Myopic loss aversion or equate-to-differentiate heuristic? A heuristic decision making model for both single and aggregated plays.

Myopic loss aversion (MLA)-a combination of myopic loss and a greater sensitivity to losses than gains-has been proposed to explain the equity premium puzzle and then extended to myopic prospect theory (MPT). However, such an expected-value/utility-based theory has been challenged and the underlying mechanism remains debatable. In the current study, we applied the modified equate-to-differentiate model to address this phenomenon. In Experiment 1, we first directly explored the relationship between individuals' degree of loss aversion and their investment amounts in risky lotteries for both single and repeated plays. We found no correlations between these variables; this was inconsistent with the MLA/MPT prediction. Experiment 2 showed that individuals' evaluation scores of the differences within the dimension (probability or outcome) that has larger differences highly predicted their investment behavior, which supported the equate-to-differentiate model.

The Influence of Top Management Team Human Capital on Sustainable Business Growth.

Traditionally, enterprises have subscribed to the belief that top management team (TMT) human capital is of great influence to a specific entity. While long being a question of interest in the field of management, the extant literature rarely discusses the impact of TMT human capital on sustainable business growth. By examining data obtained from 535 TMT members of private enterprises in Zhejiang Province PRC, and investigate the mediating effect of decision-making quality as well as the moderating effect of founder characteristics, we analyze the positive operating mechanisms of TMT human capital on sustainable business growth. Interestingly, the single most striking observation to emerge from the empirical investigation was: (1) TMT human capital has a significant positive impact on sustainable business growth; (2) decision-making quality fully mediates the relationship between TMT human capital and sustainable business growth; and (3) the more open-minded the founders, the stronger the mediating effect of decision-making quality in the relationship between TMT human capital and sustainable business growth. This research has expanded the perspective and scope of the research on TMT human capital, and its practical usage is discussed.

Facial Emotion Recognition and Polymorphisms of Dopaminergic Pathway Genes in Children with ASD.

BACKGROUND: It is inconclusive whether children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience a deficit in facial emotion recognition. The dopaminergic pathway has been implicated in the pathogenesis of ASD. This study was aimed at determining facial emotion recognition and its correlation with polymorphisms in the dopaminergic pathway genes in children with ASD. METHODS: Facial emotion recognition was examined in 98 children with ASD and 60 age- and gender-matched healthy controls. The severity of ASD was evaluated using the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS). DNA from blood cells was used to analyze the genotypes of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in dopaminergic pathway genes. SNPs of DBH rs1611115, DDC rs6592961, DRD1 rs251937, DRD2 rs4630328, and DRD3 rs167771 were analyzed. RESULTS: Children with ASD took a significantly longer time to recognize all facial emotions, and their interpretations were less accurate for anger at low intensity and fear at both low and high intensities. The severity of the disease was associated with significant delays in recognition of all facial emotions and with a decrease in accuracy in recognition of happiness and anger at low intensity. Accuracy in recognizing fear at high intensity and sadness at low intensity was associated with rs251937 and rs4630328, respectively, in children with ASD. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that SNP rs167771, response time for the recognition of happiness, sadness and fear, and accuracy in recognition of anger and fear were all associated with the risk of childhood ASD. CONCLUSIONS: Children with ASD experience a deficit in facial emotion recognition. Certain SNPs in the dopaminergic pathway genes are associated with accuracy in recognizing selective facial emotions in children with ASD.

Love at First Glance but Not After Deep Consideration: The Impact of Sexually Appealing Advertising on Product Preferences.

In advertising studies, the impact of sexually appealing advertisements (hereafter "ads") on consumers' product preferences is highly controversial. This paper explores (1) how such ads affect consumers' product preferences at the gazing stage (initial stage of exposure to the ad) and evaluation stage (final product preference), and (2) which type of product (utilitarian vs. hedonic) is more suited to such ads. We used an electroencephalogram to record participants' product preferences at the gazing stage and self-reported product preferences at the evaluation stage. The results indicated that participants preferred ads with high sex appeal at the gazing stage and ads with low sex appeal at the evaluation stage. Further, compared to utilitarian products, hedonic products were more suited to sexually appealing ads. The findings suggest that the effect of such ads on consumers' product preferences varies depending on their cognitive stage and the type of product advertised.

Individuals' economic value orientation or social equity value orientation? A dual value orientation in the process of house demolition compensation.

The development of society and the economy has given rise to housing demolition. Using the psychological perspective of reference points, this paper studied the effects of tri-reference points (TRP) and social comparison on demolition compensation fairness perception through experiments in a demolished community. According to TRP theory, there are three special reference points (minimum requirements, status quo, and goal) when people make decisions. Our research finds that there exists a dual value orientation in the demolition compensation process: before the compensation amount reaches the status quo, the individual's economic value orientation dominates; after achieving the status quo, a social equity value orientation dominates. In addition, the research results also show that demolished households pay the most attention to the minimum requirements of compensation; the fairness perception is very low below the minimum requirements, even when the compensation amount is the same or higher than that of others. Therefore, in the future implementation of compensation for demolition, the minimum requirements should be taken as the first priority. It is not necessary to arbitrarily increase the amount of compensation; it is better to set it between the status quo and the goal. Finally, ensuring that the demolished households are treated equally is very important.

Riskier for me or for others? The role of domain and probability in self-other differences, in risky decision-making.

In social and economic interactions, people often decide differently for others, as against for themselves, under situations involving risks. This sometimes leads to conflicts or contradictions. Although previous studies have explored such contradictions, the findings have been inconsistent. To reconcile these inconsistencies, this paper investigates the role played by the different domains and probabilities in the self-other differences under risk. Two groups of participants completed a gambling task combining different domains (gain vs. loss) and probabilities (small vs. large). One group made decisions for others and the other group made decisions for themselves. The results revealed a four pattern of discrepancy: the ones who made decisions for others were less risk-seeking than those who made decisions for themselves over the small probability gains. This was reversed over the large probability gains. Conversely, the participants who made decisions for others were more risk-seeking than those who made decisions for themselves over the small probability losses. The results were reversed over the large probability losses. These results reconcile the contradictory findings of the previous studies and suggest the significant role played by contextual factors in such discrepancies.

Effect of social distance on outcome evaluation in self-other decision-making: evidence from event-related potentials.

Previous studies have shown that social distance influences one's judgment at the decision-making stage, although its impact in the outcome evaluation stage, which is a vital stage in the decision-making process, is ignored. Using event-related potentials, we examined the influence of social distance on outcome feedback by requiring participants to make decisions for themselves, their friends, or strangers. Increased social distance reduced the feedback-related negativity amplitude in the early stage of outcome evaluation and reduced the P300 amplitude in the late stage of outcome evaluation. These results provide evidence for the power of social distance in decreasing motivation, emotional arousal, and cognitive investment in the outcome evaluation stage.

Similar Effects for Resting State and Unconscious Thought: Both Solve Multi-attribute Choices Better Than Conscious Thought.

When people have headaches, they put their work aside and do other things. When they return, their decisions may be better, resulting in more satisfaction than if they had contemplated their choices consciously. Researchers have proposed the "deliberation-without-attention" hypothesis to discover whether it is always advantageous to engage in conscious deliberation before making a choice. Unconscious thinking can optimize people's behavioral decision-making in a complex environment and improve their satisfaction with their choices. As previous studies have not used a resting state (RS), another kind of unconscious thinking, this paper adds the RS to unconscious thinking during distracting tasks, unconscious and conscious joint thinking, and conscious thinking conditions, to study the unconscious thought effect and decision-making performance in four different thinking modes. We performed three experiments involving a choice of jobs, using two ways of presenting information, to check the unconscious effect and compare the decision-making performance of different thinking patterns. The results show that RS and unconscious thinking have similar effects, while people's decision-making performance differs in different thinking modes.

Self-Distancing Reduces Probability-Weighting Biases.

We have abundant evidence that people exhibit biases in weighting probability information. The current study aims to examine whether self-distancing would reduce these biases. Participants in this study were instructed to use either a self-distancing or a self-immersing strategy to regulate their reasoning when they indicated their valuations of different lotteries. The results show that, compared to the baseline group, participants in the self-distancing group exhibited less distortion in the probability-weighting function, while those in the self-immersing group exhibited more distortion. These results offer evidence for the power of self-distancing in reducing probability-weighting biases.

The Influence of the Tri-reference Points on Fairness and Satisfaction Perception.

We examined the influence of three reference points (minimum requirements [MR], the status quo [SQ], and goal [G]) proposed by the tri-reference point (TRP) theory on fairness and satisfaction perceptions of pay in three laboratory experiments. To test the effects, we manipulated these three reference points both implicitly (Experiment 1) and explicitly (Experiments 2 and 3). We also provided the information of the salary offered to a peer person that was lower than, equal to, or higher than the salary offer to the participant. As hypothesized, the results demonstrated the important role of these reference points in judging the fairness of and satisfaction with pay when they were explicitly set (an interaction between reference points and social comparison in Experiments 2 and 3, but not in Experiment 1). Participants altered their judgments when the salary was in different regions. When the salary was below MR, participants perceived very low fairness and satisfaction, even when the offer was equal to/exceeded others. When the salary was above G, participants perceived much higher fairness and satisfaction, even with disadvantageous inequality. Participants were more impacted when they were explicitly instructed of the reference points (Experiments 2 and 3) than when they were not (Experiment 1). Moreover, MR appeared to be the most important, followed by G. A Salary below MR was judged as very unacceptable, with very low fairness and satisfaction ratings.

Use of Electroencephalography for the Study of Gain-Loss Asymmetry in Intertemporal Decision-Making.

Intertemporal decision-making refers to the process whereby an individual evaluates and selects among competing alternatives based on the cost and benefit over time. While most previous studies on temporal discounting focused their attention on the gain context, only a few explored the loss context. In the present study, both the event-related potentials (ERPs) and the graph theory analysis were employed to investigate the differences in intertemporal decision-making between the gain and loss frameworks. Our results suggested that participants preferred the short latency/small amount (SS) alternatives and exhibited a smaller discount rate in a loss context compared to a gain framework. Furthermore, our ERP data indicated that the P200 component could constitute a preliminary assessment of the decision-making, related to gain and loss. In contrast, the N2 component was associated with negative emotions and showed significantly bigger amplitudes in the loss context, when compared to the gain framework. Further analyses of brain networks suggested the loss decision-making brain network to have a larger small-worldness index given individuals' loss aversion. Taken together, intertemploral decision-making in a loss context was accompanied by a greater brain response due to the negative emotions linked to loss aversion.

A study of single nucleotide polymorphisms in CD157, AIM2 and JARID2 genes in Han Chinese children with autism spectrum disorder.

PURPOSE: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a group of developmental brain disorders caused by genetic and environmental factors. The objective of this study was to investigate whether single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in genes related to immune function were associated with ASD in Chinese Han children. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 201 children with ASD and 200 age- and gender-matched healthy controls were recruited from September 2012 to June 2106. A TaqMan probe-based approach was used to genotype SNPs corresponding to rs28532698 and rs4301112 in CD157, rs855867 in AIM2, and rs2237126 in JARID2. Case-control and case-only studies were performed to determine the contribution of SNPs to the predisposition of disease and its severity, respectively. RESULTS: Our results revealed that the genotypes and allele frequencies of these SNPs were not significantly associated with childhood ASD and its severity in this population. CONCLUSIONS: Results of our study suggest that these SNPs are not predictors of childhood ASD in the Chinese Han population. The discrepant results suggest the predictor roles of SNPs have to be determined in different ethnic populations due to genetic heterogeneity of ASD.

Eyeglasses elicit effects similar to face-like perceptual expertise: evidence from the N170 response.

Studies of event-related potentials show that the specific N170 response has become a stable electrophysiological hallmark of objects related to expertise in early perceptual processing. In the present study, we investigated whether eyeglasses can elicit N170 effects similar to those elicited by objects of expertise. Our results showed that the N170 response elicited by eyeglasses was larger than the response elicited by objects that do not generate perceptual expertise (e.g., houses). Importantly, we found that eyeglasses could produce a within-category N170 adaptation effect, similar to that produced in response to objects of expertise (e.g., faces). Our results have revealed for the first time that with a large amount of experience, eyeglasses could evoke the face-like N170 response, which suggested that eyeglasses may become an object of perceptual expertise to some human observers.

The effects of attention pre-allocation and target-background integration on object-based attention.

Object-based attention has been documented as an important mechanism with which to control attention in several studies. To date, two main hypotheses have been proposed to interpret object-based attention: attention spreading and prioritization of search. There is evidence that supports these hypotheses in the literature. In the present study, we sought to compare these two hypotheses systematically by manipulating two factors: the integration of the target and background and the presence of attention pre-allocation. For this purpose, we used a flanker task in which the location of the task-relevant target was fixed, but the relationship between the target and the background varied. In addition, attention pre-allocation was presented in only half of the conditions. The results revealed that the attention spreading hypothesis was supported only when attention was not pre-allocated and target-background integration was high; however, the prioritization hypothesis was supported in all other conditions. Our findings provide insight into the comparisons of the attention spreading and prioritization hypotheses. Furthermore, our findings suggest that attention resources may be the underlying factor determining appropriate strategy in the control of attention.

The asymmetric distribution of informative face information during gender recognition.

Recognition of the gender of a face is important in social interactions. In the current study, the distribution of informative facial information was systematically examined during gender judgment using two methods, Bubbles and Focus windows techniques. Two experiments found that the most informative information was around the eyes, followed by the mouth and nose. Other parts of the face contributed to the gender recognition but were less important. The left side of the face was used more during gender recognition in two experiments. These results show mainly areas around the eyes are used for gender judgment and demonstrate perceptual asymmetry with a normal (non-chimeric) face.