Temptations and Dynamic Consistency

The objective of this article is to test a prediction of the quasi-hyperbolic model. The test is innovative in that it uses an experimental implementation in which there are two treatments: a forward market and a spot market. In each of these markets goods and activities are sold. The good and activities sold are investment goods or activities and temptation goods or activities. The prediction of the quasi-hyperbolic model is that in the spot (forward) market participants will buy more temptation (investment) goods and activities than in the forward market and less investment (temptation) good and activities. This prediction is not confirmed by the data, and hence is at odds with previous experiments which have shown support for the hyperbolic model. We speculate on the reasons for this.     

Affective Social Competence

A theoretical model for affective social competence is described. Affective social competence (ASC) is comprised of three integrated and dynamic components: sending affective messages, receiving affective messages, and experiencing affect. Central and interconnected abilities within each component include awareness and identification of affect, working within a complex and constantly changing social context, and management and regulation. The dynamic integration of the components is emphasized and potential mediating factors are outlined. The model is placed within the context of previous research and theory related to affective social competence; how the model advances future research is also explicated for each component. Research with special populations of children is described to highlight the importance of affective social competence in social relationships and the promise of the ASC model for future research and practice.     

Affective ties and social information processing

We examined whether second‐ and fifth‐graders could display differentiated social information processing (SIP) about known peers varying in affective ties. Children's response evaluation and decision (RED) and goal importance ratings were obtained for nine ambiguous provocations involving their best friends, neutral peers, and enemies (three stories for each relationship). For each story, RED was assessed for hostile, competent and passive responses to provocation, and the importance of four social goals was rated. Both second‐ and fifth‐graders displayed RED that depended on both the type of relationship they had with the provocateur and on the type of response (hostile, competent or passive). Children's social goals were affected by their relationship with the provocateur. Younger children's failure to display sensitivity to situational cues in previous studies is likely due to the cognitive demands of reasoning about hypothetical characters rather than an insensitivity to situational cues, per se.     

Preference for Information and Dynamic Consistency

We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for a dynamically consistent agent always to prefer more informative signals (in single-agent problems). These conditions do not imply recursivity, reduction or independence. We provide a simple definition of dynamically consistent behavior, and we discuss whether an intrinsic information lover (say, an anxious person) is likely to be dynamically consistent.     

义务性关系:情感性关系与工具性关系之外

将人际关系划分为工具性关系与情感性关系通常是以个体具备交往的选择性为前提的,因此这两种关系实质属于可以进展、又可退化的交往必关系。而在中国社会,大量关系可能蕴涵着难以摆脱的伦理义务,从而形成了缺乏选择的义务性关系,其中包括先赋性的亲情型与获致性的恩情型两种类型。相对于交往性关系而言,义务性关系往往处于优先性的地位,义务集中体现在重要资源的“无私”给予中。     

Closeness in Young Adult Sibling Relationships: Affective and Physiological Processes

What aspects of the relationships of young adult siblings are related to closeness or distance? This study takes a process approach to answering this question, contrasting it with the status approach of family structure variables. Close and distant sibling pairs were compared on physiological variables and specific aspects of warmth, con-flict, and power during two conversations - one on enjoyable topics and one on topics of disagreement. While there was no evidence that sibling closeness was related to family structure variables, differences in closeness were found in affective patterns and physiological responses during sibling interaction. Interaction between close sib-lings was characterized not only by higher positive affect but also by fewer power struggles and lower heart rate reactivity. Close siblings also had higher scores on emotional empathy and cognitive aspects of empathy such as perspective-taking than distant siblings. The developmental importance of considering power struggles in young adult sibling relationships was also discussed.     

Testing Prospect Theories Using Probability Tradeoff Consistency

The two versions of prospect theory, original prospect theory (OPT; Kahneman and Tversky, 1979) and cumulative prospect theory (CPT; Tversky and Kahneman, 1992), use different composition rules to combine the value function and the probability weighting function and hence value gambles with two or more non-zero outcomes differently. Previous tests of OPT and CPT have yielded mixed results, with some investigations supporting OPT and some supporting CPT. We extend the probability tradeoff consistency axiom used in Abdellaoui (2002) for CPT to OPT, and develop a critical test of the two prospect theories based on their respective probability tradeoff consistency conditions. An empirical investigation of the critical test shows that choices are consistent with OPT, but not CPT, for gambles that do not involve a certainty effect, and consistent with both CPT and OPT for gambles that do involve a certainty effect, provided that an editing operation is invoked for OPT.     

Affective Social Competence in Adolescence: Current Findings and Future Directions

Affective Social Competence (ASC) is a conceptual framework describing complementary processes of sending, receiving, and experiencing emotions in dynamic interactions. This framework may be applied across the lifespan. To date, however, empirical studies addressing ASC have focused predominantly on childhood samples. In this review, we examine empirical evidence relevant to ASC in adolescence in comparison with childhood. We then discuss future directions that may promote understanding of Affective Social Competence among adolescent samples: the use of person‐oriented analyses to integrate all three components of ASC; consideration of understudied social contexts that may influence and be influenced by ASC; and use of microgenetic designs to examine growth across transitions during early, middle, and late adolescence.     

论科学发展观与经济法的一致性

科学发展观是崭新的哲学理论,经济法是现代法律制度,虽然不在同一层次上,但是科学发展观与经济法在产生、理念、功能、目标等方面具有一致性。科学发展观对经济法的立法、实施具有重要的指导意义,而经济法是实现科学发展观的主要制度性方法。     

Well-Being and Affective Commitment among Ambulance Volunteers: A Mediational Model of Job Burnout

ABSTRACT

Burnout represents a relevant risk for ambulance volunteers. According to the Job Demands-Resources model, role conflict and social support can be considered as antecedents of burnout which, in turn, may lower affective commitment. This study aims to investigate the relationship between social support, role conflict, and affective commitment, as mediated by job burnout. Survey data were collected from 352 Italian volunteers and analyzed using structural equation modeling methods. Social support was confirmed as a protective factor, and role conflict as an antecedent of burnout which, in turn, decreases affective commitment. The relationship between role conflict and affective commitment is mediated by burnout which, on the contrary, does not mediate the effect of social support on affective commitment. Social support may protect against burnout. Because of its positive effects on a personal and an organizational level, affective commitment may be increased raising levels of supervisor support and reshaping role expectations. It could be useful to carry out future longitudinal studies, in order to confirm the antecedents and effects of job burnout; furthermore, this research should be extended to other ambulance organizations, in order to generalize the results; finally, multi-group analyses would allow to bring out possible differences between paid-staff and volunteers.     

Stochastic Choice and Consistency in Decision Making Under Risk: An Experimental Study

This paper reports the results of an experiment designed to uncover the stochastic structure of individual preferences over lotteries. Unlike previous experiments, which have presented subjects with pair-wise choices between lotteries, our design allowed subjects to choose between two lotteries or (virtually) any convex combination of the two lotteries. We interpret the mixtures of lotteries chosen by subjects as a measure of the stochastic structure of choice. We test between two alternative interpretations of stochastic choice: the random utility interpretation and the deterministic preferences interpretation. The main findings of the experiment are that the typical subject prefers mixtures of lotteries rather than the extremes of a linear lottery choice set. The distribution of choices does not change between a first and second asking of the same question. We argue that this provides support for the deterministic preferences interpretation over the random utility interpretation of stochastic choice. As a subsidiary result, we find a small proportion of subjects make choices that violate transitivity, but the level of intransitive choice falls significantly over time.     

Consistency: a pre-requisite for inspecting old people's homes?

Correspondence to Dr Ian Gibbs, Centre for Housing Policy, University of York, Heslington, York YO1 5DD. Summary Inspection of old people's homes, in both local authority andindependent sectors, forms a major component in the work ofthe new ‘arm's length‘ inspection units. The successof these units will depend in part on inspectors' ability tomake consistent judgements based on agreed standards. This articlereports on a study which examined the extent to which inspectorswere able to reach reliable conclusions about the quality ofcare in old people's homes and the possible contribution ofchecklists in this task.     

Understanding the Relationship Between Egalitarianism and Affective Bias: Avenues to Reducing Prejudice Among Adolescents

In an era during which affirmative action in education is in jeopardy, it is important to understand how the ideologies of high-status ethnic group members maintain (or reduce) social inequality. We examine the extent to which the relationship between egalitarianism and prejudice among European American and Asian American adolescents can be explained by outgroup orientation (i.e., how much one values interacting with members of other ethnic groups) and strength of identification with one's ethnic group. Using structural equation modeling, we tested whether these two variables mediate the relationship between egalitarianism and intergroup prejudice. Results revealed that outgroup orientation was a mediator, but ethnic identity was not. Implications for mutual acculturation theory, prejudice-reduction programs, and affirmative action in education are discussed.     

Affective lexicons and indigenous responses: therapeutic interventions in social work practice with Chinese immigrant elders

This article discusses social work practice with a group of Chinese‐speaking immigrant elders in New York City who favour the use of traditional affective lexicons that communicate distress in oblique, metaphorical and somatic forms. It examines the therapeutic values of the social workers' indigenous responses, as shaped by their intuitive understanding of the latent emotional content of communication within the cultural context. The discussion affirms the importance of the emotional connection between worker and client, invariably shaped by language, cultural norms, and individual proclivity, as the universal substrate of cross‐cultural social work practice.

本文讨论关于针对一群移居纽约市但仍然喜欢以传统中文词汇, 隐喻等沟通的华语长者的社会工作实务。本文也探索了社会工作者的本土反应包括:通过理解语言背后的文化脉络, 从而认识当事人的潜在情绪等在治疗学上的价值。本文申明了社会工作者与当事人之间情感联系的重要性, 而这种联系往往是由跨文化社会工作底下的语言和文化规范等塑造而成的。