Shared Outrage and Erratic Awards: The Psychology of Punitive Damages

An experimental study of punitive damage awards in personal injury cases was conducted, using jury-eligible respondents. There was substantial consensus on judgments of the outrageousness of a defendant's actions and of the appropriate severity of punishment. Judgments of dollar awards made by individuals and synthetic juries were much more erratic. These results are familiar characteristics of judgments made on unbounded magnitude scales. The degree of harm suffered by the plaintiff and the size of the firm had a pronounced effect on awards. Some judgmental tasks are far easier than others for juries to perform, and reform possibilities should exploit this fact.     

Working Group on Ethical Considerations in Science and Scholarship∗

Persons can be subject to involuntary treatment for mental illness or substance abuse in a variety of circumstances. The ability of such persons to give a valid informed consent for research often has been called into question, because the coercive nature of the treatment is thought to impair the voluntariness of their decision making. A careful consideration of the nature of coercion from a “moralized”; perspective focuses attention on two elements that determine the acceptability of consent: the fairness of the proposal to which consent is sought, and the moral baseline from which the proposal is made. Even when coercion is not present, disproportionate rewards offered for participation in research can impair the voluntariness of consent, as can the unintended effects of the social structure of the system in which the research is taking place. When coercion, defined as a moralized concept, is not present, however, and other conditions do not substantially impair voluntariness, consent to research legitimately may be sought from involuntarily treated populations.     

Towards a theorization of the relationship between poverty and family

This article aims to contribute to theorizing and research about the processes and relationships connecting families and poverty. The aim is to undertake a thought exercise to identify possible relationships and interactions between family and poverty. In existing poverty research practice, a simplified view of both individuals and families is presupposed by, first, the reduction of family to household; and, second, treating the household as nothing more than a unit size and composition. Drawing from existing research on both poverty and families in everyday life, the article offers two core insights. First, it suggests that poverty scholarship needs to take specific account of the processes of resource and income transformation that are associated with family living. Second, these processes are not necessarily functional or confined to the material, but encompass normative and moral agency associated with family membership. Both act to mediate poverty‐related and other outcomes. The article also suggests some conceptual and methodological refinements to take these issues forward in future research.     

Alfred Schutz and Herbert Simon: Can their Action Theories Work Together?

This paper combines Alfred Shultz and Herbert Simon's theories of action in order to understand the grey area between dynamic and completely unstructured decision making better. As a result I have put together a specific scheme of how choice elements are represented from an agent's personal experience, so as to create a bridge between the phenomenological and cognitive‐procedural approaches of decision making. I first look at the key points of their original models relating Alfred Schutz's “provinces of meaning” and Herbert Simon's “satisficing” mechanism. I then consider the particular concept of intentionality and reasoning by analogy for different choice settings. Finally I have suggested a perspective based on creative behaviour and sense‐making for ill‐structured conditions.     

Today's Studies,Tomorrow's Meta-Analyses: Implications for Evidence Informed Decision–Making in Social Work

ABSTRACT

Meta-analyses play an important role in understanding aspects of human functioning and program effectiveness. Meta-analyses also inform practice and policy decision making in areas of interest to social work. This study examined the degree to which recent quantitative reports in top social work journals are eligible for inclusion in future meta-analytic studies based on method rigor. The results suggest a mixed picture. Articles in top social work journals typically present sufficient information on participant characteristics, p values, and Mean values, yet they often fail to present sufficient information on variance indicators or the precise numbers of participants, which limits the ability to calculate effect sizes. Furthermore, less than 10% of the reports utilized randomized experimental designs or tested for group equivalence. To enhance social work's ability to make evidence-based decisions by producing more meta-analyses, researchers should provide more detail in study reports and use stronger research designs.     

Decentralization of decision making: the case of payment policies for children's daycare

To bring about equality, the Nordic welfare states have provided a broad range of services with as homogenous eligibility criteria as possible. This homogeneity of social benefits has been obtained by centralized decision making and a high degree of statutory regulation. Recent trends in all welfare states veer towards greater local independence and decentralization. This article examines how the decentralization of decision making in Finland has affected the realization of basic welfare state principles. The specific aspect from which the topic is examined are user fee policies for children's daycare. The analysis gives a rather inconsistent picture of possible explanations for the differences between daycare payment policies. Municipal decision making is influenced by economic rather than political or structural factors. However, logical economic explanations are found only in large municipalities. This study highlights that decentralization of decision making has put families in very different economic positions in different municipalities - municipal traps are emerging. The relationship between welfare services and income redistribution has become ever more complicated as decision-making powers have been localized. A family may, for example, be paying the highest daycare fees but at the same time be entitled to social assistance.     

Counseling for Career Decision‐Making Difficulties: Measures and Methods

Career indecision may be the primary reason people go to career counselors. Much effort has been exerted to identify and investigate the causes of clients' career decision‐making difficulties. With the aim of facilitating clients' career decision making, the use of career indecision assessments can promote the effectiveness and efficiency of face‐to‐face career counseling. The authors review three evidence‐based, cost‐free assessments derived from decision theory: the Career Decision‐Making Difficulties Questionnaire, the Emotional and Personality‐Related Career Decision‐Making Difficulties questionnaire, and the Career Decision‐Making Profile questionnaire. The unique features of these assessments are described, and the ways they can contribute to facilitating career decision making in career counseling are explored with a case study example.     

Do as I Say,Don’t Do as I Do: Differences in moral judgments do not translate into differences in decisions in real-life trolley problems

Many people judge that it is permissible to harm one person in order to save many in some circumstances but not in others: it matters how the harm comes about. Researchers have used trolley problems to investigate this phenomenon, eliciting moral judgments or behavioral predictions about hypothetical scenarios where five people can be saved at the cost of harming one other person. We operationalized trolley problems in the laboratory, with economic incentives and real-life consequences, allowing us to observe not only judgments but actual decisions. We varied whether the five were saved by clicking a switch that diverted the harm to the one or by dragging the one in front of the harm. We found differences in moral judgments between the two tasks, but no differences in behavior. The judgments of actors and observers also differed, with observers judging it more right to act. Our results suggest that the difference between moral judgments and actions arises because participants think that doing the right action still involves doing something morally discreditable, and that the morality of taking action does not exhaust the normative reasons for acting.     

Anchoring effects in an experimental auction – Are farmers anchored?

Auctioning goods is a widespread practice, particularly in the agricultural sector. The outcome of auctions can be affected by various factors. One of these factors can be anchoring effects, which describe the influence of present available information on numerical values in human decisions. However, the influence of anchoring effects in auctions carried out offline – that is, live events that are not taking place on the internet – is largely unknown. For this reason, we analyze anchoring effects of exogenously provided values using an experimental common value auction with entrepreneurs. In total, 48 groups each made of five farmers participate in a series of four auctions for envelopes containing a €10 banknote with a 50% probability of occurrence. Our results indicate that anchoring based on exogenously presented values can either result in negative adjustment in open bid auctions, or no adjustment in closed-seal bid auctions. Furthermore, the results show that previous bids affect following bids, which may also be an anchoring effect.     

Framing effects in intertemporal choice tasks and financial implications

In this paper, we examine differences in choice patterns between delay and speedup frames and refer to these differences in choice tasks as time framing effects. Framing effects in choice tasks seem to be less significant than corresponding framing effects in matching tasks and this result seems to be in line with the conclusions of previous studies. More interestingly, we also find that time framing effects are stronger for questions involving negative outcomes. We explain this experimental result by distinguishing between out-of-pocket costs incurred by delaying fines and opportunity costs from speeding up rewards with the latter costs being less disturbing than the former. In order to validate our theory, we also investigate borrowing and lending decisions of private households via a panel analysis across 54 countries empirically and show that household behavior is in line with our theory.