Belief in free will & self-serving bias

Past research indicates that individuals’ belief in free will is related to attributing others’ behavior to internal causes. An open question is whether belief in free will is related to the attribution of one’s own action. To answer this question, we tested two opposing predictions against each other by assessing the relation of belief in free will with the self-serving bias—individuals’ tendency to attribute personal success more strongly to internal forces and failure to external forces. The resource hypothesis predicts that a higher endorsement in free will belief relates to a lower self-serving bias. The intention attribution hypothesis predicts that belief in free will relates to higher internal attributions, as compared to external attributions, irrespective of success and failure. Meta-analytic evidence across five high-powered studies (total N = 1,137) supports the intention attribution hypothesis, but not the resource hypothesis.

Natural Resources, Institutional Quality and Financial Development in GCC Member Countries: Visiting ‘Resource Curse Hypothesis’ by DCCE Estimation

The main purpose of the study is to check whether natural resource rent affects the financial development or supporting the resource curse hypothesis by employing a recently developed estimation technique by Chudik and Pesaran (2015) from 1985 to 2017 in GCC member countries. The novelty of this methodology is to consider structural breaks and the heterogeneity issues that are common in panel data. The results of DCCE estimates are in support of the resource hypothesis that natural resource rent hurt financial development. Additionally, this study takes moderation of institutional quality to check the threshold point or turning point where the natural resource rent effect becomes positive. Our results of interaction term postulate that a higher level of institutional quality mitigates the adverse effect of natural resource rent on financial development. The study results recommend the policy of natural resource rent in the presence of high institutional quality should continue because it improves the financial development in GCC member countries.

Natural Resources, Institutional Quality and Financial Development in GCC Member Countries: Visiting ‘Resource Curse Hypothesis’ by DCCE Estimation

The main purpose of the study is to check whether natural resource rent affects the financial development or supporting resource curse hypothesis by employing a recently developed estimation technique by Chudik and Pesaran (2015) over 1985 to 2017 in GCC member countries. The novelty of this methodology is to consider structural breaks and the heterogeneity issues that are common in panel data. The results of DCCE estimates are in support of resource hypothesis that natural resource rent hurt financial development. Additionally, this study takes moderation of institutional quality to check the threshold point or turning point where natural resource rent effect becomes positive. Our results of interaction term postulate that a higher level of institutional quality mitigates the adverse effect of natural resource rent on financial development. The study results recommend the policy of natural resource rent in the presence of high institutional quality should continue because it improves the financial development in GCC member countries.

Allocation of resources in working memory: Theoretical and empirical implications for visual search

Recently, working memory (WM) has been conceptualized as a limited resource, distributed flexibly and strategically between an unlimited number of representations. In addition to improving the precision of representations in WM, the allocation of resources may also shape how these representations act as attentional templates to guide visual search. Here, we reviewed recent evidence in favor of this assumption and proposed three main principles that govern the relationship between WM resources and template-guided visual search. First, the allocation of resources to an attentional template has an effect on visual search, as it may improve the guidance of visual attention, facilitate target recognition, and/or protect the attentional template against interference. Second, the allocation of the largest amount of resources to a representation in WM is not sufficient to give this representation the status of attentional template and thus, the ability to guide visual search. Third, the representation obtaining the status of attentional template, whether at encoding or during maintenance, receives an amount of WM resources proportional to its relevance for visual search. Thus defined, the resource hypothesis of visual search constitutes a parsimonious and powerful framework, which provides new perspectives on previous debates and complements existing models of template-guided visual search.

Food Insecurity in the Post-Disaster Harvey Setting

Objectives The paper examines the interrelationship among risks, resources, and food insecurity among a post-disaster sample of Hurricane Harvey survivors. Specific hypotheses are tested proposing positive relationships between risk and food insecurity and negative relationships between social and psychological resources and their relationship with food insecurity. Methods Random and representative samples were collected among survivors living on the Texas Gulf Coast. Efforts were made to sample and interview survivors in both different cities as well as those experiencing different evacuation circumstances. Both face-to-face interviews and online interviews were used to collect data from 316 survivors. The sample was obtained using quota groupings based on sociodemographic composition and residential location. Results Both correlation and regression results show support for the general risk and resource hypotheses. Sociodemographic findings show that younger, renters, poorer educated survivors without access to their own transportation reported higher levels of food insecurity in the weeks and months following Hurricane Harvey making landfall in August 2017. Additionally, risks for higher levels of food insecurity were found among persons with higher depressive symptomatology, with higher levels of previous disaster exposure, and reporting a greater concern for climate change. Both strength of social ties and mastery of fate were negatively related to food insecurity, supporting the general resource hypothesis that a greater presence of either social or psychological resources could potentially lower food insecurity among post-disaster survivors. Conclusions Our findings lend support to a risk and resources model that has already been applied to food insecurity research in other populations. Its applicability to the resource limited post-disaster setting is important and provides evidence for addressing directly the immediate mental and physical health needs of the population, in addition to the service provider and infrastructural need. Like earlier work, our findings suggest an uneven recovery experience that is likely both dependent on who you are and where you live. Funding Sources National Science Foundation.

Why is the American South Poorer?

ABSTRACT While American poverty research has devoted greater attention to poverty in the Northeast and Midwest, poverty has been persistently higher in the U.S. South than in the other regions. Thus, this study investigates the enduring question of why poverty is higher in the South. Specifically, it demonstrates the role of power resources as an explanation for this regional disparity, yet also considers family demography, economic structure, and racial/ethnic heterogeneity. Using six waves (2000–2016) of U.S. Census Current Population Survey data from the Luxembourg Income Study (N = 1,157,914), this study employs a triangulation of analytic techniques: (1) tests of means and proportion differences, (2) multilevel linear probability models of poverty, and (3) binary decomposition of the South/non-South poverty gap. The comparison of means associated with the power resource hypothesis yields the largest substantive differences between the South and the non-South. In the multilevel models, adjusting for power resources yields the largest declines in the South coefficient. Binary decomposition results indicate power resources are the second most influential factor explaining the South/non-South poverty gap. Overall, power resources are an important source of the South/non-South poverty gap, though economic structure and other factors certainly also play a role. Results also suggest an important interplay between power resources and race. Altogether, these results underscore the importance of macrolevel characteristics of places, including political and economic contexts, in shaping individual poverty and overall patterns of inequality.

Anger Inhibition and Pain Modulation

Background The tendency to inhibit anger (anger-in) is associated with increased pain. This relationship may be explained by the negative affectivity hypothesis (anger-in increases negative affect that increases pain). Alternatively, it may be explained by the cognitive resource hypothesis (inhibiting anger limits attentional resources for pain modulation). Methods A well-validated picture-viewing paradigm was used in 98 healthy, pain-free individuals who were low or high on anger-in to study the effects of anger-in on emotional modulation of pain and attentional modulation of pain. Painful electrocutaneous stimulations were delivered during and in between pictures to evoke pain and the nociceptive flexion reflex (NFR; a physiological correlate of spinal nociception). Subjective and physiological measures of valence (ratings, facial/corrugator electromyogram) and arousal (ratings, skin conductance) were used to assess reactivity to pictures and emotional inhibition in the high anger-in group. Results The high anger-in group reported less unpleasantness, showed less facial displays of negative affect in response to unpleasant pictures, and reported greater arousal to the pleasant pictures. Despite this, both groups experienced similar emotional modulation of pain/NFR. By contrast, the high anger-in group did not show attentional modulation of pain. Conclusions These findings support the cognitive resource hypothesis and suggest that overuse of emotional inhibition in high anger-in individuals could contribute to cognitive resource deficits that in turn contribute to pain risk. Moreover, anger-in likely influenced pain processing predominantly via supraspinal (e.g., cortico-cortical) mechanisms because only pain, but not NFR, was associated with anger-in.

Judicial Reliance on Risk Assessment in Sentencing Drug and Property Offenders: A Test of the Treatment Resource Hypothesis

For almost two decades, Virginia has used risk assessment to justify “alternative” nonprison sentences for eligible drug and property offenders. In Study 1, we examined how frequently alternative sentences actually were imposed. We found that alternative sentences were given to only 42% of low-risk offenders. In Study 2, we tested the hypothesis that a lack of treatment resources explains why many judges fail to offer alternative sentences. We focused on the availability of mental health and substance abuse treatment resources across judicial circuits. Our findings support the “treatment resource hypothesis” as one explanation for variation among courts and judges in the extent to which alternative sentences are offered to low-risk offenders. To the extent that treatment resources available in a jurisdiction lead to increased judicial use of risk assessment to sentence low-risk offenders to nonjail alternatives, providing these resources will be crucial in reducing mass incarceration.

Effects of Corporate Life Cycle on Corporate Social Responsibility: Evidence from Korea

Few studies examine how firms make strategic decisions over time. In this study, we test whether a firm undertakes corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities as a function of its life-cycle stage. Drawing on prior CSR research that finds ethical concerns and opportunistic behavior to be two key motivations that underpin CSR activities, we hypothesize that firms in their growth stage are positively associated with CSR, while firms in stage of decline are less likely to invest in CSR. The empirical findings of our study—derived by leveraging a sample of South Korean listed firms—are consistent with these predictions. We further find that in the growth stage, group-affiliated firms are more engaged in CSR than are unaffiliated firms. Given that affiliated firms can share the resources of other group-member firms, this evidence supports the slack resource hypothesis. Overall, our results indicate that firms have different CSR strategies, depending on their life-cycle stage.