A cross-cultural study of noblesse oblige in economic decision-making.

A cornerstone of economic theory is that rational agents are self-interested, yet a decade of research in experimental economics has shown that economic decisions are frequently driven by concerns for fairness, equity, and reciprocity. One aspect of other-regarding behavior that has garnered attention is noblesse oblige, a social norm that obligates those of higher status to be generous in their dealings with those of lower status. The results of a cross-cultural study are reported in which marked noblesse oblige was observed on a reciprocal-contract decision-making task.

Beyond gains and losses: the effect of need on risky choice in framed decisions.

Substantial evidence suggests people are risk-averse when making decisions described in terms of gains and risk-prone when making decisions described in terms of losses, a phenomenon known as the framing effect. Little research, however, has examined whether framing effects are a product of normative risk-sensitive cognitive processes. In 5 experiments, it is demonstrated that framing effects in the Asian disease problem can be explained by risk-sensitivity theory, which predicts that decision makers adjust risk acceptance on the basis of minimal acceptable thresholds, or need.

There is more than the amygdala: potential threat assessment in the cingulate cortex.

Fear conditioning with its neurological basis in the amygdala and associated structures provides an important model of anxiety disorders. However, this review will argue for a distinction between fear-provoking immediate and anxiety-provoking potential threats, with the amygdala processing immediate threats and the cingulate cortex (and insular) processing potential threats. Four independent but related literatures are reviewed to bolster this argument: (1) rodent remote contextual fear conditioning, (2) symptom provocation in obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), (3) fMRI investigations of risk assessment, and (4) behavioural and neurological studies of precautionary reasoning.

Social referencing "Mr. Yuk": the use of emotion in a poison prevention program.

Objective: To assess whether disgust, the emotion depicted on poison control "Mr. Yuk" stickers, conveys an age-appropriate message to young children.

Methods: Two preliminary studies (both N = 48) were conducted with adults to assess what facial expressions of emotion they associated with child and adult violations of precautionary rules.

Are perceptions of fairness relationship-specific? The case of noblesse oblige.

Research in experimental economics suggests that decision making in strategic interactions is often guided by a concern for fairness. However, experimental economics studies routinely place participants of equal social status and no prior social history in anonymous interactions, a context that would tend to foster the adoption of an egalitarian fairness norm. Extensive research in anthropology (Fiske, 1991) and psychology (Bugental, 2000) suggests that social norms, including fairness norms, are relationship-specific, raising doubts about whether the concern for egalitarian fairness observed in the experimental economics literature would generalize to a wider range of social relations.

Participant recruitment methods and statistical reasoning performance.

Optimal Bayesian reasoning performance has reportedly been elusive, and a variety of explanations have been suggested for this situation. In a series of experiments, it is demonstrated that these difficulties with replication can be accounted for by differences in participant-sampling methodologies. Specifically, the best performances are obtained with students from top-tier, national universities who were paid for their participation.

Social contracts and precautions activate different neurological systems: an fMRI investigation of deontic reasoning.

We conducted an event-related, functional MRI investigation of 12 male's and 12 female's reasoning about conditional deontic rules, rules regulating people's behavior. We employed two different types of rules: social contracts and nonsocial, precautionary rules. Although the rules and the demands of the task were matched in terms of their logical structure, reasoning about social contracts and precautions activated a different constellation of neurological structures.

Domains of deontic reasoning: resolving the discrepancy between the cognitive and moral reasoning literatures.

Deontic reasoning has been studied in two subfields of psychology: the cognitive and moral reasoning literatures. These literatures have drawn different conclusions about the nature of deontic reasoning. The consensus within the cognitive reasoning literature is that deontic reasoning is a unitary phenomenon, whereas the consensus within the moral reasoning literature is that there are different subdomains of deontic reasoning.