In 1974 an article appeared in Science magazine with the dry-sounding title “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases” by a pair of psychologists who were not well known outside their discipline of decision theory. In it Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman introduced the world to Prospect Theory, which mapped out how humans actually behave when faced with decisions about gains and losses, in contrast to how economists assumed that people behave. Prospect Theory turned Economics on its head by demonstrating through a series of ingenious experiments that people are much more concerned with losses than they are with gains, and that framing a choice from one perspective or the other will result in decisions that are exactly the opposite of each other, even if the outcomes are monetarily the same. Prospect Theory led cognitive psychology in a new direction that began to uncover other human biases in thinking that are probably not learned but are part of our brain’s wiring.

Thinking fast and slow.

Social Network Analysis

Established in 2006, TATA Africa Services (Nigeria) Limited operates as the nodal point for Tata businesses in West Africa. TATA Africa Services (Nigeria) Limited has a strong presence in Nigeria with investments exceeding USD 10 million. The company was established in Lagos, Nigeria as a subsidiary of TATA Africa Holdings (SA) (Pty) Limited, South Africa and serves as the hub of Tata’s operations in Nigeria and the rest of West Africa.

What About Us

NUDGE: IMPROVING DECISIONS ABOUT HEALTH, WEALTH, AND HAPPINESS by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein Penguin Books, 2009, 312 pp, ISBN 978-0-14-311526-7This book is best described formally as a general explanation of and advocacy for libertarian paternalism, a term coined by the authors in earlier publications. Informally, it is about how leaders, systems, organizations, and governments can nudge people to do the things the nudgers want and need done for the betterment of the nudgees, or of society. It is paternalism in the sense that "it is legitimate for choice architects to try to influence people's behavior in order to make their lives longer, healthier, and better", (p. 5) It is libertarian in that "people should be free to do what they like - and to opt out of undesirable arrangements if they want to do so", (p. 5) The built-in possibility of opting out or making a different choice preserves freedom of choice even though people's behavior has been influenced by the nature of the presentation of the information or by the structure of the decisionmaking system. I had never heard of libertarian paternalism before reading this book, and I now find it fascinating.Written for a general audience, this book contains mostly social and behavioral science theory and models, but there is considerable discussion of structure and process that has roots in mathematical and quantitative modeling. One of the main applications of this social system is economic choice in investing, selecting and purchasing products and services, systems of taxes, banking (mortgages, borrowing, savings), and retirement systems. Other quantitative social choice systems discussed include environmental effects, health care plans, gambling, and organ donations. Softer issues that are also subject to a nudge-based approach are marriage, education, eating, drinking, smoking, influence, spread of information, and politics. There is something in this book for everyone.The basis for this libertarian paternalism concept is in the social theory called "science of choice", the study of the design and implementation of influence systems on various kinds of people. The terms Econs and Humans, are used to refer to people with either considerable or little rational decision-making talent, respectively. The various libertarian paternalism concepts and systems presented are tested and compared in light of these two types of people. Two foundational issues that this book has in common with another book, Network of Echoes: Imitation, Innovation and Invisible Leaders, that was also reviewed for this issue of the Journal are that 1 ) there are two modes of thinking (or components of the brain) - an automatic (intuitive) process and a reflective (rational) process and 2) the need for conformity and the desire for imitation are powerful forces in human behavior. …

Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness

Thank you for reading experimental and quasi experimental designs for research. Maybe you have knowledge that, people have search numerous times for their favorite readings like this experimental and quasi experimental designs for research, but end up in malicious downloads. Rather than reading a good book with a cup of tea in the afternoon, instead they cope with some infectious virus inside their laptop.

Experimental And Quasi Experimental Designs For Research

Abstract Purpose/background A new body of research that focuses on crime harm scores rather than counts of crime incidents has emerged. Specifically in the context of spatial analysis of crime, focusing on crime harm suggests that harm is more concentrated than counts, at the level of crime hot spots. It remains presently unclear what drives the concentration distributions, and whether the count-based model should be abandoned. Methods Cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis of 6 year of spatiotemporal crime data in Toronto, Canada, to compare patterns and concentration of crime harm (measured in terms of the Crime Severity Index (CSI) against crime counts. Conditional probabilities, trajectory analyses, power few concentrations, and spatial Global Moran’s I are used to infer generalised trends from the data. Findings Overall CSI and crime counts tend to exhibit similar concentrations at the spatial micro levels, except against-the-body crimes such as violence which seems to drive nearly all the variations between the two measurement types. Violence harm spots tend to be more dispersed citywide and often do not remain constant year-to-year, whereas overall crime hotspots are more stable over time. Nevertheless, variations in disproportionally high crime hot spots are associated with total variations in crime, with as little as 1% increase in crime levels in these hot spots translating into substantial overall gains in recorded crime citywide. Conclusions Abandoning count-based models in spatial analysis of crime can lead to an incomplete picture of crime concentrations. Both models are needed not just for understanding spatial crime distributions but also for cost-effective allocation of policing resources. 

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Spatial distribution and developmental trajectories of crime versus crime severity: do not abandon the count-based model just yet

Mandatory Arrest for Misdemeanor Domestic Violence Effects on Repeat Offending

Serial perpetrators of domestic abuse have become a target for police and partner offender interventions. The commonly held perception is that serial offenders are the most harmful, even though there has been no prior empirical evidence to confirm this. Our analysis of police records estimates that the prevalence of serial offending among domestic abuse perpetrators is between 10 and 20% depending on the timescales analysed. We found that serial perpetrators were disproportionately more harmful than single-time offenders, but no more so than offenders who commit repeat abuse within one relationship. Serial perpetrators do, however, have longer overall criminal records and are associated with more crime harm in general crime types. This profile fits with some of the psychological based typologies of domestic abuse offenders and suggests that responding agencies should make more use of wider criminal history when prioritising the needs of perpetrator management for domestic abusers.

Serial Domestic Abuse

We analysed more than a quarter of a million domestic abuse records taken from four police forces in England and Wales. The results show that around three quarters of both victims and offenders are only linked to one reported case, indicating issues with tracking or a substantial level of deterrence. Of the individuals who are involved in multiple cases, there is a prominent pattern of increasing conditional probability of future cases with each new case. However, we found no significant pattern of escalating severity in either repeat victims or repeat offenders. In fact, the first case reported to police is typically the most serious. We also found that a very small proportion (less than 3%) of victims and offenders are attributed to the majority (80%) of total crime harm. In these ‘power few’ groups, many individuals report only once and the majority report fewer than five times meaning that the police have either no window or a very limited window in which to make accurate predictions in the majority of the most serious crimes.

Barak Ariel

Papers

Spatial distribution and developmental trajectories of crime versus crime severity: do not abandon the count-based model just yet

Mandatory Arrest for Misdemeanor Domestic Violence Effects on Repeat Offending

Serial Domestic Abuse

Repeat Domestic Abuse, Escalation and Concentration of Harm

The Deterrence Spectrum