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The evolution of beauty : how Darwin's forgotten theory of mate choice shapes the animal world -- and us
What can explain the incredible diversity of beauty in nature? Richard O. Prum, an award-winning ornithologist, discusses Charles Darwin's second and long-neglected theory--aesthetic mate choice--and what it means for our understanding of evolution. In addition, Prum connects those same evolutionary dynamics to the origins and diversity of human sexuality, offering riveting new thinking about the evolution of human beauty and the role of mate choice, thereby transforming our ancestors from typical infanticidal primates into socially intelligent, pair-bonding caregivers. Prum's book is an exhilarating tour de force that begins in the trees and ends by fundamentally challenging how we understand human evolution and ourselves. -- adapted from dust jacket.
Book
0910 Potential Role of Physicians in Addressing the Needs of Those At-Risk of a Neurodegenerative Disorder – A Pilot Survey
Introduction In a recent study, most patients diagnosed with isolated REM sleep behavior disorder (iRBD) preferred their physician discussed their risk for developing a future neurodegenerative disorder (NDD) such as parkinsonism or dementia (PD). In the Mayo Clinic email survey, 75% would lose trust in their physician if PD-risk was not discussed following an iRBD diagnosis. For this survey, questions were designed to investigate preferences for how sleep physicians might communicate to community-based adults about risk of a NDD. Methods A survey was administered to Rotary Club attendees prior to a sleep and neurodegenerative disease presentation, with options for responses being either strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, or strongly agree. Thirty-four surveys were obtained from approximately equal numbers of men and women with estimated ages above 50 years. Personal information were not obtained (i.e., sex and age). Results The vast majority of respondents wanted their physician to ask their preference prior to sharing NDD risk (86% strongly agreed or agreed), while virtually all would lose trust in their physician if he/she did not discuss their NDD risk (97% strongly agreed/agreed). If identified with NDD risk, responders would seek out information about medications and adaptive therapies that could delay onset (97% strongly agreed/agreed), while only about half currently had a good understanding of lifestyle patterns that might help delay onset (47% strongly agreed/agreed and 47% disagreed/strongly disagreed). Not knowing when memory problems might begin would cause most responders to feel anxious (85% strongly agreed/agreed). Conclusion Those surveyed wanted their physician to ask their preference prior to sharing NDD risk, but virtually all would lose trust in their health care provider if the information was known but not shared. There appears to be a role for physicians in educating those who may be at NDD risk about interventions that could delay onset of NDD, given approximately half have a limited understanding of lifestyle patterns that could help delay onset. Further, routine follow-up for changes in prodromal NDD biomarker severity might help to reduce anxiety in the 85% of those concerned about when memory problems might begin. Support (if any) NIA-R44AG050326
Journal Article
Understanding Uptake of Digital Health Products: Methodology Tutorial for a Discrete Choice Experiment Using the Bayesian Efficient Design
Understanding the preferences of potential users of digital health products is beneficial for digital health policy and planning. Stated preference methods could help elicit individuals’ preferences in the absence of observational data. A discrete choice experiment (DCE) is a commonly used stated preference method—a quantitative methodology that argues that individuals make trade-offs when engaging in a decision by choosing an alternative of a product or a service that offers the greatest utility, or benefit. This methodology is widely used in health economics in situations in which revealed preferences are difficult to collect but is much less used in the field of digital health. This paper outlines the stages involved in developing a DCE. As a case study, it uses the application of a DCE to reveal preferences in targeting the uptake of smoking cessation apps. It describes the establishment of attributes, the construction of choice tasks of 2 or more alternatives, and the development of the experimental design. This tutorial offers a guide for researchers with no prior knowledge of this research technique.
Journal Article
Forced to Be Good
Preferential trade agreements have become common ways to protect or restrict access to national markets in products and services. The United States has signed trade agreements with almost two dozen countries as close as Mexico and Canada and as distant as Morocco and Australia. The European Union has done the same. In addition to addressing economic issues, these agreements also regulate the protection of human rights. InForced to Be Good, Emilie M. Hafner-Burton tells the story of the politics of such agreements and of the ways in which governments pursue market integration policies that advance their own political interests, including human rights.
How and why do global norms for social justice become international regulations linked to seemingly unrelated issues, such as trade? Hafner-Burton finds that the process has been unconventional. Efforts by human rights advocates and labor unions to spread human rights ideals, for example, do not explain why American and European governments employ preferential trade agreements to protect human rights. Instead, most of the regulations protecting human rights are codified in global moral principles and laws only because they serve policymakers' interests in accumulating power or resources or solving other problems. Otherwise, demands by moral advocates are tossed aside. And, as Hafner-Burton shows, even the inclusion of human rights protections in trade agreements is no guarantee of real change, because many of the governments that sign on to fair trade regulations oppose such protections and do not intend to force their implementation.
Ultimately, Hafner-Burton finds that, despite the difficulty of enforcing good regulations and the less-than-noble motives for including them, trade agreements that include human rights provisions have made a positive difference in the lives of some of the people they are intended-on paper, at least-to protect.
eBook
Four Failures to Demonstrate that Scarcity Magnifies Preference for Familiarity
As economic inequality increases in the United States and around the world, psychologists have begun to study how the psychological experience of scarcity impacts people's decision making. Recent work in psychology suggests that scarcity—the experience of having insufficient resources to accomplish a goal—makes people more strongly prefer what they already like relative to what they already dislike or like less. That is, scarcity may polarize preferences. One common preference is the preference for familiarity: the systematic liking of more often experienced stimuli, compared to less often experienced stimuli. Across four studies—three experiments and one cross- sectional survey (all pre-registered; see https://osf.io/7zyfr/)—we investigated whether scarcity polarizes the preference for familiarity. Despite consistently replicating people's preference for the familiar, we consistently failed to show that scarcity increased the degree to which people preferred the familiar to the unfamiliar. We discuss these results in light of recent failures to replicate famous findings in the scarcity literature.
Journal Article
Anti-preferences
This Article offers a critical evaluation of preference satisfaction as a frame for normative thinking. It begins with an internal critique of the way preferences work in normative economics, distinguishing among three elements: welfare; preferences; and choices. For preference satisfaction to work well, it must be able to bridge two gaps, one between choice and preferences, and another between preferences and welfare. In contexts where both those gaps are bridged, preference satisfaction offers a workable normative framework; where at least one of those gaps is unbridgeable, the framework should be treated with extreme caution if not jettisoned altogether. The Article then goes on to pursue an external critique, by asking what price we pay for using the preference satisfaction framework when it appears to perform well. The point of the critique is that even when preference satisfaction provides a good normative framework on its own terms, the framework obscures considerations that should not be ignored. By pursuing one concrete example, the Article shows how broad considerations regarding the implications of the regime of wage labor are absent from legal contemplation when labor law is imagined and shaped through the lens of preference satisfaction. The Article concludes with a speculation about how different theories of welfare might be employed in concert, rather than as alternatives. It suggests that a pluralism of theory is a way to expose the political stakes in the kinds of policy discussion where preference satisfaction is often a dominant way of thinking.
Journal Article
Appraising patient preference methods for decision-making in the medical product lifecycle: an empirical comparison
Background
Incorporating patient preference (PP) information into decision-making has become increasingly important to many stakeholders. However, there is little guidance on which patient preference assessment methods, including preference exploration (qualitative) and elicitation (quantitative) methods, are most suitable for decision-making at different stages in the medical product lifecycle (MPLC). This study aimed to use an empirical approach to assess which attributes of PP assessment methods are most important, and to identify which methods are most suitable, for decision-makers’ needs during different stages in the MPLC.
Methods
A four-step cumulative approach was taken: 1) Identify important criteria to appraise methods through a Q-methodology exercise, 2) Determine numerical weights to ascertain the relative importance of each criterion through an analytical hierarchy process, 3) Assess the performance of 33 PP methods by applying these weights, consulting international health preference research experts and review of literature, and 4) Compare and rank the methods within taxonomy groups reflecting their similar techniques to identify the most promising methods.
Results
The Q-methodology exercise was completed by 54 stakeholders with PP study experience, and the analytical hierarchy process was completed by 85 stakeholders with PP study experience. Additionally, 17 health preference research experts were consulted to assess the performance of the PP methods. Thirteen promising preference exploration and elicitation methods were identified as likely to meet decision-makers’ needs. Additionally, eight other methods that decision-makers might consider were identified, although they appeared appropriate only for some stages of the MPLC.
Conclusions
This transparent, weighted approach to the comparison of methods supports decision-makers and researchers in selecting PP methods most appropriate for a given application.
Journal Article
Preferences in artificial intelligence
The paper presents a focused survey about the presence and the use of the concept of “preferences” in Artificial Intelligence. Preferences are a central concept for decision making and have extensively been studied in disciplines such as economy, operational research, decision analysis, psychology and philosophy. However, in the recent years it has also become an important topic both for research and applications in Computer Science and more specifically in Artificial Intelligence, in fields spanning from recommender systems to automatic planning, from non monotonic reasoning to computational social choice and algorithmic decision theory. The survey essentially covers the basics of preference modelling, the use of preference in reasoning and argumentation, the problem of compact representations of preferences, preference learning and the use of non conventional preference models based on extended logical languages. It aims at providing a general reference for all researchers both in Artificial Intelligence and Decision Analysis interested in this exciting interdisciplinary topic.
Journal Article
GLP-1 Analog Modulates Appetite, Taste Preference, Gut Hormones, and Regional Body Fat Stores in Adults with Obesity
Abstract
Purpose
Obesity is associated with alterations in appetite, gastrointestinal hormone levels and excessive fat mass. We previously published a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized, 16-week trial on effects of once-daily glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) analog, liraglutide on weight, satiation, and gastric functions in obese volunteers. The aim of this substudy is to compare to placebo the effects of liraglutide on appetite, taste preference, regional body fat stores, and anthropometric measurements.
Methods
Forty obese adults received standard instruction for weight management, monthly behavioral intervention utilizing motivational interviews, and 16-week treatment of once-daily liraglutide (escalated to 3 mg SQ daily). At baseline and 16 weeks, the following were measured: appetite and taste preferences rated every 30 min for 5 h after ingesting 300 mL Ensure®; maximal tolerated volume (MTV) with a nutrient drink test; fasting and postprandial bioactive GLP-1 (7–36) and peptide YY (PYY) levels; total and regional body fat with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, and waist and hip circumference.
Results
Thirty-five participants (17 liraglutide; 18 placebo) completed the trial. Compared to placebo group, liraglutide group had significant reductions in MTV; prospective food consumption score; desire to eat something sweet, salty, savory or fatty; and an increase in perceived fullness. Postprandial plasma levels of GLP-1 decreased and PYY levels increased with liraglutide relative to baseline. Significant reductions in total body, trunk, and upper and lower body fat without reduction in lean body mass were observed.
Conclusion
Liraglutide 3 mg SQ modulates appetite, taste preference, gut hormones, and regional body fat stores in adults with obesity without reduction in lean body mass.
Journal Article