Domestication alone does not lead to inequality: intergenerational wealth transmission among horticulturalists

We present empirical measures of wealth inequality and its intergenerational transmission among four horticulturalist populations. Wealth is construed broadly as embodied somatic and neural capital, including body size, fertility and cultural knowledge, material capital such as land and household wealth, and relational capital in the form of coalitional support and field labor. Wealth inequality is moderate for most forms of wealth, and intergenerational wealth transmission is low for material resources and moderate for embodied and relational wealth. Our analysis suggests that domestication alone does not transform social structure; rather, the presence of scarce, defensible resources may be required before inequality and wealth transmission patterns resemble the familiar pattern in more complex societies. Land ownership based on usufruct and low‐intensity cultivation, especially in the context of other economic activities such as hunting and fishing, is associated with more egalitarian wealth distributions as found among hunter‐gatherers

Conflicted Emotions Following Trust-based Interaction

We investigated whether 20 emotional states, reported by 170 participants after participating in a Trust game, were experienced in a patterned way predicted by the “Recalibrational Model” or Valence Models. According to the Recalibrational Model, new information about trust-based interaction outcomes triggers specific sets of emotions. Unlike Valence Models that predict reports of large sets of either positive or negative emotional states, the Recalibrational Model predicts the possibility of conflicted (concurrent positive and negative) emotional states. Consistent with the Recalibrational Model, we observed reports of conflicted emotional states activated after interactions where trust was demonstrated but trustworthiness was not. We discuss the implications of having conflicted goals and conflicted emotional states for both scientific and well-being pursuits

Factor graph based detection approach for high-mobility OFDM systems with large FFT modes

In this article, a novel detector design is proposed for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems over frequency selective and time varying channels. Namely, we focus on systems with large OFDM symbol lengths where design and complexity constraints have to be taken into account and many of the existing ICI reduction techniques can not be applied. We propose a factor graph (FG) based approach for maximum a posteriori (MAP) symbol detection which exploits the frequency diversity introduced by the ICI in the OFDM symbol. The proposed algorithm provides high diversity orders allowing to outperform the free-ICI performance in high-mobility scenarios with an inherent parallel structure suitable for large OFDM block sizes. The performance of the mentioned near-optimal detection strategy is analyzed over a general bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) system applying low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. The inclusion of pilot symbols is also considered in order to analyze how they assist the detection process

Promises and lies: can observers detect deception in written messages

Abstract: We design a laboratory experiment to examine predictions of trustworthiness in a novel three-person trust game. We investigate whether and why observers of the game can predict the trustworthiness of hand-written communications. Observers report their perception of the trustworthiness of messages, and make predictions about the senders’ behavior. Using observers’ decisions, we are able to classify messages as “promises” or “empty talk.” Drawing from substantial previous research, we hypothesize that certain factors influence whether a sender is likely to honor a message and/or whether an observer perceives the message as likely to behonored: the mention of money; the use of encompassing words; and message length. We find that observers have more trust in longer messages and “promises”; promises that mention money are significantly more likely to be broken; and observers trust equally in promises that do and do not mention money. Overall, observers perform slightly better than chance at predicting whether a message will be honored. We attribute this result to observers’ ability to distinguish promises from empty talk, and to trust promises more than empty talk. However, within each of these two categories, observers are unable to discern between messages that senders will honor from those that they will not

Trust-based communication in known and unknown gender interactions.

In Schniter and Shields (2019) we focus on fundamental issues of trust-based communication that may be affected by gender: the decisions whether to deliver private information and whether to trust that this delivered information is honest. Using laboratory experiments that model trust-based strategic communication and response, we examined the relationship between gender, gender stereotypes, and gender discriminative lies and challenges. We presented males and females with incentivized stereotype elicitation tasks that reveal their expectations of lies and challenges from each gender, followed by a series of strategic communication interactions within and between genders. After conclusions of those interactions, we provide participants feedback about their interactions. After having provided feedback we repeat the incentivized stereotype elicitation tasks that reveal their expectations of lies and challenges from each gender, followed by a series of strategic communication interactions within and between genders. In this companion publication, we provide the raw data generated by participants (N = 80) in the role of "Sender" and also "Receiver" in our trust-based communication experiment, interacting with others in same, unknown, and different gender groups. This data is organized into four parts (1) individual quiz and post-experiment questionnaire, (2) the senders’ reporting decisions to each group before and after feedback (3 groups x 2 feedback), (3) the receivers’ challenge decisions from each group before and after feedback (3 groups x 2 feedback), and (4) a summary of the first three files with feedback elicited beliefs and before and after feedback, along with a codebook explaining summary data. We also include a document that notes how expected earnings included in the summary file were calculated

Trust-game interactions and beliefs in continuous and "All-or-Nothing" investment action spaces.

In Gómez-Miñambres, Schniter, & Shields (2020) we conduct two between-subjects experiments to focus our research on “All-or-Nothing” options featured in many trust-based economic interactions. A fundamental issue with restricted investment action spaces is that their imposition may unintentionally affect reciprocity. Drawing from a student sample, we presented participants with an anonymous trust game. In these trust games we manipulate the investor’s action space. In the All-or-Nothing version investors can invest either “all” their endowment or “nothing”. In the other version, they can invest any amount of the endowment. In both versions, the experimenter multiplies the invested amount by three - creating potential gains from trust. Then the trustee receives this and decides how much to reciprocate to the investor. In a second experiment with another student sample we manipulate our description of the “trust game” (i.e. describing either the All-or-Nothing or Continuous version) to investigate effects on beliefs about investor trust and expectations about trustee reciprocity. This data is organized in two files, one for Experiment 1 and one for Experiment 2 described above. Each of these files has (1) a tab with the participants’ economic behavior in the experiment, and (2) a tab with a codebook explaining participants’ data

Choyero ethnobiological knowledge survey.

In 2017 and 2018, seventy-one individuals (33 females and 38 males) from 40 ranches across three Choyero communities in the Sierra de la Giganta of Baja California Sur, Mexico were presented an ethnobiological knowledge assessment task. As a first step of the task, individuals took a vision acuity test using “tumbling E” eye charts presented on a laptop computer (see TumblingE_EyeChart.pptx), a robust and easy to use diagnostic tool that is practical for populations with innumerate or analphabetic participants (Messina et al. 2006). From this test we derived a visual acuity score [1,…11]. A higher score indicates better visual acuity. The ethnobiological knowledge assessment task presented a sequence of 137 slides on a laptop computer featuring images of 87 plants and 50 animals (see EthnobiologicalKnowledgeAssessmentTool.pptx). The order of items presented was varied among participants. Assessments of ethnobiological knowledge were conducted in Spanish in the privacy of individual homes and occurred as part of a larger set of household interviews regarding ranching demography and lifestyles. These household interviews additionally informed us of individuals’ educational achievement, their ranch affiliation, and community membership. For each of 137 plant and animal images presented in sequence, the researcher (ES) asked the participant whether they recognized the item in the image. If the participant answered affirmatively, the researcher asked the follow-up question about what the item is called. Responses were recorded and coded “correctly named” if matching locally appropriate culturally correct names used for species identification (see Macfarlan et al., 2020 http://dx.doi.org/10.17632/kjds8jztzv.1). Here we provide raw data generated by seventy-one participants (33 females and 38 male). We also include a codebook that explains data types and meanings and we provide the .pptx files for tumbling E eye charts and the ethnobiological knowledge assessment task used to generate the data in this survey