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A rational economic analysis complements Grossmann's fearful ape hypothesis. Two examples of mixed-motive games with strong inter-dependence (i.e., weak chirping nestling, boxed pigs) demonstrate that signaling weakness is a dominant strategy. Weakness elicits cooperative, caring response, comprising the equilibrium of the game. In extensive form, a reliable reputation of weakness elicits caring as a sequential equilibrium.

External enforcement policies aimed to reduce violations differ on two key components: the probability of inspection and the severity of the punishment. Different lines of research offer different insights regarding the relative importance of each component. In four studies, students and Prolific crowdsourcing participants (N(total) = 816) repeatedly faced temptations to commit violations under two enforcement policies. Controlling for expected value, we found that a policy combining a high probability of inspection with a low severity of fines (HILS) was more effective than an economically equivalent policy that combined a low probability of inspection with a high severity of fines (LIHS). The advantage of prioritizing inspection frequency over punishment severity (HILS over LIHS) was greater for participants who, in the absence of enforcement, started out with a higher violation rate. Consistent with studies of decisions from experience, frequent enforcement with small fines was more effective than rare severe fines even when we announced the severity of the fine in advance to boost deterrence. In addition, in line with the phenomenon of underweighting of rare events, the effect was stronger when the probability of inspection was rarer (as in most real-life inspection probabilities) and was eliminated under moderate inspection probabilities. We thus recommend that policymakers looking to effectively reduce recurring violations among noncriminal populations should consider increasing inspection rates rather than punishment severity.

External enforcement policies aimed to reduce violations differ on two key components: the probability of inspection and the severity of punishments. Different lines of research offer competing predictions regarding the relative importance of each component. In three incentive compatible studies, students and Prolific crowdsourcing participants (Ntotal=430) repeatedly faced temptations to commit violations under two enforcement policies. Controlling for expected value, the results indicated that a policy combining High probability of Inspection with Low Severity of fine (HILS) was more effective than a policy combining Low probability of Inspection with High Severity of fine (LIHS). Consistent with the prediction of Decisions from Experience research, this finding held even when the severity of the fine was stated in advance to boost deterrence. In addition, the advantage of HILS over LIHS was greater as participants’ baseline rate of violation (without enforcement) was higher, implying that HILS is more effective among frequent offenders.

We find that people choose to learn interesting but useless information, yet advise others to resist this temptation. By contrast, when the information is boring but important people recommend others to learn it, but are less likely to learn it themselves. In five experiments participants were randomly assigned the role of chooser or adviser. Experiment 1a showed choosers paid real money for useless information, whereas advisers recommended others to resist the temptation. Experiment 1b showed this choice–advice difference persisted when participants introspected on their decisions in a hypothetical setting. Using an introspection task, experiment 2 demonstrated choosers’ decisions relied more heavily on curiosity, whereas advisers’ recommendations relied on the value of the information. Next, we examined the case where information is boring but important. In a hypothetical setting, experiment 3a revealed the vast majority of advisers recommended to learn the important information, whereas choosers were less enthusiastic about the boring information. Finally, experiment 3b demonstrated the majority of choosers chose not to pay actual money to learn the important information, whereas the majority of advisers recommended paying to learn it. We conclude by offering ways to utilize curiosity to encourage people to learn important information.

Unethical behavior by “ordinary” people poses significant societal and personal challenges. We present a novel framework centered on the role of self-serving justification to build upon and advance the rapidly expanding research on intentional unethical behavior of people who value their morality highly. We propose that self-serving justifications emerging before and after people engage in intentional ethical violations mitigate the threat to the moral self, enabling them to do wrong while feeling moral. Pre-violation justifications lessen the anticipated threat to the moral self by redefining questionable behaviors as excusable. Post-violation justifications alleviate the experienced threat to the moral self through compensations that balance or lessen violations. We highlight the psychological mechanisms that prompt people to do wrong and feel moral, and suggest future research directions regarding the temporal dimension of self-serving justifications of ethical misconduct.

Organizational monitoring relies frequently on self-reports (e.g., work hours, progress reports, travel expenses). A "one-by-one" policy requires employees to submit a series of reports (e.g., daily or itemized reports). An "all-at-once" policy requires an overall report (e.g., an annual or an overview report). Both policies use people’s self-reports to determine their pay, and both allow people to inflate their reports to get higher incentives, that is, to cheat. Objectively, people can cheat to the same extent under both reporting policies. However, the two policies differ in that the segmented one-by-one policy signals closer monitoring than the all-at-once policy. We suggest here that lie aversion may have a paradoxical effect on closer monitoring and lead people to cheat more. Specifically, reporting a series of segmented units of performance (allowing small lies) should lead to more cheating than a one-shot report of overall performance (that require one larger lie). Two surveys indicated that while people perceive the all-at-once policy as more trusting, they still expected people would be equally likely to cheat in both policies. An experiment tested the effects of the two reporting policies on cheating. The findings showed that contrary to the participants' intuition, but in line with research on lie aversion, the one-by-one policy resulted in more cheating than the all-at-once policy. Implications for future research and organization policy are discussed.

Mutations in human LMNA cause Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy; however, a mechanistic link between the effect of mutations on lamin filament assembly and disease phenotype has not been established. Here we show that changes in lamin filament structure translate into disease phenotypes in Caenorhabditis elegans by altering the character of the nuclear lamina., Mutations in the human LMNA gene underlie many laminopathic diseases, including Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy (EDMD); however, a mechanistic link between the effect of mutations on lamin filament assembly and disease phenotypes has not been established. We studied the ΔK46 Caenorhabditis elegans lamin mutant, corresponding to EDMD-linked ΔK32 in human lamins A and C. Cryo-electron tomography of lamin ΔK46 filaments in vitro revealed alterations in the lateral assembly of dimeric head-to-tail polymers, which causes abnormal organization of tetrameric protofilaments. Green fluorescent protein (GFP):ΔK46 lamin expressed in C. elegans was found in nuclear aggregates in postembryonic stages along with LEM-2. GFP:ΔK46 also caused mislocalization of emerin away from the nuclear periphery, consistent with a decreased ability of purified emerin to associate with lamin ΔK46 filaments in vitro. GFP:ΔK46 animals had motility defects and muscle structure abnormalities. These results show that changes in lamin filament structure can translate into disease-like phenotypes via altering the localization of nuclear lamina proteins, and suggest a model for how the ΔK32 lamin mutation may cause EDMD in humans.

The nuclear lamina is a proteinaceous structure located underneath the inner nuclear membrane (INM), where it associates with the peripheral chromatin. It contains lamins and lamin-associated proteins, including many integral proteins of the INM, chromatin modifying proteins, transcriptional repressors and structural proteins. A fraction of lamins is also present in the nucleoplasm, where it forms stable complexes and is associated with specific nucleoplasmic proteins. The lamins and their associated proteins are required for most nuclear activities, mitosis and for linking the nucleoplasm to all major cytoskeletal networks in the cytoplasm. Mutations in nuclear lamins and their associated proteins cause about 20 different diseases that are collectively called laminopathies'. This review concentrates mainly on lamins, their structure and their roles in DNA replication, chromatin organization, adult stem cell differentiation, aging, tumorogenesis and the lamin mutations leading to laminopathic diseases.

The article summarizes extant research on context effects and choice theories in a straightforward fashion. The context effects are used as benchmarks to compare six choice theories. The context effects include similarity, attraction, compromise, and reference point effects. The considered theories include simple scalability model, random utility model, elimination by aspects model, strategy switching models, componential context model, and connectionist network model of choice. The article discusses the implications of each model for consumer behavior, and suggests that the choice of model should depend on the characteristics of products, consumers and purchase process.

Dishonesty and unethical behavior are widespread in the public and private sectors and cause immense annual losses. For instance, estimates of U.S. annual losses indicate $1 trillion paid in bribes, $270 billion lost due to unreported income, and $42 billion lost in retail due to shoplifting and employee theft. In this article, we draw on insights from the growing fields of moral psychology and behavioral ethics to present a three-principle framework we call REVISE. This framework classifies forces that affect dishonesty into three main categories and then redirects those forces to encourage moral behavior. The first principle, reminding, emphasizes the effectiveness of subtle cues that increase the salience of morality and decrease people’s ability to justify dishonesty. The second principle, visibility, aims to restrict anonymity, prompt peer monitoring, and elicit responsible norms. The third principle, self-engagement, increases people’s motivation to maintain a positive self-perception as a moral person and helps bridge the gap between moral values and actual behavior. The REVISE framework can guide the design of policy interventions to defeat dishonesty.

It is commonly agreed that firm performance is a multi-faceted construct. Lacking a single accepted method for performance, managers are often judged by a mechanism they do not know or understand. This paper utilises a bottom-up approach to investigate manager perceptions of the important dimensions of performance in the hotel industry, and their evaluations of achievements in these dimensions. The paper offers a qualitative technique that characterises the managers' profile in a two-dimensional space of performance. One dimension is a composite of production-oriented indicators of performance, and the other is a composite of service-oriented indicators of performance. The findings indicate that most managers lack a focus and do not differentiate between production and service indicators of performance. The qualitative technique can be utilised for gauging manager perceptions of performance and for evaluation and feedback for manager performance.

Dynamic inconsistency reflects a prediction bias where decision makers fail to follow their plans simply because they experience outcomes on which their plan was based. Specifically, after experiencing an anticipated gain in one gamble, decision makers reject a second gamble they had planned to accept. The opposite pattern is found with losses. A common account of these findings is that prior outcomes are segregated during planned choices and are integrated only after being experienced. According to a derived “computational” hypothesis, integration of prior outcomes at the planning stage should reduce dynamic inconsistency while segregation should increase it. A “descriptive” meaning of segregation and integration offers the opposite hypothesis. An experiment that framed planned choices to encourage either integration or segregation of prior outcomes indicated that dynamic inconsistency persists in both framing conditions. We suggest alternative explanations for dynamic inconsistency, and discuss the difficulty of bridging between predicted and actual preferences. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Examines monetary rewards in businesses that combine technical and functional aspects of service. Focusing on the restaurant industry, develops a framework that explains tipping as a reward for the two service dimensions. The technical elements of service are rewarded by dollar tip and the functional elements of service are rewarded by percent tip. An overlap between technical and functional elements results in a conflict between dollar tip and percent tip and, it is suggested, result in a magnitude effect. The framework was tested empirically in a sample of restaurants. The findings indicated that customers' evaluation of the service interaction can be summarized by four main components. Multiple regressions provide initial support to the framework, tying the technical elements to dollar tip and functional elements to percent tip.

This research studied the effect of tip policy and visibility on service quality in cafés. Applying social dilemma research to cafés suggests that service quality may be deteriorated by two types of free-riding behaviour. These free-riding behaviours include reduced-effort activities and the overuse of limited common resources. The theoretical framework implies that it is difficult to solve both problems simultaneously. For example, an individual tip policy can solve the problem of reduced effort as it motivates each server to work for his or her own tip. However, this policy intensifies the competition between the servers over limited common resources. Shared tip policy operates in the opposite way, solving the latter problem yet intensifying the former. Similarly, visibility conditions (moderating monitoring and social comparison) affect the two free-riding behaviours in opposite ways. Two field studies indicated that tip policy and visibility were interacting and that quality service could be attained with two combinations. Individual tip policy leads to quality service when combined with low visibility. Shared tip policy leads to quality service when combined with high visibility. The findings demonstrate the difficulty, but also the potential of generalizing social dilemma research to natural settings.

This article studies the ability of servers to predict their own tips. A distinction is made between the two roles of servers with regard to tipping behaviour: the role of expert and the role of manager. As experts, servers understand the relations between several predictors and tip size, and are able to predict the tip they are about to receive. As managers, servers designate certain tip amounts, and then manage the service encounter so that their predictions are realised. This study maps the necessary conditions for an expert position and outlines the process for managing a service encounter. Empirical testing suggests that servers have an impressive predictive ability. The findings also offer some support to the view of the role of the server as manager.

Employee satisfaction is an important factor in the hospitality industry. This study offers a technique to gauge employee satisfaction and demonstrates its use in an actual setting. A case study of the Mercure Mirage Eilat Hotel evaluated employee's satisfaction, before and after organizational social event, revealing that satisfaction improved after the social event. The findings also demonstrate that the composition of satisfaction altered. Prior to the organizational activity, monetary compensation was of prime importance; following the organizational activity, social issues gained significant importance in forming employee satisfaction.

A rational principle of decision making called dynamic consistency was tested by presenting decision makers with a sequence of two gambles. The first gamble was obligatory. Before playing the first gamble, participants were asked to make a planned choice as to whether they would take the second gamble. After experiencing the actual results of the first gamble, decision makers were asked to make a final choice regarding the second gamble. Dynamic consistency requires agreement between the planned and final choices. Violations of dynamic consistency were observed, e.g. anticipating a gain in the first gamble, decision makers planned to take the second gamble; after experiencing the gain, they changed their minds and rejected the second gamble. Two models of dynamic inconsistency were compared. One assumes that experience shifts the reference point and changes the utility associated with the gamble; another assumes that experience changes the subjective probability associated with the gamble. The reference point model provided the best account for the findings. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The present work studied a basic discrimination task that underlies many safety problems (such as hazard identification and supervisory inspection). The experimental task required decision-makers to discriminate between two classes of stimuli representing hazardous and secure cues in the environment. Errors in which decision-makers failed to identify hazardous cues were defined as risky errors. The payoff for risky errors was probabilistic. Some risky errors went unnoticed (representing lucky outcome of near accidents). Other risky errors resulted in penalty (representing damage incurred by an accident). The discrimination task was modeled utilizing Signal Detection Theory. A Cutoff Reinforcement Learning model provided predictions for choice behavior. Two controlled experiments are reported here. Experiment 1 manipulated the payoff for unnoticed risky errors. This manipulation was suggested as an analogy to different levels of the conflict between safety and productivity. Experiment 2 tested the effect of outcome feedback and cognitive feedback for risky errors. This manipulation was suggested as an analogy to supervisory feedback. The results of the two experiments showed that the simplified experimental conditions were sufficient to induce risky behavior. The findings also suggested some ways to reduce risk taking. The Cutoff Reinforcement Learning model’s predictions captured most of the findings. The paper discusses the theoretical implications of the findings and their relevance for safety research.

This article presents a new test of a principle of decision making called dynamic consistency. This principle was tested in an experiment in which participants were asked to make decisions about a second gamble within a sequence of two gambles. Participants were first asked to make a planned choice about the second gamble. The planned choice was made before the first gamble was played and was conditioned on the anticipated outcomes of the first gamble. After the first gamble was played, the same participants were asked to make a final choice about the second gamble, conditioned on the experienced outcome of the first gamble. The results showed that participants' final choices were frequently inconsistent with their plans, even when the anticipated and experienced outcomes were identical. These inconsistencies occurred in a systematic direction. Experiencing an anticipated gain resulted with a change toward risk aversion, and experiencing an anticipated loss resulted in a change toward risk seeking. These results are explained in terms of the effect of actual experience on the reference point used for the evaluation of the decision problem.

Heinrich's (1931) classical study implies that most industrial accidents can be characterized as a probabilistic result of human error. The present research quantifies Heinrich's observation and compares four descriptive models of decision making in the abstracted setting. The suggested quantification utilizes signal detection theory (Green & Swets, 1966). It shows that Heinrich's observation can be described as a probabilistic signal detection task. In a controlled experiment, 90 decision makers participated in 600 trials of six safety games. Each safety game was a numerical example of the probabilistic SDT abstraction of Heinrich's proposition. Three games were designed under a frame of gain to represent perception of safe choice as costless, while the other three were designed under a frame of loss to represent perception of safe choice as costly. Probabilistic penalty for Miss was given at three different levels (1, .5, .1). The results showed that decisions tended initially to be risky and that experience led to safer behavior. As the probability of being penalized was lowered decisions became riskier and the learning process was impaired. The results support the cutoff reinforcement learning model suggested by Erev et al. (1995). The hill-climbing learning model (Busemeyer & Myung, 1992) was partially supported. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. Copyright 1998 Academic Press.

Lamins are nuclear intermediate filaments. In addition to their structural roles, they are implicated in basic nuclear functions such as chromatin organization, DNA replication, transcription, DNA repair, and cell-cycle progression. Mutations in human LMNA gene cause several diseases termed laminopathies. One of the laminopathic diseases is Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS), which is caused by a spontaneous mutation and characterized by premature aging. HGPS phenotypes share certain similarities with several apparently comparable medical conditions, such as aging and atherosclerosis, with the conspicuous absence of neuronal degeneration and cancer rarity during the short lifespan of the patients. Cell lines from HGPS patients are characterized by multiple nuclear defects, which include abnormal morphology, altered histone modification patterns, and increased DNA damage. These cell lines provide insight into the molecular pathways including senescence that require lamins A and B1. Here, we review recent data on HGPS phenotypes through the lens of transcriptional deregulation caused by lack of functional lamin A, progerin accumulation, and lamin B1 silencing.

Six studies demonstrate the “pot calling the kettle black” phenomenon whereby people are guilty of the very fault they identify in others. Recalling an undeniable ethical failure, people experience ethical dissonance between their moral values and their behavioral misconduct. Our findings indicate that to reduce ethical dissonance, individuals use a double-distancing mechanism. Using an overcompensating ethical code, they judge others more harshly and present themselves as more virtuous and ethical (Studies 1, 2, 3). We show this mechanism is exclusive for ethical dissonance and is not triggered by salience of ethicality (Study 4), general sense of personal failure, or ethically neutral cognitive dissonance (Study 5). Finally, it is characterized by some boundary conditions (Study 6). We discuss the theoretical contribution of this work to research on moral regulation and ethical behavior.

ETOC: Caenorhabditis elegans lacking both Ce-emerin and LEM-2 show that these proteins are essential for development of specific lineages, mitosis in somatic cells, and smooth muscle activity. Reduced life span and smooth muscle activity of LEM-2–null worms predicts human LEM2 gene links to diseases more severe than Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy., Emerin and LEM2 are ubiquitous inner nuclear membrane proteins conserved from humans to Caenorhabditis elegans. Loss of human emerin causes Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy (EDMD). To test the roles of emerin and LEM2 in somatic cells, we used null alleles of both genes to generate C. elegans animals that were either hypomorphic (LEM-2–null and heterozygous for Ce-emerin) or null for both proteins. Single-null and hypomorphic animals were viable and fertile. Double-null animals used the maternal pool of Ce-emerin to develop to the larval L2 stage, then arrested. Nondividing somatic cell nuclei appeared normal, whereas dividing cells had abnormal nuclear envelope and chromatin organization and severe defects in postembryonic cell divisions, including the mesodermal lineage. Life span was unaffected by loss of Ce-emerin alone but was significantly reduced in LEM-2–null animals, and double-null animals had an even shorter life span. In addition to striated muscle defects, double-null animals and LEM-2–null animals showed unexpected defects in smooth muscle activity. These findings implicate human LEM2 mutations as a potential cause of EDMD and further suggest human LEM2 mutations might cause distinct disorders of greater severity, since C. elegans lacking only LEM-2 had significantly reduced life span and smooth muscle activity.

M. Usher and J. L. McClelland (2004) recently proposed a new connectionist type of model to explain context effects on preferential choice including the similarity, attraction, and compromise effects. They compared their model with an earlier connectionist type model for these same effects proposed by R. Roe, J. R. Busemeyer, and J. T. Townsend (2001) and raised several new issues. The authors address these issues and point out the main theoretical differences between the 2 explanations for context effects.