The benefits of being a copycat

Two fairly recent studies show that high self-monitors use mimicry, possible nonconsciously, to get along with others. Self-monitoring is also involved in controlling emotional reactivity and the expression of other personality characteristics. When predicting workplace fit high self-monitoring may be a more important factor than personality traits such as the Big Five (Barrick et al., 2005). On a related point I have recently just come across the concept of 'bounded emotionality' which seems to have been around for some time and described emotional control in organizations (Putnam & Mumby, 1993). In the DRM working was associated with the second lowest level of positive emotion (after commuting) indicating that there may be some truth to the contention. A recent study showing that traders with a higher level of emotional reactivity (both positive and negative emotion) demonstrated higher levels of performance would suggest that 'bounded emotionality' may be detrimental to employers
(MYEONG-GU SEO et al., 2007).

Self-monitoring and mimicry of positive and negative social behaviors

This study examined the role that self-monitoring plays in behavioral mimicry. Participants were exposed to videotaped targets who were laughing, yawning, frowning, or neutral in their expression. Participants’ behavioral mimicry while viewing the targets was recorded. It was hypothesized that higher self-monitors would show greater mimicry than lower self-monitors. It was also hypothesized that participants would respond differently to positive and negative target expressions. Participants who scored higher in self-monitoring did mimic the targets’ behaviors more often, and participants showed less mimicry of frowns than of laughs or yawns.

Self-Monitoring Without Awareness: Using Mimicry as a Nonconscious Affiliation Strategy

This research sought to extend the current conceptualization of self-monitoring by examining whether self-monitoring motives and behaviors can operate outside of conscious awareness. Two studies examined nonconscious mimicry among high and low self-monitors in situations varying in affiliative cues. Participants interacted with a confederate who shook her foot (Study 1) or touched her face (Study 2). In both studies, high self-monitors were more likely to mimic the confederate's subtle gestures when they believed the confederate to be a peer (Study 1) or someone superior to them (Study 2). Low self-monitors mimicked to the same degree across conditions. Thus, when the situation contains affiliative cues, high self-monitors use mimicry as a nonconscious strategy to get along with their interaction partner.

Researchers discover penknife in the brain

This is an illustration from an article entitled 'Calcium Channels Are Models of Self-Control ' in one of last years issues of The Journal of General Physiology. Your guess is as good as mine as to what this diagram means?!?

Perceived health is associated with visiting natural favourite places in the vicinity

I've been having a look for links between emotional regulation and the environment and found this study which points to peoples' 'favourite places' (51% were natural settings) which benefit those suffering from what are mild somewhat psychosomatic ailments. This is mainly thought to be due to the familiar and less stressful/demanding nature of such areas which allows people to regain control of their emotional life. Not a well-controlled study but an example of how the value of the environment can be estimated through an analysis of information relating place and the associated affect.

Abstract
Visiting favourite natural settings may serve as a resource for regulating negative feelings and coping with perceived stress. The authors investigated the association between perceived health, the selection and experiential qualities of favourite places in four residential areas; 211 respondents (average age 40 years) responded to the questionnaire. Respondents with a certain amount of health complaints, such as headaches, chest or stomach pains, and faintness or dizziness, were more likely to select natural favourite places than those with few complaints. Respondents with health complaints benefited more in emotional terms from their visits to the favourite place although they did not visit their places more frequently than others. The change toward positive feelings was associated in particular with natural favourite places and relaxing in them. The results give impetus to research on the self-regulation of mood and neighbourhood context in health.

Korpela et al. (2007)

econometrics bands

i had a competition with the MA students to come up with a good econometrics band name.

the best effort from the students was: Stata Quo

however with the help of a couple of others, i think i won with: The Chi-Squared Chiefs

suggestions on a postcard

Longitudinal gains in self-regulation from regular physical exercise

The findings reported below are in line with self-regulation theory and demonstrate the generalizable effects of regulating your behaviour in one domain. It would be interesting to see the physiological correlates of the observed changes. We know exercise produces endorphins which are correlated with quality-of-life improvements. Controlled experiments have shown that positive emotion promotes self-regulation so this makes sense (Tice et al., 2007). Recent findings that high heart rate variability (HRV) means improved self-control and that a period of 8-weeks of exercise training increases HRV suggests that this may be another physiological mechanism by which the change occurs. Finally, the ability to metabolise glucose and mobilise it for use in the brain has been shown to be related to self-control and again this is improved through excercise (Sato et al., 2003).

Objectives. The purpose of the present study was to test whether the repeated practice of self-regulation could improve regulatory strength over time. Method. Regulatory performance was assessed at baseline, then at monthly intervals for a period of 4 months using a visual tracking task. Perceived stress, emotional distress, self-efficacy and general regulatory behaviour were assessed by questionnaire. Following a 2-month control phase, participants entered a 2-month self-regulation programme designed to increase regulatory strength: a programme of regular physical exercise.

Results. Relative to the control phase, participants who exercised showed significant improvement in self-regulatory capacity as measured by an enhanced performance on the visual tracking task following a thought-suppression task. During the regulatory exercise phase, participants also reported significant decreases in perceived stress, emotional distress, smoking, alcohol and caffeine consumption, and an increase in healthy eating, emotional control, maintenance of household chores, attendance to commitments, monitoring of spending and an improvement in study habits. The control phase showed no systematic changes in performance on the visual tracking task across sessions. Reports of perceived stress, emotional distress and regulatory behaviours were also stable across sessions.

Conclusions. The uptake and maintenance of an exercise programme over a 2-month period produced significant improvements in a wide range of regulatory behaviours. Nearly every major personal and social problem has some degree of regulatory failure. The idea that the capacity for self-regulation can be improved is therefore of vast practical importance.

Link...

Literacy not intelligence moderates the relationships between economic development, income inequality and health

Abstract:Objectives. Kanazawa (2006) presented data allegedly supporting a racist version of evolutionary psychology that claims that the populations of wealthier and more egalitarian societies live longer and stay healthier, not because they are wealthier and more egalitarian, but because they are more intelligent. The objectives of this study are: (i) to determine the relationship between IQ and literacy in Kanazawa's sample of countries and (ii) to reanalyse Kanazawa's dataset using measures of literacy in lieu of national IQ test scores.

Method. Correlation and regression were employed.
Results. National literacy scores across the countries in the sample are highly skewed. In spite of this, the literacy measures are highly correlated with alleged differences in national IQ (r = .83-.86). The measure of literacy together with economic development (GDPpc) and income inequality (Gini coefficient) control at least 59-64% of the variance in national life expectancy at birth.

Conclusions. There is no scientific justification for believing that alleged intelligence differences play any role in explaining international differences in health status. Measures of alleged national IQ scores are highly confounded with differences in literacy. Literacy is a key factor in the health of any community and policies designed to enhance the literacy of a population are expected to lead to significant improvements in health status.

Marks (2007)


The Kanazawa paper 'IQ and the wealth of states' and his paper Mind the gapin intelligence: Re-examining the relationship between inequality and health have been criticised in several papers:

Dickins et al. (2007)

Kanazawa (2006) has put forward an evolutionarily grounded theory which claims that individuals in wealthier and more egalitarian societies live longer and stay healthier not because they are wealthier or more egalitarian but because they are more intelligent (2006: 637). The claim rests on an argument which asserts that general intelligence is a solution to evolutionarily novel problems and that most dangers to health in contemporary society are evolutionarily novel. Kanazawa also claims that this relationship does not hold in sub-Saharan Africa. These claims are based on a cross-national analysis which finds a positive correlation between 'national' IQ scores and mortality data. The implication is that intelligence is the principal factor determining longevity in the rest of the world, regardless of issues such as adequacy of diet and availability of health care. Kanazawa's theoretical claims about the evolution of general intelligence as a domain-specific adaptation are inconsistent with adaptationist analysis: natural selection does not solve general problems. The assumptions that sub-Saharan Africa is more representative of the evolutionary past than is the rest of the world, and that most hazards to health in contemporary society are evolutionarily novel, are implausible. The methods used are inadequate because Kanazawa argues for causation from correlation and fails to consider alternative explanations. The IQ data are flawed for reasons to do with sample size and sampling, extrapolation and inconsistency across measures. Nor are they temporally compatible with the economic and demographic data

From Geoff (2007)
Kanazawa concludes that `wealthier and more egalitarian societies live longer and stay healthier … because they are more intelligent'. The result does not apply to sub-Saharan Africa, but this exception is explained by reference to his theory of evolutionary psychology, `The Savanna Principle'. We reanalyse the data, taking into account non-linearity in the relationship of GDP to life expectancy and find that the results no longer support his conclusions. We also argue that HIV prevalence rates are a more parsimonious explanation for differences between sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere.

Ireland fifth-best country in UN index

Ireland has been rated the fifth most desirable country to live in, according to an annual UN table published today. Rich, free-market countries dominate the top places, with Iceland, Norway, Australia, Canada and Ireland making up the first five. Ireland was rated fourth last year, eighth the previous year and 17th in 2000. While the United States slipped to 12th place from eighth last year.

Irish GDP is $38,505, fourth in the world and life expectancy in Ireland is 78.4, which is 26th on the list. The Japanese retain the longest life expectancy - 82.3 years - and Zambians the lowest, at 40.5. (an interesting aside: the Japanese have one of the highest smoking prevalence rate)

The United States scores high on real per capita GDP, which at $41,890 is second only to that of Luxembourg ($60,228), but less well on life expectancy - joint last in the top 26 countries, along with Denmark and South Korea, at 77.9 years.

Per capita GDP is 45 times higher in Iceland than in Sierra Leone. The index - blending 2005 figures for life expectancy, educational levels and real per capita income - finds that all 22 countries falling into its "low human development" category are in sub-Saharan Africa, with Sierra Leone last. In 10 of these countries, two children in five will not reach the age of 40.

The index ranks 175 UN member countries plus Hong Kong and the Palestinian territories. It does not include 17 countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia due to inadequate data.

Norway had held top spot for six years but was edged into second place by Iceland this year because of new life expectancy estimates and updated figures for GDP, the report said.

The United Nations has published its human development index every year since 1990.

Bowling Alone, Drinking Together

Alcohol consumption may be associated to a rich social life, but its abuse might be related to a poor social life. This paper investigates whether alcohol consumption is a socially enjoyed good (a complement of social relations) or a substitute for social relations based on a large sample of Italian individuals in 2002 and 2005. In particular, it explores whether the answer changes between use and abuse, beer, wine and spirits, youth and adults, controlling or not for family influence and unobserved heterogeneity, and for various forms of social relations. Controlling for a great number of covariates and allowing for non linear and identity-specific family interaction effects, they find that alcohol consumption is a socially enjoyed good and that family influence is important for drinking behaviour.

http://www.decon.unipd.it/assets/pdf/wp/20070055.pdf

Effects of the Irish Smoking Ban on Respiratory Health of Bar Workers and Air Quality in Dublin Pubs

On the topic of smoking:


Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) causes disease in non-smokers. Workplace bans on smoking are interventions to reduce exposure to ETS to try to prevent harmful health effects. The Irish Government on the 29th March 2004 introduced the first national comprehensive legislation banning smoking in all workplaces including bars and restaurants. This study examines the impact of this legislation on air quality in pubs and on respiratory health effects in bar workers in Dublin.

Concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10 particulate matter in 42 pubs were measured and compared before and after the ban. Benzene concentrations were also measured in 26 of the pubs. Eighty one (81) barmen volunteered to have full pulmonary function studies, exhaled breath carbon monoxide (CO) and salivary cotinine levels performed before the ban and repeated one year later after the ban. They also completed questionnaires on exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and respiratory symptoms on both occasions.

There was an 83% reduction in PM2.5 and an 80.2% reduction in Benzene concentration in the bars. There was a 79% reduction in exhaled breath CO and an 81% reduction in salivary cotinine. There were statistically significant improvements in measured pulmonary function tests (PFTs) and significant reductions in self reported symptoms and exposure levels in volunteer non-smoking barmen after the ban.

A total workplace smoking ban results in a significant reduction in air pollution in pubs
and an improvement in respiratory health in barmen.

Goodman et al (2007)

NBER - The Mortality Cost to Smokers

This article estimates the mortality cost of smoking based on the first labor market estimates of the value of statistical life by smoking status. Using these values in conjunction with the increase in the mortality risk over the life cycle due to smoking, the value of statistical life by age and gender, and information on the number of packs smoked over the life cycle, produces an estimate of the private mortality cost of smoking of $222 per pack for men and $94 per pack for women in 2006 dollars, based on a 3 percent discount rate.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w13599.pdf

NBER -- Body Composition and Wages

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13595&r=hea
This paper examines the effect of body composition on wages. They develop measures of body composition “ body fat (BF) and fat-free mass (FFM) “ using data on bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) that are available in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III and estimate wage models for respondents in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. Their results indicate that increased body fat is unambiguously associated with decreased wages for both males and females. This result is in contrast to the mixed and sometimes inconsistent results from the previous research using body mass index (BMI). They also find new evidence indicating that a higher level of fat-free body mass is consistently associated with increased hourly wages. Finally they present further evidence that these results are not the artifacts of unobserved heterogeneity and show their findings robust to numerous specification checks and to a large number of alternative BIA prediction equations from which the body composition measures are derived. This work addresses an important limitation of the current literature on the economics of obesity. Previous research relied on body weight or BMI for measuring obesity despite the growing agreement in the medical literature that they represent misleading measures of obesity because of their inability to distinguish between body fat and fat-free body mass. Body composition measures used in this paper represent significant improvements over the previously used measures because they allow for the effects of fat and fat free components of body composition to be separately identified. The work also contributes to the growing literature on the role of non-cognitive characteristics on wage determination.

Internal Disinhibition Predicts Weight Regain Following Weight Loss and Weight Loss Maintenance

The disinhibition scale of the Eating Inventory predicts weight loss outcome. Exploratory factor analysis of the disinhibition scale was conducted on 286 participants in a behavioral weight loss trial (TRIM), and confirmatory factor analysis was conducted on 3345 members of the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR), a registry of successful weight loss maintainers.

In TRIM, internal disinhibition significantly predicted weight loss at 6 months (p = 0.03) and marginally significantly predicted weight loss at 18 months (p = 0.06), with higher levels of internal disinhibition at baseline predicting less weight loss; external disinhibition did not predict weight loss at any time-point. In NWCR, internal disinhibition significantly predicted one-year weight change (p = 0.001), while external disinhibition did not. These results suggest that it is the disinhibition of eating in response to internal cues that is associated with poorer long-term weight loss outcomes.

Niemeier et al. (2007)

Attention Control, Memory Updating, and Emotion Regulation Temporarily Reduce the Capacity for Self-Control

Abstract:
This research tested the hypothesis that initial efforts at executive control temporarily undermine subsequent efforts at executive control. Four experiments revealed that controlling the focus of visual attention (Experiment 1), inhibiting predominant writing tendencies (Experiment 2), taking a working memory test (Experiment 3), or exaggerating emotional expressions (Experiment 4) undermined performance on subsequent tests of working memory span, reverse digit span, and response inhibition, respectively. The results supported a limited resource model of executive control and cast doubt on competing accounts based on mood, motivation, or task difficulty. Prior efforts at executive control are a significant contextual determinant of the operation of executive processes.

There has been much discussion around a self-regulation model which claims that effortful control of attention diminishes the ability to perform future tasks. This point has implications for task/work performance across the course of the day, how you manage your behaviour to best conserve and utilise this resource and how one can go about protecting and renewing it. From a developmental perspective the emergence of traits such as the Big Five is likely to be largely determined by the ability to manage,monitor and over time manipulate ones natural levels of reactivity through self-regulation. This process has an analogue in the cognitive neuropsychology literature in the functioning of executive attention which is the overarching process managing a group of executive functions such as attention shifting, inhibition, planning, working memory etc. What this study shows is that exercising executive control- a process analagous to self-regulation- has knock on effects on essential capacities such as working memory and inhibition.

In the last post the relationship between inhibition on the Go-NoGo task and delay discounting was demonstrated. Following on from this and incorporating this finding we can say that engaging in self-regulation is likely to diminish our capacity to inhibit our behaviour on a subsequent task and that our current level of this resource is likely to impact on our judgements in regard to valuing the future. We are likely to become more myopic in the scenario where such resources are diminished. Loewenstein and O'Donoghue have been working for a number of years on a sophisticated model of behaviour which incorporates such insights.

Several posts have pointed to glucose regulation as a process which may be the physiological concomitant of this 'ego' or regulatory resource depletion. Oxygen and other chemicals have been proposed to fluctuate in time with this metaphorical willpower resource but evidence demonstrating this is not yet available, and preliminary analyses (PhD work) would indicate oxygen is not promising in this regard. However, what this study provides is an integration of the work on self-regulation aforemention and what is an obvious observation to anyone who has given participants a battery of neuropsychological tests in that the tests must be counterbalanced to remove the effect of a gradient of decreased performance across the tasks as they progress. These task ordering and also time on task effects are accounted for using the self-regulatory resource model which is useful as it provides a frame within which individual baseline differences and factors which promote resilience or vulnerability of this resource can be examined. The current model suggests that it acts 'as a muscle' and becomes more efficitent over time. The idea that our daily work and also our ability to regulate moods and present ourselves well is dependent on a resource which can be manipulated in various ways also opens the possibility for a lot of crosstalk between economics and psychology.

Schmeichel et al. (2007)

Adolescents’ performance on delay and probability discounting tasks: Age, intelligence, executive functioning, externalising behaviour

This study reflects the attempt to integrate delay discounting into existing psychological models around executive functioning, intelligence, and emotional regulation.

Abstract:
Healthy adolescents, ages 9–23, completed delay and probability discounting tasks and measures of verbal and non-verbal intelligence, executive functioning, and self-reported internalizing and externalizing behavior. Delay but not probability discounting decreased with age. Delay discounting was also associated with verbal intelligence and Go–NoGo and Iowa Gambling Task performance. Probability discounting was associated only with externalizing behavior. Findings conform to an accumulation of evidence that while delay and probability discounting may have some overlapping components, they also reflect some fundamentally different processes in this age group.

They found a nice correlation of .35 between delay discounting and errors of commission (responding on a no-go trial) indicating that the ability to inhibit a response is very much central to delay discounting. The authors are pointing to IQ as the main variable in accounting for differences in delay discounting as this is in line with the de Wit et al (2007) study which had a larger sample. For parsimony and methodological reasons I would have liked to have seen the Go-NoGo variable put into the regression before IQ as it was correlated to a greater extent with delay discounting and it is possible that it is tapping into a fundamental process which is central to the development and operation of intelligence. The discussion was framed completely around this contribution of IQ which may have been an artefact of what looked to me a biased regression procedure.

The finding in regard to IQ echoes some recent larger scale retrospective epidemiological studies showing that lower childhood IQ increases the chance of mortality in middle-age and that this is largely due to an increased likelihood of engaging persistently in health risk behaviours: Childhood IQ in relation to risk factors for premature mortality in middle-aged persons: the Aberdeen Children of the 1950s study. I wonder will Go-NoGo performance predict mortality in 40 years.. It's a terribly tedious task to complete for anyone who's had the opportunity but you have to consider the benefits of examining such a basic process in comparison to something like IQ which is such a broad concept that doesn't translate easily to theory-related neuronal processes unless you go through the medium of executive function..

Olson et al. (2007). Adolescents’ performance on delay and probabilitydiscounting tasks: Contributions of age, intelligence, executive functioning, and self-reported externalizing behavior

Graphs

Some interesting applications of statistics here
http://jamphat.com/rap/

Don't Look Back in Regret

"Large numbers of graduates regret their choice of university and subject despite generally being satisfied with their careers, according to official figures, writes Melanie Newman. A survey of graduates, carried out three and a half years after they left university, found that more than one in five (22 per cent) would choose a different university if they could turn back the clock. A higher percentage (29 per cent) felt it was "very likely" or "likely" that they would choose a different subject. The figure rose to 41 per cent among those in non-graduate jobs.

But the study of almost 25,000 graduates by the Higher Education Statistics Agency also found that 85 per cent were satisfied with their career and highlighted the financial rewards brought by higher education.

Hesa questioned the students when they left university in 2003 and again in 2006. The research showed that graduates' average salaries had risen more than a quarter in that time.

Bill Rammell, the Higher Education Minister, said: "This, coupled with what we already know - that graduates earn, on average, over their lifetimes about £100,000 more after tax than those with only two A levels - shows that going on to higher education is indeed one of the best investments a young person can make."

Four out of ten media and communications graduates and a third of business studies graduates were not in graduate-level jobs, it found.

Graduates were most likely to regret having taken courses in mass communications and documentation, and computer science".

Story here.

Obesity Research Gets Plugged in Popular Culture

"cutting-edge research in social science rarely makes the leap from academic interest to media coverage to popular culture, but there are always some studies that capture the public's attention. One such study was the recent article by Nicholas Christakis from Harvard and James Fowler from UCSD ("The Spread of Obesity in a Large Social Network over 32 Years"). They find evidence that clusters of obese individuals are present and that they do not appear to be driven entirely by selection effects. This received widespread media attention, and was picked up by the writers of Boston Legal. At the end of this promo, we see how the character Denny Crane (played by William Shatner, a man who does not appear to push away from the table all that often himself) interprets the results of this study":

http://www.iq.harvard.edu/blog/sss/

Personlity traits, the Big how many?!

A new study has identified an intermediary level of the Big Five personality traits between the individual facets and the five domains. It would be interesting to see the extent to which the 10 factors are intercorrelated and represent 'aspects' on the Big Five or ten distinct factors:

Factor analyses of 75 facet scales from 2 major Big Five inventories, in the Eugene-Springfield community sample (N=481), produced a 2-factor solution for the 15 facets in each domain. These findings indicate the existence of 2 distinct (but correlated) aspects within each of the Big Five, representing an intermediate level of personality structure between facets and domains. The authors characterized these factors in detail at the item level by correlating factor scores with the International Personality Item Pool (L. R. Goldberg, 1999). These correlations allowed the construction of a 100-item measure of the 10 factors (the Big Five Aspect Scales [BFAS]), which was validated in a 2nd sample (N=480). Finally, the authors examined the correlations of the 10 factors with scores derived from 10 genetic factors that a previous study identified underlying the shared variance among the Revised NEO Personality Inventory facets (K. L. Jang et al., 2002). The correspondence was strong enough to suggest that the 10 aspects of the Big Five may have distinct biological substrates.

Between facets and domains: 10 aspects of the Big Five.

Personality and Time Use

A recent NBER paper (April 2007) is Krueger and Schkade "Sorting in the Labor Market: Do Gregarious Workers Flock to Interactive Jobs?"

This paper contributes to an emergent literature on personality and time use by showing that more social animals are more likely to work in jobs with a greater degree of social interaction.

---- Abstract -----

This paper tests a central implication of the theory of equalizing differences, that workers sort into jobs with different attributes based on their preferences for those attributes. We present evidence from four new time-use data sets for the United States and France on whether workers who are more gregarious, as revealed by their behavior when they are not working, tend to be employed in jobs that involve more social interactions. In each data set we find a significant and sizable relationship between the tendency to interact with others off the job and while working. People's descriptions of their jobs and their personalities also accord reasonably well with their time use on and off the job. Furthermore, workers in occupations that require social interactions according to the O'Net Dictionary of Occupational Titles tend to spend more of their non-working time with friends. Lastly, we find that workers report substantially higher levels of job satisfaction and net affect while at work if their jobs entail frequent interactions with coworkers and other desirable working conditions.

Ovulatory cycle effects on tip earnings by lap dancers: economic evidence for human estrus?

We need to be doing more stuff like this.
Evolution & Human Behaviour, 28 (6),375-381 (November 2007)


To see whether estrus was really “lost” during human evolution (as researchers often claim), we examined ovulatory cycle effects on tip earnings by professional lap dancers working in gentlemen's clubs. Eighteen dancers recorded their menstrual periods, work shifts, and tip earnings for 60 days on a study web site. A mixed-model analysis of 296 work shifts (representing about 5300 lap dances) showed an interaction between cycle phase and hormonal contraception use. Normally cycling participants earned about US$335 per 5-h shift during estrus, US$260 per shift during the luteal phase, and US$185 per shift during menstruation. By contrast, participants using contraceptive pills showed no estrous earnings peak. These results constitute the first direct economic evidence for the existence and importance of estrus in contemporary human females, in a real-world work setting. These results have clear implications for human evolution, sexuality, and economics.

Income, aging, health and wellbeing around the world

During 2006, the Gallup Organization collected World Poll data using an identical questionnaire from national samples of adults from 132 countries. This paper presents an analysis of the data on life-satisfaction (happiness) and health satisfaction and their relationships with national income, age, and life-expectancy. Average happiness is strongly related to per capita national income, with each doubling of income associated with a near one point increase in life satisfaction on a scale from 0 to 10. Unlike previous findings, the effect holds across the range of international incomes; if anything, it is slightly stronger among rich countries. Conditional on national income, recent economic growth makes people unhappier, improvements in life-expectancy make them happier, but life-expectancy itself has little effect. Age has an internationally inconsistent relationship with happiness. National income moderates the effects of aging on self-reported health, and the decline in health satisfaction and rise in disability with age are much stronger in poor countries than in rich countries. In line with earlier findings, people in much of Eastern Europe and in the countries of the former Soviet Union are particularly unhappy and particularly dissatisfied with their health, and older people in those countries are much less satisfied with their lives and their health than are younger people. HIV prevalence in Africa has little effect on Africans’ life or health satisfaction; the fraction of Kenyans who are satisfied with their personal health is the same as the fraction of Britons and higher than the fraction of Americans. The US ranks 81st out of 115 countries in the fraction of people who have confidence in their healthcare system, and has a lower score than countries such as India, Iran, Malawi, or Sierra Leone. While the strong relationship between life-satisfaction and income gives some credence to the measures, the lack of such correlations for health shows that happiness (or self-reported health) measures cannot be regarded as useful summary indicators of human welfare in international comparisons.

Deaton '07

Japan Looks Like Its Phillips Curve-

I've posted links to the amazingly addictive "Strange Maps" site before, but this may appeal to economists most - as the authors say "It’s said that dogs end up looking like their masters. A similar alchemy seems at work between the shape of a country and its results on an economic graph called the Phillips Curve."


http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/11/04/200-japan-looks-like-its-phillips-curve/

The road not taken: how psychology was removed from economics, and how it might be brought back

To cite this article: Luigino Bruni, Robert Sugden (2007)
The road not taken: how psychology was removed from economics, and how it might be brought back*
The Economic Journal 117 (516), 146–173.

Abstract
This article explores parallels between the debate prompted by Pareto's reformulation of choice theory at the beginning of the twentieth century and current controversies about the status of behavioural economics. Before Pareto's reformulation, neoclassical economics was based on theoretical and experimental psychology, as behavioural economics now is. Current 'discovered preference' defences of rational-choice theory echo arguments made by Pareto. Both treat economics as a separate science of rational choice, independent of psychology. Both confront two fundamental problems: to find a defensible definition of the domain of economics, and to justify the assumption that preferences are consistent and stable.

Link

BEING EMOTIONAL DURING DECISION MAKING—GOOD OR BAD? AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION

This paper examines the link between affective experience and decision-making performance. In a stock investment simulation, 101 stock investors rated their feelings on an Internet Web site while making investment decisions each day for 20 consecutive business days. Contrary to the popular belief that feelings are generally bad for decision making, we found that individuals who experienced more intense feelings achieved higher decision-making performance. Moreover, individuals who were better able to identify and distinguish among their current feelings achieved higher decision-making performance via their enhanced ability to control the possible biases induced by those feelings.


MYEONG-GU SEO & BARRETT

Astronomic Economics

This is a good essay on the history of panel data econometrics for anyone so inclined: An Essay on the History of Panel Data Econometrics (Nerlove, 2000).

Short-term meditation training improves attention and self-regulation

Recent studies suggest that months to years of intensive and systematic meditation training can improve attention. However, the lengthy training required has made it difficult to use random assignment of participants to conditions to confirm these findings. This article shows that a group randomly assigned to 5 days of meditation practice with the integrative body–mind training method shows significantly better attention and control of stress than a similarly chosen control group given relaxation training. The training method comes from traditional Chinese medicine and incorporates aspects of other meditation and mindfulness training. Compared with the control group, the experimental group of 40 undergraduate Chinese students given 5 days of 20-min integrative training showed greater improvement in conflict scores on the Attention Network Test, lower anxiety, depression, anger, and fatigue, and higher vigor on the Profile of Mood States scale, a significant decrease in stress-related cortisol, and an increase in
immunoreactivity. These results provide a convenient method for studying the influence of meditation training by using experimental and control methods similar to those used to test drugs or other interventions.

PNAS October 23rd 2007