Most moral and political theories require us to make interpersonal comparisons of welfare. This poses a challenge to the popular view that welfare consists in the satisfaction of preferences or ...desires, because interpersonal comparisons of preference or desire satisfaction are widely thought to be conceptually problematic, and purported solutions to this problem to lead to a hopeless subjectivism about these comparisons. In this article, I argue that the key to meeting this challenge lies in distinguishing preferences from desires, and preference satisfaction from desire satisfaction theories of welfare. More specifically, I defend three conclusions. First, interpersonal comparisons of preference satisfaction do raise a serious conceptual problem, but this same problem does not arise for interpersonal comparisons of desire satisfaction. Second, none of the existing solutions to the conceptual problem of interpersonal comparisons of preference satisfaction are satisfactory, since none explain how we can make interpersonal comparisons of preference satisfaction objectively. Third, we can at least make a limited range of objective interpersonal comparisons of desire satisfaction, and there are reasons to be optimistic about the possibility of making a wider range of such comparisons, but there is a need for further research on the topic.
•The problem is formulated in a general setting investigating pairwise comparisons matrices.•Innovative concepts of consistency, intensity and coherence of FPCMs are introduced.•New algorithm for ...calculating the priority vector is proposed.•Two illustrating examples of the proposed algorithm are presented and discussed.
Applying the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) in a decision making (DM) problem, fuzzy elements are appropriate whenever the decision maker is uncertain about the value of his/her evaluation of the relative importance of the elements in question, i.e., criteria and/or alternatives. The method, often called the fuzzy AHP, is also used when aggregating crisp pairwise comparisons of a group of decision makers in the group DM problem. In this paper, the DM problem is formulated in a general setting using pairwise comparisons matrices with elements from an Abelian linearly ordered group (alo-group). Such an approach enables extensions of traditional multiplicative, additive, or fuzzy approaches. Here, we propose some desirable properties (consistency, coherency, and intensity) of priority vectors, and derive sufficient conditions for the existence of priority vectors with those properties. In general, the most popular methods for deriving the priority vector – the Eigenvector Method and the Geometric Mean Method – do not always provide priority vectors having these desirable properties. Here, we formulate a new solution algorithm for deriving the priority vector based on a specific optimization problem satisfying the desirable properties under appropriate assumptions. Two illustrating examples of the algorithm are presented and discussed.
In a sample (N=1969) drawn from six countries, we examined the relationships between individual differences in independent and interdependent self-construals and the Dark Triad traits (i.e., ...psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism). Overall, the Dark Traits were largely unrelated to interdependence whereas Machiavellianism and narcissism, in particular, were associated with stronger independent self-construals. Men scored higher than women did on the Dark Triad traits in all countries with some cross-cultural variance. Women were used both more independent and interdependent self-construals than men were but these were weak and driven by country-specific effects. Sex differences in the Dark Triad traits were partially accounted for by individual differences in self-construals, but these mediation effects were quite small and speculative given limited evidence for sex differences in self-construals in the six countries we sampled. Results are discussed in terms of differentiating the Dark Triad traits.
•Used variance in self-construals to understand the Dark Triad in six countries•Narcissism was associated with independent self-construals around the world.•The Dark Triad traits were not associated with interdependent self-construals.•Sex differences in narcissism and psychopathy were mediated by interdependence.
This article proposes a framework to analyze realignment processes in countries that transition from industrial to knowledge societies. It characterizes the electorate in terms of two traits that are ...main predictors for attitudes in a two-dimensional policy space of economic and noneconomic issues: income (low vs. high) and education (low vs. high). The framework divides the electorate into four groups—based on the interaction of these two dichotomized traits—and predicts how and when the voting propensities of these four groups change over time. Using a wide variety of data sources, the article tests hypotheses regarding changing voting behavior of education-income groups, as well as cross-national differences across twenty-one rich democracies.
(1) Summary: Many studies have evaluated the association between traditional media exposure and the presence of body dissatisfaction and body image disorders. The last decade has borne witness to the ...rise of social media, predominantly used by teenagers and young adults. This study's main objective was to investigate the association between how often one compares their physical appearance to that of the people they follow on social media, and one's body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness. (2) Method: A sample composed of 1331 subjects aged 15 to 35 (mean age = 24.2), including 1138 subjects recruited from the general population and 193 patients suffering from eating disorders, completed an online questionnaire assessing social media use (followed accounts, selfies posted, image comparison frequency). This questionnaire incorporated two items originating from the Eating Disorder Inventory Scale (Body Dissatisfaction: EDI-BD and Drive for Thinness: EDI-DT). (3) Results: We found an association between the frequency of comparing one's own physical appearance to that of people followed on social media and body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness. Interestingly, the level of education was a confounding factor in this relationship, while BMI was not. (4) Discussion: The widespread use of social media in teenagers and young adults could increase body dissatisfaction as well as their drive for thinness, therefore rendering them more vulnerable to eating disorders. We should consequently take this social evolution into account, including it in general population prevention programs and in patients' specific treatment plans.
Trolling, that is, triggering disruption and conflict for one's own amusement, is a malicious online behavior that causes substantial, negative consequences for its victims. Research is needed to ...better understand, and ultimately to prevent, trolling behavior. To this end, the current study examined potential demographic and psychosocial predictors of social media trolling behavior in a collegiate population.
College students (N = 504; 82% female) completed an online survey in which they provided demographics, information about their social media habits, and responses to validated personality and psychosocial assessment instruments. Participants were categorized as positive or negative for trolling behavior based on their self-reported social media habits.
Based on the final regression model, significant predictors of trolling included male gender, greater need for participation in social media, and greater likelihood to make downward social comparisons on social media.
Taken together, these results provide new information that may help to identify those at risk of engaging in trolling behavior. These findings contribute to a developing literature that may lead to prevention and intervention strategies to reduce negative outcomes and to improve online experiences for everyone.
We develop a new stock market index that captures the chaos existing in the market by measuring the mutual changes of asset prices. This new index relies on a tensor-based embedding of the stock ...market information, which in turn frees it from the restrictive value- or capitalization-weighting assumptions that commonly underlie other various popular indexes. We show that our index is a robust estimator of the market volatility which enables us to characterize the market by performing the task of segmentation with a high degree of reliability. In addition, we analyze the dynamics and kinematics of the realized market volatility as compared to the implied volatility by introducing a time-dependent dynamical system model. Our computational results which pertain to the time period from January 1990 to December 2019 imply that there exists a two-way causal relation between the processes underlying the realized and implied volatility of the stock market within the given time period. Specifically, we show that the latter has a stronger causal effect on the former as compared to the opposite. This result connotes that the implied volatility of the market plays a key role in characterization of the market’s realized volatility.
As the number of single-cell datasets continues to grow rapidly, workflows that map new data to well-curated reference atlases offer enormous promise for the biological community. In this ...perspective, we discuss key computational challenges and opportunities for single-cell reference-mapping algorithms. We discuss how mapping algorithms will enable the integration of diverse datasets across disease states, molecular modalities, genetic perturbations, and diverse species and will eventually replace manual and laborious unsupervised clustering pipelines.
Single-cell datasets are increasing in number and size. To leverage this rich resource, new workflows can reveal novel insights and discoveries. This perspective discusses the computational challenges and opportunities for single-cell reference-mapping algorithms that may eventually replace manual and laborious unsupervised clustering pipelines.
An inverse care law persists in almost all low-income and middle-income countries, whereby socially disadvantaged people receive less, and lower-quality, health care despite having greater need. By ...contrast, a disproportionate care law persists in high-income countries, whereby socially disadvantaged people receive more health care, but of worse quality and insufficient quantity to meet their additional needs. Both laws are caused not only by financial barriers and fragmented health insurance systems but also by social inequalities in care seeking and co-investment as well as the costs and benefits of health care. Investing in more integrated universal health coverage and stronger primary care, delivered in proportion to need, can improve population health and reduce health inequality. However, trade-offs sometimes exist between health policy objectives. Health-care technologies, policies, and resourcing should be subjected to distributional analysis of their equity impacts, to ensure the objective of reducing health inequalities is kept in sight.
In the last decade, the fast growth of Instagram and its tendency to replace traditional media as a source of glamour images stimulated research into the effects of Instagram on body image of its ...users. The purpose of the present research was to investigate gender differences in Instagram use and its links to body dissatisfaction in a sample of young adult daily users of Instagram in Lithuania. The sample included 346 participants (100 male and 246 female) aged 18 to 34 years. Along with age and body mass index, measures included self-reported daily Instagram checking frequency, daily duration of Instagram use, Instagram engagement, and appearance-related comparisons which all were used to predict body dissatisfaction. Results revealed that among young adult daily users of Instagram in Lithuania women spent more time on Instagram, were more engaged with Instagram and were more prone to appearance-related comparisons on Instagram than men, but did not differ from men in Instagram checking frequency. For both men and women, higher body dissatisfaction was predicted by more frequent appearance-related comparisons on Instagram and higher body mass index. Higher daily Instagram checking frequency made a small, but statistically significant contribution towards predicting higher body dissatisfaction for women, but not for men.
PDF
