Individuals who have done good deeds sometimes try to conceal them. However, it has been understudied what factors shape individuals' concealment of prosociality. We address this question by adopting a socio-ecological perspective to investigate what societal factors may facilitate or hinder concealment of prosociality. We hypothesize that lower relational mobility, or less freedom of relational choice in society, will be associated with less positive and more negative expected reputations when one's prosociality is publicized, which, in turn, will predict a higher tendency among individuals to conceal prosociality. Across a cross-sectional survey (Study 1) and an experiment (Study 2) (N = 531), although the total effect of relational mobility was not significant, mediation analyses consistently showed that lower relational mobility was associated with a more negative expected reputation and, in turn, a higher likelihood of concealing prosociality. These findings underscore the significant role of social ecology in shaping individuals' decisions to actively hide their prosocial acts via the expected cost of its publicity, offering insights into the complexities of reputation management and human behaviour.
To achieve Cambodia's fiscal policy goals of generating national revenue and providing public services, it is necessary to understand the willingness of street-level tax officials to implement the country's value-added tax policy for e-commerce. To analyse these officials' willingness to implement the new tax policy, this study develops a three-factor model based on the following: What is implemented, how is it implemented, and who implements it? This model is tested using survey data collected from frontline tax officials of the Cambodian Tax Authority. The findings indicate that societal meaninglessness, client meaninglessness, discretion, and rule obedience influence officials' willingness to implement the tax policy. Additionally, tax officials' knowledge plays an important role in policy implementation. This study contributes to the literature on public street-level bureaucracy by providing empirical evidence regarding the multifaceted determinants of tax policy implementation in developing countries.
In this study, we synthesised a novel alkyl sulphonated polyimide (ASPI) using an aliphatic dianhydride monomer containing cyclobutane moiety (ASPI-7-H), and investigated influence of backbone conformation of aliphatic ASPIs on proton conductivity and supramolecular channel formation. Molecular simulations revealed that ASPI-7-H adopted distorted backbone geometry, distinct from reported rigid or bent aliphatic ASPIs. Polymer backbone in ASPI-7-H thin film was aligned parallel to the substrate. Moreover, ASPI-7-H thin film formed an anisotropic supramolecular lamellar structure upon humidification, resulting in high proton conductivity of 9.0 & times; 10-2 S cm-1 at 298 K and 95% relative humidity. Compared with other aliphatic ASPIs, higher water uptake was required to induce lamellar structure formation, reflecting distorted backbone. Obtained results demonstrate that while lyotropic liquid-crystalline behaviour is governed by multiple factors, including backbone rigidity, hydration, and degree of supramolecular organisation, backbone rigidity plays a key role in modulating hydration threshold and continuity of transport pathways.
The sense of agency refers to the feeling of control over one’s actions in the environment. It is typically thought to arise from comparisons between predicted action outcomes and actual sensory feedback. However, previous studies have shown that, in addition to this error detection process, a process that detects regularities between sensory input and one’s actions is also involved in the emergence of the sense of agency. It remains unclear whether these distinct perceptual processes share a common metacognitive monitoring system. We addressed this question using a control change detection task, in which participants moved a single dot on a screen and judged whether their control over the dot changed during the trial, along with their confidence in each response. Detection of a decrease in control is expected to engage the error detection process underlying the sense of agency, whereas detection of an increase in control is expected to engage the regularity detection process. Across two experiments, the results showed that detection of decreases in control was more accurate than detection of increases, whereas the m-ratio did not differ between conditions. These findings suggest that the processes underlying the detection of increases and decreases in control are distinct, but may rely on a shared metacognitive monitoring system.
The financial instability hypothesis of the heterodox economist H.P. Minsky came to the fore as a result of the international financial crisis triggered by the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the U.S. Many post-Keynesian economists have developed Minsky’s arguments into mathematical models that depict two types of Minskyian financial structures, which we identify as the lenders’ risk type (LR) and the hedge, speculative, and Ponzi type (HSP). We examine the effects of monetary and fiscal policy in macrodynamic models that consider both the LR and HSP financial structures and demonstrate that the effects depend on the significance of those structures. We emphasize the significance of stable financial structures and the mix of monetary and fiscal policies needed to stabilize the economy. However, we show that the policy mix cannot completely eliminate the fragility of the HSP financial structure. It is crucial to establish institutional frameworks that mitigate the HSP financial structure’s fragility.
