A quantum geometric model of similarity

No other study has had as great an impact on the development of the similarity literature as that of Tversky (1977), which provided compelling demonstrations against all the fundamental assumptions of the popular, and extensively employed, geometric similarity models. Notably, similarity judgments were shown to violate symmetry and the triangle inequality, and also be subject to context effects, so that the same pair of items would be rated differently, depending on the presence of other items. Quantum theory provides a generalized geometric approach to similarity and can address several of Tversky’s (1997) main findings. Similarity is modeled as quantum probability, so that asymmetries emerge as order effects, and the triangle equality violations and the diagnosticity effect can be related to the context-dependent properties of quantum probability. We so demonstrate the promise of the quantum approach for similarity and discuss the implications for representation theory in general

Class Politics in the Sandbox? An Analysis of the Socio‐Economic Determinants of Preferences Towards Public Spending and Parental Fees for Childcare

This article analyses the socio‐economic determinants of public preferences towards public spending and parental fees for childcare and how they are conditioned by institutional contexts. Previous studies of childcare policy preferences have focused on attitudes regarding the provision of care. However, when it comes to questions of financing, we know astonishingly little about how supportive individuals actually are of expanding pre‐school early childhood education and care, and how support varies across different socio‐economic groups in society. This is an important research gap because childcare provision and how it is financed have redistributive implications, which vary depending on the institutional design of childcare policy. Using novel and unique survey data on childcare preferences from eight European countries, we argue and show that preferences towards expanding childcare are more contested than it is often assumed. The institutional structure of childcare shapes how income matters for preferences towards how much should be spent and how provision should be financed. Where access to childcare is socially stratified, the poor and the rich develop different preferences towards either increasing public spending or reducing parental fees in order to improve their access to childcare. The findings in this article suggest that expanding childcare in systems characterised by unequal access can be politically contested due to diverging policy priorities of individuals from different social backgrounds

Fiscal Policy Preferences, Trade-Offs, and Support for Social Investment

A common finding in the literature is that social investment policies are broadly popularamong citizens but still politically difficult to implement. This article provides a partialanswer to this puzzle by exploring the fiscal trade-offs associated with such a recalibration.Based on survey data from eight Western European countries, it first explores citizens’fiscal policy preferences with regard to the preferred size of the public sector and the distributionof spending across different subsectors. These preferences are then shown to besignificantly associated with attitudes towards fiscal trade-offs regarding the expansion ofsocial investment policies. The results reveal a political dilemma for policy-makers keen onexpanding social investment: People who traditionally support a large public sector andmore welfare state spending tend to oppose redistributing spending towards social investment,whereas support for such a recalibration is higher among those who have a scepticalview on public spending.Introduction Theoretical framework Empirical analysis Conclusion Supplementary material Data Availability Statement Footnotes Reference

The politics of opting out: explaining educational financing and popular support for public spending

In this paper, we address two empirical puzzles: Why are cross-country differences in the division of labour between public and private education funding so large and why are they politically sustainable in the long term? We argue that electoral institutions play a crucial role in shaping politico-economic distributive coalitions that affected the original division of labour in education financing. In proportional representation systems, the lower and middle classes formed a coalition supporting the establishment of a system with a large share of public funding. In majoritarian systems, in contrast, the middle class voters aligned with the upper income class and supported private education spending instead. Once established, institutional arrangements create feedback effects on the micro-level of attitudes, reinforcing political support even among upper middle classes in public systems. These hypotheses are tested empirically both on the micro level of preferences as well as on the macro level with aggregate data and survey data from the ISSP for 20 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries.Governmen

A quantum theoretical explanation for probability judgment errors

A quantum probability model is introduced and used to explain human probability judgment errors including the conjunction, disjunction, inverse, and conditional fallacies, as well as unpacking effects and partitioning effects. Quantum probability theory is a general and coherent theory based on a set of (von Neumann) axioms which relax some of the constraints underlying classic (Kolmogorov) probability theory. The quantum model is compared and contrasted with other competing explanations for these judgment errors including the representativeness heuristic, the averaging model, and a memory retrieval model for probability judgments. The quantum model also provides ways to extend Bayesian, fuzzy set, and fuzzy trace theories. We conclude that quantum information processing principles provide a viable and promising new way to understand human judgment and reasoning

Public Opinion towards Welfare State Reform: The Role of Political Trust and Government Satisfaction

The traditional welfare state, which emerged as a response to industrialization, is not well equipped toaddress the challenges of today’s post-industrial knowledge economies. Experts and policymakers have thereforecalled for welfare state readjustment towards a ‘social investment’ model (focusing on human skills and capabilities).Under what conditions are citizens willing to accept such future-oriented reforms? We point at the crucialbut hitherto neglected role of citizens’ trust in and satisfaction with government. Trust and satisfaction matterbecause future-oriented reforms generate uncertainties, risks and costs, which trust and government satisfactioncan attenuate. We offer micro-level causal evidence using experiments in a representative survey covering eightEuropean countries and confirm these findings with European Social Survey data for 22 countries. We find thattrust and government satisfaction increase reform support and moderate the effects of self-interest and ideologicalstandpoints. These findings have crucial implications not least because they help explain why some countriesmanage – but others fail – to enact important reforms.Introduction Under what conditions do citizens accept reforms? Why governmental trust and satisfaction affect support for future-oriented welfare state reforms Research design Study 1: Three survey experiments in eight countries Findings Study 2: ESS survey Findings Concluding discussion Acknowledgements Supporting information Reference