Presence Of Incentives Research Articles

Concern for Fairness and Incentives in Water Negotiations

This paper focuses on transboundary water resources and investigates the presence of incentives to cooperate in investment projects for improving water availability. Investments over transboundary water cannot be always protected by suitable contractual arrangements because countries’ actions cannot be monitored and enforced by a third party. In such a case, the traditional literature predicts that cooperation rarely emerges due to the risk of ex-post opportunistic behaviours by the parties. This prediction does not provide a satisfactory representation of many real-world situations in which riparian countries have demonstrated a remarkable ability to cooperate over their shared water resources. This paper shows that it is possible to reconcile the empirical evidence with the theoretical approach if one assumes that countries display some concern for ‘fairness’ when negotiating, which depends on their initial level of investment. Within the proposed framework, the incentives to cooperate turn out to be higher than traditional literature predicts because, by engaging in the investment project, countries do not only increase the amount of water effectively available, but also—through their concern for fairness—the share of water obtainable at the bargaining table.

Are high-impulsive and high risk-taking people more motor disinhibited in the presence of incentive?

In this study we assess the ability to inhibit certain planned actions in relation to the impulsiveness and venturesomeness traits of personality using the stop-signal paradigm. In the first condition subjects performed the stop-signal task without incentives. In the second condition, subjects performed the same task using an approach-avoidance conflict situation: speed of response was rewarded and the lack of inhibition was punished. Twenty male subjects were selected after preliminary testing using the impulsivity subscale from the Eysenck Personality Inventory. The main findings were: (1) no deficit in motor inhibition was found for high-impulsive subjects; estimated mean reaction times of inhibitory processes were the same for both high- and low-impulsive groups and (2) the presence of an incentive in the conflict situation affected motor inhibition for low venturesomeness subjects, who adopted a more cautiousness response strategy.

The effects of incentive on antisaccades

The effect of incentive was investigated upon performance in the antisaccade (AS), memory saccade (MS) and reflexive saccade (RS) task, alone and following performance in tasks of a psychometric battery. Accuracy performance (correct saccades) in the AS and MS task is dependent on two prefrontal functions, the preservation of transient information across short time intervals and the inhibition of prepotent but inappropriate responses, and is impaired in patient populations with known prefrontal dysfunction. It was predicted that, in normal humans, incentive will improve accuracy performance in the AS and MS task, leaving performance in the RS task unaffected (study 1). Saccades were recorded in 24 healthy young male volunteers. Measurements of saccades were performed (in the presence and absence of monetary incentive) alone or following performance on a psychometric test battery that included tasks of working memory, vigilance, attention and psychomotor activity. Incentive increased the number of correct saccades in the AS task and the performance index in the working memory task. No other direct changes were seen in the presence of incentive. The role of dopamine in performance in the AS compared to the RS task was investigated subsequently in study 2. Twenty healthy young male volunteers received levodopa and benserazide (100 and 25 mg, respectively) orally, and 1 and 5 h later measurements of AS and RS were performed. Levodopa significantly decreased the number of correct saccades in the AS task. No other effects were seen. These data, taken together, suggest, first, that the accuracy performance in the AS task is more sensitive than in the MS or RS task, to positive incentive due to monetary reward; and second, that the dopaminergic system may mediate such an effect, because levodopa, a dopaminergic drug, influenced the same performance measurement. The relationship, however, between these two manipulations (incentive and administration of dopaminergic drugs) is not clear, because incentive improved and levodopa impaired performance.

CHILDREN'S ADOPTION OF SELF-REWARD PATTERNS: MODEL'S PRIOR EXPERIENCE AND INCENTIVE FOR NONIMITATION

Guided by an informational analysis of imitation, an examination was made of the effects of incentive for nonimitation and the model's alleged prior experience on children's adoption of a modeled self-reward standard while playing a bowling game. As predicted, the presence of incentive significantly reduced subjects' adoption of the standard. Moreover, as anticipated, effects of the model's alleged experience and incentive tended to be inversely additive, although experience significantly reduced self-reward only for the highest substandard score on the game.