The Corticomedial Amygdala and Learning in an Agonistic Situation in the Rat

Social agonistic behaviour of intact male rats is strongly reduced by the experience of defeat by a dominant male conspecific. Small electrolytic lesions in the corticomedial amygdala strongly affected this behavioural change due to defeat. No effects of the lesions were observed before and during the defeat. Some learning is still possible in corticomedial amygdala lesioned animals. A comparison of the effects of lesions made before the defeat with lesions made after the defeat revealed that the lesions primarily produce a retention deficit in social learning.

Taxes and fees of regional water authorities in the Netherlands

The Dutch water management system is fairly unique in the world due to the comprehensive water quantity regulation through dykes and artificial waterways and its linkage with water quality regulation. The existing levy system is based on principles of cost recovery and ‘stakepay-say’ (i.e. strong stakeholder participation and more influence for those who pay levies). The peculiarities of the levy base clearly had a strong impact on businesses’ behaviour in the past, investing in their own water treatment plants to avoid payment of levies. Moreover, the levy also seems to have contributed to innovation in the waste water treatment sector. Although the Dutch water levy system seems to be working quite well, as identified in a 2014 OECD report there remain opportunities for further improvement and an evaluation of the system is currently underway

Support by Participatory Sense-Making in Robot Therapy for Children with Autism

People with Autism Spectrum Condition have issues navigating social situations. Typically, in therapy, robots teach people with ASC desirable social interaction according to traditional models which focus on the cognitive, rather than emotions or intuitions. Participatory sense- making could provide new insights in the theory of this area. To establish participatory sense- making, joint attention needs to be reached. We analyzed footage of a robot expressing emotions of therapy sessions in Serbia, during which a child with ASC has to guess the emotion. We used conversation analysis from the perspective of participatory sense-making with a focus on body language. Not speaking the language allowed us to focus on the body language without distraction. During the analysis 3 types of situations occurred: participatory sense-making, missed opportunity and non-compliance. The results showed that more elements of coordination lead to better participatory sense- making was established. We argue that a robot could provide support for a therapist when establishing participatory sense-making

How emotion communication guides reciprocity: establishing cooperation through disappointment and anger

Emotions fulfil many social functions, but data on their essential function of establishing cooperation are lacking. We investigated how communicating anger and disappointment guides reciprocal cooperative behavior. Although anger may force cooperation by announcing retaliation, we predicted that communicating disappointment was less likely to backfire. A laboratory study in which participants played against the reciprocal strategy of tit-for-tat showed that communicated disappointment established more cooperation than did anger. This effect also carried over to future cooperation decisions. Partners communicating disappointment evoked less anger, were evaluated more positively and as forgiving rather than retaliatory. Communication of disappointment thus appears conducive to establishing mutually beneficial relationships

When and how communicated guilt affects contributions in public good dilemmas

"Two laboratory studies investigated how groups may deal with the strong emotions that social dilemmas often elicit. A first study showed that a new group member evaluated guilt communicated by a fellow group member as more instrumental than neutral emotion feedback when the amount of required resources to obtain the public good (i.e., provision point) was perceived as difficult to obtain. A second study revealed that participants use communicated guilt to draw inferences about both past and future contributions from all fellow group members. Participants also contributed more themselves and adhered to equality more often when guilt versus no emotion was communicated, but only when the provision point was high. Expected contributions from fellow group members mediated this effect." [author's abstract

Analysing Group Contract Design Using a Lab and a Lab-in-the-Field Threshold Public Good Experiment

This paper presents the results of a threshold public goods game experiment with heterogeneous players. The experiment is designed in close collaboration with the Dutch association of agri-environmental farmer collectives. Subjects are recruited at a university (“the lab”) and a farm management training centre (“lab-in-the-field”). The treatments have two different distribution rules which are varied in a within-subjects manner. After subjects have experienced both, they can vote for one of the two rules: either a differentiated bonus that results in equal payoff for all, or an undifferentiated, equal share of the group bonus. In a between-subjects manner, subjects can vote for a (minimum or average) threshold or are faced with an exogenous threshold. The results indicate that exogenous thresholds perform better, possibly because the focal point they provide facilitates coordination. With regard to the two distribution rules, the results are mixed: average contributions and payoffs are higher in the lab under the ‘equal-payoff’ rule, but there is no significant difference between the two in the lab-in-the-field, possibly because contributions in the lab-in-the-field are much less efficient. Overall, our results suggest that environmental payment schemes should not only consider farmer heterogeneity in the design of group contracts, but pay explicit attention to coordination problems as well