Politeness and compassion differentially predict adherence to fairness norms and interventions to norm violations in economic games

Adherence to norms and interventions to norm violations are two important forms of social behaviour modelled in economic games. While both appear to serve a prosocial function, they may represent separate mechanisms corresponding with distinct emotional and psychological antecedents, and thus may be predicted by different personality traits. In this study, we compared adherence to fairness norms in the dictator game with responses to violations of the same norms in third-party punishment and recompensation games with respect to prosocial traits from the Big Five and HEXACO models of personality. The results revealed a pattern of differential relations between prosocial traits and game behaviours. While norm adherence in the dictator game was driven by traits reflecting good manners and non-aggression (i.e., the politeness aspect of Big Five agreeableness and HEXACO honesty-humility), third-party recompensation of victims—and to a lesser extent, punishment of offenders—was uniquely driven by traits reflecting emotional concern for others (the compassion aspect of Big Five agreeableness). These findings demonstrate the discriminant validity between similar prosocial constructs and highlight the different prosocial motivations underlying economic game behaviours

Establishment of a 3D In Vitro Model to Accelerate the Development of Human Therapies against Corneal Diabetes

The authors thank Dr. John M Asara, Min Yuan, and Susanne Breitkopf for their technical help with metabolomics experiments, Dr. Ben Fowler for his technical help with TEM experiments and also Tina B McKay for many thoughtful discussions and scientific insights during the study.Purpose To establish an in vitro model that would mirror the in vivo corneal stromal environment in diabetes (DM) patients. Methods Human corneal fibroblasts from Healthy (HCFs), Type 1DM (T1DM) and Type 2DM (T2DM) donors were isolated and cultured for 4 weeks with Vitamin C stimulation in order to allow for extracellular matrix (ECM) secretion and assembly. Results Our data indicated altered cellular morphology, increased cellular migration, increased ECM assembly, and severe mitochondrial damage in both T1DM and T2DMs when compared to HCFs. Furthermore, we found significant downregulation of Collagen I and Collagen V expression in both T1DM and T2DMs. Furthermore, a significant up regulation of fibrotic markers was seen, including α-smooth muscle actin in T2DM and Collagen III in both T1DM and T2DMs. Metabolic analysis suggested impaired Glycolysis and Tricarboxylic acid cycle (TCA) pathway. Conclusion DM has significant effects on physiological and clinical aspects of the human cornea. The benefits in developing and fully characterizing our 3D in vitro model are enormous and might provide clues for the development of novel therapeutics.Yeshttp://www.plosone.org/static/editorial#pee

Education and patient preferences for treating type 2 diabetes: a stratified discrete-choice experiment

Ellen M Janssen,1 Daniel R Longo,2 Joan K Bardsley,3 John FP Bridges1 1Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, 2Department of Family Medicine and Population Health, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, 3MedStar Health Research Institute and MedStar Nursing, Hyattsville, MD, USA Purpose: Diabetes is a chronic condition that is more prevalent among people with lower educational attainment. This study assessed the treatment preferences of patients with type 2 diabetes by educational attainment. Methods: Patients with type 2 diabetes were recruited from a national online panel in the US. Treatment preferences were assessed using a discrete-choice experiment. Participants completed 16 choice tasks in which they compared pairs of treatment profiles composed of six attributes: A1c decrease, stable blood glucose, low blood glucose, nausea, treatment burden, and out-of-pocket cost. Choice models and willingness-to-pay (WTP) estimates were estimated using a conditional logit model and were stratified by educational status. Results: A total of 231 participants with a high school diploma or less education, 156 participants with some college education, and 165 participants with a college degree or more completed the survey. Participants with a college degree or more education were willing to pay more for A1c decreases ($58.84, standard error [SE]: 10.6) than participants who had completed some college ($28.47, SE: 5.53) or high school or less ($17.56, SE: 3.55) (p≤0.01). People with a college education were willing to pay more than people with high school or less to avoid nausea, low blood glucose events during the day/night, or two pills per day. Conclusion: WTP for aspects of diabetes medication differed for people with a college education or more and a high school education or less. Advanced statistical methods might overcome limitations of stratification and advance understanding of preference heterogeneity for use in patient-centered benefit–risk assessments and personalized care approaches. Keywords: preference heterogeneity, stated-preference methods, preference heterogeneity, willingness-to-pay, choice experiment, educational attainmen