Violations of betweenness and choice shifts in groups

In decision theory, the betweenness axiom postulates that a decision maker who chooses an alternative A over another alternative B must also choose any probability mixture of A and B over B itself and can never choose a probability mixture of A and B over A itself. The betweenness axiom is a weaker version of the independence axiom of expected utility theory. Numerous empirical studies documented systematic violations of the betweenness axiom in revealed individual choice under uncertainty. This paper shows that these systematic violations can be linked to another behavioral regularity—choice shifts in a group decision making. Choice shifts are observed if an individual faces the same decision problem but makes a different choice when deciding alone and in a group.     

A multiattribute decision time theory

In this study, we analyze choice in the presence of some conflict that affects the decision time (response time), a subject that has been documented in the literature. We axiomatize a multiattribute decision time (MDT) representation, which is a dynamic extension of the classic multiattribute expected utility theory that allows potentially incomplete preferences. Under this framework, one alternative is preferred to another in a certain period if and only if the weighted sum of the attribute-dependent expected utility induced by the former alternative is larger than that induced by the latter for all attribute weights in a closed and convex set. MDT uniquely determines the decision time as the earliest period at which the ranking between alternatives becomes decisive. The comparative statics result indicates that the decision time provides useful information to locate indifference curves in a specific setting. MDT also explains various empirical findings in economics and other relevant fields.     

Measuring risk aversion with lists: a new bias

Various experimental procedures aimed at measuring individual risk aversion involve a list of pairs of alternative prospects. We first study the widely used method by Holt and Laury (Am Econ Rev 92(5):1644–1655, 2002), for which we find that the removal of some items from the lists yields a systematic decrease in risk aversion and scrambles the ranking of individuals by risk aversion. This bias, that we call embedding bias, is quite distinct from other confounds that have been previously observed in the use of the HL method. It may be related to empirical phenomena and theoretical developments where better prospects increase risk aversion. Nevertheless, we also find that the more recent elicitation method due to Abdellaoui et al. (Theory Decis 71:63–80, 2011), also based on lists but using only one and the same probability in the list, does not display any statistically significant bias when the corresponding items of the list are removed. Our results suggest that methods other than the popular HL one may be preferable for the measurement of risk aversion.     

Retrospective on the utility theory of von Neumann and Morgenstern

This article offers an exegesis of the passages in von Neumann and Morgenstern (1944, 1947, 1953) that discuss their conception of utility. It is occasioned by two factors. First, as we approach the semicentennial of the publication of Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, its immense impact on economic thought in the intervening years encourages serious reflection on its authors' ideas. Second, misleading statements about the theory continue to appear. The article will have accomplished its purpose if it helps others appreciate the genius and spirit of the theory of utility fashioned by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern.     

乡城流动与儿童认知发展:基于2012年中国城镇化与劳动移民调查数据的分析

本文利用2012年中国城镇化与劳动移民调查数据,以儿童的认知发展水平为研究对象,以阶层再生产为分析视角,基于认知发展理论探讨农民工流动对子女认知发展的影响。研究发现,流动儿童拥有比留守儿童更高的认知水平,流动儿童相对较好的家庭背景为其认知发展提供了实质性帮助,乡城迁移中流动儿童的认知发展主要通过"转校"等机制得到促进;对于留守儿童来说,其认知劣势与父母外出工作并无显著的统计关系,而主要归因于家庭贫乏的文化资本和经济资本、子女数较多的家庭结构、较低的学前教育接受率或就读学校质量的低下。但是,流动儿童的认知水平整体上仍低于城市儿童,其认知发展仍然受到自身社会阶层条件和境遇的深刻限制,"流动"所带来的各类"认知收益"是有限的。     

Does financial development cause economic growth? Implication for policy in Korea

The causal relationship between financial development and economic growth is examined, utilizing the superexogeneity methodology. We use annual data for Korea during 1971–2002, during which Korea has experienced both phenomenal economic growth and a variety of financial liberalization and reforms. In our tests for superexogeneity, we find that financial development control causes economic growth, but the reverse is not true. Our empirical results provide evidence in favor of the ‘finance causes growth’ view for the case of Korea while rejecting the ‘growth causes finance’ view. The policy implication is that Korea should give policy priority to financial reform rather than economic growth, because only a decisive and accelerated pace of financial restructuring can ensure a sustainable growth in the medium or long term.     

HUMAN SERVICE ORGANISATIONS REVISITED: STILL A USEFUL CONCEPT IN THE 1990S?

Recent changes in the circumstances and operations of human service operations demand a reappraisal of the use of the term ‘human service organisation’. The definitional statements offered a decade ago are re-examined here; and revisions are proposed for all of them to reflect changes in the purposes, value base, resources, accountability, methodology and consumer relations of human service organisations. An additional definitional statement is proposed to refer to the vulnerability of their situation in the present environment. As an alternative to separate categories of organisations, it is suggested that each can be assessed in relation to two criteria, related to their auspices and resources, and the purpose of their operations. On this basis some organisations can still be designated human service organisations, with important implications for their management and governance.     

The bipolar Choquet integral representation

Cumulative Prospect Theory is the modern version of Prospect Theory and it is nowadays considered a valid alternative to the classical Expected Utility Theory. Cumulative Prospect theory implies Gain-Loss Separability, i.e., the separate evaluation of losses and gains within a mixed gamble. Recently, some authors have questioned this assumption of the theory, proposing new paradoxes where the Gain-Loss Separability is violated. We present a generalization of Cumulative Prospect Theory which does not imply Gain-Loss Separability and is able to explain the cited paradoxes. On the other hand, the new model, which we call the bipolar Cumulative Prospect Theory, genuinely generalizes the original Prospect Theory of Kahneman and Tversky, preserving the main features of the theory. We present also a characterization of the bipolar Choquet Integral with respect to a bi-capacity in a discrete setting.     

What if utility functions do not exist?

Often the preferences of decision-makers are sufficiently inconsistent so as to preclude the existence of a utility function in the classical sense. Several alternatives for dealing with this situation are discussed. One alternative, that of modifying classical demands on utility functions, is emphasized and described in the context of the theory of measurement developed in recent years by behavioral scientists. The measurement theory approach is illustrated by discussing the concept of the dimension of a partial order. Even if we cannot assign numerical utility or worth values which reflect preferences in the classical utility function sense, from the measurement theory point of view we can still learn a lot about the preferences by finding several measures of worth so that a given alternative x is preferred to an alternative y if and only if x is ranked higher than y on each of the worth scales. If such measures can be found, it follows that the preferences define a partial order, and the smallest number of such scales needed is called the dimension of the partial order. If one-dimensional preferences (those amenable to classical utility assignments) cannot be found, then the next best thing is to search for partially ordered preferences with as small a dimension as possible. Several conditions under which a partial order is two-dimensional are described.The author acknowledges the helpful comments of Joel Spencer and Ralph Strauch. He also thanks Kirby Baker and Peter Fishburn for permission to quote freely from earlier joint work on two-dimensional partial orders.     

On the problem of imprecision

Among the problems raised by admitting statements which are neither true nor false is the problem of how we are to cope with vague concepts. One method of dealing with such concepts has been suggested by Rosser/Turquette (1952), i.e. the employment of a many valued set theory. It is our intention in this paper to discuss the use of many valued logics, especially the set theoretical proposals of Zadeh and Brown, in dealing with this problem. Towards this end, we shall pay close attention to the development of the concepts of fuzzy sets and fuzzy systems. In this regard, it will be argued that Zadeh had in mind a many valued logic where the connectives are interpreted according to Lukasiewicz and Tarski, whereas Brown's version may be based upon a Boolean-valued logic. Furthermore, we shall have occasion to distinguish between two sources of imprecision in specifying the membership of classes, i.e. conceptual vagueness and imprecision due to inexact measurement. Due to Suppes' work in this field, the latter sort of imprecision may be exemplified by providing a theory of the inexact measurement of subjective probability. Finally, we shall discuss some ways in which these two types of imprecision are intertwined.     

A decision theoretic model of the American war in Vietnam

This paper presents a decision theoretic model of the American side of the Vietnam war. That is, we only consider the U.S. government declared objectives and assign them utilities from that point of view. We assume that the involvement of the U.S. in this war was the outcome of a deliberate decision and, moreover, that this decision was taken on the basis of a careful weighing of goals and means. Hence decision theory is applicable in this case - and probably it was applied. We make hypotheses on the utilities of the goals and on those of the negative side effects. We also assess the probabilities of the four main possible courses of action available to achieve those goals: total war, advising, negotiating, and staying out. The total efficiencies of these turn out to be -0.30, -0.20, +0.51, and -0.11 respectively. This result explains why neutrality was not tried and why the advisory policy was eventually given up. But it does not explain why war, which has been not just inefficient but countereffective, was preferred over negotiating from the start or keeping neutral. Unless of course one assumes that the strategists either (a) paid no attention to any decision theoretic models or (b) used models that had fatal flaws. If the first alternative is discarded because of the prestige enjoyed by decision theory amongst American executives, we must conclude that the decision theoretic models employed by the U.S. high command had either of the following defects: (a) they ignored or underrated the negative side effects accompanying the implementation of every goal, or (b) they were not supplemented by mathematical models of the decisions likely to be made by the other side. In either case the decision to adopt the strategy with minimal expected utility was, at best, rational but extremely ill informed. It may have been one more victory of ideology over science.     

Measuring values: A conceptual framework for interpreting transactions with special reference to contingent valuation of visibility

People express their value for a good when they pay something for it. Interpretinggood andpayment very broadly, we offer a general analytical framework for characterizing such transactions. This framework is suitable for interpreting actual transactions as well as for creating hypothetical transactions for research purposes. It is described here both in general terms and with special application to one particular kind of transaction, contingent valuation studies in which individuals estimate the value of possible changes in atmospheric visibility. In these transactions, as in many others, risk (of undesired changes in visibility) is one principal feature; at least some uncertainty often surrounds other transaction features as well (For example: How much will visibility really change if I promise to pay for it? Will I really have to pay?). The framework presented here conceptualizes any transaction as involving (a) a good, (b) a payment, and (c) a social context within which the transaction is conducted. Each of these aspects in turn has a variety of features that might and in some cases should affect evaluations. For each such feature, the framework considers first the meaning of alternative specifications and then the difficulties of ensuring that they are understood and evaluated properly. As a whole, the framework provides an integrated approach to designing evaluation studies and interpreting their results.     

Paternal domination: Its influence on child guidance results 1

Acknowledging the limitations of adhering to one particular theoretical orientation in helping clients with multiple issues, psychotherapy integration in treatment becomes a prominent trend in clinical practice. However, we have few guidelines for an integrated case formulation. Also, there have been some concerns that available treatment options limit and even pre-determine how clinicians understand and formulate cases. In order to address these concerns, this article first critically reviews the psychotherapy integration movement and highlights social work contributions to this movement. Next, using a clinical case example, we illustrate an integrated case formulation in clinical social work practice, which comprehensively assesses a client-in-context from psychodynamic, behavioral, and cognitive approaches. We also delineate how social workers can directly link this integrated assessment to selecting the integrated treatment options to custom-fit with the idiosyncratic needs of the client. This formulation is then truly client-centered. Thus, formulating a case is developing a theory of a client.     

The right tool for the job: problems and solutions in visualizing sociological theory

The visualization of social theory is an important part of the development and communication of our theoretical ideas. While most theorists use figures of some kind, few if any have formal training, or guiding rules or principles for the representation of theory. This has often led to poor visualization efforts, and the visual culture of sociology continues to lag behind the natural sciences. The intent of this paper is to serve as a practical and empirically aided guide for social theorists, by providing insights surrounding the cognitive and perceptual properties of certain elements and figures. Through these properties we identify four major problems in theory visualization: vagueness, reduction, unwanted spatial inferences and unwanted metaphorical inferences. We offer solutions to these problems, and to improving theory visualization more generally. Our hope is that this paper will serve as a resource for more thoughtful and informed visualization for practicing social theorists.     

Death-qualified jurors and the assumption of innocence: A cognitive dissonance perspective on conviction-prone verdicts

The conviction-prone behavior of death-qualified juries is a phenomenon that has been widely observed, but is not fully understood. This work presents a cognitive dissonance perspective as a possible mechanism that may be contributing to the high rate of conviction in death-qualified juries. This review contends that the selection procedures for death qualification may create juries with attitudes that are contrary to the fundamental assumption of innocence presupposed by the court. As a result of this conflict between juror attitudes and the assumption of innocence, dissonance will occur. One path to dissonance resolution may be the act of conviction. The empirical findings from juror studies support this dissonance interpretation of the conviction-prone status of death-qualified juries. This work also reviews the legal history of the death qualification process in Witherspoon v. Illinois (1968) and Hovey v. Superior Court (1980) and summarizes the social psychological criticism that process has received.     

Decisions with indeterminate probabilities

Decision-making under partial ignorance and partial knowledge of risk is discussed. The presented approach is unlike traditional approaches, but is not novel. It retains the MEU rule and advocates further determination of probabilities. However, the further determination does not require personal introspection or additional empirical data.The approach is possible under any inductive theory of rational belief with a parameterized rule of acceptance, wherein the choice of parameter value trades informativeness against freedom from error. With such a rule, it may be possible to identify justifiable determinate probabilities with a judicious choice of parameter value.I argue that rationality obliges the use of determinate probabilities, if identifiable, and I make a claim about the epistemological priority of some determinate probabilities over others when there is a choice.