Moral Markets Zak, Paul J; Jensen, Michael C
12/2010
eBook
Like nature itself, modern economic life is driven by relentless competition and unbridled selfishness. Or is it? Drawing on converging evidence from neuroscience, social science, biology, law, and ...philosophy,Moral Marketsmakes the case that modern market exchange works only because most people, most of the time, act virtuously. Competition and greed are certainly part of economics, butMoral Marketsshows how the rules of market exchange have evolved to promote moral behavior and how exchange itself may make us more virtuous. Examining the biological basis of economic morality, tracing the connections between morality and markets, and exploring the profound implications of both,Moral Marketsprovides a surprising and fundamentally new view of economics--one that also reconnects the field to Adam Smith's position that morality has a biological basis.Moral Markets, the result of an extensive collaboration between leading social and natural scientists, includes contributions by neuroeconomist Paul Zak; economists Robert H. Frank, Herbert Gintis, Vernon Smith (winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics), and Bart Wilson; law professors Oliver Goodenough, Erin O'Hara, and Lynn Stout; philosophers William Casebeer and Robert Solomon; primatologists Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal; biologists Carl Bergstrom, Ben Kerr, and Peter Richerson; anthropologists Robert Boyd and Michael Lachmann; political scientists Elinor Ostrom and David Schwab; management professor Rakesh Khurana; computational science and informatics doctoral candidate Erik Kimbrough; and business writer Charles Handy.
Human beings routinely help strangers at costs to themselves. Sometimes the help offered is generous-offering more than the other expects. The proximate mechanisms supporting generosity are not ...well-understood, but several lines of research suggest a role for empathy. In this study, participants were infused with 40 IU oxytocin (OT) or placebo and engaged in a blinded, one-shot decision on how to split a sum of money with a stranger that could be rejected. Those on OT were 80% more generous than those given a placebo. OT had no effect on a unilateral monetary transfer task dissociating generosity from altruism. OT and altruism together predicted almost half the interpersonal variation in generosity. Notably, OT had twofold larger impact on generosity compared to altruism. This indicates that generosity is associated with both altruism as well as an emotional identification with another person.
Empathy is related to a variety of prosocial behaviors, but the brain mechanisms producing the experience of empathy have not been fully characterized. This study investigated whether the experience ...of empathy raises oxytocin levels and affects subsequent generosity toward strangers. Short video clips of an emotional scene and an unemotional scene were used as stimuli. Participants rated the emotions they experienced and then played a $40 ultimatum game to gauge their generosity. We found that empathy was associated with a 47% increase in oxytocin from baseline. We also found the empathy–oxytocin response was stronger in women than in men. Higher levels of empathy were also associated with more generous monetary offers toward strangers in the ultimatum game. Our findings provide the first evidence that oxytocin is a physiologic signature for empathy and that empathy mediates generosity.
How do human beings decide when to be selfish or selfless? In this study, we gave testosterone to 25 men to establish its impact on prosocial behaviors in a double-blind within-subjects design. We ...also confirmed participants' testosterone levels before and after treatment through blood draws. Using the Ultimatum Game from behavioral economics, we find that men with artificially raised T, compared to themselves on placebo, were 27% less generous towards strangers with money they controlled (95% CI placebo: (1.70, 2.72); 95% CI T: (.98, 2.30)). This effect scales with a man's level of total-, free-, and dihydro-testosterone (DHT). Men in the lowest decile of DHT were 560% more generous than men in the highest decile of DHT. We also found that men with elevated testosterone were more likely to use their own money punish those who were ungenerous toward them. Our results continue to hold after controlling for altruism. We conclude that elevated testosterone causes men to behave antisocially.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Moderated general linear modeling (MGLM) is a highly popular statistical approach in the social sciences, as it allows analysts to examine the separate and interactive effects of 2+ variables on a ...numerically‐measured outcome. Despite correspondences between MGLM and intersectionality theory, interdisciplinary cross‐communication is rare. Quantitative research can be strengthened when vetted through a critical race theory (CRT) framework. Also, qualitative intersectionality work can be complemented with statistics. To promote greater appreciation and usage of MGLM in CRT‐informed psychological research, it is argued that readers, reviewers, and editors should familiarize themselves with the basics of QuantCrit. Have all variables been accurately measured? Has the dataset been properly structured? Have all statistical assumptions been met? What data tables and figures are reported? How are the results interpreted? This primer addresses these questions while minimizing MGLM technicalities. After covering the historical context of QuantCrit, data from a houselessness dataset are examined to demonstrate the QuantCrit protocols. Limitations of MGLM, as well as QuantCrit‐based guidelines for reporting MGLM results, are discussed.
Human behavior lies somewhere between purely self-interested homo economicus and socially-motivated homo reciprocans. The factors that cause people to choose self-interest over costly cooperation can ...provide insights into human nature and are essential when designing institutions and policies that are meant to influence behavior. Alcohol consumption can shed light on the inflection point between selfish and selfless because it is commonly consumed and has global effects on the brain. The present study administered alcohol or placebo (N = 128), titrated to sex and weight, to examine its effect on cooperation in a standard task in experimental economics, the public goods game (PGG). Alcohol, compared to placebo, doubled the number of free-riders who contributed nothing to the public good and reduced average PGG contributions by 32% (p = .005). This generated 64% higher average profits in the PGG for those who consumed alcohol. The degree of intoxication, measured by blood alcohol concentration, linearly reduced PGG contributions (r = -0.18, p = .05). The reduction in cooperation was traced to a deterioration in mood and an increase in physiologic stress as measured by adrenocorticotropic hormone. Our findings indicate that moderate alcohol consumption inhibits the motivation to cooperate and that homo economicus is stressed and unhappy.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Trust and Growth Zak, Paul J.; Knack, Stephen
The Economic journal (London),
04/2001, Letnik:
111, Številka:
470
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Why does trust vary so substantially across countries? This paper presents a general equilibrium growth model in which heterogeneous agents transact and face a moral hazard problem. Agents may trust ...those with whom they transact, but they also have the opportunity to invest resources in verifying the truthfulness of claims made by transactors. We characterise the social, economic and institutional environments in which trust will be high, and show that low trust environments reduce the rate of investment. The predictions of the model are examined empirically for a cross-section of countries and have substantial support in the data.
The Wigner function has a doubling feature which is expressed in the fact that an x, p-point in the Wigner function leads to a (2x, 2p)-point in the wavefunctions. This feature is of no special ...consequence in the continuous phase plane. But in the finite phase plane, it is of crucial importance. This doubling feature enables one to define the finite phase plane Wigner function directly from the Wigner function in the continuous phase plane. Bearing in mind the doubling feature of the Wigner function, we define the inversion operator not only around the points of the discrete phase plane lattice but also around their mid-points. Our approach makes it clear why there is a difference in constructing the Wigner function in odd- and even-dimensional phase spaces.
Protein therapeutics is a rapidly growing segment of the pharmaceutical market. Currently, the majority of protein therapeutics are manufactured in mammalian cells for their ability to generate safe ...and efficacious human-like glycoproteins. The high cost of using mammalian cells for manufacturing has motivated a constant search for alternative host platforms. Insect cells have begun to emerge as a promising candidate, largely due to the development of the baculovirus expression vector system. While there are continuing efforts to improve insect-baculovirus expression for producing protein therapeutics, key limitations including cell lysis and the lack of homogeneous humanized glycosylation still remain. The field has started to see a movement toward virus-less gene expression approaches, notably the use of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats to address these shortcomings. This review highlights recent technological advances that are realizing the transformative potential of insect cells for the manufacturing and development of protein therapeutics.
Conventional Li-ion cathodes store charge by reversible intercalation of Li coupled to metal cation redox. There has been increasing interest in new materials capable of accommodating more than one ...Li per transition-metal center, thereby yielding higher charge storage capacities. We demonstrate here that the lithium-rich layered iron sulfide Li2FeS2 as well as a new structural analogue, LiNaFeS2, reversibly store ≥1.5 electrons per formula unit and support extended cycling. Ex situ and operando structural and spectroscopic data indicate that delithiation results in reversible oxidation of Fe2+ concurrent with an increase in the covalency of the Fe–S interactions, followed by reversible anion redox: 2 S2–/(S2)2–. S K-edge spectroscopy unequivocally proves the contribution of the anions to the redox processes. The structural response to the oxidation processes is found to be different in Li2FeS2 in contrast to that in LiNaFeS2, which we suggest is the cause for capacity fade in the early cycles of LiNaFeS2. The materials presented here have the added benefit of avoiding resource-sensitive transition metals such as Co and Ni. In contrast to Li-rich oxide materials that have been the subject of so much recent study and that suffer capacity fade and electrolyte degradation issues, the materials presented here operate within the stable potential window of the electrolyte, permitting a clearer understanding of the underlying processes.
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