Are taxpayers, who pay their taxes, all cooperative citizens?

France does not have a classical withholding tax system; taxes are calculated on the basis of the previous year declaration of income. Moreover, France is, in terms of corruption (Transparency index, Corruption Perceptions Index, 2011), in the 25th row, behind many of the European countries, which indicates a very high perception of corruption in France, compared to the other European countries. In this article, the focus is on the psychological effect of this system and its consequences in terms of tax compliance versus tax evasion, which can be seen in terms of cooperation versus competition. This study, in line with E. Kirchler’s research on tax evasion, investigates the links between powers of authorities, trust in authorities, and tax compliance in the French context. Moreover, along with Kirchler et al.’s (2008) work, our goal was to test the ‘slippery slope’ framework on tax compliance with a sample of French citizens. In order to test it, trust in authorities and power of authorities were manipulated with four different scenarios (high trust/high power; high trust/low power; low trust/high power; low trust/low power). French university students in economics (320) were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions, in which they read one of the scenarios and had to answer a questionnaire composed of 24 items. In this article, tax compliance is approached in terms of cooperation versus competition; for this, we examined: if citizens comply in a cooperative way; if they have a competitive attitude towards tax authorities, indicating that they try to evade taxes as much as possible, thus go against the collective goal because they have self-oriented motivations; or if they have a competitive attitude towards authorities because they do not consent government’s policies. This study, which had two main facets, enabled identifying tax compliance in terms of trust in authorities and power of authorities, and allowed identifying cases in which conformity is voluntary, which implies cooperation; or forced, which implies that authorities impose compliance. Based on our results, the article concludes that both an increase of trust in the authorities and an increase of power of the authorities create an increase of tax compliance, which tends to show that, based on distrust, fraud is non-cooperative, and can be sometimes considered as competitive, as it is placing self-interest into the foreground instead of public interest

Changing conspiracy beliefs through rationality and ridiculing

Conspiracy theory (CT) beliefs can be harmful. How is it possible to reduce them effectively? Three reduction strategies were tested in an online experiment using general and well-known CT beliefs on a comprehensive randomly assigned Hungarian sample (N = 813): exposing rational counter CT arguments, ridiculing those who hold CT beliefs, and empathizing with the targets of CT beliefs. Several relevant individual differences were measured. Rational and ridiculing arguments were effective in reducing CT, whereas empathizing with the targets of CTs had no effect. Individual differences played no role in CT reduction, but the perceived intelligence and competence of the individual who conveyed the CT belief-reduction information contributed to the success of the CT belief reduction. Rational arguments targeting the link between the object of belief and its characteristics appear to be an effective tool in fighting conspiracy theory beliefs

Money, Banks, and Savings: A Comparative Analysis of Turkish Laypeople's Social Representations over Five Periods (1999-2017)

The way and context-specific scope of how money and banks are mirrored in citizens’ minds is an expanding area of research in relation to economic psychology. Through the analysis of data collected from salaried employees, self-employed professionals, and small/medium enterprise [SME] owners, lay people’s social representations for money, saving and banks in Turkey are comparatively investigated and analysed over time. Grounded in a previous study by authors (undisclosed), with respective samples from the years of 1999, 2001, 2007, 2015, a new fifth dataset for 2017 is introduced here. Changing priorities, understanding and cognitive constructs related to money, banks and savings were particularly analysed to be substantially interconnected with the evolving socioeconomic dynamics and conditions of the crisis periods. Negative evocations and lack of trust became prominent as to the findings such that banks are seen as contemporary pawnshops; money is mirrored as a symbol of power, prestige and reputation, and cannot be achieved through hard work

Elevated romantic love and jealousy if relationship status is declared on Facebook

Declared relationship status on Facebook can serve as a public commitment and as an extra layer of a couple’s security. However, the question arises: do those who report the relationship status feel stronger romantic love and jealousy towards their partners than those who do not share such information publicly? To test this assumption, profile information and questionnaire data of romantic love and jealousy were gathered from 292 (230 females) respondents that were in a relationship. Our results suggest that announcing the relationship status is associated with elevated romantic love and jealousy. Therefore, being “Facebook official” can be interpreted as a tie-sign indicating that the couple is “out of the market”, and can promote their unity as a “digital wedding ring”

Health status, sleeping habits and dyssomnia of coastal fishermen

Background: The aim of this survey was to assess the health status, sleep habits and dyssomnia of coastal fishermen. Materials and methods: This cross-sectional survey involved a representative sample of 948 coastal fishermen. All participants were men and had a regular activity for at least 2 years. We used an individual questionnaire inspired by those of Morphée network, the National Institute for Research and Security of France, and of the Karasek’s Job Content Questionnaire. Results: The prevalence of sociodemographic and individual parameters was similar in rotating shiftwork (RW) and in nocturnal work (NW). The average age of the total population was 38.8 ± 8.1 years. The prevalence of sleep habits and alertness disorders was similar in RW and in NW. The average daily sleep time of the total population was 5.5 ± 0.9 hours during the week, and 8.7 ± 0.8 hours during the holidays, Fridays and recovery days. Upon waking, 49.7% of the subjects felt tired and sleepy, 43.2% fit and 7.1% had a headache. 47.2% reported being chronic insomniac. The index of severity of insomnia was moderate to severe in 29.6%. The prevalence of excessive daytime sleepiness (Epworth > 10) was 16.2%. Fatigue, iso-strain and socio-economic concerns were associated with a higher risk of chronic insomnia. Conclusions: Coastal fishermen were at a high risk of chronic dyssomnia and alertness disorders. Education initiatives should be conducted to raise fishermen’s awareness on their health and safety consequences

International genome-wide meta-analysis identifies new primary biliary cirrhosis risk loci and targetable pathogenic pathways.

Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) is a classical autoimmune liver disease for which effective immunomodulatory therapy is lacking. Here we perform meta-analyses of discovery data sets from genome-wide association studies of European subjects (n=2,764 cases and 10,475 controls) followed by validation genotyping in an independent cohort (n=3,716 cases and 4,261 controls). We discover and validate six previously unknown risk loci for PBC (Pcombined<5 × 10(-8)) and used pathway analysis to identify JAK-STAT/IL12/IL27 signalling and cytokine-cytokine pathways, for which relevant therapies exist

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead