Since the Industrial Revolution, human societies have experienced high and sustained rates of economic growth. Recent explanations of this sudden and massive change in economic history have held that modern growth results from an acceleration of innovation. But it is unclear why the rate of innovation drastically accelerated in England in the eighteenth century. An important factor might be the alteration of individual preferences with regard to innovation resulting from the unprecedented living standards of the English during that period, (...) for two reasons. First, recent developments in economic history challenge the standard Malthusian view according to which living standards were stagnant until the Industrial Revolution. Pre-industrial England enjoyed a level of affluence that was unprecedented in history. Second, behavioral sciences have demonstrated that the human brain is designed to respond adaptively to variations in resources in the local environment. In particular, Life History Theory, a branch of evolutionary biology, suggests that a more favorable environment should trigger the expression of future-oriented preferences. In this paper, I argue that some of these psychological traits – a lower level of time discounting, a higher level of optimism, decreased materialistic orientation, and a higher level of trust in others – are likely to increase the rate of innovation. I review the evidence regarding the impact of affluence on preferences in contemporary as well as past populations, and conclude that the impact of affluence on neurocognitive systems may partly explain the modern acceleration of technological innovations and the associated economic growth. (shrink)

I am grateful to have received so many stimulating commentaries from interested colleagues regarding the psychological origins of the Industrial Revolution and the role of evolutionary theory in understanding historical phenomena. Commentators criticized, extended, and explored the implications of the perspective I presented, and I wholeheartedly agree with many commentaries that more work is needed. In this response, I thus focus on what is needed to further test the psychological origins of the Industrial Revolution. Specifically, I argue, in (...) agreement with many commentators, that we need: better data about standards of living, psychological preferences, and innovation rates ; better models to understand the role of resources in driving cultural evolution and the multiple aspects of the behavioral constellation of affluence ; and better predictions and better statistical instruments to disentangle the possible mechanisms behind the rise of innovativeness. (shrink)

Psychologists have traditionally been reluctant to investigate not just the historical nature of their subject matter — humans as acting, thinking and feeling beings — but even more so the historical nature of their discipline, its theories and practices. In this article, I will try to take seriously the historical transformation in the West from industrial society to consumer society. After having introduced these socio-economic designations, I shall try to illustrate how the transformation relates to changes in significant societal (...) practices with a particular attention to education and work. Since its inception, psychology has been deeply involved in the management of human beings in and through these practices, and considerable changes have taken place in the dominant psychologies with the change from industrial to consumer society. I interpret psychoanalysis and behaviourism as psychologies of industrial society, and humanistic psychology and the more recent wave of social constructionism as psychologies of consumer society. With shifting psychologies also come shifting life problems and pathologies, which I briefly address. (shrink)

Did affluence lead to psychological changes such as reduced discounting, and did these changes facilitate the innovation associated with the Industrial Revolution? I argue that claims of this sort are best made when they can be supported by causal evidence and good psychological measurement. When we have neither identifying variation nor adequate measures, the toolbox of psychologists is not useful.

Although informed consent is a primary mechanism for ensuring the ethical treatment of human participants in research, both federal guidelines and American Psychological Association ethical standards recognize that exceptions to it are reasonable under certain conditions. However, agreement about what constitutes a reasonable exception to informed consent is sometimes lacking. We presented the same protocols to samples of respondents drawn from 4 populations: Institutional review board (IRB) members, managers, employees, and university faculty who were not members of IRBs. Differences in (...) perceptions of IRB members from the other samples with respect to the risks of the protocols without informed consent and on the feasibility of conducting the research in employment organizations are discussed in terms of implications for industrial and organizational psychology research. (shrink)

"This foundational text was one of the first books to integrate work from moral philosophy, developmental/moral psychology, applied psychology, political and social economy, and political science, as well as business scholarship. The third edition utilizes ideas from the first two to provide readers with a practical model for ethical decision making and includes examples from I-O research and practice, as well as current business events"--.

This unique book is the first to contain a comprehensive history of industrial and organizational psychology, covering numerous topics in the discipline. The history presented offers various perspectives, including the contributions of individuals, organizations, and contextual or situational forces, as well as an international viewpoint. The authors, all highly regarded experts in their respective topics, use a range of approaches to examine history, demonstrating to readers that there are multiple ways to understand history. This volume will be of interest (...) to industrial and organizational psychologists, business and management academics and professionals, historians of psychology, business, science and science and technology, undergraduate, and graduate students. (shrink)

In the past decade there has been a lot of attention to the quality of the evidence in experimental psychology and in other social and medical sciences. Some have described the current climate as a ‘crisis of confidence’. We focus on a specific question: how can we increase the quality of the data in psychology and cognitive neuroscience laboratories. Again, the challenges of the field are related to many different issues, but we believe that increasing the quality of the data (...) collection process and the quality of the data per se will be a significant step in the right direction. We suggest that the adoption of quality control systems which parallel the methods used in industrial laboratories might be a way to improve the quality of data. We recommend that administrators incentivize the use of quality systems in academic laboratories. (shrink)

Recently, the world experienced dramatic changes due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Working remotely led to employees feeling isolated and experiencing fatigue and depression. The responsibility of addressing the psychological wellbeing of employees lies with industrial psychology practitioners. They support line management by counseling employees experiencing social and psychological problems. The objective of the present study was to explore the role of the industrial psychology practitioner in managing the psychological impact of COVID-19 on employees. Using a (...) homogeneous sampling technique, a qualitative research design was employed based on social constructivism. Semi-structured interviews and a qualitative survey were utilized to gather the data from industrial psychology practitioners registered as psychologists and interns. Thematic analysis was employed to analyze the data. Most participants believed that the onset of COVID-19 led to accelerated change in the workplace. The findings suggest that an industrial psychology practitioner’s role in the changing world of work enables organizations to be prepared for the changes by providing multi-level interventions. Recommendations are made to organizations to implement interventions to facilitate support for employees in their attempt to deal with the psychological impact of COVID-19 on employees. (shrink)

This work aims to solve the complex problems of non-linearity, instability, and multiple economic factors in the tax forecast of the ceramic industry to ensure the sustainable development of the ceramic industry. The key influential indicators of the tax forecast are obtained by analyzing the principal components affecting the tax index. In addition, a human-computer interaction system is established based on cognitive psychology theory to improve the user-friendliness of tax analysis. At the same time, the tax data of the ceramic (...) industry in Jingdezhen City, Jiangxi Province in different years are used for the empirical analysis of the tax prediction of different prediction models, including particle swarm optimization algorithm, and fusion algorithm, and support vector machine. This work comprehensively analyzes the influence of the optimized tax supervision mode on the economic development of the ceramic industry and provides ideas for the development of the ceramic industry in Jingdezhen. The research results demonstrate that the main indicator affecting tax revenue is the added value of the primary and secondary industries. The optimized SVM based on grid search method can provide a comprehensive data base for tax forecasting. The optimization of the computer system based on cognitive psychology improves the model prediction accuracy by 10%, and the absolute error decreases from 6.9 to 1.8%. The tax forecast results indicate that the tax imbalance in Jingdezhen is increasing. Therefore, the government needs to attach great importance to the development of the ceramic industry and strictly implement the tax policy. The tax supervision model can alleviate the problems of low fiscal contribution rate, tax evasion, and management loopholes. In addition, the SVM tax prediction model optimized by grid search method will lay a theoretical foundation for the research and application of taxation in the ceramic industry. (shrink)

The question I raise in this paper is why measurement systems such as PISA have gained so much power in contemporary education policy and practice. I explore this question from the bottom up by asking what might contribute to the ways in which people invest in systems such as PISA, that is, what are the beliefs, assumptions and desires that lead people to actively lending support to the global education measurement industry or fall for its seduction. I discuss three aspects (...) of what, in the paper, I refer to as the ‘social psychology’ of this dynamics, highlighting the seductive nature of numbers, measurement and comparison, the persistence of technological expectations about education and its workings and the reference to social justice as a key motivator for wanting to know how systems work and perform. I raise critical questions with regard to each of these aspects and, through this, suggest ways towards a more grown-up response to the difficult question of providing good education for everyone, rather.. (shrink)

It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.– Leonardo da VinciPhysicians often believe that a conscious commitment to ethical behavior and professionalism will protect them from industry influence. Despite increasing concern over the extent of physician-industry relationships, physicians usually fail to recognize the nature and impact of subconscious and unintentional biases on therapeutic decision-making. Pharmaceutical and medical device companies, however, routinely demonstrate their knowledge of social psychology processes on behavior and apply these principles to their marketing. (...) To illustrate how pharmaceutical marketing strategies use psychological techniques to promote targeted therapies, we draw on the relevant social psychology literature on conflicts of interest and on the six principles of influence articulated by the eminent social psychologist Robert Cialdini. Hospitals, professional organizations, medical educators, and other stakeholders must also draw on social psychology to respond effectively to commercial activities that compromise good medical practice. (shrink)

Pharmaceutical and medical device companies apply social psychology to influence physicians' prescribing behavior and decision making. Physicians fail to recognize their vulnerability to commercial influences due to self-serving bias, rationalization, and cognitive dissonance. Professionalism offers little protection; even the most conscious and genuine commitment to ethical behavior cannot eliminate unintentional, subconscious bias. Six principles of influence — reciprocation, commitment, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity — are key to the industry's routine marketing strategies, which rely on the illusion that the (...) industry is a generous avuncular partner to physicians. In order to resist industry influence, physicians must accept that they are vulnerable to subconscious bias and have both the motivation and means to resist industry influence. A culture in which accepting industry gifts engenders shame rather than gratitude will reduce conflicts of interest. If greater academic prestige accrues to distant rather than close relationships with industry, then a new social norm may emerge that promotes patient care and scientific integrity. In addition to educating faculty and students about the social psychology underlying sophisticated but potentially manipulative marketing and about how to resist it, academic medical institutions should develop strong organizational policies to counteract the medical profession's improper dependence on industry. (shrink)

Critics of industrial animal agriculture have argued that its practices are cruel, inhumane, or otherwise degrading to animals. These arguments sometimes form the basis of a larger case for the complete abolition of animal agriculture, while others argue for more modest welfare-based reforms that allow for certain types of industrial farming. This paper defends industrial farming against the charge of cruelty. As upsetting as certain practices may seem, I argue that they need not be construed as cruel (...) or inhumane. Any link between industrial farming and cruelty or inhumanity is contingent on certain cultural, behavioral, and psychological facts that are person-dependent. For many people working in animal agriculture, these facts do not obtain. To be sure, industrial animal agriculture has real moral hazards that must be carefully avoided, but all that this shows is that working with animals is not for everyone. (shrink)

This volume is by no means out of place for a reader in the twenty first century as resemblances between the age of the machine and our own digital age are surprisingly numerous, particularly with reference to the patterns of intellectual response to unprecedented stimuli. The worrisome parallelisms and analogues are purposefully kept off stage for the imaginative audience to complement the plot of the real drama of the Industrial Revolution as it was witnessed by such imaginative medievalist 'knights' (...) as Carlyle, Cobbett, Southey, Pugin, Ruskin and Morris, intelligent thinkers who performed the universal 'type' rather than the subjective or egocentric in so far as their intellectual responses to the discrepancy between two dissimilar epochs was concerned. The reader is, therefore, expected to be engaged with the arguments of the 'neo-feudal', the 'moral-aesthetic' and the utopian 'social-aesthetic' arguments at the core of the book both imaginatively and intellectually. On the first level, he is requested to shuttle between two centuries separated by the length of a different century. On the second, however, he is expected not only to appreciate the artistically excellent literary works of prominent belletrists, but also to examine the clever polemics they developed as methods of treatment and persuasion aiming at a solution of the social and psychological problems that arose from the incongruity between the present and the past, with specific references to such significant concepts as those of time, history, progress and authority which are examined against the superheated touchstones of democratization, liberty, laissez-faire ethics, mechanization, poverty and social protest in the industrial city. (shrink)

The identification of regularities in time-dependent functional structures leads to turn patterns, observed according to a given time resolution, into functional attractors on which it is first possible to found any complex system. Rationality is introduced under the form of probabilities for functions to make up a given attractor beyond the first rough descriptive pattern. These physically characterized attractors are the medium enabling the definition of value as an extension of the Prospect Theory overall utility, considering that the actions produced (...) by their functions are outcomes which are modulated by PT psychological value functions and an operational value appears naturally as an optimization taking account of diminishing sensitivity to action efficiency. Nevertheless, this diminishing sensitivity, when applied to negative actions, introduces also a bias of negative externalities underestimation. An attractor-based complex system evolution in an industrial context is described according to Manufacturing Readiness Level and to the main milestones of an industrial project, corresponding to singular points of maturity expressed in terms of probability—or decision—weighting, up to the system release to the market. So, a maturity assessment heuristics is proposed both for the system development and for its marketing. The supply and demand law is established, highlighting that the ideal case of a purely mature economy can be a good approximation reducing the complexity of the exchanges analysis. Equilibria are discussed as depending on an initial point from which the usual Gaussian probability distribution and a speculative weight qualify equilibrium. (shrink)

A critical retrospective of 'The Psychological Technique of Martin Luther Thomas' Radio Addresses' sheds new light on an often underplayed tension in Adorno's thought concerning the capacity of mass culture to express resistance against domination. In 'Thomas' Adorno moved beyond denouncing mass culture as 'culture industry' by approach ing early Christian right radio in a manner consistent (initially) with his defense of the autonomous dimension of culture in general. At the same time, 'Thomas' accomplished groundwork for the culture industry theory, (...) and this theory ultimately guided the study's conclusions. This critique confirms Adorno's ambivalence regarding the negative capabilities of mass culture while suggesting a new way to analyze the contemporary Christian right. This approach, which I illustrate, draws upon both the culture industry theory and a modified version of Adorno's method of immanent, dialectical criticism to identify ideological elements as well as moments of resistance in Christian right radio today. (shrink)

Industrial investment funds are a new financing innovation mode that can build an effective financing channel for enterprises.Based on the panel data of Chinese Listed Companies in 2008–2017, this manuscript constructed a static panel model between industrial investment funds, government R&D subsidies, and technological innovation to empirically analyze the effects of industrial investment fund involvement and government R&D subsidies on companies’ technological innovation. The research shows that industrial investment fund involvement can increase the company’s R&D investment (...) by providing financial funds for the company, which can effectively solve the company’s lack of funds in the process of technological innovation and guarantee the smooth running of the company’s innovation activities. Secondly, government R&D subsidies can alleviate the pressure of R&D investment to a certain extent, which is conducive to promote a higher level of technological innovation in the company. Thirdly, for companies with industrial investment fund involvement, government R&D subsidies are conducive to promote technological innovation. In contrast, for companies without industrial investment fund involvement, government R&D subsidies have no significant impact on technological innovation to a certain extent or even have a “crowding out effect.”. (shrink)

The implementation of the rural revitalization strategy can effectively inherit the excellent traditional Chinese culture and facilitate the comprehensive development of the cultural industry. At present, China is promoting the transformation and upgrading of its industrial structure. The criterion for measuring the “cultural soft power” of a country or region is the competitiveness of its cultural industry. The cultural industry has grown rapidly in recent years, and the overall economic benefits of the industry have also improved, effectively alleviating the (...) employment pressure across the country. However, there are still many problems. How to accurately measure the level of competitiveness of the regional cultural industry and enhance its competitiveness is the first problem in the development of the cultural industry. It finds out the main factors that affect the competitiveness of the cultural industry in the context of rural revitalization strategy using the relevant theories of cultural industry and industrial competitiveness. Besides, the evaluation index system of cultural industry competitiveness is constructed from the perspective of the system. The projection pursuit model and data envelopment analysis model are established based on the genetic algorithm. The model is used to carry out empirical research on the competitiveness level of cultural industry in a region, and conclusions are drawn. The average projected value of the base competitiveness in the region exceeds 0.8. The average projected value of dominant competitiveness exceeds 0.7. The average projected value of potential competitiveness exceeds 1.1. This research proposes corresponding suggestions for the problems in the current growth of the cultural industry in this region through the competitiveness of this region and the level of other areas. This study can also provide some help for the in-depth study of the Chinese cultural industry. (shrink)

What impelled the Industrial Revolution's spectacular economic growth? Life History Theory, Baumard argues, explains how England's world-supreme affluence psychologically fostered innovation; moreover, wherever similar affluence abounds, a “civilizing process” bringing enlightenment and democracy is apt to evolve. Baumard insightfully analyzes a “constellation of affluence” but proffers somewhat whiggish history given England's prior and unique proto-capitalist culture of economic liberty and individualism.

Because of China’s tremendous increase in foreign direct investment over the past two decades, this method of internationalization has become increasingly significant for companies worldwide. Heavy industry’s dominant role in China’s industrial structure must be modernized to ensure the country’s long-term growth and prosperity. There are 30 provinces in China covered by this dataset, which dates back from 2005 to 2018. Augmented mean group and common correlated effects mean groups estimations demonstrate that China’s industrial upgrading and resource allocation (...) considerably impact FDI inflows. The findings show that FDI inflows appear to be negatively affected by environmental rules. The results show that industrial upgradation and environmental regulations have not had the expected effect on FDI in China without the participation of other stakeholders. For the selected panel, the results from the control variable show that population aging reduces foreign direct investment inflows, whereas, economic growth increases FDI inflows. According to our findings and those of the empirical study, we make some policy proposals to help Chinese provinces attract more foreign direct investment by encouraging and upgrading the screening of such investments. (shrink)

In the current digital era, the borders amongst firms are getting blurred when it comes to value creation. Therefore, the traditional configuration of the value chain is frequently replaced by other ones which include the collaborative participation of different agents. Within this context, global value chains, where the value activities are located in different countries, and industrial clusters, which combine competition and cooperation, are attracting a growing attention of both business leaders and scholars in the recent years. Through a (...) bibliometric analysis, this paper disentangles the intellectual and conceptual structure of the research topic of industrial clusters and global value chains. Results show the multidisciplinary character of the topic, including papers published in different areas, such as business, regional studies and world development, as well as its close link with aspects like innovation, regional development, governance or organization. Finally, this study remarks the research lines that could attract more attention in the immediate future. (shrink)

Studies of the association between wealth and fertility in industrial populations have a rich history in the evolutionary literature, and they have been used to argue both for and against a behavioral ecological approach to explaining human variability. We consider that there are strong arguments in favor of measuring fertility (and proxies thereof) in industrial populations, not least because of the wide availability of large-scale secondary databases. Such data sources bring challenges as well as advantages, however. The purpose (...) of this article is to illustrate these by examining the association between wealth and reproductive success in the United States, using the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979. We conduct a broad-based exploratory analysis of the relationship between wealth and fertility, employing both cross-sectional and longitudinal approaches, and multiple measures of both wealth (income and net worth) and fertility (lifetime reproductive success and transitions to first, second and third births). We highlight the kinds of decisions that have to be made regarding sample selection, along with the selection and construction of explanatory variables and control measures. Based on our analyses, we find a positive effect of both income and net worth on fertility for men, which is more pronounced for white men and for transitions to first and second births. Income tends to have a negative effect on fertility for women, while net worth is more likely to positively predict fertility. Different reproductive strategies among different groups within the same population highlight the complexity of the reproductive ecology of industrial societies. These results differ in a number of respects from other analyses using the same database. We suggest this reflects the impossibility of producing a definitive analysis, rather than a failure to identify the “correct” analytical strategy. Finally, we discuss how these findings inform us about (mal)adaptive decision-making. (shrink)