Impact Of Self-selection Research Articles

Share Rose, Get Fun: The Influence of Donation on Happiness.

There is little literature on the impact of donation on individual wellbeing in China. This study examines individual donations in China to answer the question of whether helping others makes us happier and to provide policy implications for in Chinese context. Based on the 2012 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) data and using ordered logit and OLS as benchmark models, this study finds that donation can significantly increase individual happiness. After using propensity score matching (PSM) to eliminate the possible impact of self-selection, the above conclusion remains robust. After a sub-sample discussion, it is found that this effect is more pronounced under completely voluntary donation behavior, and is not affected by economic factors, indicating that the happiness effect of donation does not vary significantly depending on the individual’s economic status. This study contributes to the literature on donation behavior by examining the impact of donation behavior on donors’ subjective happiness in China, and further identifies subjective happiness differences, as between voluntary and involuntary donations, thereby providing theoretical and empirical support for the formulation of policies for the development of donation institutions in China.

''Will Check-in for Badges'': Understanding Bias and Misbehavior on Location-Based Social Networks

Social computing researchers are using data from location-based social networks (LBSN), e.g., "Check-in" traces, as approximations of human movement. Recent work has questioned the validity of this approach, showing large discrepancies between check-in data and actual user mobility. To further validate and understand such discrepancies, we perform a crowdsourced study of Foursquare users that seeks to a) quantify bias and misrepresentation in check-in datasets and the impact of self-selection in prior studies, and b) understand the motivations behind misrepresentation of check-ins, and the potential impact of any system changes designed to curtail such misbehavior. Our results confirm the presence of significant misrepresentation of location check-ins on Foursquare. They also show that while "extraneous" check-ins are motivated by external rewards provided by the system, "missing" check-ins are motivated by personal concerns such as location privacy. Finally, we discuss the broader implications of our findings to the use of check-in datasets in future research on human mobility.

The Impact of Self-Selection on Performance

In many natural environments, carefully chosen peers influence individual behavior. In this paper, we examine how self-selected peers affect performance in contrast to randomly assigned ones. We conduct a field experiment in physical education classes at secondary schools. Students participate in a running task twice: first, the students run alone, then with a peer. Before the second run,we elicit preferences for peers. We experimentally vary the matching in the second run and form pairs either randomly or based on elicited preferences. Self-selected peers improve individual performance by .14-.15 SD relative to randomly assigned peers. While self-selection leads to more social ties and lower performance differences within pairs, this altered peer composition does not explain performance improvements. Rather, we provide evidence that self-selection has a direct effect on performance and provide several markers that the social interaction has changed.

Su1239 Can We Apply to the General Population the Results of Sigmoidoscopy Screening Trials? The Case of the Score Trial

Background. Volunteers enrolled in preventive trials tend to show a different risk profile, compared to the source population. In the SCORE trial of sigmoidoscopy (FS) screening for colorectal cancer (CRC) we enrolled subjects who responded to an interest in screening questionnaire declaring their interest in having FS. Aim. To assess the impact of self-selection in the study of volunteers willing to be screened on the estimates of CRC incidence and mortality and on the generalisability of the results. Methods. We conducted an incidence and mortality follow-up within the cohort of subjects who had been mailed the recruitment questionnaire in 2 centres (Turin and Genova), where information concerning socio-demographic characteristics of all individuals targeted for recruitment was available from the local population registries. We considered in the analysis 3 response groups: 1) non-responders; 2) uninterested responders, including both eligible and non-eligible refusers; 3) interested responders, including subjects allocated to the control group and a sample of non-eligible interested responders. Subjects allocated to the intervention group were excluded, since their CRC risk was reduced as a result of screening. We compared baseline demographics, CRC risk, all-cause and CRC mortality at 11-year follow-up of enrolled volunteers, nonresponders and refusers, using logistic regression and Cox proportional hazards multivariable models Results. Both subjects who volunteered in the trial and those who refused were better educated than non-responders. Men and people younger than 60 were more likely to volunteer among responders. The median follow-up time was 11.2 years both for incidence and for mortality. CRC incidence was 1.83 x 1000 person-years (PY 95%CI:1.76-1.90; 2,677 CRC cases/1,466,838.6 PY); overall mortality was 11.42 x 1000 PY (95% CI: 11.2511.59; 16,794 deaths/ 1,470,840.0 PY); CRC mortality was 0.60 x 1000 PYs (95% CI: 0.560.64; 881 CRC-related deaths/ 1,470,840.0 PY). Interested responders showed a similar CRC risk as non-responders to the recruitment questionnaire, but their CRC mortality was substantially lower: HR:0.70; 95%CI:0.54-0.91. Similarly, CRCmortality was observed when comparing controls enrolled in the SORE trial to non responders to the recruitment questionnaire (HR:0.72; 95%CI:0.53-0.97). All-cause mortality was reduced both among interested responders (HR:0.61; 95%CI:0.57-0.65) and among thosewho refused recruitment (HR:0.81; 95%CI:0.76-0.86). Conclusion. The implementation of a population based FS screening program would result in a similar reduction in CRC incidence, as observed in the SCORE trial, and in a larger impact on CRC mortality. Individual's awareness of CRC risk, as indicated by the positive response to an interest in screening questionnaire, emerged as a determinant of the SES gradient in CRC mortality.

NEIGHBORHOOD EFFECTS: ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND LOOKING BEYOND THEM

The paper addresses the empirical signiflcance of the social context in economic decisions. Decisions of individuals who share spatial and social milieus are likely to be interdependent, and econometric identiflcation of social efiects poses intricate data and methodological problems, including dealing with self-selection in spatial and social groups. It uses a simple empirical framework to introduce social interactions efiects at difierent levels of aggregation, and examines estimation problems into linear models, the impact of self-selection and of nonlinearities. It also examines neighborhood efiects in job matching and proposes a research agenda that ofiers new techniques and data sources.

Impacts of self-selection and transit proximity on commute mode choice: evidence from Taipei rapid transit system

Debate over how land use and self-selection affect travel behavior continues. Prior research contributes limited empirical evidence to this debate, and characterizing self-selection remains problematic. This empirical research explores the impacts of self-selection and proximity to transit at both residence and workplace. The research hypothesis is self-selection and proximity to transit increase the probability of workers commuting by rapid rail transit. To conduct this research, a station-exit passenger survey was conducted along the Taipei Rapid Transit System. Analysis methods include binomial logit modeling and sensitivity analysis. Research results support the idea that transit proximity to both work and residence increase the probability of transit commuting, but the hypothesis about the impact of self-selection is only partly supported. Policy implications suggest that, on one hand, increasing density around transit stations could realize unfulfilled self-selection; on the other hand, improved quality-of-life characteristics in neighborhoods around station areas may induce residents and companies to relocate to the neighborhood, thereby increasing residents’ and workers’ probabilities of commuting by transit.

The Oslo Health Study: The impact of self-selection in a large, population-based survey.

BackgroundResearch on health equity which mainly utilises population-based surveys, may be hampered by serious selection bias due to a considerable number of invitees declining to participate. Sufficient information from all the non-responders is rarely available to quantify this bias. Predictors of attendance, magnitude and direction of non-response bias in prevalence estimates and association measures, are investigated based on information from all 40 888 invitees to the Oslo Health Study.MethodsThe analyses were based on linkage between public registers in Statistics Norway and the Oslo Health Study, a population-based survey conducted in 2000/2001 inviting all citizens aged 30, 40, 45, 59–60 and 75–76 years. Attendance was 46%. Weighted analyses, logistic regression and sensitivity analyses are performed to evaluate possible selection bias.ResultsThe response rate was positively associated with age, educational attendance, total income, female gender, married, born in a Western county, living in the outer city residential regions and not receiving disability benefit. However, self-rated health, smoking, BMI and mental health (HCSL) in the attendees differed only slightly from estimated prevalence values in the target population when weighted by the inverse of the probability of attendance.Observed values differed only moderately provided that the non-attending individuals differed from those attending by no more than 50%. Even though persons receiving disability benefit had lower attendance, the associations between disability and education, residential region and marital status were found to be unbiased. The association between country of birth and disability benefit was somewhat more evident among attendees.ConclusionsSelf-selection according to sociodemographic variables had little impact on prevalence estimates. As indicated by disability benefit, unhealthy persons attended to a lesser degree than healthy individuals, but social inequality in health by different sociodemographic variables seemed unbiased. If anything we would expect an overestimation of the odds ratio of chronic disease among persons born in non-western countries.