Current Outcomes Following Reverse Total Shoulder Arthroplasty: A Composite

Reverse Total Shoulder Arthroplasty (RTSA) is a popular treatment for patients with rotator cuff damage, glenohumeral arthritis, complex fractures, and previously failed total shoulder arthroplasty given its ability to alleviate pain and increase range of motion and function. Although RTSA significantly improves functionality, pain, and satisfaction, patients need to be given realistic expectations for when to expect improvements, peak performance, and plateaus as well as potential risks for negative outcomes. As with any surgical procedure, patients are at risk for intraoperative, perioperative, short-term, and long-term complications. Thus, the purpose of this review is to discuss the short-term and long-term complications, metrics, and length of follow-up for patients who have undergone RTSA. In addition, we provide recommendations for a cut-off point between short-term and long-term outcomes for RTSA

The Role of Choice Architecture in Promoting Saving at Tax Time: Evidence From a Large-Scale Field Experiment

This paper presents the findings of a large-scale field experiment (N = 646,16) from the Refund to Savings Initiative. The experiment tested a choice architecture and persuasive messaging intervention that increased saving among low-moderate income (LMI) consumers by approximately 50% during tax refund time. Two follow-up experiments parsed components of the intervention. The first follow-up experiment (N = 569) tested the messaging and choice architecture interventions separately, finding that each can increase savings. a final follow-up experiment (N = 554) tested individual elements of the choice architecture intervention, demonstrating that mere mention of savings within choice options was not sufficient to increase saving, however, heavy emphasis of savings and making saving “frictionless” within choice options both effectively increased saving intentions. The final experiment also demonstrated that the choice architecture effect operates similarly for both LMI and non-LMI consumers

The martyrdom effect : when pain and effort increase prosocial contributions

Most theories of motivation and behavior (and lay intuitions alike) consider pain and effort to be deterrents. In contrast to this widely held view, we provide evidence that the prospect of enduring pain and exerting effort for a prosocial cause can promote contributions to the cause. Specifically, we show that willingness to contribute to a charitable or collective cause increases when the contribution process is expected to be painful and effortful rather than easy and enjoyable. Across five experiments, we document this “martyrdom effect,” show that the observed patterns defy standard economic and psychological accounts, and identify a mediator and moderator of the effect. Experiment 1 showed that people are willing to donate more to charity when they anticipate having to suffer to raise money. Experiment 2 extended these findings to a non-charity laboratory context that involved real money and actual pain. Experiment 3 demonstrated that the martyrdom effect is not the result of an attribute substitution strategy (whereby people use the amount of pain and effort involved in fundraising to determine donation worthiness). Experiment 4 showed that perceptions of meaningfulness partially mediate the martyrdom effect. Finally, Experiment 5 demonstrated that the nature of the prosocial cause moderates the martyrdom effect: the effect is strongest for causes associated with human suffering. We propose that anticipated pain and effort lead people to ascribe greater meaning to their contributions and to the experience of contributing, thereby motivating higher prosocial contributions. We conclude by considering some implications of this puzzling phenomenon. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Eliciting taxpayer preferences increases tax compliance

Two experiments show that eliciting taxpayer preferences on government spending—providing taxpayer agency--increases tax compliance. We first create an income and taxation environment in a laboratory setting to test for compliance with a lab tax. Allowing a treatment group to express nonbinding preferences over tax spending priorities, leads to a 16% increase in tax compliance. A followup online study tests this treatment with a simulation of paying US federal taxes. Allowing taxpayers to signal their preferences on the distribution of government spending, results in a 15% reduction in the stated take-up rate of a questionable tax loophole. Providing taxpayer agency recouples tax payments with the public services obtained in return, reduces general anti-tax sentiment, and holds satisfaction with tax payment stable despite increased compliance with tax dues. With tax noncompliance costing the US government $385billion annually, providing taxpayer agency could have meaningful economic impact. At the same time, giving taxpayers a voice may act as a two-way "nudge," transforming tax payment from a passive experience to a channel of communication between taxpayers and government

Improving Ethical Review of Research Involving Incentives for Health Promotion

Alex London and colleagues propose new ethical frameworks for evaluating the risks associated with research in which financial or other incentives are used to promote healthy behavior

Mood and the Market: Can Press Reports of Investors’ Mood Predict Stock Prices?

We examined whether press reports on the collective mood of investors can predict changes in stock prices. We collected data on the use of emotion words in newspaper reports on traders’ affect, coded these emotion words according to their location on an affective circumplex in terms of pleasantness and activation level, and created indices of collective mood for each trading day. Then, by using time series analyses, we examined whether these mood indices, depicting investors’ emotion on a given trading day, could predict the next day’s opening price of the stock market. The strongest findings showed that activated pleasant mood predicted increases in NASDAQ prices, while activated unpleasant mood predicted decreases in NASDAQ prices. We conclude that both valence and activation levels of collective mood are important in predicting trend continuation in stock prices

Helping Yourself before Helping Others: How Sense of Control Promotes Charitable Behaviors

This research elucidates when distress appeals can evoke the instinct to help without turning recipients away from uncomfortable situations. Five experiments demonstrated with behavioral evidence that evoking a sense of control by irrelevant causes prior to appeal exposure can increase the likelihood of registering as a volunteer (Studies 1 and 3) and the tendency to donate (Studies 2, 4, and 5) in a subsequent unrelated situation. The authors found that this effect was not evident in the absence of distress and for participants with enhanced distress tolerance. The results further showed that enhanced control increased distress tolerance, which mediated the observed effect on charitable acts but had no impact on self-efficacy in contributing as a helper. The findings have both theoretical and managerial implications for promoting charitable behaviors