The effect of priming on fraud: Evidence from a natural field experiment

This is the final version. Available from Wiley via the DOI in this record. We present a natural field experiment to examine if priming can influence behavior in a market for credence goods. 40 testers took 600 taxi journeys in Vienna, Austria, and using a between–subject design we vary the script they spoke, each designed to prime either honesty, dishonesty, or a competitor. We find that the honesty prime increases taxi fares by 5.5% relative to a baseline, the result of overcharging rather than overtreatment. Priming dishonesty and a competitor have no impact on fares. We find that the effects of priming on behavior are likely to be small compared to information asymmetries.Austrian Science Fun

Emergence of rationally designed therapeutic strategies for breast cancer targeting DNA repair mechanisms

Accumulating evidence suggests that many cancers, including BRCA1- and BRCA2-associated breast cancers, are deficient in DNA repair processes. Both hereditary and sporadic breast cancers have been found to have significant downregulation of repair factors. This has provided opportunities to exploit DNA repair deficiencies, whether acquired or inherited. Here, we review efforts to exploit DNA repair deficiencies in tumors, with a focus on breast cancer. A variety of agents, including PARP (poly [ADP-ribose] polymerase) inhibitors, are currently under investigation in clinical trials and available results will be reviewed

Quantifying Individual Variation in the Propensity to Attribute Incentive Salience to Reward Cues

If reward-associated cues acquire the properties of incentive stimuli they can come to powerfully control behavior, and potentially promote maladaptive behavior. Pavlovian incentive stimuli are defined as stimuli that have three fundamental properties: they are attractive, they are themselves desired, and they can spur instrumental actions. We have found, however, that there is considerable individual variation in the extent to which animals attribute Pavlovian incentive motivational properties (“incentive salience”) to reward cues. The purpose of this paper was to develop criteria for identifying and classifying individuals based on their propensity to attribute incentive salience to reward cues. To do this, we conducted a meta-analysis of a large sample of rats (N = 1,878) subjected to a classic Pavlovian conditioning procedure. We then used the propensity of animals to approach a cue predictive of reward (one index of the extent to which the cue was attributed with incentive salience), to characterize two behavioral phenotypes in this population: animals that approached the cue (“sign-trackers”) vs. others that approached the location of reward delivery (“goal-trackers”). This variation in Pavlovian approach behavior predicted other behavioral indices of the propensity to attribute incentive salience to reward cues. Thus, the procedures reported here should be useful for making comparisons across studies and for assessing individual variation in incentive salience attribution in small samples of the population, or even for classifying single animals

Non-standard errors

In statistics, samples are drawn from a population in a data-generating process (DGP). Standard errors measure the uncertainty in estimates of population parameters. In science, evidence is generated to test hypotheses in an evidence generating process (EGP). We claim that EGP variation across researchers adds uncertainty: Non-standard errors (NSEs). We study NSEs by letting 164 teams test the same hypotheses on the same data. NSEs turn out to be sizable, but smaller for better reproducible or higher rated research. Adding peer-review stages reduces NSEs. We further find that this type of uncertainty is underestimated by participants