From language maintenance to bilingual parenting: Negotiating behavior and language choice at the dinner table in binational-bilingual families

This article contributes to the study of language maintenance as an everyday activity in binational-bilingual families. By embedding the question of language maintenance into a language socialization framework and adopting a conversation-analytic approach to language alternation, three excerpts of mealtime interactions in Russian–French speaking families are analyzed. Their analysis shows that in bilingual families situations focusing on the interactional definition and negotiation of children’s behavior simultaneously involve the negotiation of language choice. It reveals how parents in binational-bilingual families accomplish bilingual (language) socialization in daily practice while dealing with the complex task of combining educational goals with language maintenance.

Does the Use of Mobile Devices (Tablets and Smartphones) Affect Stated Choice Behavior in Web Surveys? An Application to Environmental Valuation

Web surveys are becoming increasingly popular in survey research. Compared with face-to-face, telephone and mail surveys, web surveys may contain a different and new source of measurement error and bias: the type of device that respondents use to answer the survey questions. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that tests whether the use of mobile devices affects survey characteristics and stated preferences in a web-based choice experiment. The web survey was carried out in Germany with 3,400 respondents, of which 12 per cent used a mobile device (i.e. tablet or smartphone), and comprised a stated choice experiment on externalities of renewable energy production using wind, solar and biomass. Our main finding is that survey characteristics such as interview length and acquiescence tendency are affected by the device used. In contrast to what might be expected, we find that, compared with respondents using desktop computers and laptops, mobile device users spent more time to answer the survey and are less likely to be prone to acquiescence bias. In the choice experiment, mobile device users tended to be more consistent in their stated choices, and there are differences in willingness to pay between both subsamples.

Dorsolateral and ventromedial prefrontal cortex orchestrate normative choice.

Humans are noted for their capacity to over-ride self-interest in favor of normatively valued goals. We examined the neural circuitry that is causally involved in normative, fairness-related decisions by generating a temporarily diminished capacity for costly normative behavior, a 'deviant' case, through non-invasive brain stimulation (repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation) and compared normal subjects' functional magnetic resonance imaging signals with those of the deviant subjects. When fairness and economic self-interest were in conflict, normal subjects (who make costly normative decisions at a much higher frequency) displayed significantly higher activity in, and connectivity between, the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the posterior ventromedial prefrontal cortex (pVMPFC). In contrast, when there was no conflict between fairness and economic self-interest, both types of subjects displayed identical neural patterns and behaved identically. These findings suggest that a parsimonious prefrontal network, the activation of right DLPFC and pVMPFC, and the connectivity between them, facilitates subjects' willingness to incur the cost of normative decisions.

Why Some People Discount More than Others: Baseline Activation in the Dorsal PFC Mediates the Link between COMT Genotype and Impatient Choice

Individuals differ widely in how steeply they discount future rewards. The sources of these stable individual differences in delay discounting (DD) are largely unknown. One candidate is the COMT Val158Met polymorphism, known to modulate prefrontal dopamine levels and affect DD. To identify possible neural mechanisms by which this polymorphism may contribute to stable individual DD differences, we measured 73 participants' neural baseline activation using resting electroencephalogram (EEG). Such neural baseline activation measures are highly heritable and stable over time, thus an ideal endophenotype candidate to explain how genes may influence behavior via individual differences in neural function. After EEG-recording, participants made a series of incentive-compatible intertemporal choices to determine the steepness of their DD. We found that COMT significantly affected DD and that this effect was mediated by baseline activation level in the left dorsal prefrontal cortex (DPFC): (i) COMT had a significant effect on DD such that the number of Val alleles was positively correlated with steeper DD (higher numbers of Val alleles means greater COMT activity and thus lower dopamine levels). (ii) A whole-brain search identified a cluster in left DPFC where baseline activation was correlated with DD; lower activation was associated with steeper DD. (iii) COMT had a significant effect on the baseline activation level in this left DPFC cluster such that a higher number of Val alleles was associated with lower baseline activation. (iv) The effect of COMT on DD was explained by the mediating effect of neural baseline activation in the left DPFC cluster. Our study thus establishes baseline activation level in left DPFC as salient neural signature in the form of an endophenotype that mediates the link between COMT and DD.

Disruption of right prefrontal cortex by low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation induces risk-taking behavior

Decisions require careful weighing of the risks and benefits associated with a choice. Some people need to be offered large rewards to balance even minimal risks, whereas others take great risks in the hope for an only minimal benefit. We show here that risk-taking is a modifiable behavior that depends on right hemisphere prefrontal activity. We used low-frequency, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation to transiently disrupt left or right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) function before applying a well known gambling paradigm that provides a measure of decision-making under risk. Individuals displayed significantly riskier decision-making after disruption of the right, but not the left, DLPFC. Our findings suggest that the right DLPFC plays a crucial role in the suppression of superficially seductive options. This confirms the asymmetric role of the prefrontal cortex in decision-making and reveals that this fundamental human capacity can be manipulated in normal subjects through cortical stimulation. The ability to modify risk-taking behavior may be translated into therapeutic interventions for disorders such as drug abuse or pathological gambling.

Career-choice readiness in adolescence: Developmental trajectories and individual differences

Developing career-choice readiness is an important task in adolescence, but current theory and research has provided a rather static view of the phenomenon. The present study investigated the development of career-choice readiness among a group of 325 Swiss students assessed four times every 5 months from seventh through eighth grade. A variable-centered approach applying latent curve modeling showed not only a linear increase of readiness over time but also significant inter-individual differences in the level and development of readiness. Higher levels were predicted by more self-esteem and generalized self-efficacy and fewer perceived barriers while increase in readiness was predicted by increase in occupational information. A person-centered approach applying latent class-growth analysis identified four distinct developmental trajectories: high-increasing (42%), high-decreasing (5%), moderate-increasing (42%), and constantly low (11%). Students with different trajectories showed significant differences in core self-evaluations, occupational knowledge, and barriers. The results suggest that environmental demands promote a developmental trend in readiness development that overrules individual differences for the majority of students. Individual differences affect the level of readiness to a greater extent than the process of its development. Career information seems pivotal for readiness increase.

A common mechanism underlying food choice and social decisions

People make numerous decisions every day including perceptual decisions such as walking through a crowd, decisions over primary rewards such as what to eat, and social decisions that require balancing own and others’ benefits. The unifying principles behind choices in various domains are, however, still not well understood. Mathematical models that describe choice behavior in specific contexts have provided important insights into the computations that may underlie decision making in the brain. However, a critical and largely unanswered question is whether these models generalize from one choice context to another. Here we show that a model adapted from the perceptual decision-making domain and estimated on choices over food rewards accurately predicts choices and reaction times in four independent sets of subjects making social decisions. The robustness of the model across domains provides behavioral evidence for a common decision-making process in perceptual, primary reward, and social decision making.

Partitioning the Choice Task Makes Starbucks Coffee Taste Better

Consumers are often less satisfied with a product chosen from a large assortment than a limited one. Experienced choice difficulty presumably causes this as consumers have to engage in a great number of individual comparisons. In two studies we tested whether partitioning the choice task so that consumers decided sequentially on each individual attribute may provide a solution. In a Starbucks coffee house, consumers who chose from the menu rated the coffee as less tasty when chosen from a large rather than a small assortment. However, when the consumers chose it by sequentially deciding about one attribute at a time, the effect reversed. In a tailored-suit customization, consumers who chose multiple attributes at a time were less satisfied with their suit, compared to those who chose one attribute at a time. Sequential attribute-based processing proves to be an effective strategy to reap the benefits of a large assortment.

The consequences of social intolerance on non-violent protest behavior

This paper scrutinizes the impact of intolerance toward diverse ethnic, religious, and cultural groups on an individuals willingness to actively engage in non-violent protest. Following new insights, we examine the individual as well as the ecological effect of social intolerance on protest behavior. Drawing from insights of social psychology and communication science, we expect that the prevalence of intolerance reinforces the positive effect of individual-level intolerance on protest participation. From a rational choice perspective, however, a negative moderating effect is expected, as the expression of opinions becomes redundant for intolerant individuals in an intolerant society. We base our multilevel analyses on data from the World Values Surveys covering 32 established democracies. Our results reveal that intolerance leads to more non-violent protest participation. This relationship, however, is strongly influenced by the prevalence of intolerance in a country.

Three Experimental Approaches to Measure the Social Context Dependence of Prejudice Communication and Discriminatory Behavior

Empirical research on discrimination is faced with crucial problems stemming from the specific character of its object of study. In democratic societies the communication of prejudices and other forms of discriminatory behavior is considered socially undesirable and depends on situational factors such as whether a situation is considered private or whether a discriminatory consensus can be assumed. Regular surveys thus can only offer a blurred picture of the phenomenon. But also survey experiments intended to decrease the social desirability bias (SDB) so far failed in systematically implementing situational variables. This paper introduces three experimental approaches to improve the study of discrimination and other topics of social (un-)desirability. First, we argue in favor of cognitive context framing in surveys in order to operationalize the salience of situational norms. Second, factorial surveys offer a way to take situational contexts and substitute behavior into account. And third, choice experiments – a rather new method in sociology – offer a more valid method of measuring behavioral characteristics compared to simple items in surveys. All three approaches – which may be combined – are easy to implement in large-scale surveys. Results of empirical studies demonstrate the fruitfulness of each of these approaches.

Founder, Academic, or Employee? A Nuanced Study of Career Choice Intentions

We add novel insights to the debate about why individuals choose to start their own firm by comparing entrepreneurial intentions to the intentions to work at a university as an academic and to be employed in a private firm. To model this more complex set of career choices, we examine novel multiplicative aspects of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and test our hypotheses on survey data of 15,866 students from 13 European countries. Multinomial logistic regression analyses reveal how the different TPB elements influence career preferences and demonstrate the moderating effects of perceived controllability and desirability.

Should I Stay or Should I Go? Career Choice Intentions of Students with Family Business Background

Personal and motivational patterns of intentional founders have been researched in great depth; however, antecedents to career choices of intentional successors have been conspicuously missing in entrepreneurship research. By drawing on theory of planned behavior, we investigate how intentional founders, successors, and employees differ in terms of locus of control and entrepreneurial self-efficacy as well as independence and innovation motives. We find that transitive likelihood of career intent depends on degree of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and the independence motive. Unexpectedly, we see that high levels of internal locus of control lead to a preference of employment, which challenges traditional entrepreneurship research and suggests that the feasibility of an entrepreneurial career path does not automatically make it desirable. Our findings suggest that students with family business background are pessimistic about being in control in an entrepreneurial career, but optimistic about their efficacy to pursue an entrepreneurial career.