The Social contract with endogenous sentiments

Moral values infuence individual behavior and social interactions. A specially signif- cant instance is the case of moral values concerning work e¤ort. Individuals determine what they take to be proper behaviour and judge the others, and themselves, accordingly. They increase their esteem -and self-esteem- for those who perform in excess of the standard and decrease their esteem for those who work less. These changes in self-esteem result from the self-regulatory emotions of guilt or pride extensively studied in Social Psychology. We examine the interactions between sentiments, individual behaviour and the social contract in a model of rational voting over redistribution where individual self-esteem and relative es-teem for others are endogenously determined. Individuals di¤er in their productivities. The desired extent of redistribution depends both on individual income and on individual attitudes toward others. We characterize the politico-economic equilibria in which sentiments, labor supply and redistribution are simultaneously determined. The model has two types of equilibria. In "cohesive" equilibria, all individuals conform to the standard of proper behav- iour, income inequality is low and social esteem is not biased toward any particular type. Under these conditions equilibrium redistribution increases in response to larger inequality. In a "clustered" equilibrium skilled workers work above the mean while unskilled workers work below. In such an equilibrium, income inequality is large and sentiments are biased in favor of the industrious. As inequality increases, this bias may eventually overtake the egoistic demand for greater taxation and equilibrium redistribution decreases. The type of equilibrium that emerges crucially depends on inequality. We contrast the predictions of the model with data on inequality, redistribution, work values and attitudes toward work and toward the poor for a set of OECD countries.

La borrosidad como epistemología de la interacción social: algunos alcances y potencialidades

En este trabajo se describen la teoría de los conjuntos borrosos de L. A. Zadeh(antecedentes, características e implicaciones) y las áreas en las que se ha aplicado laborrosidad en psicología y psicología social (desarrollo evolutivo, procesamiento deestímulos, percepción de la información, prototipos y otras aplicaciones). A partir de esto,se sugiere cómo la borrosidad podría ser útil en el estudio de la interacción social,asumiendo el carácter simultáneamente vago y preciso de la realidad, y la utilización deconceptos como la noción de sí mismo desde una visión compleja, que considere, desde laperspectiva del pluralismo, diversas posturas teóricas y metodológicas.

An overall statistic for testing symmetry in social interactions

The present work focuses the attention on the skew-symmetry index as a measure of social reciprocity. This index is based on the correspondence between the amount of behaviour that each individual addresses to its partners and what it receives from them in return. Although the skew-symmetry index enables researchers to describe social groups, statistical inferential tests are required. The main aim of the present study is to propose an overall statistical technique for testing symmetry in experimental conditions, calculating the skew-symmetry statistic (Φ) at group level. Sampling distributions for the skew- symmetry statistic have been estimated by means of a Monte Carlo simulation in order to allow researchers to make statistical decisions. Furthermore, this study will allow researchers to choose the optimal experimental conditions for carrying out their research, as the power of the statistical test has been estimated. This statistical test could be used in experimental social psychology studies in which researchers may control the group size and the number of interactions within dyads.

A statistical procedure for testing social reciprocity at group, dyadic and individual levels

This paper examines statistical analysis of social reciprocity, that is, the balance between addressing and receiving behaviour in social interactions. Specifically, it focuses on the measurement of social reciprocity by means of directionality and skew-symmetry statistics at different levels. Two statistics have been used as overall measures of social reciprocity at group level: the directional consistency and the skew-symmetry statistics. Furthermore, the skew-symmetry statistic allows social researchers to obtain complementary information at dyadic and individual levels. However, having computed these measures, social researchers may be interested in testing statistical hypotheses regarding social reciprocity. For this reason, it has been developed a statistical procedure, based on Monte Carlo sampling, in order to allow social researchers to describe groups and make statistical decisions.

Psicologia social

Visió de la sociolingüística catalana actual des d'una perspectiva psicosocial

Quantifying Social Asymmetric Structures

Many social phenomena involve a set of dyadic relations among agents whose actions may be dependent. Although individualistic approaches have frequently been applied to analyze social processes, these are not generally concerned with dyadic relations nor do they deal with dependency. This paper describes a mathematical procedure for analyzing dyadic interactions in a social system. The proposed method mainly consists of decomposing asymmetric data into their symmetrical and skew-symmetrical parts. A quantification of skew-symmetry for a social system can be obtained by dividing the norm of the skew-symmetrical matrix by the norm of the asymmetric matrix. This calculation makes available to researchers a quantity related to the amount of dyadic reciprocity. Regarding agents, the procedure enables researchers to identify those whose behavior is asymmetric with respect to all agents. It is also possible to derive symmetric measurements among agents and to use multivariate statistical techniques.

Measuring and making decisions for social reciprocity

Social reciprocity may explain certain emerging psychological processes, which are likely to be founded on dyadic relations. Although some indices and statistics have been proposed to measure and make statistical decisions regarding social reciprocity in groups, these were generally developed to identify association patterns rather than to quantify the discrepancies between what each individual addresses to his/her partners and what is received from them in return. Additionally, social researchers are not only interested in measuring groups at the global level, since dyadic and individual measurements are also necessary for a proper description of social interactions. This study is concerned with a new statistic for measuring social reciprocity at the global level and with decomposing it in order to identify those dyads and individuals which account for a significant part of asymmetry in social interactions. In addition to a set of indices some exact analytical results are derived and a way of making statistical decisions is proposed.

Earnings management and cultural values

Using theory and empirical data from social psychology to measure for cultural differences between countries, we study the effect of individualism as defined by Hofstede (1980) and egalitarianism as defined by Schwartz (1994, 1999, 2004) on earnings management. We find a significant influence of both cultural measures. In line with Licht et al. (2004), who argue that individualistic societies may be less susceptible to corruption, we find that countries scoring high on individualism tend to have lower levels of earnings management. In addition, we find that egalitarianism, defined as a society's cultural orientation with respect to intolerance for abuses of market and political power, is negatively related with earnings management. Our results are robust to different specifications and controls. The main message of this paper is that besides formal institutions, cultural differences are relevant to explain earnings management behaviour. We think that our work adds to the understanding of the importance of cultural values in managerial behaviour across countries contributing to the literature on earnings management and law and institutions.

La metodologia del cas en un espai d'aprenentatge interactiu

Tota implementació d’un nou sistema de treball ha de ser revisada, avaluada i millorada perquè compleixi amb els seus objectius. Des que al curs 2004 (Ajut AGAUR 2004) varem dur a terme la implantació de la plataforma a les assignatures de la Facultat de Psicologia, estem treballant en les assignatures de l’àmbit de Psicologia social i, més concretament, Psicologia de les Organitzacions, amb uns materials originals, creatius i innovadors que no solament són fàcils d’utilitzar pel professor sinó que permeten la interacció entre docents de diferents facultats i estudiants, amb l’objectiu d’aprendre conjuntament. L’aplicació telemàtica per analitzar casos complexos va ser introduïda en una assignatura amb resultats significatius i és, a partir d’aquest projecte, que s’ha pogut treballar en altres assignatures amb iguals resultats d’èxit. L'informe que es presenta recull les millores establertes a partir de l’avaluació efectuada de l’experiència anterior i els resultats analitzats de la primera experiència. Les millores introduïdes no solament fan referència als materials (imatges, textos, relacions entre ells) sinó també a l’avaluació dels estudiants. Tenir uns criteris clars de què se li està demanant a l’estudiant que faci quan interactua amb la plataforma, l’amplitud del ventall de comportaments esperats (plantilla d’avaluació), i el feedback que ha de donar-se a cada estudiant, és una eina necessària per a poder avaluar amb garanties de qualitat. D’altra banda que el professor tingui un material elaborat en forma de graella, li facilita aquesta avaluació. Podem concloure amb aquest informe que la plataforma és capaç d’avaluar les competències que ens havíem proposat i, alhora, ser una bona eina per a treballar l’autonomia de l’estudiant i motivar-lo per a seguir aprofundint en l’àmbit dels RRHH en les organitzacions, objectiu que, des del principi, ens havíem proposat.

Educational expansion, intergenerational mobility and over-education

[eng] There is a vast literature on intergenerational mobility in sociology and economics. Similar interest has emerged for the phenomenon of over-education in both disciplines. There are no studies, however, linking these two research lines. We study the relationship between social mobility and over-education in a context of educational expansion. Our framework allows for the evaluation of several policies, including those affecting social segregation, early intervention programs and the power of unions. Results show the evolution of social mobility, over-education, income inequality and equality of opportunity under each scenario.

Fractalidad y comportamiento psicosocial: análisis de relaciones posibles

En este trabajo se describen los antecedentes, conceptos básicos y aplicaciones de la teoría de fractales de Mandelbrot en Psicología y Psicología Social. A partir de esto se analiza qué elementos de esta teoría son útiles para el estudio de la interacción social, sugiriéndose una forma en que esto puede hacerse.

Estudiar el ocio a través de ejercicios teatrales. Una aproximación al tiempo libre

El tema del ocio, estudiado desde la perspectiva de la psicosociología del tiempo libre (Munné, 1980), establece la necesidad de estimular el comportamiento autocondicionado y las habilidades para superar los heterocondicionamientos deeste tiempo social (Casas y Codina, 1998). Esto sugiere la búsqueda de herramientas metodológicas que permitan el desarrollo de la persona a través del autoconocimiento, proceso éste en el que la noción de sí mismo (self) adquiere unpapel preponderante.Si, dentro del ocio, se considera el aspecto contrafuncional de lo creativo (Munné, ibídem), como un elemento que permite transitar del tiempo liberador al tiempo liberado (Munné y Codina, 1996), podrían utilizarse los ejercicios teatrales paraindagar los procesos que conducen al tiempo libre. En psicología social, el uso de estas herramientas ha estado considerado, fundamentalmente, dentro de las perspectivas del psicodrama iniciado por Moreno, ciertos enfoques de lasdenominadas teorías del rol, y más recientemente como una expresión del denominado ocio serio (Stebbins, 1992).En esta comunicación se analizan las ventajas y desventajas de cada una de estas tres perspectivas, y se sugiere cómo podrían aplicarse los ejercicios teatrales en los estudios de ocio; a esto último se añade la consideración de nuevas epistemologías como las teorías de la complejidad en lo que respecta al tiempo libre y al sí mismo (Munné, 1997; Codina, 1998, 1999a, 1999b), derivándose de todo esto una posible alternativa en la intervención psicosocial desde los estudios de ocio.

Educational expansion, intergenerational mobility and over-education

[eng] There is a vast literature on intergenerational mobility in sociology and economics. Similar interest has emerged for the phenomenon of over-education in both disciplines. There are no studies, however, linking these two research lines. We study the relationship between social mobility and over-education in a context of educational expansion. Our framework allows for the evaluation of several policies, including those affecting social segregation, early intervention programs and the power of unions. Results show the evolution of social mobility, over-education, income inequality and equality of opportunity under each scenario.

Psychosocial analysis of ETA's violence legitimation discourse

This study analyses the fundamental components shaping the violence legitimation discourse of ETA (Euskadi Ta Askasuna). With this aim, a category system has been built, which organizes the psychosocial processes identified in previous studies related to violence legitimation. Based on the proposed category system, a content analysis was conducted on 21 statements of ETA, released between 1998 and 2011. An intraobserver and inter-observer reliability analysis reveals high level stability and replicability of the categorization. The results show, firstly, that outgroup components have a predominant presence over ingroup components. Secondly, in the components hierarchy, we observe that elements referring to identity come in first place, followed in similar frequencies by those related to violence representation and the definition of the situation.