Is there a pessimistic bias in individual beliefs ? Evidence from survey data.

The aim of this paper is to determine whether individuals exhibit a behavioral bias towards pessimism in their beliefs, in a lottery or more generally in an investment opportunities framework. For this purpose, we design a field survey on a sample of 1,540 individuals aiming at deriving a measure of pessimism from answers to hypothetical scenarios. In the context of our experiment, we observe that individuals are on average pessimistic. We analyze how pessimism is distributed among individuals, in particular in link with gender, age and income. We also analyze how our notion of pessimism is related to more general notions of pessimism already introduced in psychology. We finally estimate the possible impact of this pessimistic bias on the financial markets equilibrium risk premium.pessimism; lottery; judged probability;

Anticipation and its degrees of critical-reflective radicality: opening up the affordances of engaging with futures to problematize STI

Anticipation is increasingly recognized as a valuable dimension for promoting more responsible STI practices. Various normative frameworks acknowledge anticipation as a means to enable critique and/or reflection. However, the degrees of critique and reflection that anticipation can or should enable have remained under-researched. By exploring the critical-reflective affordances that anticipation could offer for problematizing STIs in the present, this article aims to advance the theoretical development of anticipation as a dimension for promoting more responsible STIs. The article suggests that the potential critical-reflective radicality of anticipation is modulated by the critical-reflective spaces of problematization and/or scrutiny afforded by the normative frameworks in which anticipation is interpreted and for which it is enacted. Against this background, the article provides some tentative variables for assessing these critical-reflective affordances and specifies the roles that different modes of anticipation might play in opening up distinct, interconnected aspects of STI to problematization and/or scrutiny.This work was supported by the Department of Education of the Basque Government through a Postdoctoral Fellowship for the Improvement of Research Personnel [grant no POS_2022_1_0001], the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Spanish State Research Agency [grant no PID2020-114279RB-I00], and the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU [grant no GIU21/063]. This work was developed during my time as a Research Fellow of the research program Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies, funded by the Gravitation program of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NOW grant number 024.004.031)

The Effect of Rational and Intuitive Decision-Making Strategies on Interest Appraisals

Career counseling requires clients to make assessments and predictions of their interests, necessitating the use of both rational and intuitive processes. Dual-processing models of human decision-making have not been experimentally explored within the context of vocational assessment. One-hundred thirty-six participants chose among eight occupational/educational videos after an unconscious-intuitive, conscious-rational, or decision-as-usual information processing manipulation. Participant interest was assessed before, during, and 2 weeks following the video in order to determine differences across conditions. The results yielded three conclusions. First, the unconscious-intuitive manipulation resulted in interest forecasts that were more predictive of actual interest than did the conscious-rational manipulation or the decision-as-usual conditions. Second, interest levels were recalled more accurately by participants who made choices under unconscious-intuitive conditions than by those in the other two conditions. Finally, a history of occupational engagement was found to be related to decisional quality but only for the control group. These results are discussed in the context of vocational theory

Confidence assessment in the teaching of basic science

A scheme is described for including information about confidence in the computer‐based assessment of students. After each answer, students declare a confidence level of 1, 2, or 3. If the answer is correct, then this is the mark awarded. If not, marks of 0, ‐2, or ‐6 are awarded Students do well on this scheme if they can discriminate between when they are sure of correct answers and when they are partly guessing. In self‐assessment, students are trained to reflect on their reasoning, and to develop the skills of correct confidence judgement. The task of writing tests is simplified, since it becomes less important to ask complex questions. Simple direct questions discriminate better between students than they do with ordinary marking. Good students answer correctly with high confidence, while weak students moderate their confidence level if they know they are uncertain, or else lose heavily when they make mistakes. Preliminary data are presented from self‐assessment trials amongst medical students

Smoking Today and Stopping Tomorrow: A Limited Foresight Perspective

This paper considers an intertemporal decision problem in which the agent has limited foresight. It offers an interpretation of why people may smoke when they are young - and arguably have a short horizon of foresight – and refrain from smoking when they get older - and their foresight is better.

Personified cognitive feedback as a powerful instrument for progressive acceleration of social evolution

The concept of personified cognitive feedback (PCF) is introduced, which takes place in human neural network between the accumulated knowledge potential and new information. This feedback may always be considered as positive, taking into account experience accumulation. This connection itself provides the process of “understanding” while comparing each component and the message as a whole with the recipient’s current cognitive potential. When projecting the peculiarities of PCF realization onto the society in general, a powerful conclusion can be made that it is the multitude of separate individual PCFs with their significant creative potential and unlimited communication capabilities that enables the continuous growth of the global cognitive potential, which, in its turn, determines the “progressive acceleration of social evolution”.Вводиться поняття персоніфікованого когнітивного зворотного зв’язку (ПКЗЗ) в нашій нейромережі між накопиченим потенціалом знань та новою інформацією. Такий зв'язок завжди вважатимемо позитивним з урахуванням процедури накопичення досвіду. Власне, такий зв'язок і забезпечує процес «розуміння», зіставляючи як кожну складову, так і загалом все повідомлення з поточним когнітивним потенціалом реципієнта. Коли ж спроектувати особливості актуалізації ПКЗЗ на суспільство загалом, то доходимо потужного висновку: що саме множина окремих індивідуальних ПКЗЗ з їх потужним креативним потенціалом та необмеженими можливостями комунікації забезпечують постійне зростання глобального когнітивного потенціалу, що, в свою чергу, зумовлює «прогресивне прискорення розвитку суспільства»

Exploring Entrepreneurial Skills and Competencies in Farm Tourism

Diversification to farm tourism is increasingly seen as a viable development strategy to promote a more diverse and sustainable rural economy and to counter declining farm incomes. However, our understanding of the dynamics of the modern farm tourism business and the entrepreneurial and competitive skills farmers require in making the transition from agriculture to a diversified - and service based - enterprise remains limited. Hence, the aim of this paper is to explore the range of skills and competencies that farmers in the North West of England identify as important when adopting a diversification strategy to farm tourism. With the findings indicating that that whilst a range of managerial skills are valued by farmers, they lack many of the additional business and entrepreneurial competencies required for success. Moreover, this paper acknowledges the need to generate consensus on the requisite skill-set that farm tourism operators require, along with a need for a currently fragmented rural tourism literature to acknowledge the significance of rural entrepreneurship and the characteristics of successful farmers and farm tourism ventures

Лидерские качества современного студента университета в рефлексивном измерении

Leadership qualities of the individual are of particular importance in the context of globalization and integration trends of modern society. Leadership is the inner state of a person determining the strategy of her life. Thus, leadership qualities are related to its reflection, which gives the opportunity to carry out introspection and to analyze other people, that is meta quality. This circumstance makes it possible to consider the phenomenon of leadership qualities of students in the reflexive dimension. Leadership qualities of a modern University student have a complex structure, contains motivational-value, cognitive, operational-activity components. These components are associated with different types of reflection, namely, personal, intellectual, communicative, cooperative; retrospective, situational, perspective. The diagnostic tools presented in the article allowed to determine the level of formation of students' leadership qualities and their reflexivity and to statistically prove the relationship and interrelation of these phenomena. At the initial stage of education at the University dominated by leadership qualities of the individual, focused “on themselves” and, accordingly, personal, intellectual and retrospective types of reflection. At the stage of completion of the second (bachelor) level of higher education the priority is given to leadership qualities of the student, aimed “at others”, which are determined by communicative, cooperative, perspective reflection. The results of the experimental study actualized the need for the formation of leadership qualities and different types of reflection of modern University students.Лідерські якості особистості мають особливе значення в контексті глобалізаційних та інтеграційних тенденцій сучасного суспільства. Лідерство - це внутрішній стан людини, що визначає стратегію її життя. Таким чином, лідерські якості пов'язані з його відображенням, що дає можливість здійснювати самоаналіз та аналізувати інших людей, тобто мета якості. Ця обставина дає можливість розглядати явище лідерських якостей учнів у рефлексивному вимірі. Лідерські якості сучасного студента університету мають складну структуру, містять мотиваційно-ціннісні, пізнавальні, оперативно-діяльнісні компоненти. Ці компоненти пов'язані з різними видами рефлексії, а саме особистісною, інтелектуальною, комунікативною, кооперативною; ретроспектива, ситуативність, перспектива. Представлені у статті діагностичні засоби дозволили визначити рівень сформованості лідерських якостей учнів та їх рефлексивність та статистично довести взаємозв’язок та взаємозв'язок цих явищ. На початковому етапі навчання в університеті переважали лідерські якості особистості, орієнтовані «на себе» і, відповідно, особистісні, інтелектуальні та ретроспективні типи рефлексії. На етапі завершення другого (бакалаврського) рівня вищої освіти пріоритет надається лідерським якостям студента, спрямованим «на інших», що визначаються комунікативним, спільним, перспективним відображенням. Результати експериментального дослідження актуалізували потребу у формуванні лідерських якостей та різних типів рефлексії сучасних студентів університету.Лидерские качества личности имеют особое значение в условиях глобализации и интеграционных тенденций современного общества. Лидерство - это внутреннее состояние человека, определяющее стратегию его жизни. Таким образом, лидерские качества связаны с его отражением, что дает возможность проводить самоанализ и анализировать других людей, то есть мета-качество. Это обстоятельство дает возможность рассматривать феномен лидерских качеств учащихся в рефлексивном измерении. Лидерские качества современного студента Университета имеют сложную структуру, содержат мотивационно-ценностный, когнитивный, оперативно-деятельностный компоненты. Эти компоненты связаны с различными типами рефлексии, а именно, личными, интеллектуальными, коммуникативными, кооперативными; ретроспективный, ситуационный, перспективный. Представленные в статье диагностические инструменты позволили определить уровень формирования лидерских качеств студентов и их рефлексивность, а также статистически обосновать взаимосвязь и взаимосвязь этих явлений. На начальном этапе обучения в университете преобладают лидерские качества личности, ориентированные «на себя» и, соответственно, личностные, интеллектуальные и ретроспективные типы рефлексии. На этапе завершения второго (бакалавриата) уровня высшего образования приоритет отдается лидерским качествам студента, нацеленным «на других», которые определяются коммуникативной, кооперативной, перспективной рефлексией. Результаты экспериментального исследования актуализировали необходимость формирования лидерских качеств и различных видов рефлексии современных студентов университета