Information Behavior and Political Preferences

This article shows that citizens consider policy positions for the formation of their political preferences when they actively seek and find high-quality information, while they dismiss passively acquired and low-quality information. The study develops an extended theory of information and political preferences that incorporates the process of information acquisition and its connection with information quality. A novel experimental design separates the effects on political preferences due to information behavior as an activity from those due to selective exposure to information. The study applies this design in a laboratory experiment with a diverse group of participants using the example of issue voting and European integration in the context of the 2014 European Parliament elections

An analysis of judgemental bias in housing choice

Buying a home is among the most important choices that any individual is likely to make in their lifetime. It has lasting consequences for happiness, well-being and personal finances. Yet, given the infrequency with which such decisions are made; the difficulty getting information from an opaque and decentralised marketplace; and the high transactions costs involved, there is a significant risk that decision making may depart from the high standard imposed by the normative economic concept of 'rational choice'. This thesis uses the insights of the economic theory of choice - from behavioural economics in particular - to examine housing choice from a new perspective. It considers the potential for estate agents, knowingly or otherwise, to exploit behavioural biases in decision making to influence preference and, ultimately, choices over housing. This naturally is of interest to estate agents and policy makers involved in housing markets; but most importantly to individuals as decision makers: making better decisions relies on understanding when and where vulnerability to manipulation may lie. Using evidence from a series of classroom experiments with 280 student volunteers and from two online surveys with over 4,000 adult respondents, significant areas where individuals may be consistently vulnerable to manipulation of judgement are found and recorded. In particular, both student and adult respondents are susceptible to biases involving manipulation of the decision making context, known as the choice frame. Students also tend to rely on arbitrary `anchor' points to make value estimates, which results in significantly impaired judgements, even in the presence of incentives for accuracy. Finally, evidence of a significant new form of behavioural bias is found, in which elements of the choice frame have an unexpectedly negative impact on perceptions. This new bias is persistent across several experimental scenarios and is labelled the 'choice pollution effect'

Sediment Management for Southern California Mountians, Coastal Plains and Shoreline. Part D: Special Inland Studies

In southern California the natural environmental system involves the continual relocation of sedimentary materials. Particles are eroded from inland areas where there is sufficient relief and, precipitation. Then, with reductions in hydraulic gradient along the stream course and at the shoreline, the velocity of surface runoff is reduced and there is deposition. Generally, coarse sand, gravel and larger particles are deposited near the base of the eroding surfaces (mountains and hills) and the finer sediments are deposited on floodplains, in bays or lagoons, and at the shoreline as delta deposits. Very fine silt and clay particles, which make up a significant part of the eroded material, are carried offshore where they eventually deposit in deeper areas. Sand deposited at the shoreline is gradually moved along the coast by waves and currents, and provides nourishment for local beaches. However, eventually much of this littoral material is also lost to offshore areas. Human developments in the coastal region have substantially altered the natural sedimentary processes, through changes in land use, the harvesting of natural resources (logging, grazing, and sand and gravel mining); the construction and operation of water conservation facilities and flood control structures; and coastal developments. In almost all cases these developments have grown out of recognized needs and have well served their primary purpose. At the time possible deleterious effects on the local or regional sediment balance were generally unforeseen or were felt to be of secondary importance. In 1975 a large-scale study of inland and coastal sedimentation processes in southern California was initiated by the Environmental Quality Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology and the Center for Coastal Studies at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. This volume is one of a series of reports from this study. Using existing data bases, this series attempts to define quantitatively inland and coastal sedimentation processes and identify the effects man has had on these processes. To resolve some issues related to long-term sediment management, additional research and data will be needed. In the series there are four Caltech reports that provide supporting studies for the summary report (EQL Report No. 17). These reports include: EQL Report 17-A Regional Geological History EQL Report 17-B Inland Sediment Movements by Natural Processes EQL Report 17-C Coastal Sediment Delivery by Major Rivers in Southern California EQL Report 17-D -- Special Inland Studies Additional supporting reports on coastal studies (shoreline sedimentation processes, control structures, dredging, etc.) are being published by the Center for Coastal Studies at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California

Junior-high-school pupil's preferences of modern paintings.

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit

Asymmetries Between Gains and Losses in Mood and Decision Making

The thesis begins by exploring a large-scale data set from the smartphone application The Great Brain Experiment. I leverage this sample size to show that gambling for prospective losses (but not gains) increases throughout the day. I introduce the question of how exploring asymmetries between attitudes and responses to gains and losses may provide useful insights in the field of Computational Psychiatry. The next section of the thesis concerns mood and affective states, and their connections to decision-making. I introduce a novel paradigm: the Future Prospects Task, which allows for a comparison between how people feel about choosing between prospective gains and prospective losses, and how they feel about such prospects in the future. Computational modelling reveals that affective responses to losses are greater than responses to gains, demonstrating an affective negativity bias. It also demonstrates that the valence of future prospects has an impact on affective state, and that risky decision-making increases with proximity to positive futures, and conversely decreases in proximity to negative futures. This novel paradigm was adapted for a new smartphone application The Happiness Project and for fMRI. Some of the early pilot results for the smartphone application are presented, and their feasibility for future longitudinal testing discussed. The fMRI paradigm and hypotheses are described in the discussion chapter, as data collection was disrupted due to COVID-19. I also endeavour in the thesis to further extend our understanding of models of affective dynamics, which have become popular in the last decade. I include analyses of robustness, and highlight the statistical issues that should be taken into account with their usag

A summary of research relating to reading in the intermediate grades

Purpose: To develop and evaluate a method of quick perception with geography vocabulary to see if; (a) quick perception accelerates growth in comprehension, (b) effects speed of reading, and (c) improves reading ability. Materials used: (1) Vocabulary selected from: a) Atwood, The Americas, b) McConnel, Living in the Americas, c) Smith, World Folk. (2) Durrell-Sullivan Achievement Tests, Intermediate Forms A and B. (3) Oral Reading Tests for Speed from the "Durrell Analysis of Reading Difficulty". (4) Silent Reading and Vocabulary Inventory Tests constructed by the writer. (5) Lantern slide projector; screen; words and phrases typed on amber cellphone, faced with red carbon paper, enclosed in glass slides, hinged with tape at the top [TRUNCATED

Essays on the Economics of Human Capital

In the first paper we use a natural experiment that relaxed class attendance requirements for one school year to explore students’ marginal propensity to skip class, and to examine the effects of their absences on scholastic outcomes. We exploit exogenous variation resulting from a one-time policy Greece implemented allowing high school students to miss 30 percent more class hours without penalty during the 2009-10 academic year, a period when officials feared outbreaks of swine flu. Using a new dataset, we analyze which students missed more classes, and the effect of these absences on scholastic outcomes across the distribution of student ability, income, and peer quality. We find that while the swine flu itself did not affect the student population, the relaxed class attendance policy caused an increase in absences of roughly 10 hours per student, with more absences taken by those who had higher academic performance records, have academically weaker peers in their classes, or who live in poorer neighborhoods. End-of-year exam results show a positive effect of absences on grades across the ability distribution. The magnitude of the positive effect of absences on grades increases as we move to right of the ability distribution. Our results suggest that students who may have the resources or the human capital accumulation to learn outside the classroom may have lower performance when a strict attendance policy forces them to stay in class. In the second chapter we study the effect of disclosing relative performance information (feed- back) on students’ performance in high-school, on subsequent university enrollment, and on ex- pected subsequent earnings. We exploit a large-scale natural experiment in which students in some cohorts receive information about their relative performance within their schools and across the nation. Using unique primary data, we find an asymmetric response to feedback: high-achieving students improve their final-year performance by 0.15 of a standard deviation, whereas the final- year performance of low-achieving students drops by 0.3 of a standard deviation. The results are more pronounced for females, indicating greater sensitivity to feedback. We also document the long-term effects of feedback: high-achieving students reduce their repetition rate for the national exams; they enroll into university departments that are more selective by 0.15 of a standard de- viation and their expected annual earnings increase by 0.17 of a standard deviation. By contrast, the results for low-achieving students are negative. We provide suggestive evidence that feed- back encourages students from low-income neighborhoods to enroll in university and to study in higher-quality programs, which may, in the long run, reduce income inequality. In the third chapter we examine the extent to which college decisions among adolescents de- pend on the decisions of their peers. In particular, we ask whether individuals derive utility from conformity in college enrollment and academic mobility. We propose a new methodology in mit- igating reflection and endogeneity issues in identifying social interactions. We use the proportion of females in a student’s last year’s reference group (school and neighborhood) as an instrumental variable. We investigate utility spillovers from the educational choices of students in consecutive cohorts. Spatial variation allows us to identify social interactions in groups of various sizes. We use a new data set that spans the universe of high school graduates. We find positive and sig- nificant externalities in the decision to enroll in college and the decision to migrate to a different city among peers that belong to the same social group. Results indicate that students who are in a school or neighborhood with 100% more peers who enrolled in college last year are 29% or 9.6% more likely to themselves attend college. In the fourth chapter we consider how economic recessions alter the costs and expected returns of attaining college education in general and pursuing a specific college major. We examine how changes in the unemployment rate affect demand for college education, demand for different fields of university study and degrees’ admission thresholds. We use panel data for applications sub- mitted to the universe of undergraduate programs in Greece that span seven rounds of admission cohorts combined with a degree-specific job insecurity index, and time series on youth (ages 18- 25) unemployment. We find that degree- and major-specific job insecurity turns applicants away from degrees and majors that are associated with poor employment prospects. Results indicate that the steep increase in the unemployment rate that started in 2009 is associated with an increase in the number of college applicants. The effect is heterogeneous across fields, with an increase in the demand for degrees in Psychology as well as for entrance to Naval, Police and Military Academies, and a decrease in the demand for degrees in Business and Management. We also find that the business cycle changes degrees’ admission thresholds by affecting their popularity.Doctor of Philosoph

The use of John Adams as a historical character 1789--1874

John Adams was central to the founding of the United States and has held enduring interest among many generations including his own. The foundation of Adams as a historical character was constructed both by people he interacted with personally and by the turmoil of politics, casting him in roles with conflicting results. After his death, Adams was placed in a variety of roles as a historical character as people struggled to make sense of the contentious decades leading up and including the Civil War. After the Civil War, a more sophisticated warts and all portrayal of John Adams as a historical character as American historical identity was reexamined. The ways Adams was constructed and used as a historical character illuminates issues surrounding cultural history, historiography and conceptualization of the American Revolution by historians. That use also highlights recent interest in John Adams