Search

Paradoxical decision-making behaviours such as preference reversal often arise from imprecise or noisy human preferences. Harnessing the physical principle of magnetisation reversal in ferromagnetic nanostructures, we developed a model that closely reflects human decision-making dynamics. Tested against a spectrum of psychological data, our model adeptly captures the complexities inherent in individual choices. This blend of physics and psychology paves the way for fresh perspectives on understanding the imprecision of human decision-making processes, extending the reach of the current classical and quantum physical models of human behaviour and decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a quantum-mechanical model that represents a human system of beliefs as the quantised energy levels of a physical system. This model represents a novel perspective on opinion dynamics, recreating a broad range of experimental and real-world data that exhibit an asymmetry of opinion radicalisation. In particular, the model demonstrates the phenomena of pronounced conservatism versus mild liberalism when individuals are exposed to opposing views, mirroring recent findings on opinion polarisation via social media exposure. Advancing this model, we establish a robust framework that integrates elements from physics, psychology, behavioural science, decision-making theory, and philosophy. We also emphasise the inherent advantages of the quantum approach over traditional models, suggesting a number of new directions for future research work on quantum-mechanical models of human cognition and decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transitivity axiom is common to nearly all descriptive and normative utility theories of choice under risk. Contrary to both intuition and common assumption, the little-known 'Steinhaus-Trybula paradox' shows the relation 'stochastically greater than' will not always be transitive, in contradiction of Weak Stochastic Transitivity. We bespoke-design pairs of lotteries inspired by the paradox, over which individual preferences might cycle. We run an experiment to look for evidence of cycles, and violations of expansion/contraction consistency between choice sets. Even after considering possible stochastic but transitive explanations, we show that cycles can be the modal preference pattern over these simple lotteries, and we find systematic violations of expansion/contraction consistency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using ultrasound scan data from paediatric hospitals, and the exogenous 'shock' of learning the gender of an unborn baby, the paper documents the first causal evidence that offspring gender affects adult risk-aversion. On a standard Holt-Laury criterion, parents of daughters, whether unborn or recently born, become almost twice as risk-averse as parents of sons. The study demonstrates this in longitudinal and cross-sectional data, for fathers and mothers, for babies in the womb and new-born children, and in a West European nation and East European nation. These findings may eventually aid our understanding of risky health behaviors and gender inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We use a laboratory experiment to examine whether and to what extent other-regarding preferences (efficiency, inequality aversion and maximin concerns) of team managers influence their management style in choice under risk. We find that managers who prefer efficiency are more likely to exercise an autocratic management style by ignoring preferences of their team members. Equality concerns have no significant impact on management styles. Elected managers have a higher propensity than exogenously assigned managers to use a democratic management style by reaching team consensus. We also find that male managers employ a democratic style more often than women. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

COVID-19 has shown a relatively low case fatality rate in young healthy individuals, with the majority of this group being asymptomatic or having mild symptoms. However, the severity of the disease among the elderly as well as in individuals with underlying health conditions has caused significant mortality rates worldwide. Understanding this variance amongst different sectors of society and modelling this will enable the different levels of risk to be determined to enable strategies to be applied to different groups. Long-established compartmental epidemiological models like SIR and SEIR do not account for the variability encountered in the severity of the SARS-CoV-2 disease across different population groups. The objective of this study is to investigate how a reduction in the exposure of vulnerable individuals to COVID-19 can minimise the number of deaths caused by the disease, using the UK as a case study. To overcome the limitation of long-established compartmental epidemiological models, it is proposed that a modified model, namely SEIR-v, through which the population is separated into two groups regarding their vulnerability to SARS-CoV-2 is applied. This enables the analysis of the spread of the epidemic when different contention measures are applied to different groups in society regarding their vulnerability to the disease. A Monte Carlo simulation (100,000 runs) along the proposed SEIR-v model is used to study the number of deaths which could be avoided as a function of the decrease in the exposure of vulnerable individuals to the disease. The results indicate a large number of deaths could be avoided by a slight realistic decrease in the exposure of vulnerable groups to the disease. The mean values across the simulations indicate 3681 and 7460 lives could be saved when such exposure is reduced by 10% and 20% respectively. From the encouraging results of the modelling a number of mechanisms are proposed to limit the exposure of vulnerable individuals to the disease. One option could be the provision of a wristband to vulnerable people and those without a smartphone and contact-tracing app, filling the gap created by systems relying on smartphone apps only. By combining very dense contact tracing data from smartphone apps and wristband signals with information about infection status and symptoms, vulnerable people can be protected and kept safer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]