Irrational Phenomena Research Articles

A motor task, not working memory, causes the revelation effect.

Performing a cognitive task prior to making a recognition judgment increases the probability of old responses, which is known as the revelation effect. The criterion shift account (Niewiadomski & Hockley, 2001) proposes that occupation of working memory causes the revelation effect. However, we proposed that working memory does not cause it. Two experiments were conducted to disconfirm the relationship between working memory and the revelation effect and to consider an alternative explanation that metacognition causes the effect. In Experiment 1, the revelation effect was caused by a finger movement task, which puts little or no load on working memory. In Experiment 2, a metacognitive instruction that a cognitive task would make subsequent recognition easier induced a conservative criterion shift. The finding that a simple motor task caused the revelation effect in Experiment 1 disconfirms the relationship between working memory and the revelation effect and extends the boundaries of the occurrence of the effect. The findings in Experiment 2 suggest that metacognition may be related to the occurrence of the revelation effect. This study implies a paradoxical aspect of human cognition in that metacognition, which usually makes cognition more effective and rational, may also cause an irrational phenomenon, the revelation effect. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The Enjoyment of Being Had: The Aesthetics of Masquerade in The Confidence-Man

Impostors, confidence artists, and artful deceivers seem to have achieved a strange kind of popularity and even prestige in our contemporary political landscape, for reasons that remain elusive, especially given how harmful and socially unwanted such behaviors ostensibly are. Herman Melville’s 1857 novel, The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, helps us shift our perspective on this seemingly irrational phenomenon because it points out how being susceptible to dupery is linked to the enjoyment of fiction itself. This insight also highlights the importance of epistemological failure in the recent “return to aesthetics” in literary studies, where the positive dimension of unconsciously “willing one’s dupery” directly links aesthetic form to politics. The logic that connects aesthetics to unconscious enjoyment is then elaborated in the work of psychoanalytic thinkers such as Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Helene Deutsch and others to raise particular questions about how and why the enjoyment of being duped has been associated with feminine sexuality. Reading Melville’s novel while considering psychoanalytic concepts such as the “as if” personality, imposture, and interpassivity illuminates how confidence games play upon the ruses of sexuality, which have profound implications for why the public remains in thrall to the workings of known deceivers.

Information, Incentives, and CEO Replacement

ABSTRACT There are instances where CEO turnover occurs, even if the company has not made any significant strategy changes, and the new CEO possesses similar abilities as the predecessor. This paper aims to provide a rational explanation for this seemingly irrational phenomenon. One possible reason for this “aggressive” CEO turnover is the board’s desire to reduce the information rents earned by the privately informed CEO. Specifically, the incumbent CEO has a temptation to “sandbag” the board about profitability prospects to secure more generous incentive pay for future implementation, and a (seemingly aggressive) replacement policy helps discourage this kind of gaming. That is, instead of “information-based entrenchment” as suggested by the literature (Laux 2008; Inderst and Mueller 2010), this paper shows a countervailing effect that the CEO’s private information (combined with the later-stage moral hazard problem) may lead to her dismissal more often than the ex post efficient benchmark. JEL Classifications: D86; G34; M41.

Methods of classifying Tunisian investors into homogeneous groups

PurposeFinancial theory is based on the assumption of rationality of individuals. Defenders of behavioral finance recommend that the rationality hypothesis of efficiency theory is too narrow and irrelevant (Barberis and Thaler, 2002). The irrationality of the investor is reflected in his choice and his behaviour. However, his choice depends on the way the problem is formulated and described. The irrational investor does not think in terms of final wealth but rather in terms of gains and losses.Design/methodology/approachThis research is interested in the methods of classification of the investors in homogeneous groups. In the study, the classification method used to group individual in the sample is the dynamic aggregation method. However, to identify the number of groups to use in this method, the authors also used the hierarchical method on a sub-sample. Thus, to this end the authors present a topological analysis to test the hypothesis of the heterogeneity of Tunisian investor groups in terms of belief.FindingsThe results suggest that the majority of investors are quite irrational. Therefore, the Tunisian investor considers itself irrational because of the presence of several anomalies in its behavior.Originality/valueThis research proposes to help identify the variables that are truly determining in the process of interpreting information. The authors wish to formulate recommendations for the use of information, in order to help professionals and investors in the orientation of the investment strategy. In particular, the authors attempt to indicate the variables to which attention should be paid. In addition, behavioral financial analysis is useful for investors. Thus, taking into account certain irrational phenomena is important to make a decision. In addition, it allows to better identify the investor's own shortcomings and to detect certain negative trends.

Liquidity shock and stock returns in the Japanese equity market

We investigate the relationship between liquidity shocks and stock returns in the Japanese equity market. As in the US equity market, we observe an irrational phenomenon: Stocks with positive liquidity shocks have higher future returns than stocks with negative liquidity shocks. This phenomenon may be caused by an underreaction to liquidity shocks. We show that illiquidity strongly contributes to this underreaction, unlike the US equity market. Additionally, we uncover new facts that were not previously known. We show that liquidity shocks caused by bad news is more quickly priced than those caused by good news. We also find that pricing on liquidity shocks in the cross-section may be affected by time-varying market liquidity shocks.

Testing Financial Contagion in Emerging Countries: Evidence From BRICS Countries

This study uses a Multivariate Generalised Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (MGARCH) model to examine the pure form of financial contagion in BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) in the wake of two major international financial crises namely the U.S. sub-prime and Eurozone sovereign debt crises (EZDC). The pure form of contagion refers to the spread of shocks that are unrelated to macroeconomic fundamentals and are simply the product of irrational phenomena like panics, herd behaviour, loss of confidence, and risk aversion. To investigate contagion the present study analyses the pairwise dynamic cross-correlation between the US and Eurozone equity markets as ‘source’ (ground zero) markets and individual BRICS stock markets as ‘target’ markets.For the each of the two crises that are examined the sets of data used, were divided into two sub-periods (1) the crisis period and (2) the stable period. For the Sub-prime crisis, the findings of the present study indicate the presence of cross-conditional volatility between the US and BRICS stock markets. The results also showed that the cross-conditional volatility coefficient is high in magnitude during periods of financial upheaval compared to a tranquil period, hence the conclusion that there was financial contagion during in BRICs stock markets (except in Chinese market) following the U.S. sub-prime crisis. As for the EZDC, equity markets in Brazil, India and China seemed to react equally (in both the ‘crisis’ and ‘post-crisis’ periods) from shocks emanating from European equity market. Hence the conclusion that there was no contagion in Brazil, India and China following the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis.

Laughter as a Rational and Irrational Phenomenon in Harold Pinter’s The Hothouse

Harold Pinter’s 1958/1980 play The Hothouse presents the laughter effect by making use of rational and irrational approaches of comic. In its absurdist tone, the two act play aims to mock hierarchical power structures with its setting and characters. With its witty and playful dialogues, the play creates the laughter effect by amalgamating the social and psychological functions of laughter. This article seeks to study Pinter’s play closely from the use of rational and irrational way of the laughter effect. Using the theories of Henri Bergson’s laughter concept as a rational comic approach and Freud’s joke concept as an irrational comic approach, this study shows how laughter effect is constructed in Pinter’s play.

An Unnameable Love

In this article, we take as a starting point the novel Le sommeil d'Eve (Eve's Sleep) in order to examine Mohammed Dib's thoughts on femininity and love. His input on those issues is remarkable and pervades all his work. The novel Le sommeil d'Eve reveals how some romantic encounters entail such trauma that the perceived love pushes the protagonists over into another universe, one where irrational phenomena reign: oddness, strangeness, hallucinations, loss of the sense of reality. This transition from one universe to another intertwines mystical with traumatic insanity, couples loss with devastation, and links birth to death.

ЕКЗИСТЕНЦІАЛІЗМ ЯК ІРРАЦІОНАЛЬНИЙ НАПРЯМ У ФІЛОСОФІЇ ПРАВА

В статті досліджується екзистенціалізм як вид ірраціоналізму у праві. Завдяки даному філософсько-правовому напряму виникло оновлене розуміння людини як особистості, яка творить себе, свою долю, тим самим впливаючи на суспільні відносини і змінюючи світ навколо.
 Проаналізовано найбільш вагомі ідеї М. Хайдеггера і Ж.‑П. Сартра, які стали основою екзистенціалістського вчення. Ці філософи започаткували ряд нових тенденцій у філософії, які згодом стали підгрунтям для формування філософсько-правових концепцій екзистенціального спрямування В. Майхофера, Е. Фехнера, К. Коссіо.
 Встановлено, що у філософсько-правовій концепції екзистенціалізму Майхофера право розглядається, як ірраціональне явище, що виявляється в екзистенції людини через співіснування індивідуального та соціального правового буття. Доведено, що свобода людини є ключовим поняттям правового екзистенціалізму та виражається у прийнятті правового рішення, де індивід повністю несе відповідальність за таке рішення.
 Виявлено, що екзистенціальна теорія Е. Фехнера спрямована на суб‘єктивістське обґрунтування природного права як ірраціонального явища, що виражається через переживання суб’єктом конкретних правових ситуацій («межових ситуацій»).
 Розглянуто філософсько-правові погляди К. Коссіо, де право розуміється як ірраціональне егологічне явище, що виходить з власного «я» людини та невіддільне від цього «я».
 Виокремлено загальні особливості, що притаманні концепції екзистенціалізму як ірраціональному філософсько-правовому напряму. Основні з них такі: право бере свої витоки в екзистенції як способі людського буття; пізнання права здійснюється внутрішнім ірраціональним світом людини через переживання індивідом правових процесів; правове рішення людини залежить від конкретної життєвої ситуації (казусу); право є безперервним потоком окремих правових казусів, що не можуть виражатися у сталій загальній нормі чи принципах; право – це егологічний об’єкт культури, цінність якого випливає із власного «ego» особистості при всій повноті її свободи.

The case for academic hazing as a rational choice: An economic approach

In several countries, academic hazing is an integration program for higher education students that is undertaken by older students in a relationship of domination and submission. Academic hazing can involve humiliation and violence, which has aroused concern worldwide amongst institutions and policymakers. Institutional responses and academic research thus far have failed to look at the behavior of participants in academic hazing as a rational choice. We argue that within an economic framework in which students compare costs and benefits, the decision in respect of participation is rational, and we test this framework empirically. Furthermore, we apply the contingent valuation method in order to elicit the value of an alternative integration program without the emotional costs associated with humiliating activities. The elicited value is non-negligible, thus confirming that students would indeed support an alternative program, in particular first year-students. This result lays the grounds for institutional intervention. Additionally, we find that first-year students underestimate how long participation in hazing takes at the expense of other activities. This paper illustrates how a seemingly irrational phenomenon can be understood as being rational within an economic approach. The results call for and give strength to institutional efforts to replace current anachronistic academic hazing practices in countries in which academic hazing is a social and institutional problem.

Kernel-Based Aggregating Learning System for Online Portfolio Optimization

Recently, various machine learning techniques have been applied to solve online portfolio optimization (OLPO) problems. These approaches typically explore aggressive strategies to gain excess returns due to the existence of irrational phenomena in financial markets. However, existing aggressive OLPO strategies rarely consider the downside risk and lack effective trend representation, which leads to poor prediction performance and large investment losses in certain market environments. Besides, prediction with a single model is often unstable and sensitive to the noises and outliers, and the subsequent selection of optimal parameters also become obstacles to accurate estimation. To overcome these drawbacks, this paper proposes a novel kernel-based aggregating learning (KAL) system for OLPO. It includes a two-step price prediction scheme to improve the accuracy and robustness of the estimation. Specifically, a component price estimator is built by exploiting additional indicator information and the nonstationary nature of financial time series, and then an aggregating learning method is presented to combine multiple component estimators following different principles. Next, this paper conducts an enhanced tracking system by introducing a kernel-based increasing factor to maximize the future wealth of next period. At last, an online learning algorithm is designed to solve the system objective, which is suitable for large-scale and time-limited situations. Experimental results on several benchmark datasets from diverse real markets show that KAL outperforms other state-of-the-art systems in cumulative wealth and some risk-adjusted metrics. Meanwhile, it can withstand certain transaction costs.

Economics in sociology? Original economic theories, concepts and approaches in classical sociologists

This paper explores the presence and consideration of economics in sociology, specifically its classical version. It identifies certain original and independent economic theories, concepts and approaches in classical sociological theory as central and its derivations, implications and extensions of economics as peripheral. The paper argues and demonstrates that classical sociology is far from being the science of noneconomic or irrational phenomena, as often sociologists conceive it and economists perceive it in counter-distinction from economics defined as the science of rational behavior, and indeed encompasses virtually all economic activities and processes, and thus prefigures New Economic Sociology adopting the same approach.

АУДИАЛЬНОЕ МЫШЛЕНИЕ В СТРУКТУРЕ ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННОГО ПОЗНАНИЯ

The author examines auditory thinking as a means of rational cognition of irrational phenomena, a means of modelling the acoustic worldview. The study focuses on social determination of auditory thinking, which is a means of non-verbal communication. Non-verbalized meaning presented in an auditory form is the most efficient means to influence human mentality, mass consciousness, to establish models of social behaviour. Auditory thinking reconstructs and transforms unconscious thoughts, emotions to clear, subjectified acoustic models. Audition not only represents objective reality but transforms it, promotes the formation and manifestation of new ideals.

The irrational and the shift of human boundaries in contemporary novels by Castillon, Martinez and NDiaye

The infiltration of magical, marvellous and fantastic features in novels which have a realist anchoring is a remarkable trend in contemporary literature by women writers in French. In order to reveal the issues conveyed by such an imagery built on various literary traditions, I examine the representations of the irrational in recent novels by three authors: Eux (2014) and Les Pêchers (2015) by Claire Castillon, Du Domaine des murmures (2011) and La Terre qui penche (2015) by Carole Martinez and Ladivine (2013) by Marie NDiaye. I use the term “irrational” as a comprehensive notion referring to the fantastic and supernatural elements in the novels, including altered perceptions, paranormal and strange occurences, metamorphosis, staging of an alter ego, monstrosity and animality in human beings, life-after-death issues, emphasised relations to nature, and other phenomena and states that can not be explained by logic. Formulations of the irrational theme exploit a literary patrimony, related in particular to the traditions of medieval marvellous literature, the fairy tales, fantastic literature, surrealism and fantastic realism. I find that the irrational articulates a shift in human spatiotemporality towards vegetal states, animality or monstrosity, and initiates an altered approach to the world. A displaced sense of reality stemming from irrational phenomena and perceptions leads to a dislocation of human consciousness which is performed through the narrative voices. The framework for the analysis consists of a feminist and posthumanist conceptualisation which involves the notions of ‘performativity’ and ‘traces’ developed by Butler and Derrida.

Mos geometricus v. Reality: Quantity, Quality, Time and Information in Combat Simulations since the Middle Ages

Abstract The non-lethal simulated training of lethal reality, whether it be single combat or war, was historically a question of life and death. We provide an analytical framework for evaluating historical precedents in fight simulations by focussing on two key questions: What was the philosophy guiding the conception of reality – in particular, did historical practitioners see reality as deterministic, and if not, how did they see it? And how did the simulations deal with the elements of quantity, quality, timing, and information? The analysis shows that our ancestors’ perception of the reality of fighting chan-ged over time, as their interpretations of reality for the world at large changed. Considerable intellectual effort and ingenuity were invested into attempts to understand reality and formulate corresponding realistic simulations, making these ludic artefacts reflective, sometimes iconic for, and occasionally ahead of their historical-cultural context. Seemingly irrational phenomena, such as the persistence of lethal duelling, had perfectly pragmatic elements.

There and Back Again: A Vindication of the Listener's Interests in Regulating Targeted Advertising in the Internet Information Economy

Targeted advertising - the process by which advertisers direct their messaging at a specific demographic - is neither a recent nor irrational phenomenon. However, the growth of consumer dependence on new and social media platforms has led to consumer concerns regarding data privacy. This Note considers the feasibility of regulating targeted advertising used in data-for-service Internet platforms, such as Facebook, given restraints posed by the Commercial Speech Doctrine of the First Amendment and the Supreme Court’s treatment of data collection and transmission practices, most recently in Sorrell v. IMS Health. This Note argues for a return to first principles of the Commercial Speech Doctrine, which prioritizes the interests of the listener, and proposes several policies on how to best regulate a nascent area of technology.

Asset Pricing Bubbles Under Rational Expectations

The Efficiency Market Hypotheses (EMH) imply rational investors and no asset mispricing in the medium run. This paper critically evaluates on the point of whether an asset price bubble is an irrational phenomenon that cannot be detected. Thereby, I review the existing literature and reflect on asset pricing tests to detect bubbles. I show that the emergence of rational bubbles within the EMH framework is indeed possible as long as a number of assumptions is not violated. As researchers show, these assumption do not hold in practice, which means that rational bubbles can be ruled out. Thus, a bubbles is always an irrational phenomenon that can be explained with behavioural models such as feedback trading and herding. This implies that EMH does not hold. Hence, irrational bubbles can only emerge in inefficient markets. Models trying to detect bubbles fail to identify the existence of bubbles ex ante and ex interim. Ex post, they can prove that a bubble had existed.

Modernist Traditionalism against Modernity: Criticism of Progress in Russia in the Second Half of the 19th Century (the Case of Archbishop Nikanor [Brovkovich] and K. N. Leontiev)

Archbishop Nikanor (Brovkovich) (1826-1890), and Konstantin Nikolaevich Leontiev (1831-1891), whose ideas are often considered as identical, are representatives of the Russian conservatism of the second half of the XIX century. Their views can be attributed to the culture-critical direction of the traditionalist type which interprets modernization as a threat to the existence of both the natural habitat of man and man himself. These thinkers oppose progress, as they believe that modernization is homogenizing culture and destroying traditions. To identify the differences between the views of Archbishop Nicanor and Leontiev, it seems necessary to turn to the theory of “compensation” by I. Ritter, G. Lubbe, and O. Marquard. According to this theory, modernity produces ways of compensation of its own rational homogeneity. Among these ways of compensation, we can find the interest of irrational and unique phenomena, and of individual “stories of origin”. Thus, culture-criticism itself is revealed as a way of a compensation of the standardizing aspects of modernization. Thus, Leont’ev contrasts modernity with “Byzantium” as a traditional culture, while Archbishop Nikanor does so with the ideal of individual Orthodox holiness. This demonstrates the difference between them, despite the fact that their traditionalism turns out to be equally modern, performing the compensation. However, Leontiev was sketching out the ways of destroying modernity, linking it with the victory of socialism which he predicted within the political avant-garde, leading to a new feudalism. In contrast, Archbishop Nikanor considered progress as inevitable, offering to compensate for its negative consequences by maintaining the irrational and unique aspects of traditional religiosity.

ИССЛЕДОВАНИЕ ВЗАИМОСВЯЗИ УРОВНЯ АКАДЕМИЧЕСКОЙ ПРОКРАСТИНАЦИИ С ОСОБЕННОСТЯМИ ЛИЧНОСТНОЙ ОРГАНИЗАЦИИ ВРЕМЕНИ У СТУДЕНТОВ ВУЗА

The paper studies the issue of efficient use of time and such the irrational phenomenon as academic procrastination, which acquires special importance caused by the growing scientific interest in the time management technology and the increasing number of scientific publications on the subject. The relevance of the study of procrastination is related to the requirements of professional and personal timeliness claimed for our contemporaries. The paper defines the concepts of “procrastination”, “conscious regulation of the activity”, and “time competence” from the perspective of different authors. It contains the review of Russian and translated foreign literature devoted to the study of this issue and describes a number of important researches in this area. The paper defines the main types of procrastination inherent to people in different areas of life. In terms of psychology, procrastination is the conscious postponing by the person of performing the scheduled tasks, despite the negative consequences. Academic procrastination involves a delay in performance of academic tasks and is connected with the fact that pupils and students do not possess the necessary academic skills and experience in self-organization. The consequence of such behavior and forgetfulness can be a decline in academic performance and learning outcomes. In this respect, the authors have analyzed the phenomenon of academic procrastination in close connection with the peculiarities of students’ organization of their lifetime. Sixty students participated in the study. According to the survey the authors have found positive correlation between students’ procrastination and a certain type of time perspective, an indicator of the time competence of an individual and personal time disorganizers.

Reason, Rhythm, and Rituality. Reinterpreting Religious Cult from a Postmodern, Phenomenological Perspective

Contemporary philosophy of religion is often focused, at a theoretical level, on the epistemic value of religious doctrines, and at a practical level, on the possible impact of organized religion on secular society and politics. However, the cultic dimension of religion, such as prayer, religious service, ascetic practices, and other rituals, is considered as completely “irrational” and incomprehensible from a secular perspective and therefore often neglected by postmodern philosophy. The paper intends to call into question this rather simplistic interpretation by retracing the historical origins of the devaluation of religious symbolism in occidental thought, which culminates in Kant’s philosophy of religion. We then shall analyze to what extent certain paradoxical aspects of Habermas’ view on religion can be interpreted as consequences of the dilemma brought about by the Kantian dichotomy between man as moral subject and man as natural, sensible being. In a third step, we shall develop an alternative, phenomenological interpretation, which does not consider religious practice as a primitive, irrational phenomenon but as a proto-ethical schematism that aims at integrating the sphere of pure practical reason into the rhythmic structure of living, embodied consciousness.