Advances In Behavioral Sciences Research Articles

Reproductive Strategies and Romantic Love in Early Modern Europe

In Western Europe, the Early Modern Period is characterized by the rise of tenderness in romantic relationships and the emergence of companionate marriage. Despite a long research tradition, the origins of these social changes remain elusive. In this paper, we build on recent advances in behavioral sciences, showing that romantic emotional investment, which is more culturally variable than sexual attraction, enhances the cohesion of long-term relationships and increases investment in children. Importantly, this long-term strategy is considered especially advantageous when living standards are high. Here, we investigate the relationship between living standards, the emotional components of love expressed in fiction work, and behavioral outcomes related to pair bonding, such as nuptial and fertility rates. We developed natural language processing measures of “emotional investment” (tenderness) and “attraction” (passion) and computed romantic love in English plays (N = 847) as a ratio between the two. We found that living standards generally predicted and temporally preceded variations of romantic love in the Early Modern Period. Furthermore, romantic love preceded an increase in nuptial rates and a decrease in births per marriage. This suggests that increasing living standards in the Early Modern Period may have contributed to the emergence of modern romantic culture.

AN OVERVIEW OF TECHNOLOGY USE FOR PARENT TRAINING IN BEHAVIOR ANALYTIC INTERVENTIONS

The efficacy of Applied Behavior Analytic (ABA) interventions for children who display problematic behavior has been well-documented and repeatedly demonstrated, however, global access to these interventions is restricted due to their limited availability. A promising strategy to attend a greater number of children in need of behavioral intervention is to train parents using various means of technology. The purpose of this overview is to present the process of incorporating technology into training parents in ABA interventions from a chronological perspective. A total of 65 studies were identified using an electronic search in eleven databases. The information collected is presented synthetically in tables and figures with data related to the content of training, the methods used, and the technological resources employed, as well as a narrative analysis of the information around four themes: technological advances on parent training, problems addressed, research methods and reported findings. The findings showed that technology has facilitated parent training in ABA interventions and thus contributed to advances in behavioral science and promoted the expansion of ABA services.

How can value added tax compliance be incentivized? An experimental examination of trust in government and tax compliance costs

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the relationship between trust in government, value added tax (VAT) compliance costs and VAT compliance in the Jordanian retail industry context.Design/methodology/approachThe study makes use of an online questionnaire survey to collect the required data, and the research model is eventually validated based on 189 responses gathered from the retail industry in Jordan. The obtained data was analyzed using partial least squares-structural equation modeling to examine the effects of trust in government and costs of VAT compliance on VAT compliance.FindingsThe results showed that VAT compliance costs have no significant influence on VAT compliance; while trust in government was found statistically positive significant with VAT compliance.Practical implicationsThis study’s results are expected to have implications for VAT authorities and policymakers in Arab countries, like Jordan in their policies formulation to enhance VAT compliance in retail industry. The study’s findings are alerting the policymakers for the positive noneconomic consequences of VAT compliance. It provides evidence that trust in government can increase VAT compliance.Social implicationsThe results of the research have a plentiful of social implications. Higher VAT compliance will enable higher levels of government spending on a many of social targets such as health, education, welfare programs and infrastructure.Originality/valueWhile the study builds on recent research examining how to incentivize VAT compliance, it simultaneously seeks to make three contributions. First, the study design aims to apply recent advances in behavioral sciences (impact of trust in government and VAT compliance costs) in a policy area that has not seen much use of such interventions in the Jordanian context (i.e. VAT compliance). Second, the study is government procedures pertinent in the sense that it aims to increase the effectiveness of existing government policies by complementing them with behavioral primes. Third, there is nearly no literature found applying this topic in a developing country such as Jordan. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study that examines the trust in government and VAT compliance costs on VAT compliance among Jordanian retail industry. Thus, this paper contributes to mitigating the literature gap by providing empirical evidence concerning the influence of trust in government and VAT compliance costs on the retail industry VAT compliance in the Jordanian context.

How can tax compliance be incentivized? An experimental examination of voice and empathy

PurposeTax evasion is an economic crime that nearly all world countries suffer from. Its consequences are countless, including poor public spending on infrastructure projects and social welfare programs, low economic growth and development, institutional mistrust and fiscal deficits. For developing countries in particular, targeting development programs and infrastructural investments requires an efficient tax collection policy to generate sufficient funds for such purposes. This makes the tax evasion problem a critical one and countering it extremely policy relevant. Based on evidence that shows how the understanding of taxpayers' behavior is an essential factor in fighting evasion, this paper aims to test different factors that might incentivize citizens using a behavioral and experimental approach, in non-Western educated industrialized rich democracies (non-WEIRD) countries, to comply more.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses a survey experiment to examine the impact of different behavioral primes on tax compliance behavior. Specifically, it observes subjects' compliance behavior in two contexts: voice and empathy. A total of 273 students from a big public university in Egypt were randomly selected to participate in this study.FindingsIn the “Voice” treatment, the explanatory variable (VOICE) was found statistically significant, thus confirming the hypothesis that democracy, through having a voice in the decision-making process, affects compliance positively. As for the “Empathy” treatment, the explanatory variable (EMPATHY) was also found significant. This confirms the second hypothesis that triggering feelings of empathy, through highlighting the good cause behind public spending that uses taxpayers' money, affects compliance behavior positively.Research limitations/implicationsDespite the fact that the experimental methodology is a methodology with high internal validity, examining the impact of a specific intervention on behavior, a replication of the experiment in other contexts might be useful in increasing the external validity of the findings. Specifically, conducting this experiment on a nonstudent sample might lead to even more powerful results by increasing the ecological validity of the results.Practical implicationsThis study advocates a more behaviorally informed public policy. Specifically, Egyptian policymakers are recommended to adopt behavioral nudges as a complement to existing policies. The authors believe the findings, if confirmed by repeated experiments (lab, lab-in-the-field and rational choice theories on both student and non-student samples) in a number of Arab countries, might also help in offering cost-effective nudges for the Arab world policymakers, where culture and the political context are to a great extent similar.Social implicationsThe findings of the study have a number of social implications. Higher tax compliance will enable higher levels of public spending on a number of social targets such as education, health and welfare programs.Originality/valueWhile the study builds on recent research examining how to incentivize tax compliance, it simultaneously seeks to make three contributions. First, the study design aims to apply recent advances in behavioral sciences (impact of voice and empathy) in a policy area that has not seen much use of such interventions in the Egyptian context (i.e. tax compliance). Second, the study is policy relevant in the sense that it aims to increase the effectiveness of existing government policies by complementing them with behavioral primes. Third, there is nearly no literature found applying this topic in a non-WEIRD country such as Egypt.

Behavior Change Techniques and Their Mechanisms of Action: A Synthesis of Links Described in Published Intervention Literature.

BackgroundDespite advances in behavioral science, there is no widely shared understanding of the “mechanisms of action” (MoAs) through which individual behavior change techniques (BCTs) have their effects. Cumulative progress in the development, evaluation, and synthesis of behavioral interventions could be improved by identifying the MoAs through which BCTs are believed to bring about change.PurposeThis study aimed to identify the links between BCTs and MoAs described by authors of a corpus of published literature.MethodsHypothesized links between BCTs and MoAs were extracted by two coders from 277 behavior change intervention articles. Binomial tests were conducted to provide an indication of the relative frequency of each link.ResultsOf 77 BCTs coded, 70 were linked to at least one MoA. Of 26 MoAs, all but one were linked to at least one BCT. We identified 2,636 BCT–MoA links in total (mean number of links per article = 9.56, SD = 13.80). The most frequently linked MoAs were “Beliefs about Capabilities” and “Intention.” Binomial test results identified up to five MoAs linked to each of the BCTs (M = 1.71, range: 1–5) and up to eight BCTs for each of the MoAs (M = 3.63, range: 1–8).ConclusionsThe BCT–MoA links described by intervention authors and identified in this extensive review present intervention developers and reviewers with a first level of systematically collated evidence. These findings provide a resource for the development of theory-based interventions, and for theoretical understanding of intervention evaluations. The extent to which these links are empirically supported requires systematic investigation.

Opportunities for behavioral energy efficiency and flexible demand in data-limited low-carbon resource constrained environments

Sensor networks, information and communication technologies, and advances in behavioral science can allow for the design and implementation of inclusive information and automation systems for ongoing low-carbon transitions. Here, we present results of the first randomized pilot providing tandem behavioral energy efficiency and flexible demand services through the use of distributed sensor networks in Latin America (Managua, Nicaragua). We show that the houses and micro-enterprises randomly assigned to the intervention reduced their energy consumption by nine percent relative to the control group, and participated at length in peak-shaving flexible demand events (≥80% of events). Identified social co-benefits included increased energy literacy, financial management and user empowerment, and find that improved access to energy information was more important than cash when incentivizing project participation with a high user willingness to pay. Several challenges may hinder the success of smart systems in resource constrained environments, including temporal and financial scarcity at the household level, lack of institutional support, and a panoply of top-down misaligned incentives. We document the multiple barriers to scale flexible demand and energy efficiency strategies, including bottom-up (e.g., appliance financing) and top-down (e.g., decoupling) challenges and discuss ways to overcome them. As more low, low-middle income countries transition away from fossil fuels, the use of sensor networks and information and communication technologies for building smart and inclusive smart systems will become increasingly necessary and attractive.

Building a Bridge between Marketing and Finance

Corporate finance executives are often frustrated by spending proposals from their marketing colleagues but cannot seem to be able to quantify the putative benefits. Similarly, the marketing staff is frustrated by the finance team's inability to convert soft marketing metrics, such as “awareness” and “customer satisfaction” into financial forecasts. The challenge is that neither marketers nor finance executives have been able to articulate a single analytical framework which both explains how and why brands come to flourish or flounder and how brand growth contributes to the business's short and long term bottom line.Lacking an effective way to do this now, most managers default to using the hard data they do have, namely how marketing investment is likely to impact sales this quarter and next. This reinforces the widespread focus on quarterly EPS and reduces the perceived value of the marketing department to their ability to hit three month sales targets. This degraded view of marketing's contribution and the inability to link “soft” marketing metrics to longer term financial returns impedes building long‐term brand value. This article focuses on how advances in behavioral science and financial analytics offer an effective way to bridge this gap between marketing and finance.Building that bridge requires better measures of brand health and financial performance to allocate capital and marketing resources. Undoubtedly, brand building is both an art and a science. But, the finance people can develop an evidence‐based framework explaining how some of the “softer” investments such as brand building, contribute to the value of the firm.

Intimate Partner Violence and the Duluth Model: An Examination of the Model and Recommendations for Future Research and Practice

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a global health concern. Given the complexity of the act of violence coupled with the difficulty of stabilizing the perpetrator and victim, assessment and intervention continue to be substandard. The Duluth Model is the predominant intervention for perpetrators of IPV; however, it continues to be controversial and has received significant criticism due to its narrow scope. The objective of this article is to identify the components of the Duluth Model and compare to the advances in behavioral sciences in order to implement a change in treatment for perpetrators of IPV.

Advances in Behavioral Science Using Automated Facial Image Analysis and Synthesis [Social Sciences

The face conveys information about a person's age, sex, background, and identity; what they are feeling, thinking, or likely to do next. Facial expression regulates face-to-face interactions, indicates reciprocity and interpersonal attraction or repulsion, and enables intersubjectivity between members of different cultures. Facial expression indexes neurological and psychiatric functioning and reveals personality and socioemotional development. Not surprisingly, the face has been of keen interest to behavioral scientists. About 15 years ago, computer scientists became increasingly interested in the use of computer vision and graphics to automatically analyze and synthesize facial expression. This effort was made possible in part by the development in psychology of detailed coding systems for describing facial actions and their relation to basic emotions, that is, emotions that are interpreted similarly in diverse cultures. The most detailed of these systems, the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), informed the development of the MPEG-4 facial animation parameters for video transmission and enabled progress toward automated measurement and synthesis of facial actions for research in affective computing, social signal processing, and behavioral science. This article reports key advances in behavioral science that are becoming possible through these developments. Before beginning, automated facial image analysis and synthesis (AFAS) is briefly described.

Adherence to antiretroviral therapy among patients with HIV: a critical link between behavioral and biomedical sciences.

Rapid advances in biomedical science, such as pharmaceutical developments for HIV disease, must be integrated with advances in behavioral science to further our understanding of medication adherence. This article evaluates the current state of the science in adherence to antiretroviral therapy for persons with HIV. The primary objectives are to 1) identify critical determinants of adherence, and 2) describe interventions to improve adherence. Adherence is a complex dynamic behavior influenced by characteristics of the patient, treatment regimen, disease, patient-provider relationship, and clinical setting. Therefore, the most promising interventions are multifaceted and target different locations in this matrix simultaneously. Unfortunately, nonadherence remains a formidable barrier in the management of HIV, resulting in the development of resistance and drug failure. Moreover, adherence is a public health concern, with implications for the transmission of HIV in general and the transmission of drug-resistant strains of HIV specifically. Despite substantial attention to adherence in recent years, much more remains to be done to better understand and promote adherence to antiretroviral therapy through effective interventions. From this integration of biomedical and behavioral science, effective clinical interventions can be developed and implemented to enhance the health of patients with HIV.

Seasonal Affective Disorder and Seasonality: A Review

Seasonal ojfective disorder is a condition wheredepressions infall and winter alternate with nondepressedperiods in the spring and summer. The degree to which seasonal changes affict mood, energy, sleep, appetite, .foodpreference, or the wish to socialize with other people has been called The author reviews historical aspects, clinical.features, epidemiology, genetics, pathophy siology, and treatment ofseasonal ojfective disorder and seasonality. Better understanding of the contemporary concept of seasonal affictive disorder, seasonality, and light treatment will improvepatient careand promote scientific advances in behavioral sciences.

Behavior and biology: the basic sciences for AHA action: presented at the 70th scientific sessions of the American Heart Association, November 9, 1997, Orlando, Florida.

It is a privilege and an honor to speak with the scientific community about the need to integrate the behavioral and social sciences with the biomedical sciences and how this relates to the mission of the American Heart Association. My observations and thoughts are influenced by my experiences as a nurse researcher and behavioral scientist at Johns Hopkins, where I have been involved in a research program on high blood pressure control in urban black communities. Tremendous advances in biology are providing new knowledge about genetics, physiology, pathophysiology, and disease, creating exciting opportunities for clinical research. From the laboratory this research evolves into new applications for diagnosis, therapy, and prevention in humans. At the same time, important advances in behavioral science, clinical outcomes, and healthcare delivery have provided needed knowledge about prevention and treatment. This research transitions from the healthcare setting into the community. Individuals’ lifestyles significantly impact their health, with unhealthy habits accounting for about 54%1 of known contributions to heart disease. Behavioral and biological interventions can reduce morbidity, disability, and death due to heart disease and stroke. They can improve quality of life and influence the behavior of policy makers in their decisions, health professionals in their practice, and people in their daily lives. However, there is a gap between the efficacy of interventions in studies and their effectiveness in practice, a gap between potential and reality, intention and action, and information and behavior. This gap illustrates the urgent need to more fully integrate the social and behavioral sciences with the biomedical sciences. Three questions arise: Despite extensive studies of strategies to prevent and treat risk factors for heart disease and stroke, current evidence documents …

Behavior and biology: the basic sciences for AHA action: Presented at the 70th Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association, November 9, 1997, Orlando, Florida.

It is a privilege and an honor to speak with the scientific community about the need to integrate the behavioral and social sciences with the biomedical sciences and how this relates to the mission of the American Heart Association. My observations and thoughts are influenced by my experiences as a nurse researcher and behavioral scientist at Johns Hopkins, where I have been involved in a research program on high blood pressure control in urban black communities. Tremendous advances in biology are providing new knowledge about genetics, physiology, pathophysiology, and disease, creating exciting opportunities for clinical research. From the laboratory this research evolves into new applications for diagnosis, therapy, and prevention in humans. At the same time, important advances in behavioral science, clinical outcomes, and healthcare delivery have provided needed knowledge about prevention and treatment. This research transitions from the healthcare setting into the community. Individuals’ lifestyles significantly impact their health, with unhealthy habits accounting for about 54%1 of known contributions to heart disease. Behavioral and biological interventions can reduce morbidity, disability, and death due to heart disease and stroke. They can improve quality of life and influence the behavior of policy makers in their decisions, health professionals in their practice, and people in their daily lives. However, there is a gap between the efficacy of interventions in studies and their effectiveness in practice, a gap between potential and reality, intention and action, and information and behavior. This gap illustrates the urgent need to more fully integrate the social and behavioral sciences with the biomedical sciences. Three questions arise: Despite extensive studies of strategies to prevent and treat risk factors for heart disease and stroke, current evidence documents …

Preclinical evaluation of pharmacotherapies for treatment of cocaine and opioid abuse using drug self-administration procedures.

Drug abuse is a major public health problem, and the relationship between intravenous drug abuse and AIDS underscores the need for more effective treatment medications. Animal models of drug self-administration are useful to systematically evaluate new treatment medications and predict clinical efficacy. This review summarizes the status of preclinical evaluations of medications for treatment of cocaine and opiate abuse. The basic drug self-administration methodology and the rationale for experimental designs and outcome criteria are described. Studies of the effects of dopamine or opioid receptor agonists and antagonists as well as medications used clinically for other indications on drug self-administration are critically examined. Where possible, the degree of concordance between clinical and preclinical studies of drug abuse treatment medications is discussed. We conclude that drug self-administration models are valuable for preclinical assessment of medication efficacy, and we recommend some strategies to further improve evaluation procedures. The discovery of more effective medications for substance abuse treatment should be facilitated by recent advances in behavioral science, pharmacology, neurobiology and medicinal chemistry.

The Future of Family Law

In the nineteenth century, marriage and divorce became matters of judicial cognizance. Ambivalence toward divorce is shown by the propensity of Anglo-American law to maintain a strict divorce law in theory, but to institutionalize divorce in practice, so that, in reality, divorce is readily obtainable when both parties desire it. Social change and a general rejection of hypocrisy have led to a reform of matrimonial law following World War II. Recent legal opinions agree on the necessity for reform, but differ concerning whether non-fault-grounds should be added to fault-grounds as a basis for divorce. Ferment and change are also occurring in laws concerning matrimonial property, alimony, and support. Juvenile courts may no longer deprive juveniles of due process on the theory that institutionalization is treatment for the good of the juvenile delinquent. Family law depends, in large measure, upon advances in behavioral science. However, the moral sense of the community is also a necessary element. Family law reflects changing social values and felt needs of the people, but there is a time lag between mores and law, which may be observed by noting the difference between "living law" and formal law. It is likely that legal aid and community legal services will give greater assistance to poor families with problems, and that welfare laws will eventually be changed in order to promote family stability.