In the prison subculture, informal institutions have spontaneously evolved to mitigate levels of violence and potential confrontations between inmates. First, rookies (new prisoners) are subjected to initiation tests, which try to measure their rigidity (bravery) and cunning (intelligence) and assign to the appropriate subcultural group. Membership in a group of grypsmen signals the rigidity of prisoners and discourages fighting between the grypsmen or the resistance from members of lower groups. Experienced prisoners perfect eristics within the framework of prison argot, which allows them to turn real confl icts into verbal duels, use informal arbitration and learn to pretend aggression towards freshmen. All prisoners are trying to join the defensive coalitions. Inmates also perform spectacular self-injuries in accordance with secret procedures, faking desperation, but in fact minimizing damage to health and trying to get some benefi ts from the prosecutor or prison authorities. The collected empirical material comes from the prisons in Warsaw (Rakowiecka) and Białołęka, where the author spent fi ve months in 1985 as a political prisoner.
Though I had hired chambers in the fort and a house in Girgaum, God would not let me settle down.Scarcely had I moved into my new house when my second son Manilal, who had already been through an acute attack of smallpox some years back, had a severe attack of typhoid, combined with pneumonia and signs of delirium at night.The doctor was called in.He said medicine would have little effect, but eggs and chicken broth might be given with profi t.Manilal was only ten years old.To consult his wishes was out of the question.Being his guardian I had to decide.The doctor was a very good Parsi.I told him that we were all vegetarians and that I could not possibly give either of the two things to my son.Would he therefore recommend something else? ‚Your son's life is in danger,' said the good doctor.‚We could give him milk diluted with water, but that will not give him enough nourishment.As you know, I am called in by many Hindu families, and they do not object to anything I prescribe.I think you will be well advised not to be so hard on your son.' ‚What you say is quite right,' said I. ‚As a doctor you could not do otherwise.But my responsibility is very great.If the boy had been grown up, I should certainly have tried to ascertain his wishes and respected them.But here I have to think and decide for him.To my mind it is only on such occasions, that a man's faith is truly tested Rightly or wrongly it is part of my religious conviction that man may not eat meat, eggs, and the like.There should be a limit even means of keeping ourselves alive.Even for itself we may not so certain things.Religion, as I understand it, does not permit me to use meat or eggs for me or mine even on occasions like this, and I must therefore take the risk that you say is likely.But I beg of you one thing.As I cannot avail myself of your treatment, I propose to try some hydropathic remedies which I happen to know.But I shall not know how to examine the boy's pulse, chest, lungs, etc.If you will kindly look in from time to time to examine him and keep me informed of his condition, I shall be grateful to you.
The primacy effect has long been considered a decisive factor in determining election outcomes and has consequently developed a robust literature dedicated to studying it in different scenarios and contexts. However, existing research has offered limited insight into how the choice of voting method, particularly by-mail voting, may infl uence its impact on elections by altering how and when voters participate. This article fi rst reviews why the primacy effect exists, how researchers identify its infl uence, and its overall impact on election outcomes. It then discusses why the use of by-mail voting should be expected to alter the primacy effect, and analyzes two works where this relationship has been explored. Their results highlight several of the issues faced when trying to examine this relationship, but also indicate that further study is warranted and likely to be fruitful.
The main aim of this study is to replicate the effect shown by Traczyk et al. (2018), where individuals with higher statistical numeracy, compared to individuals with lower statistical numeracy, employed a more effortful choice strategy when outcomes were meaningful. I hypothesize that participants with higher numeracy will be more likely to make choices predicted by Cumulative Prospect Theory and Expected Value theory (CPT/EV) in high-payoff problems than in low-payoff problems. Data collection was done online by appointing 73 participants. Participants’ preference, fluid intelligence, objective and subjective numeracy were measured using thirteen high and eleven low payoff choice problems, International Cognitive Ability Resource (ICAR), Berlin Numeracy Test (BNT), and Subjective Numeracy Scale (SNS), respectively. All the measures mentioned above were presented randomly. Results showed that all participants, in high-payoff condition, on average maximized EV; however, participants with high BNT scores were more likely to make choices consistent with CPT/EV predictions than individuals with low BNT scores. Furthermore, compared to less numerate participants, highly numerate participants were less likely to make choices consistent with CPT/EV predictions in low-payoff condition. Highly numerate individuals adjusted their choice strategy by modulating their response time, indicating their discernible sensitivity towards large asymmetry in payoff. In conclusion, the effect shown by Traczyk et al. (2018) was successfully replicated.
Z sylwetki Gary'ego Beckera, która niedawno została opublikowana na łamach czasopisma "Decyzje", dowiadujemy się, że "Sednem podejścia ekonomicznego Beckera są trzy założenia, które konsekwentnie przyjmował i których nigdy nie porzucił: o maksymalizacji użyteczności, o istnieniu stabilnych preferencji decydenta oraz o dążeniu rynku do stanu równowagi" (Domurat, 2020, s. 97
The text supplements the article by S. Linder and contains information about research on the primacy effect in Poland. The subject of J. Raciborski’s analyzes were elections to national councils (local government bodies) in 1988 – the last elections before the fall of communism in Poland, elections to the Sejm in 1989 and 1991. T. Żółtak investigated the existence of the primacy effect in the elections to the Senate in 1991-2007. However, the primacy effect in the 2014 regional elections was of greatest political importance. The strength of this effect was measured by J. Flis. Analyzes were also carried out on the effect of a candidate’s position on the party semi-open list in proportional elections. However, this is a completely different issue, as in this case the position on the list is related to the actual political weight of the candidate. In Poland, the relationship of the primacy effect with postal elections has never been studied, which results from the marginal importance of the latter, as well as the procedures used in elections, which prevent a separate analysis of the content of votes cast by post and at the polling station.
Na gruncie teorii proces podejmowania decyzji jest rozpatrywany z dwóch punktów widzenia.W pierwszym przypadku szuka się metod dochodzenia do rozstrzygnięć optymalnych,
This paper proposes a correction to the Flis-Słomczyński-Stolicki (2019, 2020) formula for countries with large variation among their districts in terms of political divisions. The Flis-Słomczyński-Stolicki formula (FSS formula) estimates seat allocations under the Jefferson-D’Hondt method by using national vote shares, as well as other parameters that are often readily available. However, the FSS formula does not yield precise estimates in those countries where there are independent candidates, special rights assigned to minority parties, signifi cant variation in district sizes, or an unequal distribution of votes due to ethnic or other regional divisions. Hence, I propose dividing the national distribution of votes into regions that satisfy the assumptions of the FSS formula within their district borders. By applying the FSS formula to regions consisting of historically and politically homogenous districts, I demonstrate that the formula’s estimates become signifi cantly more precise. For instance, by applying the regional correction to the 2018 Turkish Parliamentary elections, as well as other Turkish elections between 2007 and 2015, I show that the formula with the correction in three separate regions improves the Loosemore-Hanby goodness of fi t estimates from 2.1 to 3.41 percentage points (95% CI). Thus, the correction might signifi cantly improve the estimates of the FSS formula in various countries, including Spain, Peru, and Belgium.
Before the parliamentary elections in 2018, the ruling party in Turkey, AKP, introduced a new apparentement provision in the electoral law, which allowed parties to make electoral alliances in order to meet the electoral threshold. We claim that this was an ex post mistake. AKP’s electoral engineering was motivated by their fear that its coalition partner, MHP, would not exceed the 10% threshold. While MHP actually met the threshold in the election, the opposition party, İP, failed to do so. Thanks to the new law, the votes for İP were not wasted, as would have happened under the old law. AKP less than 50% of seats and it consequently lost the parliamentary majority. Under the old electoral law, AKP would have won the majority. We use four alternative scenarios in order to estimate the seats and evaluate the political consequences of the unsuccessful electoral manipulation
Dlaczego kolejne pokolenia spędzają w szkole więcej czasu niż poprzednie?Dlaczego, wbrew przewidywaniom Malthusa,
This paper analyzes the French and the Vietnamese versions of the TV game show “The Price is Right”, using data from 130 episodes. We focus on the bidding game, covering 434 rounds and 1,736 bids. We document that players deviate signifi cantly from what is predicted by the model of rational expectations, especially in the French population. Moreover, Vietnamese fourth bidders are found to win more frequently than their French counterparts in spite of using strategic bids less often. We attribute these results to cultural reasons. Contestants from the collectivistic, uncertainty-tolerant culture (i.e., Vietnam) are more reluctant to engage in strategic bidding than individuals from the individualistic, uncertainty-avoidant culture (i.e., France). However, Vietnamese contestants pay more attention to the estimates of the previous players and thus make a better use of the informational advantage inherent to the sequential nature of the game. Overall, our evidence suggests that culture is an important omitted variable in studies that examine cross-country differences in decision-making.
The main goal of this research was to investigate whether people exhibit algorithm aversion—a tendency to avoid using an imperfect algorithm even if it outperforms human judgments—in the case of estimating students’ percentile scores on a standardized math test. We also explored the relationships between numeracy and algorithm aversion and tested two interventions aimed at reducing algorithm aversion. In two studies, we asked participants to estimate the percentiles of 46 real 15-year-old Polish students on a standardized math test. Participants were offered the opportunity to compare their estimates with the forecasts of an algorithm—a statistical model that predicted real percentile scores based on fi ve explanatory variables (i.e., gender, repeating a class, the number of pages read before the exam, the frequency of playing online games, socioeconomic status). Across two studies, we demonstrated that even though the predictions of the statistical model were closer to students’ percentile scores, participants were less likely to rely on the statistical model predictions in making forecasts. We also found that higher statistical numeracy was related to a higher reluctance to use the algorithm. In Study 2, we introduced two interventions to reduce algorithm aversion. Depending on the experimental condition, participants either received feedback on statistical model predictions or were provided with a detailed description of the statistical model. We found that people, especially those with higher statistical numeracy, avoided using the imperfect algorithm even though it outperformed human judgments. Interestingly, a simple intervention that explained how the statistical model works led to better performance in an estimation task
