Article
Event-related potentials during individual, cooperative, and competitive task performance differ in subjects with analytic vs. holistic thinking
It has been presented that Western cultures (USA, Western Europe) are mostly characterized by competitive
forms of social interaction, whereas Eastern cultures (Japan, China, Russia) are mostly characterized by cooperative
forms. It has also been stated that thinking in Eastern countries is predominantly holistic and in
Western countries analytic. Based on this, we hypothesized that subjects with analytic vs. holistic thinking styles
show differences in decision making in different types of social interaction conditions. We investigated behavioural
and brain-activity differences between subjects with analytic and holistic thinking during a choice reaction
time (ChRT) task, wherein the subjects either cooperated, competed (in pairs), or performed the task
without interaction with other participants. Healthy Russian subjects (N=78) were divided into two groups
based on having analytic or holistic thinking as determined with an established questionnaire. We measured
reaction times as well as event-related brain potentials. There were significant differences between the interaction
conditions in task performance between subjects with analytic and holistic thinking. Both behavioral
performance and physiological measures exhibited higher variance in holistic than in analytic subjects.
Differences in amplitude and P300 latency suggest that decision making was easier for the holistic subjects in the
cooperation condition, in contrast to analytic subjects for whom decision making based on these measures
seemed to be easier in the competition condition. The P300 amplitude was higher in the individual condition as
compared with the collective conditions. Overall, our results support the notion that the brains of analytic and
holistic subjects work differently in different types of social interaction conditions.
The paper discusses social aspects of higher education institutions engagement with their regional communities. On the basis of the cases of the Russian Siberian and Southern Federal Universities the author analyzes practices and formats of their interaction with different regional stakeholders as part of the FUs' social function implementation. The FU's capacity to enhance their third mission is assessed. The author suggests a set of indicators to assess universities social activities impact on development of the regions, and puts forward recommendations on building the federal universities capacity for fulfilling their third role. The paper is prepared within the framework of the Ministry of Education and Science project "Organizational and analytical support to the national priority project "Education" on activities aimed at "Development of Federal Universities", carried out by the National Training Foundation.
Despite over 30 years of worldwide reforms in many directions to increase efficiency, public transport markets present a variety of arrangements regarding operations, control and ownership that are amenable to improvement. This workshop will examine the contextual economic, political, cultural and social factors behind these many different cases that can be observed around the world. Through a better understanding of such factors it will examine the competition and ownership options for regulated public transport markets, taking full account of local contextual factors. This will include examination of methods for improving performance without major competition and ownership changes, for example by improved institutional design (both top-down and bottom-up), the development of trusting partnerships, the promotion of negotiated contracts and the introduction of optimal operating rules.
The article considers the issues of business competition and cooperation. There presented the market type matrix based on «cooperation-competition» criteria. The concepts of competition marketing and relations with competitors are defined. The concept of marketing communications is specified. The analysis of the main methods of cooperation is carried out.
This is the first paper on consumer search where the cost of going back to stores already searched is explicitly taken into account. We show that the optimal sequential search rule under costly second visits is very different from the traditional reservation price rule in that it is nonstationary and not independent of previously sampled prices. We explore the implications of costly second visits on market equilibrium in two celebrated search models. In the Wolinsky model some consumers search beyond the first firm and in this class of models costly second visits do make a substantive difference: equilibrium prices under costly second visits can both be higher and lower than their perfect recall analogues. In the oligopoly search model of Stahl where consumers do not search beyond the first firm, there remains a unique symmetric equilibrium that has firms use pricing strategies that are identical to the perfect recall case.
This empirical paper adds to competition and industrial organization literature by exploring the interplay between industry structure and competitiveness on local, rather than nation-wide, markets. We use micro-level statistical data for banks in two Russian regions (Bashkortostan and Tatarstan) to estimate Herfindahl-Hirschman index, Lerner index, and Panzar-Rosse model. We estimate Panzar-Rosse model in two ways: via the widely used price-equation that accounts for scale effects and then via a revenue-equation that disregards scale effects as suggested by Bikker, Shaffer and Spierdijk (2009). We find both regional markets to be ruled by monopolistic competition, although estimation by revenue-equation does not reject monopoly hypothesis for Tatarstan. Existence of sizeable locally-owned and operated institutions does not necessarily lead to higher competitiveness of the given regional market. Non-structural methods of estimation suggest that bank competition in Bashkortostan is stronger than in Tatarstan.
This paper examines determinants of corruption across Russian regions. Key contributions include: (i) a formal study of economic corruption determinants across Russian regions; (ii) comparisons of determinants of perceived corruption versus those of actual corruption; and (iii) studying the influence of market competition and other factors on corruption. The re-sults show that economic prosperity, population, market competition and urbanization are significant determinants of Russian corruption. The use of alternative corruption measures reveals that economic prosperity and population have a largely similar impact on corrup-tion perceptions and corruption incidence. However, there are significant differences in the effects of competition and urbanization.
This study analyzes the effects of reducing trade barriers in the context of the objectives of competition policy. Separate chapters are devoted to the assessment of the height of Russian trade barriers, the analysis of the impact of international trade on domestic prices and concentration of production.
The distractive effects on attentional task performance in different paradigms are analyzed in this paper. I demonstrate how distractors may negatively affect (interference effect), positively (redundancy effect) or neutrally (null effect). Distractor effects described in literature are classified in accordance with their hypothetical source. The general rule of the theory is also introduced. It contains the formal prediction of the particular distractor effect, based on entropy and redundancy measures from the mathematical theory of communication (Shannon, 1948). Single- vs dual-process frameworks are considered for hypothetical mechanisms which underpin the distractor effects. Distractor profiles (DPs) are also introduced for the formalization and simple visualization of experimental data concerning the distractor effects. Typical shapes of DPs and their interpretations are discussed with examples from three frequently cited experiments. Finally, the paper introduces hierarchical hypothesis that states the level-fashion modulating interrelations between distractor effects of different classes.
This article describes the expierence of studying factors influencing the social well-being of educational migrants as mesured by means of a psychological well-being scale (A. Perrudet-Badoux, G.A. Mendelsohn, J.Chiche, 1988) previously adapted for Russian by M.V. Sokolova. A statistical analysis of the scale's reliability is performed. Trends in dynamics of subjective well-being are indentified on the basis the correlations analysis between the condbtbions of adaptation and its success rate, and potential mechanisms for developing subjective well-being among student migrants living in student hostels are described. Particular attention is paid to commuting as a factor of adaptation.