Estimation and statistical modelling of financial and economic decisions from trading and survey data

We investigate the behaviour of individual financial investors and individual preferences about intertemporal choice. First, we estimate how the propensity to realise a stock in the gain domain changes, as the distance in price and the distance in time from the maximum price which realised in an investment episode change. We fit a Proportional Hazard model to estimate the propensity to sell a stock in a specific investment and find that the propensity to sell is highest at a short distance in time and high distance in price from the past maximum. We relate our results to theoretical models of Regret Theory in dynamic decisions. Second, we estimate the disposition effect from a wide framing perspective, for a sample of frequent traders. The disposition effect is the tendency of investors to realise gains at a higher rate than losses. We estimate it for several bank account compositions, using fixed effects models. We find that the disposition effect is higher when the percentage of stocks trading at a gain in a bank account is lower and it is lower when the percentage of gains is higher. We attribute the effect to a combination of anticipated regret and the preference that investors have for realising more than a stock on a given trading day, which we document. Third, we estimate the disposition effect assuming that investors define gains and losses, at a psychological level, with respect to an alternative reference point, different from the purchase price. We test three alternative rules and find that adopting the average of the realisations of the last five trading days prices (Recent rule) leads to the biggest departure of the disposition effect from the original estimate. Assuming that investors adopt the Recent rule to define their reference point leads to a much lower disposition effect, in particular if investors trade more and their trades are shorter. Fourth, we estimate intertemporal discounting in a sample of more than 50,000 individuals from 65 countries. We find that young individuals discount at the same rate, independently from income. Patience declines with age, at a faster rate, the lower the individuals rank in the income distribution. High income individuals discount at the same rate, independently of age. We develop an index of patience, defined at the country level, and find a strong correlation of it with other indices proposed in the literature and with country characteristics associated to economic development

The Experimental Phenomenology of Perception. A Collective Reflection on the Present and Future of this Approach

The Experimental Phenomenology of Perception is a research approach in Psychology in Italy that is inspired by Gestalt Psychology, with its own specific theoretical differences. Several scholars have contributed to this approach, each with their own interpretation and willingness to integrate ideas from other approaches. The starting point for this approach is a careful investigation of the structure of perceptual phenomena, which some see as the final objective. The theoretical premises and methodologies of this approach have been rigorously discussed and are part of an established tradition of thought, although they can still be further developed. The question is whether this approach is the only way to contribute to contemporary Cognitive Sciences, or if there are other ways in which it can be important

Assessing knowledge, motivation and perceptions about falls prevention among care staff in a residential aged care setting

Falls are a serious problem in residential aged care settings. The aims of the study were to determine the feasibility of surveying care staff regarding falls prevention, and describe care staff levels of knowledge and awareness of residents\u27 risk of falls, knowledge about falls prevention, motivation and confidence to implement falls prevention strategies. A custom designed questionnaire was administered to care staff at one site of a large residential aged care organization in Australia. The survey response was 58.8%. Feedback from staff was used to inform the administration of the survey to the wider organization. Seven (29.2%) care staff reported they were unsure or thought residents were at low risk of falls. Only five (20.8%) care staff were able to suggest more than three preventive strategies. These preliminary findings suggest that education to change care staff behavior regarding falls prevention should target improving care staff knowledge and awareness of falls

Children\u2019s psychological representation of earthquakes: Analysis of written definitions and Rasch scaling

Natural disasters have a potential highly traumatic impact on psychological functioning. This is notably true for children, whose vulnerability depends on their level of cognitive and emotional development. Before formal schooling, children possess all the basic abilities to represent the phenomena of the world, including natural disasters. However, scarce attention has been paid to children\u2019s representation of earthquakes, notwithstanding its relevance for risk awareness and for the efficacy of prevention programs. We examined children\u2019s representation of earthquakes using different methodologies. One hundred and twenty-eight second- and fourth-graders completed a written definition task and an online recognition task, analyzed through the Rasch model. Findings from both tasks indicated that, in children\u2019s representation, natural elements such as geological ones were the most salient, followed by man-made elements, and then by person-related elements. Older children revealed a more complex representation of earthquakes, and this was detected through the online recognition task. The results are discussed taking into account their theoretical and applied relevance. Beyond advancing knowledge of the development of the representation of earthquakes, they also inform on strengths and limitations of different methodologies. Both aspects are key resources to develop prevention programs for fostering preparedness to natural disasters and emotional prevention

The sensorial experience of wine for nonexperts: How the terms frequently used in Italian guidebooks are understood by standard consumers in Vietnam

Opposites are central to many areas in the fields of Psychology and Linguistics, but they are also fundamental to the technical scales used to describe wine (e.g., the Wine and Spirit Education Trust evaluation scales). The present study explores whether it is useful to refer to opposites in order to model Vietnamese standard (vs. expert) consumers' understanding of the wine descriptors frequently used in Italian texts. Sixty-four terms used in Product Specifications and popular Italian wine guidebooks to talk about the sensory properties of red and white wines (e.g., Hazy\u2014 Viet. \u110\u1ee5c; Bright\u2014Viet Sang; Complex\u2014Viet Nhi\u1ec1u h\u1b0\u1a1ng v\u1ecb; Immature\u2014Viet Ch\u1b0a ng\u1ea5u, etc.) were presented to 300 Vietnamese native speakers. They were asked to select what they considered to be the opposite property. Opposites were easily found by the participants, and, interestingly, they agreed with each other on those which were the most frequently chosen. Thought-provoking similarities and differences were revealed when these finding were compared with those of a twin study involving Italian participants. Practical Applications: In order to ensure effective marketing in the wine industry and to prevent misunderstandings, it is not only important that the dimensions underlying certain terms used by experts (i.e., sommeliers, oenologists, and wine experts) are similar to those understood by nonexperts (i.e., standard consumers), but it is also vital to ascertain whether nonexperts belonging to different cultures understand the same terms in a similar way. The results emerging from the present study suggest that it may be useful to use opposites to describe the sensory properties of wine to Vietnamese standard consumers, just as it is for Italian consumers. The research resulted in a list of terms which are understood in a similar way and another list with those which are understood differently. From an applicative point of view, this may be interesting for the marketing of wine in international contexts

Big Five personality traits and coping strategies of Italian university students during the COVID-19 pandemic first wave

Little is known about the role personality traits may have played for university students in diminishing and compensating for the negative impact of COVID-19 in its early phases, promoting adaptive coping. University students represent a population which was consistently obliged to follow social distance rules due to the early shift of many organizations from face-to-face to online learning. Therefore, it is worth exploring whether the Big Five traits acted as risk or protective factors after the outbreak of a disaster such as the COVID-19 pandemic for Italian university students. We involved a sample of 2,995 university students who completed an online survey in March 2020. We measured the Big Five personality traits through the Big Five Inventory-2-XS (Soto and John, 2017) and their coping strategies through the Robust—Pandemic Coping Scale (Burro et al., 2021). The latter assessed four COVID-19-related coping dimensions, namely Despair (e.g., including helplessness and feeling lack of control), Aversion (e.g., referring to oppositive strategies), Proactivity (e.g., comprising problem solving and information seeking), and Adjustment (e.g., concerning reappraisal and assertiveness). Preliminarily, two Linear Mixed Models indicated that university students had higher scores in Conscientiousness, followed by Open-Mindedness, and then Agreeableness. These three traits were, in turn, higher than Extraversion and Negative Emotionality, which did not differ among them. Concerning coping, university students reacted more frequently utilizing adaptive strategies (with Proactivity used more frequently than Adjustment) rather than maladaptive strategies (with Despair higher than Aversion). A Path Analysis examining the relations between the Big Five traits and the four coping dimensions showed that Negative Emotionality can be considered as a risk factor, and that Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Open-Mindedness can be conceptualized as protective factors. More interestingly, we found that Extraversion entailed both a risk and a protective role for Italian university students after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Notwithstanding limitations, these findings can be the basis for developing disaster preparation and prevention actions, aiming at promoting students’ positive coping towards current and future disasters

Training People to Think in Opposites Facilitates the Falsification Process in Wason’s Rule Discovery Task

With reference to Wason’s 2-4-6 rule discovery task, this study investigated the effects of a simple training session that prompted participants to “think in opposites”. The results showed a significant improvement in performance under the training condition when compared to the control condition, both in terms of the proportion of participants who discovered the correct rule and how quickly it was discovered. An analysis of whether or not participant submitted test triples formed of descending numbers showed that fewer participants under the control condition considered ascending/descending to represent a critical dimension and, in any case, this occurred later (that is, after more test triples) than in the training condition. These results are discussed in relation to previous literature showing improvements in performance that were prompted by strategies involving “contrast” as a critical factor. The limitations of the study are discussed, as well as the benefits of a training program like this, which is non-content related

Doing the opposite to what another person is doing.

The three studies presented here aim to contribute to a better understanding of the role of the coordinate system of a person's body and of the environment in spatial organization underlying the recognition and production of gestures. The paper introduces a new approach by investigating what people consider to be opposite gestures in addition to identical gestures. It also suggests a new point of view setting the issue in the framework of egocentric versus allocentric spatial encoding as compared to the anatomical versus non-anatomical matching which is usually adopted in the literature. The results showed that the role of the allocentric system as a key player was much more evident when participants were asked to \u201cdo the opposite\u201d as compared to when they imitated which indicates that the two tasks really are different from each other. Response times were also quicker when people \u201cdid the opposite\u201d indicating that this is an immediate response and not the result of \u201creversing an imitation\u201d. These findings suggest that the issue of how the oppositional structure of space impacts on human perception and the performance of gestures has probably been underestimated in an area of research which traditionally focuses exclusively on imitation