Reward Levels Research Articles

Does more crowd participation bring more value to crowdfunding projects? The perspective of crowd capital

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to focus on investigating the impact of crowd participation on degree of project success, which is defined as the total amount of funds a project can obtain after it reaches its initial funding goal threshold.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on the theory of crowd capital, this study develops six hypotheses about the impact of crowd capability of a fundraiser (i.e. project updates, goal setting, reward levels and social media usage) and crowd participation (i.e. namely, funds pledge and on-site communication) on degree of project success. The hypotheses are tested using data sets of successful projects collected from two popular crowdfunding websites.FindingsThis study finds that funds pledge has an inverse U-shaped relationship with degree of project success. Project updates, reward levels and on-site communication positively influence degree of project success, while funding goal negatively affects degree of project success.Research limitations/implicationsThis study contributes to prior literature by investigating the degree of project success determinants using the perspectives of both fundraisers and crowds, which provides a more comprehensive understanding of what makes a crowdfunded project a success.Practical implicationsThe empirical results of this study provide fundraisers with guidelines about how to access more funds after achieving the initial funding goals.Originality/valueThis work is one of the first to investigate the degree of project success and its determinants from the perspectives of both fundraisers and crowds.

Reward depending on public funds stimulates cooperation in spatial prisoner’s dilemma games

Prisoner’s dilemma (shortly, PD) games are studied on a square lattice, in which reward mechanisms are considered to stimulate cooperation. It is known to all that results vary with different reward methods. The tax mechanism, an effective tool to adjust the economy, inspires a reward approach where each player should pay corresponding taxes according to their payoff ranks to gather public funds, which is utilized to reward cooperators. There are three main reward levels: high intensity, middle intensity and low intensity. When total public funds keep relatively stable, the reward coverage is determined by the reward intensity. In other words, high intensity of reward is accompanied with narrow range and low intensity accompanies with wide range. Through the proposed model, whether the new reward mechanism can stimulate cooperation and what reward level is the optimum choice could be studied. Simulations reveal that this new mechanism is of great benefit to cooperation and it is noteworthy that low reward intensity with wide coverage has the biggest impact on cooperation.

Place Names and Enregistered Identity of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula

A clever reward system for frequent catalogue shoppers of Zingerman’s – a renowned delicatessen in Ann Arbor, Michigan – uses Michigan place names to indicate spending and reward levels. In favoring those of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (UP), the item participates in the process of enregistering UP dialect.

Crowdfunding technological innovations: Interaction between consumer benefits and rewards

This research aims to examine how consumer benefits stated in the project title and the number of rewards in the crowdfunding context interactively impact the number of backers and funding success for technological innovations. The authors collected data of 674 technological projects from kickstarter.com. Data collection was completed at two points of time, Time 1 (projects were still active) and Time 2 (funding periods were over). Findings between them were highly consistent. Two coding assignments were used. First, two independent raters assessed consumer benefits claimed in the project title; second, the research team coded the number of reward levels in each crowdfunding project and the number of rewards included in each reward level. In total, 134,492 rewards across 4509 reward levels were recorded. The authors find that the number of backers increases the likelihood of funding success. Additionally, consumer benefits increase the number of backers. The average number of rewards affects the number of backers in an inverted-U shape, and it also moderates the relationship between consumer benefits and the number of backers in an inverted-U shape.

Referent Networks Predict Just Rewards

ABSTRACTThis study introduces the referent network, the set of relations defined by knowing others reward levels, and makes initial predictions about how the structure of that network shapes perceptions of income fairness. Previous research recognizes that justice assessments are driven by social comparisons; yet there is a paucity of research on how the structure of interpersonal contacts shapes justice assessments. Using a social networks perspective, the arguments here suggest that the referent network affects social comparisons, which in turn affect justice assessments of rewards. This reasoning is also integrated with the notion that people make both local and referential comparisons when determining their just rewards. An experiment evaluates these arguments. Results show support for the argument linking network structures to justice assessments and partial support for the extension to local and referential comparisons. Supplemental analyses show how reward levels qualify the arguments. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Effort but not Reward Sensitivity is Altered by Acute Sickness Induced by Experimental Endotoxemia in Humans

Sickness behavior in humans is characterized by low mood and fatigue, which have been suggested to reflect changes in motivation involving reorganization of priorities. However, it is unclear which specific processes underlying motivation are altered. We tested whether bacterial endotoxin E. coli lipopolysaccharide (LPS) affected two dissociable constructs of motivational behavior, ie, effort and reward sensitivity. After familiarization with 5 effort levels, participants made a series of accept/reject decisions on whether the stake offered (1, 4, 8, 12, or 15 apples) was ‘worth the effort’ (10%, 27.5%, 45%, 62.5%, and 80% of maximal voluntary contraction in a hand-held dynamometer). Effort and reward levels were parametrically modulated to dissociate their influence on choice. Overall, 29 healthy young males were administered LPS (2 ng/kg; n=14) or placebo (0.9% saline; n=15). The effort-stake task, and self-reported depression and fatigue were assessed prior to LPS/placebo injection, 2 and 5 h post injection. Cytokines and sickness symptoms were assessed hourly till 8 h after LPS injection. LPS transiently increased interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor-α, sickness symptoms, body temperature and self-reported fatigue, and depression post injection relative to baseline and placebo. These changes were accompanied by LPS-induced decreases in acceptance rates of high-effort options, without significantly affecting reward sensitivity 2 h post injection, which were partially recovered 5 h post injection. We suggest that LPS-induced changes in motivation may be due to alterations to mesolimbic dopamine. Our behavioral paradigm could be used to further investigate effects of inflammation on motivational behavior in psychiatric and chronic illnesses.

The risk probability criterion for discounted continuous-time Markov decision processes

In this paper, we consider the risk probability minimization problem for infinite discounted continuous-time Markov decision processes (CTMDPs) with unbounded transition rates. First, we introduce a class of policies depending on histories with the additional reward levels. Then, we construct the corresponding probability spaces, and also establish the non-explosion of the state process. Secondly, under suitable conditions we prove that the value function is a solution to the optimality equation for the probability criterion by an iteration technique, and obtain a value iteration algorithm to compute (at least approximate) the value function. Furthermore, under an additional condition we establish the uniqueness of the solution to the optimality equation and the existence of an optimal policy. Finally, we illustrate our results with two examples. The first one is used to verify our conditions for CTMDPs with unbounded transition rates, the second one for the numerical calculation of the value function and an optimal policy.

Effects of plant and pollinator traits on the maintenance of a food deceptive species within a plant community

Model–mimic plant systems are well known. However, the conditions promoting the existence of such systems are still an enigma. We suggest that by focusing on floral similarity between model and mimic, reward levels offered by models, and pollinators’ ability to adjust foraging accordingly, the conditions can be better understood. Using spatially‐explicit modelling, we examined trait combinations that lead to the survival of deceptive species under a large range of mimic strategies, from Batesian mimicry to general food deception. Unlike previous models studying such systems, we examined model–mimic interactions in the presence of a third, dissimilar species, thus generating a more realistic scenario where pollinators may avoid the model–mimic system altogether. Results showed that overall survival and abundance of species in food deceptive systems depend on the relative reward provided by the participating species and the potential alternatives available. Specifically, the success of a mimic in a Batesian mimicry system depends on high levels of reward provided by its model species relative to potential alternatives in the flower community. On the other hand, the success of a mimic in a general food deception system was higher when the reward offered was lower. Our study suggests that the ability of pollinators to utilize their experience as part of decision‐making is highly relevant in promoting mimic survival, thus shedding light on the conditions under which food deception is expected.

What Makes You Go Faster?: The Effect of Reward on Speeded Action under Risk

Evaluating the potential reward and risk associated with a choice of action plays an important role in everyday decision making. However, the details behind how reward and risk affect the decisions for actions remain unclear. The present study investigates the influence of reward and risk on a decision to make a speeded motor response. One hundred and ten college students performed a Speed-Rewarded Go-NoGo task during which they were rewarded proportionally based on the speed and accuracy of their response. On each trial, the magnitude of potential reward and the probability of a forthcoming Go signal (Go-probability) were presented prior to the Go or NoGo signal. Personality traits, such as risk taking and impulsive tendencies, were measured to determine their contribution in explaining individual differences in task performance. The results showed that larger amount of rewards can motivate people to respond faster, and this effect was modulated by the assessed risk, suggesting that decisions for actions are based on a systematic trade-off between rewards and risks. Moreover, when the assessed risk was high, individuals with greater risk taking and impulsive tendencies did not adequately adjust their behavior across different reward levels. These findings shed light on the mechanistic understanding of the effect of reward and risk on decisions for a speeded action.

The wages of dishonesty: The supply of cheating under high-powered incentives

We use a novel design to identify how dishonesty changes through a broad reward range that, at the high end, exceeds participants’ average daily wages. Using a sample of online Indian workers who earn bonuses based on six simultaneous coin flips, we show that the relationship between dishonesty and financial rewards depends on the incentive range. We find two novel effects as incentives exceed those used in most prior research. First, dishonesty increases and reaches its maximum as rewards increase from $0.50 to $3 per reported head and as earnings reach $15, indicating that rewards can indeed motivate more cheating when large enough. More importantly, we show that dishonesty declines at the highest reward levels (up to $5 per head) as individuals appear to engage in lower magnitudes of dishonesty. We detail how our results could be explained by a reference-dependent utility with internal costs of dishonesty that are convex in the magnitude of the lie, and show survey and simulation-based evidence that support this explanation.

Primate Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Neurons Continuously Encode the Willingness to Engage in Reward-Directed Behavior.

To survive in their complex environment, primates must integrate information over time and adjust their actions beyond immediate events. The underlying neurobiological processes, however, remain unclear. Here, we assessed the contribution of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), a brain region important for value-based decision-making. We recorded single VMPFC neurons in monkeys performing a task where obtaining fluid rewards required squeezing a grip. The willingness to perform the action was modulated not only by visual information about Effort and Reward levels but also by contextual factors such as Trial Number (i.e., fatigue and/or satiety) or behavior in recent trials. A greater fraction of VMPFC neurons encoded contextual information, compared with visual stimuli. Moreover, the dynamics of VMPFC firing was more closely related to slow changes in motivational states driven by these contextual factors rather than rapid responses to individual task events. Thus, the firing of VMPFC neurons continuously integrated contextual information and reliably predicted the monkeys's willingness to perform the task. This function might be critical when animals forage in a complex environment and need to integrate information over time. Its relation with motivational states also resonates with the VMPFC's implication in the "default mode" or in mood disorders.

Neural Signatures of Value Comparison in Human Cingulate Cortex during Decisions Requiring an Effort-Reward Trade-off.

Integrating costs and benefits is crucial for optimal decision-making. Although much is known about decisions that involve outcome-related costs (e.g., delay, risk), many of our choices are attached to actions and require an evaluation of the associated motor costs. Yet how the brain incorporates motor costs into choices remains largely unclear. We used human fMRI during choices involving monetary reward and physical effort to identify brain regions that serve as a choice comparator for effort-reward trade-offs. By independently varying both options' effort and reward levels, we were able to identify the neural signature of a comparator mechanism. A network involving supplementary motor area and the caudal portion of dorsal anterior cingulate cortex encoded the difference in reward (positively) and effort levels (negatively) between chosen and unchosen choice options. We next modeled effort-discounted subjective values using a novel behavioral model. This revealed that the same network of regions involving dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and supplementary motor area encoded the difference between the chosen and unchosen options' subjective values, and that activity was best described using a concave model of effort-discounting. In addition, this signal reflected how precisely value determined participants' choices. By contrast, separate signals in supplementary motor area and ventromedial prefrontal cortex correlated with participants' tendency to avoid effort and seek reward, respectively. This suggests that the critical neural signature of decision-making for choices involving motor costs is found in human cingulate cortex and not ventromedial prefrontal cortex as typically reported for outcome-based choice. Furthermore, distinct frontal circuits seem to drive behavior toward reward maximization and effort minimization. The neural processes that govern the trade-off between expected benefits and motor costs remain largely unknown. This is striking because energetic requirements play an integral role in our day-to-day choices and instrumental behavior, and a diminished willingness to exert effort is a characteristic feature of a range of neurological disorders. We use a new behavioral characterization of how humans trade off reward maximization with effort minimization to examine the neural signatures that underpin such choices, using BOLD MRI neuroimaging data. We find the critical neural signature of decision-making, a signal that reflects the comparison of value between choice options, in human cingulate cortex, whereas two distinct brain circuits drive behavior toward reward maximization or effort minimization.

The Wages of Dishonesty: The Supply of Cheating under High-Powered Incentives

We use a novel design to identify how dishonesty changes through a broad reward range that, at the high end, exceeds participants’ average daily wages. Using a sample of online Indian workers who earn bonuses based on six simultaneous coin flips, we show that the relationship between dishonesty and financial rewards depends on the incentive range. We find two novel effects as incentives exceed those used in prior research. First, dishonesty increases and reaches its maximum as rewards increase from $0.50 to $3 per reported head and as earnings reach $15, indicating that rewards can indeed motivate more cheating when large enough. More importantly, we show that dishonesty declines at the highest reward levels (up to $5 per head) as individuals appear to engage in lower magnitudes of dishonesty. We explain how our results could be explained by a reference-dependent utility with internal costs of dishonesty that are convex in the magnitude of the lie, and show survey and simulation-based evidence that support this explanation.

Inefficient effort allocation and negative symptoms in individuals with schizophrenia

Negative symptoms like avolition and anhedonia are thought to involve difficulties with reward processing and motivation. The current study aimed to replicate and extend prior findings that individuals with schizophrenia display reduced willingness to expend effort for rewards and that such reduced effort is associated with negative symptoms, poor functioning, and cognitive impairment. The present study compared the effortful decision making of individuals with schizophrenia (n=48) and healthy controls (n=27) on the Effort Expenditure for Rewards Task (EEfRT). Individuals with schizophrenia chose a smaller proportion of hard tasks than healthy controls across all probability and reward levels with the exception of trials with a 12% probability and low or medium reward magnitude wherein both groups chose similarly few hard tasks. Contrary to expectations, in individuals with schizophrenia, greater negative symptoms were associated with making more effortful choices. Effortful decision making was unrelated to positive symptoms, depression, cognition, and functioning in individuals with schizophrenia. Our results are consistent with prior findings that revealed a pattern of inefficient decision making in individuals with schizophrenia relative to healthy controls. However the results did not support the hypothesized association of negative symptoms and reduced effort in schizophrenia and highlight prior inconsistencies in this literature. Future research is needed to understand what factors may be related to diminished effortful decision making in schizophrenia and the clinical significance of such performance deficits.

Relationship satisfaction of the previously married

This work examined if the association between relationship specific costs / rewards and relationship satisfaction differed between previously married and never married before individuals. The question addressed was whether going through partnership dissolution could be linked to differences in how people experienced the positive (i.e., support, companionship), as well as, the negative (i.e., conflict, inequity in give and take) aspects of their intimate relationships. Longitudinal Dutch data (the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study, NKPS) were utilized to estimate person-level random-effects models. Indeed, at high costs, the previously married reported significantly lower relationship satisfaction than the never-married-before; furthermore, at low reward levels, those in first partnerships reported significantly higher relationship satisfaction than their repartnering counterparts.

Impaired mental well-being and psychosocial risk: a cross-sectional study in female nursing home direct staff

ObjectivesThe present study sought to quantify the impaired mental well-being and psychosocial stress experienced by nursing home staff and to determine the relationship between impaired mental well-being assessed on the...

An Analysis of Incentive Structures in Collaborative Economy: An Application to Crowdfunding Platform

A crucial aspect to the functioning of the collaborative economy is the incentive structure that encourages participation. The objective of our research is to understand the impact of project reward structure (PRS), one form of incentives, on backers’ pledging decisions during projects’ funding period. To motivate the structural analysis, we first present a project-level reduced-form model to investigate the impact of the reward structure on project outcomes. From that, we find that dynamically modifying reward structures during project funding process has significantly positive impacts on influencing the project outcomes. We then develop a structural model to investigate how reward structures affect the reward-level decision making process by using a panel data. We found that reward levels that have been popular options till date or that have gained recent popularity are perceived to be more favorable if they are pushed lower down the menu of options, presumably by introducing weaker or less attractive options ahead of them in the menu. This implies that project creators do need to strategically design the PRS to attract more backers.

Robot-assisted motor training: assistance decreases exploration during reinforcement learning.

Reinforcement learning (RL) is a form of motor learning that robotic therapy devices could potentially manipulate to promote neurorehabilitation. We developed a system that requires trainees to use RL to learn a predefined target movement. The system provides higher rewards for movements that are more similar to the target movement. We also developed a novel algorithm that rewards trainees of different abilities with comparable reward sizes. This algorithm measures a trainee's performance relative to their best performance, rather than relative to an absolute target performance, to determine reward. We hypothesized this algorithm would permit subjects who cannot normally achieve high reward levels to do so while still learning. In an experiment with 21 unimpaired human subjects, we found that all subjects quickly learned to make a first target movement with and without the reward equalization. However, artificially increasing reward decreased the subjects' tendency to engage in exploration and therefore slowed learning, particularly when we changed the target movement. An anti-slacking watchdog algorithm further slowed learning. These results suggest that robotic algorithms that assist trainees in achieving rewards or in preventing slacking might, over time, discourage the exploration needed for reinforcement learning.

The marketing firm and consumer choice: implications of bilateral contingency for levels of analysis in organizational neuroscience

The emergence of a conception of the marketing firm (Foxall, 1999a) conceived within behavioral psychology and based on a corresponding model of consumer choice, (Foxall, 1990/2004) permits an assessment of the levels of behavioral and organizational analysis amenable to neuroscientific examination. This paper explores the ways in which the bilateral contingencies that link the marketing firm with its consumerate allow appropriate levels of organizational neuroscientific analysis to be specified. Having described the concept of the marketing firm and the model of consumer behavior on which it is based, the paper analyzes bilateral contingencies at the levels of (i) market exchange, (ii) emotional reward, and (iii) neuroeconomics. Market exchange emerges as a level of analysis that lends itself predominantly to the explanation of firm—consumerate interactions in terms of the super-personal level of reinforcing and punishing contingencies: the marketing firm can be treated as a contextual or operant system in its own right. However, the emotional reward and neuroeconomic levels of analysis should be confined to the personal level of analysis represented by individual managers on the one hand and individual consumers on the other. This also entails a level of abstraction but it is one that can be satisfactorily handled in terms of the concept of bilateral contingency.

Fearful Foragers: Honey Bees Tune Colony and Individual Foraging to Multi-Predator Presence and Food Quality

Fear can have strong ecosystem effects by giving predators a role disproportionate to their actual kill rates. In bees, fear is shown through foragers avoiding dangerous food sites, thereby reducing the fitness of pollinated plants. However, it remains unclear how fear affects pollinators in a complex natural scenario involving multiple predator species and different patch qualities. We studied hornets, Vespa velutina (smaller) and V. tropica (bigger) preying upon the Asian honey bee, Apis cerana in China. Hornets hunted bees on flowers and were attacked by bee colonies. Bees treated the bigger hornet species (which is 4 fold more massive) as more dangerous. It received 4.5 fold more attackers than the smaller hornet species. We tested bee responses to a three-feeder array with different hornet species and varying resource qualities. When all feeders offered 30% sucrose solution (w/w), colony foraging allocation, individual visits, and individual patch residence times were reduced according to the degree of danger. Predator presence reduced foraging visits by 55–79% and residence times by 17–33%. When feeders offered different reward levels (15%, 30%, or 45% sucrose), colony and individual foraging favored higher sugar concentrations. However, when balancing food quality against multiple threats (sweeter food corresponding to higher danger), colonies exhibited greater fear than individuals. Colonies decreased foraging at low and high danger patches. Individuals exhibited less fear and only decreased visits to the high danger patch. Contrasting individual with emergent colony-level effects of fear can thus illuminate how predators shape pollination by social bees.