Situation For Actors Research Articles

The Relationship Between Rational Cooperation and Constrained Maximizers

From the perspective of actors' pursuit of rational self-interest, Gauthier's contractarianism links justice, rationality and morality, he attempts to deduce moral principles from non-moral premises by combining the method of contract theory, rational choice theory and game theory, and establish a just contract between rational actors to provide a plan of action for "How can I pursue a better life?". He tried to argue why rational actors chose to cooperate rather than from a normative point of view. He tried to prove that the actor's choice of cooperation is the result of rational choice because cooperation will improve the actor's situation. He believes that rational actors will choose to cooperate with people in a just and rational way, and rational actors will voluntarily abide by the contract and limit their behaviors in order to pursue a better social life. But his argument for cooperation lacks stability fails to fully prove why we should choose this mode of cooperation instead of that mode of cooperation and his argument for the rationality of cooperation is not convincing enough. He fails to demonstrate that collaboration is better than non-collaboration at all times, nor does he fully demonstrate that it is irrational to collaborate with actors other than constrained maximizers. Although his argument has some flaws and cannot convince all opponents, it provides us with a new answer to this question.

The Memory of Prevention. European Anti-Hate Crime Policy and Holocaust Remembrance

Cross-referencing between anti-hate crime policy work and Holocaust remembrance activities is not a rare phenomenon in a European context. Offhand, connecting anti-hate crime policy work and Holocaust remembrance is intelligible, since both are concerned with issues of racism, intolerance, and human rights violations. Thus, potentially, a “win-win” situation for actors from both fields. However, there are reasons for caution when bringing together two evils of a rather different magnitude as well as bringing together the different policy agendas. Through a combination empirical analysis and conceptual and normative reflections, the article unpack the premises and implications of connecting hate crime activism and Holocaust remembrance and it points towards two potential concerns. Firstly, anti-hate crime work is mainly forward-looking and preventive. It aims to mobilize and hence it will tend to prioritize a narrative and emotional simplicity. While Holocaust remembrance is also to some extent preventive and future-oriented (e.g., the promise of “Never Again”), there is also an ongoing obligation towards the details and complexities of the past. When the two domains are connected, there is a risk that the mobilizing aspects are prioritized too much. Secondly, when the Holocaust is evoked as the appropriate past for understanding the potential harm of hate crime, there is a danger of misrepresenting and over-dramatizing a vast proportion of the incidents that are currently reported and prosecuted as hate crimes. Thus, while the joining of agendas may be tempting, it also comes with a prize.

Proposal for Requirement Validation Criteria and Method Based on Actor Interaction

We propose requirement validation criteria and a method based on the interaction between actors in an information system. We focus on the cyclical transitions of one actor's situation against another and clarify observable stimuli and responses based on these transitions. Both actors' situations can be listed in a state transition table, which describes the observable stimuli or responses they send or receive. Examination of the interaction between both actors in the state transition tables enables us to detect missing or defective observable stimuli or responses. Typically, this method can be applied to the examination of the interaction between a resource managed by the information system and its user. As a case study, we analyzed 332 requirement defect reports of an actual system development project in Japan. We found that there were a certain amount of defects regarding missing or defective stimuli and responses, which can be detected using our proposed method if this method is used in the requirement definition phase. This means that we can reach a more complete requirement definition with our proposed method.

STRUCTURATION OF THE KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE IN A SUPPLY CHAIN CONTEXT

Supply chain is more and more studied by the enterprises to handle the reinforcement of the economic constraints and to meet the clients' cost requirement, quality and delay. They are aware that their partners' performance impact their own performance. The members of the supply chain need to communicate and share knowledge with their partners, to have a better diffusion of their objectives and constraints thereby favoring quick actions for problem solving. In order to favor the sharing of knowledge, we propose in this paper, an approach based on the relationships and interactions between the strategic partners to co-construct a common knowledge base. This approach facilitates communication and understanding of each actor's situation and context by showing their point of view in the supply chain. We also describe its utilization in collaborative relationships between a luxury stool producer with its suppliers and its distributors. We have assisted the implementation of the approach through the management of an ontology and knowledge cards on a specific logistic project.

The Differential Influence of Women's Residential District on Their Risk of Entering Motherhood and First Marriage: A Discrete-time Multilevel Analysis of Western German Panel Data, 1984-1999

To begin with, we sketch a general multilevel model of regional social contexts and individual family formation behavior, where particular attention is paid to the determinants of the actor's situation. Then a set of bridge hypotheses is proposed, on which the empirical investigation of the relationship between properties of the spatial context and women's entry into motherhood and first marriage is based. Individual-level data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (GSOEP) are merged with a rich set of district-level contextual data to estimate first birth and marriage probabilities of western German women during the 1980s and 1990s. None of the estimated multilevel discrete-time logit models provides conclusive evidence for an autonomous contextual influence on women's entry into parenthood. We find, however, a persistent regional effect on the risk of entering first marriage, which we attribute to local nuptiality customs. Variations therein, e.g. regarding the timing of marriage, must probably be understood as the principal origin of different patterns of fertility across western German districts.

The development of bases for trait attribution: children's understanding of traits as causal mechanisms based on desire.

Two studies investigated 4- to 7-year-old children's understanding that traits can be causal mechanisms based on desires, as well as mere summaries of behavioral regularities. In Experiment 1, children made predictions given trait information. Children from 5 years made different emotion predictions about the same situation for actors with different traits, thus appreciating traits as psychological causes. For behavior prediction, children over age 4 generalized across situations. In Experiment 2, accurate emotion prediction by 3- to 7-year-olds was linked to understanding desire as a subjective mental property. The results suggest that children change from viewing traits as behavioral regularities to understanding them as internal mediators, and that advances in understanding desire underlie this change. These changes in understanding traits extend research on theory of mind beyond the basic concepts of desire and belief.

Choice Effects and the Ineffectiveness of Simulation: Response to Kühberger et al.

Abstract: Kühberger et al. show that producing the Langer effect is considerably more difficult than has been assumed. Although their results clearly demonstrate a need for further exploration of the Langer effect, none of their arguments undermines the evidence against simulation theory that we presented in Nichols et al. (1996). In our study the actor subjects did show an effect, but the prediction subjects did not predict it, despite the fact that they were provided with all the details of the actor's situation. Further, we report additional evidence that corroborates our empirical case against simulation theory.

Observers' focus of attention in the simulation of self-perception.

This research was designed to assess the effects of a manipulation of observers' focus of attention--from a focus on the actor to a focus on the actor's situation--upon observers' attributions of attitude to an actor in a simulation of a forced-compliance cognitive dissonance experiment. Observers induced through empathy instructions to focus attention on the actor's situation inferred less actor attitude positivity than did observers given no specific observational set. In addition, situation-focused observers inferred that the actor's attitude was directly related to reward magnitude, whereas actor-focused observers inferred that the actor's attitude was inversely related to reward magnitude. An extension of self-perception theory, offered as an interpretation of these and other results, suggested that motivation attribution made by actors and observers in dissonance and simulation studies are dependent on focus of attention. The attributions made by actor-focused observers simulate those of objectively self-aware actors and are based upon perceived intrinsic motivation; the attributions of situation-focused observers simulate those of subjectively self-aware actors and are based upon perceived extrinsic motivation.