[From Frank Lenk (2010.08.12.1257 CDT)]
Hi Gang! - I see that while I've been stuck on big projects at work
since March, I've missed quite a lot regarding building PCT into models
that can help explain the economy (and a lot of other things, too).
Those "big projects" are finally coming to a close in a couple of weeks,
so I hope to pick up my dissertation work again.
In the meantime, I just saw this article from my alma matter that seemed
to suggest that cognitive science and psychology are beginning to pay
more attention to intentions and purposes. Thought you might enjoy it.
Frank
Frank Lenk
Director of Research Services
Mid-America Regional Council
Kansas City, Missouri
Article follows:
Stanford Report, August 11, 2010
Perceived intentions of others lead us to cherish those who lend a
helping hand, Stanford researchers find
MRI scans show brain's response to actions of others in Stanford study.
When we believe a person is doing something nice for someone else, we
really do take it personally. Our brains register the observation of a
good deed as a personal reward.
BY ADAM GORLICK
It might seem like a no-brainer: We're inclined to like generous people
more than stingy ones.
But what's driving our feelings about them? Is it what they're doing, or
why we think they're doing it?
That's where the brain comes in. After studying the gray matter of 38
people in a Stanford experiment, psychologists concluded it is the
perceived intentions - not the actions - of others that lead us to
cherish the charitable and spurn the selfish.
The finding comes from the work of Jeff Cooper, who spent his time as a
Stanford doctoral candidate studying a part of the brain called the
ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Scientists already knew the region is
stimulated by personal rewards, but Cooper wanted to see if it also
reacts to the actions of others.
He found that it does. And his science boils down to this: When we
believe a person is doing something nice for someone else, we take it
personally. Our brains register the observation of a good deed as a
personal reward.
That's important information, Cooper said, because "our questions about
someone's intentions determine how we react to outcomes."
"We realized that a pretty simple manipulation of context can really
change whether we feel an emotional engagement with people we don't know
or have a personal or tangible stake with," he said.
Cooper's findings will be published online Aug. 11 by the journal
Neuron.
Cooper - who is now a researcher in Trinity College, Dublin's Institute
for Neuroscience - had two groups of participants at Stanford watch
people play a financial game. The players were given a bit of money and
told to pitch in as much as they want to a common pot, which Cooper and
his colleagues doubled. At the end of the game, the money was evenly
split among the players.
The only difference between the groups of observers involved how the
actions of the players were described. One set of subjects was told the
players were engaged in a "stock market game," where their decisions
could result in personal loss or gain. The other subjects were told they
were watching a "public goods game," where the players could help
everyone make more money.
While the activities and strategies of the players were consistent when
both groups of observers watched them, the test subjects had quite
different feelings about them.
Tracking their brain reactions using specialized MRI scans, Cooper and
his fellow researchers could tell that watching people play the "stock
market" game didn't incite much activity in the ventromedial prefrontal
cortex.
But when it came to watching the players in the so-called "public goods"
game, activity in that brain region fired up.
Those who gave generously to the common pot were met with brain signals
showing positive emotions, suggesting the observers really liked those
players. And players who withheld contributions were regarded with
disdain.
"The test demonstrates that what people do doesn't really matter all the
time," said Brian Knutson, an associate professor of psychology and
neuroscience who co-authored Cooper's paper. "What we think others are
intending is what really matters. Essentially, even though people saw
the exact same game, framing the game changed the test subjects' neural
reactions to the players."
Understanding how and why people react to others' giving and taking can
help politicians persuade voters on tricky issues like welfare, taxes
and education. It can help jurors decide disputes. And it can explain
why people get so upset when Wall Street bankers get huge bonuses even
as the stock market crumbles.
"If your perspective is: 'How could they make so much money when the
policies they've adopted are so questionable?' that means you're
thinking about the world of investment as a public goods game," Knutson
said.
···
-----Original Message-----
From: Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)
[mailto:CSGNET@LISTSERV.ILLINOIS.EDU] On Behalf Of Richard Marken
Sent: Saturday, August 07, 2010 11:01 AM
To: CSGNET@LISTSERV.ILLINOIS.EDU
Subject: Re: [CSGNET] Economics & PCT
[From Rick Marken (2010.08.07.0900)]
Gavin Ritz (2010.08.07.14.20NZT)
I'm back at the economics subject. I don't think this has not been
discussed in any satisfactory manner.
Economics as I see it has tried to tie itself to the rigors of
science,
I think what's missing from the "science" of economics is missing from
a lot of the work on PCT [Bill Powers (2010.08.06.0820 MDT)]: testing
the predictions of the mathematical models against empirical data.
That's what I liked about the book "Leakage" by Bill's dad, T. C.
Powers
(http://www.amazon.com/Leakage-Bleeding-American-Treval-Powers/dp/096471
2113/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281196321&sr=1-2).
In that book T. C. Powers presented a model of the macro economy and
tested that model against macro economic data. There were flaws in
that work but I think it was a good beginning.
I proposed some potential input functions and reference signals (I
generically called inner standards) but these have been shot down.
So now what???
I like my approach (of course), which is described in some material at
Economics Research. I think I posted this
before but I guess it didn't make much of an impression. It never
does, which is why I got out of the economics biz and back into the
research methodology biz. There's not much interest in the latter
either but at least I have the credentials for it;-)
Best
Rick
--
Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com
www.mindreadings.com
