Violations and biases relative to normative principles of rationality tend to occur when the structure of task environments is novel or the decision goals are in conflict. The two blades of bounded rationality, the structure of task environments and the computational capacities of the actor, can sharpen the conceptual distinctions between the sources of the normative and descriptive gap.

Intentional change when viewed as making a risky or intertemporal choice with evolutionary relevance helps us understand its successes and its failures. To promote future-oriented ecological rationality requires establishing a linkage between nongenetic, cultural, and symbolic selections and genetic adaptations. Coupled with biophilic instinct, intentional conservation is more likely to prevail against evolved desires of environmental exploitation.

We agree with Ainslie's general approach to intertemporal choices and self-control. However, we argue that a concept of “will” is superfluous in explaining tradeoffs between SS (smaller and sooner) and LL (larger and later) rewards in a framework of temporal goal setting and goal aggregation. We provide an alternative framework of reference point-dependent tradeoffs between SS and LL options.

The smartness of simple heuristics depends upon their fit to the structure of task environments. Being fast and frugal becomes psychologically demanding when a decision goal is bounded by the risk distribution in a task environment. The lack of clear goals and prioritized cues in a decision problem may lead to the use of simple but irrational heuristics. Future research should focus more on how people use and integrate simple heuristics in the face of goal conflict under risk.

Campbell's target article is a stimulating attempt to extend our understanding of sex differences in risk-taking behaviors. However, Campbell does not succeed in demonstrating that her account adds explanatory power to those (e.g., Daly & Wilson 1994) previously proposed. In particular, little effort was made to explore the causal links between survival (staying alive) and reproduction.

Clicking the like button following a post on social media has become a common means of expressing and gathering social support online. Little is known about how liking expression is linked and regulated by personality traits and communication motives. Following a preliminary survey about the usage of the like function on WeChat, a Chinese social media platform, we conducted an online study to map the Big-Five personality traits and five communication motives to the frequency of liking expression. The results showed (...) that each user had, on average, 385 WeChat friends and spent 2.2 hours and used the liking function 1.1 times each day on WeChat. The personality trait conscientiousness was negatively related to the liking expression. In contrast, agreeableness promoted the expression of liking directly and indirectly via two communication motives, enjoyment and passing time. The liking expression may serve as a simple index for understanding dispositional underpinnings of social media networking. (shrink)

This study investigated the differences between past and future temporal discounting in terms of neural activity in relation to temporal distance. Results show that brain regions are engaged differently in past and future temporal discounting. This is likely because past temporal discounting requires memory reconstruction, whereas future temporal discounting requires the processing of uncertainty about the future. In past temporal discounting, neural activity differed only when preferences were made between rewards received one hour prior and rewards received further in the (...) past. The peak amplitudes of P2 and P3 varied as the temporal distance increased from 2 weeks to 50 years. In future temporal discounting, neural activity differed only when preferences were evaluated between two delayed rewards. The delay conditions and had a significant influence on P2 and N2. Findings indicate the existence of different decision-making systems operating in past and future temporal discounting. (shrink)

This study sheds light on a key concept of Yogācāra intersubjectivity that played a significant role in medieval Chinese Yogācāra. Specifically, it analyzes how Kuiji 窺基 (632–682) reinterprets adhipati (activating and amplifying influence; Ch: zengshang 增上 or zengshang li 增上力 or zengshang yuan 增上緣) to account for intersubjective karmic interactions across different lifeworlds in the events of teaching and killing.As this line of investigation shows, Kuiji’s theory of adhipati attempts to sidestep the entanglement of the problems of intersubjectivity and incommensurable (...) worlds in Yogācāra. Extant scholarship on intersubjectivity often presumes one spatio-temporal world populated by sentient beings and insentient objects, which is fundamentally at odds with the Yogācāra tenet that each mental stream generates its distinct lifeworld. To address the pragmatic question of how different mental continuums of consciousnesses can impinge into each other’s lifeworlds, Kuiji employed adhipati in a specific way to account for intersubjective interplay across different, potentially incommensurable worlds. In this framing of intersubjectivity, the problem of one world or many worlds is explained non-dualistically: these lifeworlds are neither the same nor different, neither one nor many, but karmically interconnected.Expanding on recent discussions of the puzzle of intersubjectivity in Yogācāra, this paper shows that Kuiji’s deployment of adhipati provides an account of genuine intersubjectivity in which different mental continuums are recognized as subjects and engage in causal interactions among different spatio-temporal worlds. In Kuiji’s framing, this genuine intersubjectivity gives rise to the sense of one shared world. (shrink)

Psychiatry is rapidly adopting digital phenotyping and artificial intelligence/machine learning tools to study mental illness based on tracking participants’ locations, online activity, phone and text message usage, heart rate, sleep, physical activity, and more. Existing ethical frameworks for return of individual research results (IRRs) are inadequate to guide researchers for when, if, and how to return this unprecedented number of potentially sensitive results about each participant’s real-world behavior. To address this gap, we convened an interdisciplinary expert working group, supported by (...) a National Institute of Mental Health grant. Building on established guidelines and the emerging norm of returning results in participant-centered research, we present a novel framework specific to the ethical, legal, and social implications of returning IRRs in digital phenotyping research. Our framework offers researchers, clinicians, and Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) urgently needed guidance, and the principles developed here in the context of psychiatry will be readily adaptable to other therapeutic areas. (shrink)

The research about strategic human resource management (SHRM) has suggested that human resource professionals (HRPs) have the opportunity to play a greater role in contributing to organizational success if they are effective in developing systems and policies aligned with the organization's values, goals, and mission. We suggest that HRPs need to raise the standard of their performance and that the competitive demands of the modern economic environment create implicit ethical duties that HRPs owe to their organizations. We define ethical stewardship (...) as a model of governance that honors obligations due to the many stakeholders and that maximizes long-term organizational wealth creation. We propose that if HRPs adopt an ethical stewardship framework and the qualities of transformative leaders, they will be more aware of their ethical duties to their organizations and more effective in helping their organizations to create increased wealth, achieve desired organizational outcomes, and establish work environments that are more satisfying to employees. (shrink)

The apolipoprotein E gene plays an important role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease , and amyloid plaque comprised mostly of the amyloid-beta peptide ) is one of the major hallmarks of AD. However, the relationship between these two important molecules is poorly understood. We examined how A treatment affects APOE expression in cultured cells and tested the role of the transcription factor NF-B in APOE gene regulation. To delineate NF-B's role, we have characterized a 1098 nucleotide segment containing the (...) 5'-flanking region of the human APOE gene . Sequence analysis of this region suggests the presence of two potential NF-B elements. To demonstrate promoter activity, the region was cloned upstream of a promoterless luciferase gene. This segment was able to drive expression of luciferase in transient transfections of human fetal glial cells. Promoter activity was stimulated twofold by A treatment. Pretreatment with double-stranded DNA decoy oligonucleotides against NF-B reduced A stimulation. Deletion and mutagenetic analyses demonstrated that the distal NF-B element was functional and showed a strong DNA-protein complex band in gel shift analysis, similar to that from control NF-B consensus element. An anti-inflammatory and anti-NF-B drug, sodium salicylate, significantly blocked A-induced APOE promoter function. Our data provide evidence that upregulation of APOE by A in astroglial cells is mediated by an NF-B-element present in the 5'-flanking region of the APOE gene. (shrink)

Based on the institutional theory, this article attempts to examine two consecutive questions regarding the impact of various factors on corporate decision in environmental information disclosure (EID): (1) whether or not to disclose; and (2) the level of disclosure. The relevance of these factors is empirically tested using data collected from publicly listed manufacturing companies from 2006 to 2008 in China. Some interesting findings appear. We find that firms that are state-owned, those that operate in environmentally sensitive industries, those having (...) more industrial peers engaged in EID, and those with better reputation are more likely to disclose environmental information. When it comes to the content of EID, variables that attempt to capture external institutional pressures exhibit either no or weak explanatory power. Only the variable of organizational image and reputation is demonstrated to have a significant impact on both the act and the content of EID. This study provides a snapshot of the dialogues between constituencies in the organizational field and EID development. (shrink)

Despite Augustine's reputation as the father of Christian intolerance, one finds in his thought the surprising claim that within non-Christian writings there are 'some truths in regard even to the worship of the One God.' The essays here uncover provocative points of comparison and similarity between Christianity and other religions to further such an Augustinian dialogue.

Content of the Turkish book: -/- Prof. Dr. Yaman Örs* is one of the most important professors who studied and improved the studies in bioethics in Turkey. The book consists of his related papers in Turkish. There are five main chapters in this book: (1) Main Lines of Yaman Örs’s Approach to Scientific Philosophy, (2) His Writings on Ethics, (3) The Ethics of Philosophy, (4) His Writings on Bioethics, and (5) His Papers on Medical Ethics. For each chapter, small introductory (...) parts are written by the editor in order to make it easier for the reader to follow the thoughts of Örs. -/- *Department of Medical Ethics (Ret.), School of Medicine, Ankara University, Ankara, Turkey. (shrink)