Behavior in a dynamic decision problem: An analysis of experimental evidence using a bayesian type classification algorithm

It has been long recognized that different people may use different strategies, or decision rules, when playing games or dealing with other complex decision problems. We provide a new Bayesian procedure for drawing inferences about the nature and number of decision rules that are present in a population of agents. We show that the algorithm performs well in both a Monte Carlo study and in an empirical application. We apply our procedure to analyze the actual behavior of subjects who are confronted with a difficult dynamic stochastic decision problem in a laboratory setting. The procedure does an excellent job of grouping the subjects into easily interpretable types. Given the difficultly of the decision problem, we were surprised to find that nearly a third of subjects were a “Near Rational” type that played a good approximation to the optimal decision rule. More than 40% of subjects followed a rule that we describe as “fatalistic,” since they play as if they don’t appreciate the extent to which payoffs are a controlled stochastic process. And about a quarter of the subjects are classified as “Confused,” since they play the game quite poorly. Interestingly, we find that those subjects who practiced most before playing the game for money were the most likely to play poorly. Thus, lack of effort does not seem to account for poor performance. It is our hope that, in future work, our type classification algorithm will facilitate the positive analysis of peoples’ behavior in many types of complex decision problems.behavioral experiments type-classification bayesian

Spatial Mobility and Cultural Capital: Latino Students at Emma Elementary

[2009 Undergraduate Prize Winner] Using participant-observer methodology, I studied Latino students at a Buncombe County, NC, elementary school in the months of February through April 2007, looking for qualities of relationship formation and interaction as mediated by three principles – spatial mobility, cultural capital, and social proximity. These three dynamics were used to analyze the distinct environments of the classroom, lunch, and recess and explain motives as well as tendencies in the students’ interactions. The amount of social proximity and the necessity for cultural capital were found to be in an inverse relationship with the amount of spatial mobility available. The varying levels of these dynamics in the different environments dictated with whom fifth grade Latino boys engaged in interactions. The interactions were highly stylized and demonstrated power, as well as linguistic, dynamics. However, significant demonstrations of racial prejudice were not expressed

The removal of the Potawatomi Indians : 1820 to the trail of death

Not Available.Michael A. McCabeNot ListedNot ListedMaster of ArtsDepartment Not ListedCunningham Memorial Library, Terre Haute, Indiana State Universityisua-thesis-1960-mccabeMastersTitle from document title page. Document formatted into pages: 101p. :ill. Includes a bibliography

Evangelicalism and the socialist revival: a study of religion, community and culture in nineteenth century Airdrie

This thesis explores the relationship between Evangelicalism and the Socialist Revival by way of a study of religion, community and culture in the Scottish town of Airdrie, 1790-1914. Chapter One presents an overview of Evangelicalism in the nineteenth century. The links between Evangelicalism and the Socialist Revival are discussed in Chapter Two where it is argued that Socialist Revivalism, especially as manifest by the Independent Labour Party, was a product of Evangelical-mission culture. Chapter Three looks at the development of Airdrie as a weaving community from the 1790s to 1820s, and Chapter Four examines the role of Evangelicalism and dissent in the construction of community and culture in weaving Airdrie. Chapters Five and Six outline the transformation of Airdrie from a weaving to an industrial town. As in introductory survey of the space that religion occupied in Airdrie from the 1820s, Chapter Seven paves the way for detailed examination, in Chapters Eight and Nine, of the continuing importance of Evangelicalism and dissent in shaping community and culture at Airdrie during the 1830s and 1840s. Chapter Ten considers the impact of the Disruption and of the 1859 revival in Airdrie, and suggests that these events consolidated the burgh's Evangelical Protestant and dissenting identity. Chapter Eleven outlines the development of Airdrie during the late nineteenth-early twentieth centuries and examines the efforts of the ILP to establish a foothold in the town. It is argued that the failure of the ILP in Airdrie was as much a consequence of the embeddedness of Evangelicalism and dissent in local culture as of party political or organisational weakness. Chapter Twelve brings this argument to a conclusion through a consideration of the diffusion of Evangelicalism throughout Airdrie's rich associational culture. It is suggested that because the ILP was competing in Airdrie as just one more Evangelical-revivalist organisation against other, older, better-established Evangelical organisations, its progress was hindered. There was no room for it in Airdrie's Evangelical-mission culture

HEURISTICS USED BY HUMANS WITH PREFRONTAL CORTEX DAMAGE: TOWARD AN EMPIRICAL MODEL OF PHINEAS GAGE

In many research contexts it is necessary to group experimental subjects into behavioral “types.” Usually, this is done by pre-specifying a set of candidate decision-making heuristics and then assigning each subject to the heuristic that best describes his/her behavior. Such approaches might not perform well when used to explain the behavior of subjects with prefrontal cortex damage. The reason is that introspection is typically used to generate the candidate heuristic set, but this procedure is likely to fail when applied to the decision-making strategies of subjects with brain damage. This research uses the type classification approach introduced by Houser, Keane and McCabe (2002) to investigate the heuristics used by subjects in the gambling experiment (Bechara, Damasio, Damasio and Anderson, 1994). An advantage of our classification approach is that it does not require us to specify the nature of subjects’ heuristics in advance. Rather, both the number and nature of the heuristics used are discerned directly from the experimental data. Our sample includes normal subjects, as well as subjects with damage to the ventromedial (VM) area of the prefrontal cortex. Subjects are “clustered” according to similarities in their heuristic, and this clustering does not preclude some normal and VM subjects from using the same decision rule. Our results are consistent with what others have found in subsequent experimentation with VM patients.experiments, heuristics, neuroeconomics, behavioral economics