Behavioral Economics: Past, Present, Future

Behavioral economics increases the explanatory power of economics by providing it with more realistic psychological foundations. This book consists of representative recent articles in behavioral economics. This chapter is intended to provide an introduction to the approach and methods of behavioral economics, and to some of its major findings, applications, and promising new directions. It also seeks to fill some unavoidable gaps in the chapters’ coverage of topics

Is Behavioral Economics Doomed?

It is fashionable to criticize economic theory for focusing too much on rationality and ignoring the imperfect and emotional way in which real economic decisions are reached. All of us facing the global economic crisis wonder just how rational economic men and women can be. Behavioral economics—an effort to incorporate psychological ideas into economics—has become all the rage. This book by well-known economist David K. Levine questions the idea that behavioral economics is the answer to economic problems. It explores the successes and failures of contemporary economics both inside and outside the laboratory. It then asks whether popular behavioral theories of psychological biases are solutions to the failures. It not only provides an overview of popular behavioral theories and their history, but also gives the reader the tools for scrutinizing them. Levine’s book is essential reading for students and teachers of economic theory and anyone interested in the psychology of economics

Behavioral and financial change:Essays in market design

This thesis consists of three essays in the realm of market design covering two topics: incentives for behavioral change and allocation mechanisms in reward-based crowdfunding. In the first essay, I use theoretical analysis and a field experiment to investigate whether introducing a betting market can help people to follow through with their plans to lead a healthier life. In the second and third essay, I use theory and laboratory experiments to examine whether a new allocation mechanism can improve reward-based crowdfunding practice

Neuroeconomics: How Neuroscience Can Inform Economics

Neuroeconomics uses knowledge about brain mechanisms to inform economic analysis, and roots economics in biology. It opens up the "black box" of the brain, much as organizational economics adds detail to the theory of the firm. Neuroscientists use many tools— including brain imaging, behavior of patients with localized brain lesions, animal behavior, and recording single neuron activity. The key insight for economics is that the brain is composed of multiple systems which interact. Controlled systems ("executive function") interrupt automatic ones. Emotions and cognition both guide decisions. Just as prices and allocations emerge from the interaction of two processes—supply and demand— individual decisions can be modeled as the result of two (or more) processes interacting. Indeed, "dual-process" models of this sort are better rooted in neuroscientific fact, and more empirically accurate, than single-process models (such as utility-maximization). We discuss how brain evidence complicates standard assumptions about basic preference, to include homeostasis and other kinds of state-dependence. We also discuss applications to intertemporal choice, risk and decision making, and game theory. Intertemporal choice appears to be domain-specific and heavily influenced by emotion. The simplified ß-d of quasi-hyperbolic discounting is supported by activation in distinct regions of limbic and cortical systems. In risky decision, imaging data tentatively support the idea that gains and losses are coded separately, and that ambiguity is distinct from risk, because it activates fear and discomfort regions. (Ironically, lesion patients who do not receive fear signals in prefrontal cortex are "rationally" neutral toward ambiguity.) Game theory studies show the effect of brain regions implicated in "theory of mind", correlates of strategic skill, and effects of hormones and other biological variables. Finally, economics can contribute to neuroscience because simple rational-choice models are useful for understanding highly-evolved behavior like motor actions that earn rewards, and Bayesian integration of sensorimotor information

Pain in context: the effect of goal competition on pain-related fear and avoidance

The Fear-Avoidance model proposes that pain-related fear and avoidance behavior play a key role in the maintenance and exacerbation of chronic pain problems. Both experimental and clinical studies have widely corroborated this model. However, there remain some unresolved issues that warrant further scientific scrutiny. One of the challenges is that pain (behavior) does not occur in a motivational vacuum, but that the goal to avoid pain interacts with other, often competing goals. It is argued that fear-avoidance models would benefit from the inclusion of a motivational perspective. The main aim of this dissertation was to experimentally investigate the impact of goal competition on pain-related fear and avoidance behavior. Additionally, we studied the presence and experience of goal conflict in a clinical population. For this purpose, a series of experiments building on a well-established differential fear conditioning paradigm, the Voluntary Joystick Movement Paradigm, was developed. In a typical experiment, healthy participants completed movements in different directions. Some of these movements were associated with painful electrocutaneous stimuli, whereas other movements were not. Likewise, movements could be associated with reward—in the form of lottery tickets—or the loss thereof. Experiment I.1 (N=55) demonstrated that presenting a concurrent reward attenuated avoidance behavior, but did not alter pain-related fear. Experiment I.2 (N=57) corroborated these findings, and additionally demonstrated that these effects were modulated by goal prioritization. Experiment II.1 (N=48) showed that avoidance-avoidance competition installed more fear and slowed down decision-making compared to other types of competition. Experiment III.1 (N=46) showed that cues predicting a painful outcome increased pain-related fear as well as avoidance behavior, and installed competition when combined with a movement that was associated with reward. Experiment III.2 (N=42) demonstrated that although pain avoidance was prominent, a pain cue was associated with less pain-avoidance behavior than a neutral or reward cue. To address the second aim of this dissertation, patients with fibromyalgia (N=40) and healthy, matched controls (N=37) participated in a semi-structured interview mapping the presence of goal conflicts (Study IV.1). More than half of the patients reported that pain control or avoidance goals conflict with other goals, such as household activities or social activities. This dissertation provides novel experimental evidence for the inclusion of a broad motivational perspective in the Fear-Avoidance model, and may also help improve the effectiveness of existing cognitive-behavioral treatments for patients suffering from chronic pain by addressing goal competition.status: publishe

Smart risk management : a guide to identifying and calibrating business risks

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_guides/2714/thumbnail.jp

The narrative manipulation of human subjectivity : a machinic exploration of psyche as artificial ready-made

Avec l’accélération de la production narrative au vingt-et-unième siècle, ainsi que les tentatives d’appropriation des moyens de production et des mythes collectifs par le marché, il y a lieu de questionner l’effet des nouveaux mythes sur la psyché humaine. L’ingestion persistante et soutenue de récits infusés de symboles capitalistes produit une mutation de la subjectivité humaine, dans un mouvement vers une certaine homogénéité. Par une relecture de la Poétique d’Aristote, la première section de cette thèse propose une vision politique de la catharsis, qui théorise le récepteur de toute narration comme programmable et pouvant être guidé vers des attitudes et des postures. Cette conception mène directement à une définition machinique du récit et la notion d’asservissement machinique, qui conçoit la subjectivité humaine comme engagée dans des processus de connectivité où elle perd certains fragments de son unicité. La troisième foulée de cette thèse théorise la société de contrôle de Deleuze et ses héritiers conceptuels, le capitalisme de surveillance et l’ectosubjectivité. Ces deux notions tentent de percevoir le régime de pouvoir du vingt-et-unième siècle, fondé sur les données personnelles et la standardisation de la psyché humaine. Finalement, le quatrième et dernier chapitre de cette recherche se penche sur la notion de vérité telle que décrite par Michel Foucault dans Le Courage de la Vérité. Dans la notion Grecque, et particulièrement son développement platonicien, de parrhēsia, Foucault identifie l’homogénéité d’une vérité basée sur une hiérarchie éthique, et son renversement par les Cyniques en animalité assumée qui ouvre de nouveaux territoires d’existence et de vérité. En somme, ce renversement nous permet de concevoir ce que serait une existence libre, hors d’un régime de vérité qui désubjective et rend homogène.With the acceleration of narrative production in the twenty-first century, as well as the attempted appropriation of means of production and collective myths by market economy, there is an increasing need to question the effect of these new myths on the human psyche. The persistent and sustained ingestion of narratives infused with capitalist symbols produces a transformation of subjectivity, which mutates from unicity to increased standardization. Through a rereading of Aristotle’s Poetics, the first section of this thesis offers a political conception of catharsis that theorizes the receiver of narratives as programmable and guidable towards attitudes and postures. This conception leads directly to a machinic definition of the narrative and the concept of machinic enslavement. These concepts conceive of human subjectivity as engaged in processes of networking where it loses fragments of its unicity. The third chapter of this thesis theorizes Deleuze's society of control and its conceptual successors, surveillance capitalism and ectosubjectivity. Both these concepts attempt to theorize the reigning regime of power of the twenty-first century, based on personal data and the standardization of the human psyche. Finally, the fourth and final chapter of this research analyzes the notion of truth as described by Michel Foucault in The Courage of Truth. In the Greek notion of parrhēsia, and especially in its platonic development, Foucault identifies the homogeneity of a truth system based on a hierarchization of ethics. The reversal of this system by the Cynics into an assumed bestiality is crucial to this thesis as it opens new territories of existence and truth. In sum, the Cynic reversal permits us to conceive of a free existence, outside of a regime of truth that desubjectivates and homogenizes

General Psychology (Fall 2018)

This open textbook represents the version used in several Fall 2018 General Psychology courses at Valparaiso University.https://scholar.valpo.edu/psych_oer/1002/thumbnail.jp