Showing papers on "Dilemma published in 1987"

The possibility of cooperation

Abstract: Preface 1. Introduction: the problem of collective action 2. The prisoners' dilemma, chicken and other games in the provision of public goods 3. The two-person prisoners' dilemma supergame 4. The N-person prisoners' dilemma supergame 5. Altruism and superiority 6. The state 7. Epilogue: cooperation, the state and anarchy Annex Notes Bibliography Index.

Free-Rider Problems in the Production of Collective Goods

Abstract: There has been a persistent tendency to identify what is called “the freerider problem” in the production of collective (or public) goods with the prisoner's dilemma. However, in this article I want to challenge that identification by presenting an analysis of what are in fact a variety of collective action problems in the production of collective goods. My strategy is not to consult any intuitions about what the free-rider problem is; rather I will be looking at the problematic game-theoretic structures of various situations associated with the production of different types of collective goods, thereby showing what sorts of difficulties a community concerned with their voluntary production would face. I call all of these dilemmas free-rider problems because in all of them certain individuals find it rational to take advantage of others' willingness to contribute to the good in a way that threatens its production. Some readers may feel that the term ‘free-rider problem’ is so identified with the prisoner's dilemma that my extension of the term in this way “jars”; if so, I invite them to coin another word for the larger phenomenon. My aim is not to engage in linguistic analysis but to attempt at least a partial analysis of the complicated structure of collective good production.

The Dilemma of Teacher Education in TESOL

Abstract: This article discusses a dilemma in teacher education. On the one hand, there is evidence that changes in teachers' behavior can be brought about through the use of relatively simple training procedures (e.g., minicourses, microteaching). These procedures typically focus on directly observable, low-inference categories, such as wait-time and question patterns. On the other hand, studies of effective instruction have shown that good teaching cannot be identified solely with these low-inference, discrete, and trainable behaviors. Rather, good teaching is a more complex and abstract phenomenon that has to do more with inferred qualities and abilities, such as classroom management, lesson structuring, and an “active teaching” style. It is not possible to train teachers directly in these high-inference categories. A solution to this dilemma is discussed by considering approaches to teacher education which attempt to bring about the gradual development and understanding of the process of effective teaching.

The Dilemma of the Gifted Woman

Abstract: The abilities of highly capable women have rarely received serious recognition, support, or guidance. Although there is increasing interest in attracting women to positions of social, political, ed...

Where Are You Coming From and Where Are You Going? The Reporting of Ethnographic Research

Abstract: To know the history of something is to know more about it. Unfortunately, there is not enough space in this essay to provide a history of the use of ethnographic research methodology in professional education. However, one has only to examine the "artifacts" of the American Educational Research Association to note an increase in the use of the term ethnography in the association's journals, annual programs, workshops, and communications. Of particular note in the message of the artifacts is a "great debate" over qualitative versus quantitative research. Perhaps because anthropologists are eclectic in their use of research methodologies (see Table 1), whether psychological, sociological, humanistic, or those of the pure sciences, they are rarely faced with this dilemma. If quantitative methods are useful in producing a more precise picture of a society, they are readily utilized. It would appear from this "artifact analysis" that to date little attention has been paid to the interpretation of ethnographic research. This may be because ethnography can be defined in two ways: as a methodology or as a portrait of a culture. The latter definition will be the focus of this essay. In short, what constitutes good cultural description and interpretation? In attempting to answer this question, one is immediately confronted with the question: Who is going to provide the description, the ethnographer as an observer or the natives participating in the culture? Perhaps one could suggest simplistically that there are two major views of culture, one holding that culture is the product of the carriers of the culture and the other that culture resides in the minds (psychic) of the participants. Goodenough (1964) distinguishes these two orders of reality as (a) the phenomenal order of observed events or the regulators they exhibit (ho

The Impact of Nursing Education on Ethical/Moral Decision Making

Abstract: A study of 227 baccalaureate and 111 master's nursing students was conducted to determine the influence of the level of formal education on three selected factors: ethical/moral reasoning, attribution of responsibility, and ethical/moral dilemma resolution Moral development theory and Heider's attribution of responsibility construct provided the theoretical framework A comparison of the overall index of ethical/moral reasoning showed that graduate students reasoned at a higher level than undergraduate students The amount of attribution of responsibility assigned and the dilemma resolution score did not differ for the two groups The results of this study suggest that undergraduate and graduate nursing programs must place more emphasis on identifying dilemmas, increasing ethical/moral reasoning levels and attributing responsibility in a justifiable manner Nurse researchers must continue to study how nurses respond in dilemma situations and how personal characteristics, factors in the environment, education, and the assignment of responsibility affect nurses' ability to resolve ethical/moral dilemmas

Aggression and Community: Paradoxes of Andalusian Culture

Abstract: patients. But Yagel's healing activities had a deeper significance. He ministered to a vulnerable and profoundly disturbed Jewish community: the Spanish expulsion was a recent memory, and northern Italy was experiencing growing anti-Semitism. In such a situation, the good physician "made sense" of the universe. He did so by interpreting illness in a manner totally consistent with Judaic sources and values but at the same time congruent with established medical theory. Essentially the same approach was applied to other fields of inquiry. Yagel's work has to be approached in cultural and temporal context. As Ruderman expresses it, "The tension inherent in simultaneously demarcating the boundaries and promoting dialogue and integration between Judaism and other cultures constitutes the central dilemma of Jewish life, especially in modern times" (159). Yagel, an early-modern intellectual, vividly exemplifies the search for concordance in Jewish and non-Jewish traditions and testimonies. The second contextual consideration has to do with the status of knowledge. His was perhaps the last generation that could seriously approach as one domain what we would now term "occult" and "scientific" spheres. This linkage of kabbalah, magic, and science-essentially an attempt to understand the underlying unity of all things-would soon break up as science increasingly became defined as the world of the rational and testable. For its part, kabbalah would shortly be transformed from a potentially syncretic discipline to a Jewish pietistic movement devoted to prayer and ritual. In conclusion, this is a fascinating portrait of an individual and his intellectual world. It should serve well not only students of earlymodern Europe but all concerned with understanding the many-stranded and intertwined origins of the Western cultural tradition.

Evolution: The Grand Synthesis

Abstract: The vision that lies behind this book is disturbing: we live in a period of major discontinuity in world history, a period marked by an explosion of world population, the loss of traditional values, social destabilization, unemployment, obsolescence of institutions and political systems, and the disappearance of traditional ideologies that in the past have given our behavior its bearings. The author, Ervin Laszlo, is a member of the Club of Rome, which, in recent years, has been a meeting place of intellectuals interested in the "world problematique." Laszlo's strategy for dealing with our dilemma is to understand the natural forces that direct physical processes, biology, and social behavior and, through that understanding, master our destiny. His intention is noble, the task itself may be another matter. This is where evolution enters the picture. In the author's view, an expanded evolutionary theory is the best theory available to organize and synthesize

Cooperative Choice in Decomposed Social Dilemmas

Abstract: In a study by Pruitt (1967) two-person decomposed prisoner's dilemma games (DPDs) were constructed from a 2 X 2 prisoner's dilemma game. Pruitt showed that some DPDs evoked greater cooperation than others, despite the fact that the payoffs were identical in all of the games. Pruitt's findings were interpreted in terms of Hamburger's (1973) "take-some" and "give-some" games, and it was hypothesized that DPDs in which the cooperative choice rewards the other members of the group would evoke greater cooperation than DPDs in which the competitive choice punishes the other members. This hypothesis was tested with three-person DPDs with college students as subjects. The results support the hypothesis and several explanations of the findings are discussed.

The Material Roots of the Suspended African State: Arguments from Somalia

Abstract: In this historical conjuncture of profound socio-economic disorders, the condition of the peoples of the so-called periphery is as desperate as it has ever been. Understanding the making and nature of their predicament is certainly one of the most basic conundrums in development studies in general, and the study of Africa in particular. A useful way of looking at the continent's dilemma is to focus on two broad factors: structural constraints and subjective conditions. The first speaks to the complex of historical circumstances, habits, and rules bequeathed by the past – ‘the grid of inheritance’, to borrow from E. P. Thompson – and the overbearing logic of the contemporary global systems of production, exchange, and information. The second signifies political choices that are made as the battle with the past, the present, and for the future continues.

Two Critical Issues of American Public Administration Reflections of a Sympathetic Participant

Abstract: American public administration has been described as a field that lacks a coherent theoretical foundation. Many believe that this theoretical paucity has left the field vulnerable to public misconceptions and attacks. To confront this dilemma it is necessary, as a preliminary step, to examine two crucial points central to public administration: (1) the role of managerialism, and (2) the relationship of public administration to the state. This article discusses these two issues and addresses how public administration needs to formulate a new linkage to the meaning of "the public."

Women in transition: Being versus becoming or being and becoming

Abstract: Women are at the center of all life transitions whether the transitions are within the family, such as maturation, or because of national modernization or a move to an urban center, or because of relocation to another nation. Ironically, women's roles in these transitions are ignored at best and misrepresented at worst. What we need is a raising of consciousness, an awareness of these women among us who are struggling with the being‐versus‐becoming dilemma of living in a new culture, and who would like to solve it by integrating being true to the values of their country of origin and becoming a valued citizen of the host country both for themselves and for their family.

Self-binding Commitments, the Inducement of Trust, Social Choice, and the Theory of International Cooperation

Abstract: Most game-theoretic applications to problems of international relations have focused on Prisoners' Dilemma and Chicken. Despite the symmetrical properties of such games, we argue that they might oversimplify the complexities of fundamental international problems on a number of counts. This study attempts, therefore, to expand the horizon of modeling international relations through game theory by introducing three types of games whose common characteristic is that their equilibrium outcomes are Pareto-(or socially) inferior, but in which actors who have dominant strategies are harmed more than those who do not. We introduce a solution concept entitled self-binding commitment according to which harmed actors commit themselves to a dominated strategy regardless of what other actors would do. We show that if a self-binding commitment can be made credible, the actor using it can benefit both himself and the society in general. The theoretical analysis is illustrated by two real-world cases (Sadat's initiative of 1977, and the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, 1985), as well as by more general situations such as balance of power, nuclear proliferation, and the role and effectiveness of international organizations. The implications of these ideas for international relations theory are briefly discussed.

A note on uncertainty and cooperation in a finitely repeated prisoner's dilemma

Abstract: An intuitive expectation is that in a finitely repeated prisoner's dilemma, the players will achieve mutual cooperation in at least some periods. Existing explanations for equilibrium cooperation (with agents perfectly informed of one another's characteristics) require that the number of repetitions be unknown, which is in many cases an uncomfortably strong uncertainty assertion. This paper demonstrates that if agents have private information concerning the number of repetitions (as opposed to being completely uninformed), equilibrium mutual cooperation can occur in a finitely repeated game. This appears to be a weaker and more palatable assumption then that of complete uncertainty, and hence provides a natural and useful alternative foundation for mutual cooperation.

Colonizing the Mind: Dilemmas in the Application of Social Science:

Abstract: Health economists see their practice as the application of economics to the field of human health. One of the forms that the practical application of health economics takes is the attempt to persuade professionals in health care to accept and implement economists' recommendations for changes in their practice. This paper examines one such attempt by means of a detailed textual analysis of `The Essentials of Health Economics', a major series of articles written for doctors by two leading health economists. The `dilemma of application' faced by these authors is that if they are to persuade doctors to accept the positive benefits of economics, they must also persuade doctors to accept deficiencies in their current practice. This dilemma encourages the use of textual strategies such as `avoiding confrontation' and `criticism without offence'. This kind of rhetoric of application is seen to stem from the authors' skilful deployment of two distinct, though intertwined, programmes for health economics - namely, ...