defined subjective probabilities in terms of the rates at which individuals are willing to bet money on events, even though, in principle, such betting rates could depend on state-dependent marginal utility for money as well as on beliefs. Most later authors, from Savage onward, have attempted to disentangle beliefs from values by introducing hypothetical bets whose payoffs are abstract consequences that are assumed to have state-independent utility. In this paper, I argue that de Finetti was right all along: PROBABILITY, considered as a numerical measure of pure belief uncontaminated by attitudes toward money, does not exist. Rather, what exist are de Finetti's `previsions', or betting rates for money, otherwise known in the literature as `risk neutral probabilities'. But the fact that previsions are not measures of pure belief turns out not to be problematic for statistical inference, decision analysis, or economic modeling. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Probability Weighting in Choice under Risk: An Empirical Test

This paper reports a violation of rank-dependent utility with inverse S-shaped probability weighting for binary gambles. The paper starts with a violation of expected utility theory: one-stage gambles elicit systematically different utilities than theoretically equivalent two-stage gambles. This systematic disparity does not disappear, but becomes more pronounced after correction for inverse S-shaped probability weighting. The data are also inconsistent with configural weight theory and Machina's fanning out hypothesis. Possible explanations for the data are loss aversion and anchoring and insufficient adjustment.     

Disparities in Judgments of the O. J. Simpson Case: A Social Identity Perspective

In this article, social identity theory is used to explore the disparate perceptions of Blacks and Whites regarding the O. J. Simpson case. In social identity theory, the desire to view one's own social group positively is seen as a primary motivation underlying causal attributions for disturbing social events. This work suggests that racially polarized judgments of the O. J. Simpson trial may be related to (a) perceptions of the nature of status boundaries between Blacks and Whites in American society; (b) the relative importance of social identity; and (c) the degree to which the out-group is seen to pose a threat to the in-group's objective interests and identity concerns. Theoretical and empirical work in social identity theory is discussed.     

Mothers and Fathers in the Workplace: How Gender and Parental Status Influence Judgments of Job-Related Competence

We investigated the influence of gender and parental status on employment decisions. The shifting standards model predicts that parenthood polarizes judgments of women and men such that mothers are held to stricter employment standards than fathers. Social role theory predicts that parenting role, rather than gender, guides judgments of mothers and fathers. One hundred ninety-six undergraduates at two universities evaluated a job applicant; the applicant was either male or female and was either single or married with two children. Results showed that parents were judged less agentic and less committed to employment than non-parents. Parental status also interacted with gender, indicating that fathers were held to more lenient standards than mothers and childless men. We discuss theoretical and practical implications.     

内涵、价值、进路:简论制度公正及其可能

"推进国家治理体系和治理能力现代化",其实质是推进中国社会主义制度体系和制度执行能力的现代化。制度的首要德性在于公正性,公正的制度能有效规约人们的交往行为,激励人们以合理方式获取利益,影响人们的价值追求和思想观念。制度公正是社会公正的基础和保障,其实践意义在于构建各方面均衡的利益关系,促进人的全面发展。现阶段,实现制度公正要坚持以人为本,满足人们的需要和利益追求;要构建法治社会,增强人们的社会认同感;要促进阶层流动,构建公平正义、充满创造活力的和谐社会。     

Adolescents' Judgments of Doubly Deviant Peers: Implications of Intergroup and Intragroup Dynamics for Disloyal and Overweight Group Members

Group membership, loyalty, and weight are highly relevant for adolescent peer evaluations at school. This research tested how in‐group/out‐group membership affected judgments of peers who deviated from social norms for weight and loyalty. Two hundred and forty 11–13‐year‐olds (49 percent female; 94 percent Caucasian) judged two in‐group or out‐group peers: one was normative (loyal and average weight) and the other was non‐normative (i.e., ‘deviant’). The deviant target was overweight, disloyal to their own group (school), or both (‘doubly deviant’). Derogation of overweight relative to average weight peers was greater if they were in‐group rather than out‐group members, revealing a strong ‘black sheep effect’ for overweight peers. Disloyal out‐group deviants were judged favorably, but this effect was eliminated if they were doubly deviant, suggesting that their disloyalty was insufficient to overcome the overweight stigma. Consistent with developmental subjective group dynamics theory, effects of group membership and types of deviance on adolescents’ favorability toward peers were mediated by adolescents’ perceptions of how well the deviant members would ‘fit’ with the in‐group school. Implications for theory and strategies to reduce peer exclusion, particularly weight stigmatization, are considered.