Anticipated scarcity and stockpiling during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of perceived threat, childhood SES and materialism.

Previous research has shown that perceived existential threat experienced during or shortly after the first wave of the global COVID-19 pandemic, engendered anticipated scarcity and stockpiling behavior. However, the relationship between anticipated scarcity and stockpiling may not hold unambiguously for everyone. Across two studies and one preregistered replication (N = 644), we show that perceived threat of COVID-19 is associated with stockpiling tendencies by increasing the anticipation of product scarcity-a resource threat. The association between anticipated product scarcity and stockpiling depends, however, on childhood socio-economic status (SES) and materialism. For individuals with low childhood SES, the anticipation of product scarcity was only associated with stockpiling among those who valued materialism. Individuals with high childhood SES, by contrast, stockpiled in response to anticipated scarcity regardless of their level of materialism. Our findings qualify previous literature on the association between perceived threat of COVID-19, anticipated scarcity and stockpiling during the COVID-19 pandemic and help reconcile contradictory predictions about the role of childhood SES in individuals' consumption behavior in response to adversity.

Golden gazes: Gaze direction and emotional context promote prosocial behavior by increasing attributions of empathy and perspective-taking.

Prosocial behavior is fundamental to societies. But when and toward whom do humans act generously? We investigate the impact of a listeners' gaze direction and the emotional context of the story heard on (a) perceptions of their social cognition skills and (b) prosocial decisions toward them. In three experiments (two preregistered, N = 486), human participants witnessed prerecorded video encounters between a listener (visible) and a speaker (audible, not visible). The listener either established eye contact, averted gaze, or showed a mixed gaze pattern (gaze direction), while the speaker told a neutral or negatively valenced autobiographic episode (emotional context). Participants rated the listeners' empathy and perspective-taking after each video and played the trust game (Study 1) or the dictator game (Study 2) with the listener. Replicating previous findings, occasional gaze avoidance, especially during negative narrations, increased attributions of social understanding to the listener. Critically, mediation analyses revealed that listeners perceived as empathic and taking perspective were ultimately treated with more trust and generosity in strategic and nonstrategic economic games, suggesting that social signals and contextual cues can serve as an indication of another's reputation, thereby promoting indirect reciprocity. Last, in Study 3, we show that emotional context, but not listeners' gaze behavior, promoted the spread of generosity toward anonymous, previously unobserved individuals in a dictator game, driven by social cognition skills attributed to the listener. We conclude that social signals and contextual cues can be important drivers of cooperation in societies via mechanisms such as indirect reciprocity and social contagion of generosity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Brain stimulation reveals distinct motives underlying reciprocal punishment and reward.

Reciprocal fairness, in the form of punishment and reward, is at the core of human societal order. Its underlying neural mechanisms are, however, not fully understood. We systemize suggestive evidence regarding the involvement of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFC) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in reciprocal fairness in three cognitive mechanisms (cognitive control, domain-general and self-reference). We test them and provide novel insights in a comprehensive behavioural experiment with non-invasive brain stimulation where participants can punish greedy actions and reward generous actions. Brain stimulation of either brain area decreases reward and punishment when reciprocation is costly but unexpectedly increases reward when it is non-costly. None of the hypothesized mechanisms fully accounts for the observed behaviour, and the asymmetric involvement of the investigated brain areas in punishment and reward suggests that different psychological mechanisms are underlying punishing selfishness and rewarding generosity. We propose that, for reciprocal punishment, the rDLPFC and the mPFC process self-relevant information, in terms of both personal cost and personal involvement; for reciprocal reward, these brain regions are involved in controlling selfish and pure reciprocity motives, while simultaneously promoting the enforcement of fairness norms. These insights bear importance for endeavours to build biologically plausible models of human behaviour.

Towards a culture of open scholarship: the role of pedagogical communities.

The UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee has called for evidence on the roles that different stakeholders play in reproducibility and research integrity. Of central priority are proposals for improving research integrity and quality, as well as guidance and support for researchers. In response to this, we argue that there is one important component of research integrity that is often absent from discussion: the pedagogical consequences of how we teach, mentor, and supervise students through open scholarship. We justify the need to integrate open scholarship principles into research training within higher education and argue that pedagogical communities play a key role in fostering an inclusive culture of open scholarship. We illustrate these benefits by presenting the Framework for Open and Reproducible Research Training (FORRT), an international grassroots community whose goal is to provide support, resources, visibility, and advocacy for the adoption of principled, open teaching and mentoring practices, whilst generating conversations about the ethics and social impact of higher-education pedagogy. Representing a diverse group of early-career researchers and students across specialisms, we advocate for greater recognition of and support for pedagogical communities, and encourage all research stakeholders to engage with these communities to enable long-term, sustainable change.

The Effect of Centralized Financial and Social Incentives on Cooperative Behavior and Its Underlying Neural Mechanisms.

Incentives are frequently used by governments and employers to encourage cooperation. Here, we investigated the effect of centralized incentives on cooperation, firstly in a behavioral study and then replicated in a subsequent neuroimaging (fMRI) study. In both studies, participants completed a novel version of the Public Goods Game, including experimental conditions in which the administration of centralized incentives was probabilistic and incentives were either of a financial or social nature. Behavioral results showed that the prospect of potentially receiving financial and social incentives significantly increased cooperation, with financial incentives yielding the strongest effect. Neuroimaging results showed that activation in the bilateral lateral orbitofrontal cortex and precuneus increased when participants were informed that incentives would be absent versus when they were present. Furthermore, activation in the medial orbitofrontal cortex increased when participants would potentially receive a social versus a financial incentive. These results speak to the efficacy of different types of centralized incentives in increasing cooperative behavior, and they show that incentives directly impact the neural mechanisms underlying cooperation.

Unequal chances: ex ante fairness and individual control.

Unequal financial outcomes often originate from unequal chances. Yet, compared to outcomes, little is known about how individuals perceive unequal distributions of chances. We investigate empirically the role of different sources of unequal chances in shaping inequality perceptions. Importantly, we do so from an ex ante perspective-i.e., before the chances are realized-which has rarely been explored. In an online survey, we asked uninvolved respondents to evaluate ex ante the fairness of unequal allocations of chances. We varied the source of inequality of chances, using a comprehensive range of factors which resemble several real world situations. Respondents also evaluated how much control individuals hold over the distribution of chances. Results show that different sources generate different ex ante perception of fairness. That is, unequal chances based on socioeconomic and biological factors, such as gender, family income and ethnicity, are evaluated to be unfair relative to the same chances based on effort, knowledge, and benevolence. Results also show that, for most individuals, there is a positive correlation between perceived control of a factor and fairness of unequal chances based on that factor. Luck appears to be an exception to this correlation, ranking as high in fairness as effort, knowledge, and benevolence, but similarly low in individual control as ethnicity, family income, and gender.

A scarcity mindset alters neural processing underlying consumer decision making.

Not having enough of what one needs has long been shown to have detrimental consequences for decision making. Recent work suggests that the experience of insufficient resources can create a "scarcity" mindset; increasing attention toward the scarce resource itself, but at the cost of attention for unrelated aspects. To investigate the effects of a scarcity mindset on consumer choice behavior, as well as its underlying neural mechanisms, we used an experimental manipulation to induce both a scarcity and an abundance mindset within participants and examined the effects of both mindsets on participants' willingness to pay for familiar food items while being scanned using fMRI. Results demonstrated that a scarcity mindset affects neural mechanisms related to consumer decision making. When in a scarcity mindset compared with an abundance mindset, participants had increased activity in the orbitofrontal cortex, a region often implicated in valuation processes. Moreover, again compared with abundance, a scarcity mindset decreased activity in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, an area well known for its role in goal-directed choice. This effect was predominant in the group of participants who experienced scarcity following abundance, suggesting that the effects of scarcity are largest when they are compared with previous situations when resources were plentiful. More broadly, these data suggest a potential neural locus for a scarcity mindset and demonstrate how these changes in brain activity might underlie goal-directed decision making.

School Achievement Test: normative data for a representative sample of elementary school children

The present study established norms for the spelling and arithmetic subtests of the School Achievement Test (Teste do Desempenho Escolar [TDE]) in two Brazilian cities located in the state of Minas Gerais and compared the results with those obtained from the original normative sample. A stratified proportional sample of 1,034 students from Belo Horizonte and Mariana, from the 1st to 6th grades, was selected. The participants were assessed by the spelling and arithmetic subtests of the TDE. Significant differences were found between the results from Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul, with moderate to high effect sizes. Significant differences were found in percentiles and classification parameters. The educational performance of the children from Minas Gerais was generally classified as less than expected (i.e., inferior) when the original norms were used as a classification parameter. Considering the high variability of educational data in different Brazilian regions, using norms for educational assessment based on only one Brazilian region is inappropriate.(AU)

School Achievement Test: normative data for a representative sample of elementary school children

The present study established norms for the spelling and arithmetic subtests of the School Achievement Test (Teste do Desempenho Escolar [TDE]) in two Brazilian cities located in the state of Minas Gerais and compared the results with those obtained from the original normative sample. A stratified proportional sample of 1,034 students from Belo Horizonte and Mariana, from the 1st to 6th grades, was selected. The participants were assessed by the spelling and arithmetic subtests of the TDE. Significant differences were found between the results from Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul, with moderate to high effect sizes. Significant differences were found in percentiles and classification parameters. The educational performance of the children from Minas Gerais was generally classified as less than expected (i.e., inferior) when the original norms were used as a classification parameter. Considering the high variability of educational data in different Brazilian regions, using norms for educational assessment based on only one Brazilian region is inappropriate.

Influence of numerical magnitudes on the free choice of an object position.

The link between numerical magnitude and mechanisms of spatial orienting has been underlined in an increasing number of studies. Similarly, the relationship between numerical magnitude and grasping actions has started to be investigated. The present study focuses on the influence of numerical magnitude processing in the free choice of the position of an object. Participants were presented with a digit (1-9 without 5) and were required to decide whether it was smaller or larger than 5. Then, they had to grasp a small cube and change its position before vocally responding "higher" or "lower". Results showed that in the initial phase of the grasp movement, the grip aperture was modulated by the numerical magnitude. Moreover, participants shifted the position of the cube more leftward with smaller digits compared with larger ones, and they tended to position the object closer to themselves with smaller digits compared with larger ones. These results extend the previous findings indicating that the processing of magnitude is tightly related to the mechanisms of spatial orienting that subserve action execution.