Neurological Correlates

Social norm compliance and the well-to-do.

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Cheaters are another reason for income inequality.

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Love, or something, is in the air.

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Neuroeconomic studies may have sample selection bias.

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About 18 months worth of posts linked in one convenient location.

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Superbowl ad brain scan

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Feel like making like a flying squirrel off a tall building? Blame your white matter. Feel like sitting around judging people who aren’t like you? Blame your white matter for that, too.

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Should consumer behavior research consider human biological  and evolutionary roots?
Yes, according to Prof. Saad, who is now likely to be banished from the Faculty Lounge in the business building to the one in the biology building for potentially forcing scores of marketing majors to wake up for those 7:45 evolutionary biology labs. Prof. Saad’s recent [...]

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Decriminalize addiction.

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A contractor finds $182,000 in depression era cash while remodeling the home of a high school friend.  The homeowner-proposer offers 10%  — that’s $18,200, nothing to sneeze at. The contractor-responder must have read the neuroeconomics texts because the response is textbook dictator game:
Kitts [the contractor-responder] was tearing the bathroom walls out of an 83-year-old home [...]

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This post is about behavioral economics, and self-interest.
If you want to know why the elite academicians didn’t sound the warning for the financial crash, the unfortunately sur-named Professor Shiller tells all in the NYT (to paraphrase): “We were afraid the other economists wouldn’t like us, and would kick us out of the elite economist club [...]

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Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist, believes that investors need to feel they have punished the powerful Wall Street scam artists who have over-leverage and under-regulated fleeced the public, even at our own financial expense. (Recall the ultimatum game — if someone with $100 offers you $2, you turn it down as an insult, even though [...]

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This is being reposted from last January:
For SEC team, backdating probe led to surprises - MarketWatch

Arrested Development: Bob Loblaw and Lindsay

Bob Loblaw: Actually, I was going to stay in my office tonight and work on my law blog.
Tobias: Of course— the “Bob Loblaw Law Blog.” Wow. You, sir, are a mouthful!

OK, [...]

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In a previous post about white collar crime, somehow the”DOI’s” got mixed up on Research Blogging and the following study was cited instead:
MILLER, G., TYBUR, J., JORDAN, B. (2007). Ovulatory cycle effects on tip earnings by lap dancers: economic evidence for human estrus?☆☆. Evolution and Human Behavior, 28(6), 375-381. DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2007.06.002
I think this is the [...]

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Jose Canseco, the noted baseball player and author of “Juiced“, was busy as a bee pollinating major league baseball with knowledge and practices for steroid and growth hormone use. (Here’s the link on Docuticker). This strikes me as similar to the stock option backdating scenario — interlocking boards of directors and using the [...]

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“Dopamine Futures” original art by Swivelchair
(all rights, if any totally waived, copy it all you want).
If you compare a screen shot of on-line gambling with a screen shot of on-line stock trading, they look very similar. That is probably because humans are hard wired for rewards — if you hunt and are successful, [...]

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There are lots of studies as to why people purchase luxury goods, but these are mostly directed at individuals in isolation. What about group behavior?

Manhattan, Harlem, Lenox Ave.
Ray Fisman, an economist, has an interesting article in Slate about why African-Americans (and other ethnic minorities) in the US spend disproportionately on status-seeking items. As quoted in [...]

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Does money play a role in economic crime?
This seems so obvious, why even ask the question?
But, for some, the thrill is in the taking — not in the having.
Engdahl, O., “The role of money in economic crime,” British Journal of Criminology (Advanced Online 01.16.08)

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Little American Brown Weasel
The Top Two Inches has an interesting blog post about dating, called, “Dating — Don’t Do It“. Interesting read, and it got me thinking about trust.
Trust is first built in one part of the brain, and then your brain comes to a fork in the road: the “unconditional” trust brain area [...]

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The Clinton Neurons, Quian Quiroga et al., “Invariant visual representation by single neurons in the human brain,” Nature 435: 1102-1107 (2005)
Neurodemocracy, you gotta love it. Branding, celebrity and politics — all evoke neurological responses in primitive brain areas. How can the candidates best position themselves to have the best neurological response in swing [...]

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Li, Xinxin and Hitt, Lorin M., “Self Selection and Information Role of Online Product Reviews” . Information Systems Research, Forthcoming Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1019641Early on-line reviews can make or break a product. This paper says that marketing can target early adopters who are likely to yield positive early reviews –
. . .Our analysis suggests that [...]

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“. . .Overall, prosocial motivation is linked to (a) Agreeableness as a dimension of personality, (b) proximal prosocial cognition and motives, and (c) helping behavior across a range of situations and victims. In persons low in prosocial motivation, when costs of helping are high, efforts to induce empathy situationally can undermine prosocial behavior. . . “

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Or, how do you pick customers unlikely to sue you? At least with doctors, there is now a paper:
What patient attributes are associated with thoughts of suing a physician? Fishbain, et al., Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 2007 May;88(5):589-96 (full abstract after the jump).

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Screenshots of (top) on-line gaming, and (bottom) on-line stock trading

J Gambl Stud. 2007 Mar 30; [Epub ahead of print]

Dopamine Genes and Pathological Gambling in Discordant Sib-Pairs.
Sabbatini da Silva Lobo D, Vallada HP, Knight J, Martins SS, Tavares H, Gentil V, Kennedy JL.
Laboratory of Medical Investigation (LIM-23)—Psychopharmacology, Department and Institute of Psychiatry, [...]

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