Mathematically Gifted Adolescents Have Deficiencies in Social Valuation and Mentalization

Many mathematically gifted adolescents are characterized as being indolent, underachieving and unsuccessful despite their high cognitive ability. This is often due to difficulties with social and emotional development. However, research on social and emotional interactions in gifted adolescents has been limited. The purpose of this study was to observe differences in complex social strategic behaviors between gifted and average adolescents of the same age using the repeated Ultimatum Game. Twenty-two gifted adolescents and 24 average adolescents participated in the Ultimatum Game. Two adolescents participate in the game, one as a proposer and the other as a responder. Because of its simplicity, the Ultimatum Game is an apt tool for investigating complex human emotional and cognitive decision-making in an empirical setting. We observed strategic but socially impaired offers from gifted proposers and lower acceptance rates from gifted responders, resulting in lower total earnings in the Ultimatum Game. Thus, our results indicate that mathematically gifted adolescents have deficiencies in social valuation and mentalization

Action Being Character: A Promising Perspective on the Solution Concept of Game Theory

The inconsistency of predictions from solution concepts of conventional game theory with experimental observations is an enduring question. These solution concepts are based on the canonical rationality assumption that people are exclusively self-regarding utility maximizers. In this article, we think this assumption is problematic and, instead, assume that rational economic agents act as if they were maximizing their implicit utilities, which turns out to be a natural extension of the canonical rationality assumption. Implicit utility is defined by a player's character to reflect his personal weighting between cooperative, individualistic, and competitive social value orientations. The player who actually faces an implicit game chooses his strategy based on the common belief about the character distribution for a general player and the self-estimation of his own character, and he is not concerned about which strategies other players will choose and will never feel regret about his decision. It is shown by solving five paradigmatic games, the Dictator game, the Ultimatum game, the Prisoner's Dilemma game, the Public Goods game, and the Battle of the Sexes game, that the framework of implicit game and its corresponding solution concept, implicit equilibrium, based on this alternative assumption have potential for better explaining people's actual behaviors in social decision making situations

Reciprocity as a foundation of financial economics

This paper argues that the subsistence of the fundamental theorem of contemporary financial mathematics is the ethical concept ‘reciprocity’. The argument is based on identifying an equivalence between the contemporary, and ostensibly ‘value neutral’, Fundamental Theory of Asset Pricing with theories of mathematical probability that emerged in the seventeenth century in the context of the ethical assessment of commercial contracts in a framework of Aristotelian ethics. This observation, the main claim of the paper, is justified on the basis of results from the Ultimatum Game and is analysed within a framework of Pragmatic philosophy. The analysis leads to the explanatory hypothesis that markets are centres of communicative action with reciprocity as a rule of discourse. The purpose of the paper is to reorientate financial economics to emphasise the objectives of cooperation and social cohesion and to this end, we offer specific policy advice

Rationality versus reality: the challenges of evidence-based decision making for health policy makers

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Current healthcare systems have extended the evidence-based medicine (EBM) approach to health policy and delivery decisions, such as access-to-care, healthcare funding and health program continuance, through attempts to integrate valid and reliable evidence into the decision making process. These policy decisions have major impacts on society and have high personal and financial costs associated with those decisions. Decision models such as these function under a shared assumption of rational choice and utility maximization in the decision-making process.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>We contend that health policy decision makers are generally unable to attain the basic goals of evidence-based decision making (EBDM) and evidence-based policy making (EBPM) because humans make decisions with their naturally limited, faulty, and biased decision-making processes. A cognitive information processing framework is presented to support this argument, and subtle cognitive processing mechanisms are introduced to support the focal thesis: health policy makers' decisions are influenced by the subjective manner in which they individually process decision-relevant information rather than on the objective merits of the evidence alone. As such, subsequent health policy decisions do not necessarily achieve the goals of evidence-based policy making, such as maximizing health outcomes for society based on valid and reliable research evidence.</p> <p>Summary</p> <p>In this era of increasing adoption of evidence-based healthcare models, the rational choice, utility maximizing assumptions in EBDM and EBPM, must be critically evaluated to ensure effective and high-quality health policy decisions. The cognitive information processing framework presented here will aid health policy decision makers by identifying how their decisions might be subtly influenced by non-rational factors. In this paper, we identify some of the biases and potential intervention points and provide some initial suggestions about how the EBDM/EBPM process can be improved.</p

Unfairness, anger, and spite: Emotional rejections of ultimatum offers

This paper addresses an anomaly in experimental economics, the rejection of ultimatum offers, and uses a psychological explanation for this essentially economic event, The wounded pride/spite model predicts that informed, knowledgeable respondents may react to small ultimatum offers by perceiving them as unfair, feeling anger; and acting spitefully. Results of a large scale experiment support the model, showing that rejections were most frequent when respondents could evaluate the fairness of their offers and attribute responsibility to offerers. In addition, anger was a better explanation of the rejections than perceptions that the offers were unfair. The discussion addresses the rarely studied but frequently observed emotions that negotiations provoke. (C) 1996 Academic Press