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Abstract
This paper examines decision making under climate risks using farmers' decisions in sub-Saharan Africa, where climate risks are very high. Two risk measures are obtained from the Climate Research Unit's high-resolution climatology, diurnal temperature range (DTR) and coefficient of variation in precipitation (CVP), which are both averages of 30-yr climate data. Farm surveys of around 7600 households were matched cell by cell with the climate risk data. This paper finds that climate risks are indeed highest in the lowland arid zones in the Sahel. A spatial logit analysis shows that farmers in sub-Saharan Africa have adapted their agricultural systems to varying degrees of the CVP and the DTR. In the long term, if the CVP were to increase by 30%, an integrated system would increase by 7.0%. On the other hand, the two specialized systems fall: a crops-only system falls by 5.3% and a livestock-only system falls by 1.7%. When the DTR increases, farmers adapt by switching to a specialized livestock system. Under increased climate risks, this paper finds that farmers in the lowland savannahs and arid zones in the Sahel, where climate risks are high at present, will adapt by switching to an integrated system. Studies of climate risks, therefore, must account for behavioral responses of the individuals. These results can be utilized to help African farmers to adapt to increasing climate risks.

Purpose. To provide initial tests of internal consistency reliability and both structural and concurrent validity of a smoker identity (SI) scale for college student populations. Design. Cross-sectional design. Setting. Midsouth university. Participants. Undergraduates in a random sample of university classes completed surveys (92.3% response rate). Method. SI items derived from a literature review and clinical expertise, lifetime and current tobacco use, cigarette purchasing patterns, and quitting variables. Analysis. Current (some days or every day) cigarette users (n = 362) were divided into daily, intermittent, and experimental smoker groups. After principal components analysis was conducted on the SI items, analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to assess SI differentiation of smoker groups, and correlational analysis or ANOVA was used to assess SI relationships with smoking and quitting variables. Results. Eight SI items produced a high–internal-consistency, single-factor structure (α = .93) and clearly differentiated the three smoker groups. Higher SI scores indicated greater smoking rate, smoking within 30 minutes of awakening, larger purchased quantities, and both greater interest and lower confidence in quitting. Conclusions. The scale demonstrated good reliability and validity. Other SI measures exist, but this is the first scale to establish utility with experimental and intermittent smokers—substantial groups among college students. The extent to which cigarette users identify as smokers may provide useful information beyond behavioral measures, especially among college students.

ABSTRACTThe emphasis on study abroad programs is growing in the academic context as U.S. based universities seek to incorporate a global perspective in education. Using a model that has underpinnings in the theory of planned behavior (TPB), we predict students' intention to participate in short‐term study abroad program. We use TPB to identify behavioral, normative, and control beliefs pertinent to the study abroad context. Our research model hypothesizes that intention is predicted by affordability, willingness to pay, and desire. Moreover, willingness to pay is explained by future job prospects, family expectations, and administrative support. We believe that the elements of TBP are reflective of categories of factors that have been demonstrated as important in the context of short‐term study abroad decisions, but that have not been included in previous studies applying TPB to a study abroad context. We test our research model through a survey of 254 undergraduate business students at a southern U.S. university, and find support for all our hypotheses. Results from our study aid in the understanding of students' decision‐making process to participate in a short‐term study abroad program and have implications for education and learning in the study abroad context. We also contribute to the extant research in TPB by applying it to the context of studying abroad programs and by identifying, and finding support for, a mediated relationship between beliefs and intentions.

Recent neurophysiological studies have shown that several human brain regions involved in executing actions are activated by merely observing such actions via a human, and not by a mechanical hand. At a behavioral level, observing a human's movements, but not those of a robot, significantly interferes with ongoing executed movements. However, it is unclear whether the biological tuning in the observation/execution matching system are functional during infancy. The present study examines whether a human's actions, and not a mechanical action, influence infants' execution of the same actions due to the observation/execution matching system. Twelve-month-old infants were given a searching task. In the tasks, infants observed an object hidden at location A, after which either a human hand (human condition) or a mechanical one (mechanical condition) searched the object correctly. Next, the object was hidden at location B and infants were allowed to search the object. We examined whether infants searched the object at location B correctly. The results revealed that infants in the human condition were more likely to search location A than those in the mechanical condition. Moreover, the results suggested that infants' searching behaviors were affected by their observations of the same actions by a human, but not a mechanical hand. Thus, it may be concluded that the observation/execution matching system may be biologically tuned during infancy.

From childhood into adolescence, the child's brain undergoes considerable changes in both structure and function. Twin studies are of great value to explore to what extent genetic and environmental factors explain individual differences in brain development and cognition. In The Netherlands, we initiated a longitudinal study in which twins, their siblings and their parents are assessed at three year intervals. The participants were recruited from The Netherlands Twin Register (NTR) and at baseline consisted of 112 families, with 9-year-old twins and an older sibling. Three years later, 89 families returned for follow-up assessment. Data collection included psychometric IQ tests, a comprehensive neuropsychological testing protocol, and parental and self-ratings of behavioral and emotional problems. Physical maturation was measured through assessment of Tanner stages. Hormonal levels (cortisol, luteinizing hormone, follicle-stimulating hormone, testosterone, and estrogens) were assessed in urine and saliva. Brain scans were acquired using 1.5 Tesla Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), which provided volumetric measures and measures of cortical thickness. Buccal swabs were collected for DNA isolation for future candidate gene and genome-wide analysis studies. This article gives an overview of the study and the main findings. Participants will return for a third assessment when the twins are around 16 years old. Longitudinal twin-sibling studies that map brain development and cognitive function at well-defined ages aid in the understanding of genetic influences on normative brain development.

In this article, we illustrate how cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can be adapted for the treatment of PTSD among traumatized refugees and ethnic minority populations, providing examples from our treatment, culturally adapted CBT, or CA-CBT. CA-CBT has a unique approach to exposure (typical exposure is poorly tolerated in these groups), emphasizes the treatment of somatic sensations (a particularly salient part of the presentation of PTSD in these groups), and addresses comorbid anxiety disorders and anger. To accomplish these treatment goals, CA-CBT emphasizes emotion exposure and emotion regulation techniques such as meditation and aims to promote emotional and psychological flexibility. We describe 12 key aspects of adapting CA-CBT that make it a culturally sensitive treatment of traumatized refugee and ethnic minority populations. We discuss three models that guide our treatment and that can be used to design culturally sensitive treatments: (a) the panic attack–PTSD model to illustrate the many processes that generate PTSD in these populations, highlighting the role of arousal and somatic symptoms; (b) the arousal triad to demonstrate how somatic symptoms are produced and the importance of targeting comorbid anxiety conditions and psychopathological processes; and (c) the multisystem network (MSN) model of emotional state to reveal how some of our therapeutic techniques (e.g., body-focused techniques: bodily stretching paired with self-statements) bring about psychological flexibility and improvement.

PurposeConsequences of workplace bullying include increased stress, poor physical and psychological health and low job satisfaction. Workplace bullying is particularly prevalent in professions that may involve a degree of aggression. Despite this, little information exists about the nature of workplace bullying in a prison context. The current study aims to investigate the presence of workplace bullying at one British prison.Design/methodology/approachEmployees (n=72) were invited to complete the Work Harassment Scale and the Work Stress Symptom Scale.FindingsA standard multiple regression revealed that direct experience of bullying significantly predicted stress. Factor analyses identified four types of bullying experienced and three types of bullying witnessed by prison employees. Subsequent analyses revealed that experiencing one specific bullying behavior (i.e. dismissive of individual and their work) predicted physical, psychological and behavioral symptoms of stress. Witnessing one form of bullying (i.e. dismissive, personal attack and threats) also predicted the physical and psychological symptoms of stress.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is reliant on self reported data and employs a relatively small sample.Practical implicationsDismissive behavior in particular is associated with employee stress. Interventions should prioritise this type of workplace bullying.Originality/valueFew studies have considered the nature of workplace bullying in a prison context. The current study details the prevalence of bullying amongst prison employees, the extent to which bullying impacts on employee stress, and the components of bullying that may be most harmful.

Objective:The effect of emotion on (non)co-operation in unscripted, ecological communication is investigated.Background:The participants in an interaction are generally cooperative in that, for instance, they tend to reduce the chance of misunderstandings in communication. However, it is also clear that cooperation is not complete. Positive and negative emotional states also appear to be connected to the participants' commitment to cooperate or not, respectively. So far, however, it has proven remarkably difficult to test this because of the lack of entirely objective measurements of both cooperation levels and emotional responses.Method:In this article, the authors present behavioral methods and coding schemes for analyzing cooperation and (surface) indicators of emotions in face-to-face interactions and show that they can be used to study the correlation between emotions and cooperation effectively.Results:The authors observed large negative correlations between heart rate and cooperation, and a group of facial expressions was found to be predictive of the level of cooperation of the speakers.Conclusion:It is possible to develop reliable methods to code for cooperation, and with such coding schemes it is possible to confirm the commonsense prediction that noncooperative behavior by a conversational participant affects the other participant in ways that can be measured quantitatively.Application:These results shed light on an aspect of interaction that is crucial to building adaptive systems able to measure cooperation and to respond to the user's affective states. The authors expect their methods to be applicable to building and testing such interaction systems.

In this paper, I develop and empirically test the proposition that performance pressure acts as a double-edged sword for teams, providing positive effects by enhancing the team's motivation to achieve good results while simultaneously triggering process losses. I conducted a multimethod field study of 78 audit and consulting teams from two global professional firms, revealing an irony of team life: even though motivated to perform well on a high-stakes project, pressured teams are more likely to engage in performance-detracting behaviors. Survey results show that, as performance pressure increases, team members begin to overly rely on general expertise while discounting domain-specific expertise, leading to suboptimal performance. I then use longitudinal qualitative case studies of six project teams across two firms to explore the underlying behavioral mechanisms that generate this outcome. Results reveal four limiting team processes: (1) a drive toward consensus, (2) a focus on common knowledge, (3) a shift from learning to project completion, and (4) increased conformity to the status hierarchy. Results also show that only domain-specific expertise—the kind that teams underuse when facing higher pressure—increases client-rated team performance. I thus find, paradoxically, that when teams need domain-specific expertise the most, they tend to use it the least, despite evidence suggesting they are highly motivated to do well on their task.

Behavioural economics is helping illuminate the limits of rational individual choice. At the same time, even as research identifies failures in rationality, policy must inquire about the possibility and legitimacy of government intervention. In 'Nudging' Healthy Lifestyles: The UK Experiments with the Behavioural Alternative to Regulation and the Market, Adam Burgess critically describes the introduction of behavioural approaches into UK policy making. In particular, Burgess is concerned with the wholesale adoption of nudge-style programmes to promote healthier living among citizens. Unsurprisingly, the UK developments find equivalent developments in the United States. In January 2009, President Barack Obama suggested that "the principles governing regulation … be revisited." Envisioning a 'behavioural dream team' of economists and psychologists to help lead the way, President Obama appointed Cass Sunstein, the co-author of Nudge, as Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.1 President Obama further ordered the US Office of Management and Budget to "clarify the role of the behavioral sciences in formulating regulatory policy." The parallels between the countries are striking. The new UK leadership has consulted with Nudge's other co-author, Richard Thaler. The new leadership has guided top administrators to read behavioural research and a "Behavioural Insight Team" has been newly formed within the Prime Minister's Cabinet Office. More operationally, each of the governments has adopted initiatives to nudge citizens to better behaviour, physically and financially.

Objective: A measure of play experience in video games was developed through literature review and two empirical validation studies. Background: Despite the considerable attention given to games in the behavioral sciences, play experience remains empirically underexamined. One reason for this gap is the absence of a scale that measures play experience. Method: In Study 1, the initial Play Experience Scale (PES) was tested through an online validation that featured three different games ( N = 203). In Study 2, a revised PES was assessed with a serious game in the laboratory ( N = 77). Results: Through principal component analysis of the Study 1 data, the initial 20-item PES was revised, resulting in the 16-item PES-16. Study 2 showed the PES-16 to be a robust instrument with the same patterns of correlations as in Study 1 via (a) internal consistency estimates, (b) correlations with established scales of motivation, (c) distributions of PES-16 scores in different game conditions, and (d) examination of the average variance extracted of the PES and the Intrinsic Motivation Scale. Conclusion: We suggest that the PES is appropriate for use in further validation studies. Additional examinations of the scale are required to determine its applicability to other contexts and its relationship with other constructs. Application: The PES is potentially relevant to human factors undertakings involving video games, including basic research into play, games, and learning; prototype testing; and exploratory learning studies.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore if and to what extent the competency portfolio of entrepreneurs affects firm's performance, controlling for a set of individual and organizational variables.Design/methodology/approachApplying nonparametric statistical analysis on data from behavioral event interviews and survey questionnaires to a sample of 53 entrepreneurs (small firm owners), this study investigates: the type, scope and depth of the entrepreneurs' competence portfolio; and the relationship between the entrepreneurs' competence portfolio and their firm performance. The empirical setting is a sample of northeast Italian small family businesses.FindingsThe authors' research shows which are the functional, emotional and cross‐functional competencies that differentiate entrepreneurs' performance and identifies which are the threshold competencies (Self‐control, Information gathering and Visioning) and the distinctive competencies (Planning, Empathy, Business bargaining, Organizational awareness, Directing others and Benchmarking).Originality/valueThe existing literature on the determinants of successful entrepreneurship mostly focuses on technological, financial and institutional factors, even if entrepreneurs' skills, knowledge, creativity, imagination, and alertness to opportunities are at least as much important in shaping small firms' performance. Building on competency modeling techniques and emotional intelligence literature, this study explores the link between personal characteristics and competencies of entrepreneurs and the performance of their firms. The study offers some managerial implications, provides direction to practitioners and policy makers on how to support entrepreneurship and small business development, and suggests future research directions.

В статье рассматриваются концептуальные метафоры, вербально репрезентирующие представления о лингвокультурном портрете женщины-политика на примере канцлера Германии Ангелы Меркель. Высокой плотностью употребления характеризуются 9 видов концептуальных метафор: поведенческая метафора, метафора власти, оценочная метафора, патерналистская метафора, механическая метафора, политико-экономическая метафора, деятельностная метафора, статусная метафора, генетическая метафора. Следующие когнитивные признаки лингвокультурного портрета политического лидера страны – женщины получили вербальную метафоризацию в материалах немецких СМИ: интеллект, черты характера, образ жизни, социальный статус, способ прихода к власти, особенности политического менеджмента. Наиболее продуктивны когнитивные метафоры, отражающие особенности черт характера, управленческие качества и интеллект. Гендерная специфика образа главы страны структурируется метафорическими моделями амбивалентной аксиологии. ; The article deals with the conceptual metaphor, verbally representing the idea of lingvocultural portrait of woman – politician on the example of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The nine types of conceptual metaphors are characterized by a high density of using: behavioral metaphor, a metaphor of power, estimated metaphor, paternalistic metaphor, the mechanical metaphor, political and economic metaphor, activity metaphor, status metaphor, genetic metaphor. The following cognitive features of lingvocultural portrait of the political country leader woman received verbal metaphorizing within German media materials: intelligence, features of character, lifestyle, social status, a way of coming to power, features of political management. The cognitive metaphor, reflecting the features of character, management quality and intelligence are more productive. The gender specifics of the country leader's image is structured by metaphorical models of the ambivalent axiology.

A great deal of foreign policy analysis relies on social and environmental factors, or anecdotal evidence. In seeking to address this problem in a more systematic manner, we move from an investigation centered around state actors to one focused on variation in individual behavior account for the combination of social, cultural, environmental, psychological, and biological differences. Our proposed approach to the study of political violence requires the integration of methods and skills from geneticists and neuroscientists with those in the behavioral and social sciences. Specifically, we seek to introduce an approach to study political violence which: (i) quantifies the effects of genes, environments, and their interaction on behavior; (ii) identifies specific genetic and environmental contexts that lead to such behavior; (iii) develops a comprehensive model of the biological and social pathways to political violence; (iv) identifies populations under specific circumstances which pose a higher or lower prevalence for any specific genes, neurobiological or environmental mechanisms which pose an increased liability for political violence; (v) develops mechanisms to identify individuals within given populations who are most at risk for committing violence, as well as those most resistant to such action; and (vi) creates environmental responses which can mitigate risk among those individuals. Adapted from the source document.

В статье рассматриваются концептуальные метафоры, вербально репрезентирующие представления о лингвокультурном портрете женщины-политика на примере канцлера Германии Ангелы Меркель. Высокой плотностью употребления характеризуются 9 видов концептуальных метафор: поведенческая метафора, метафора власти, оценочная метафора, патерналистская метафора, механическая метафора, политико-экономическая метафора, деятельностная метафора, статусная метафора, генетическая метафора. Следующие когнитивные признаки лингвокультурного портрета политического лидера страны – женщины получили вербальную метафоризацию в материалах немецких СМИ: интеллект, черты характера, образ жизни, социальный статус, способ прихода к власти, особенности политического менеджмента. Наиболее продуктивны когнитивные метафоры, отражающие особенности черт характера, управленческие качества и интеллект. Гендерная специфика образа главы страны структурируется метафорическими моделями амбивалентной аксиологии. ; The article deals with the conceptual metaphor, verbally representing the idea of lingvocultural portrait of woman – politician on the example of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The nine types of conceptual metaphors are characterized by a high density of using: behavioral metaphor, a metaphor of power, estimated metaphor, paternalistic metaphor, the mechanical metaphor, political and economic metaphor, activity metaphor, status metaphor, genetic metaphor. The following cognitive features of lingvocultural portrait of the political country leader woman received verbal metaphorizing within German media materials: intelligence, features of character, lifestyle, social status, a way of coming to power, features of political management. The cognitive metaphor, reflecting the features of character, management quality and intelligence are more productive. The gender specifics of the country leader's image is structured by metaphorical models of the ambivalent axiology.