An across-subjects, post-test only design was used in two experiments to assess the impact of interspersing additional math problems (i.e., briefer problems and/or longer problems) among target math problems on students’ persistence when completing computer-delivered math multiplication problems. In Experiment 1, high school students who worked only target problems completed 32% more target problems and worked 22% longer than those who had briefer problems interspersed. Problem completion rates were significantly higher for those who had briefer problems interspersed. These results suggest that altering assignments by interspersing additional, briefer discrete tasks does not always enhance, and in some instances may hinder academic responding. Stimulus preference and within-trial contrast effects provided possible explanations for these results and indicated that interspersing longer problems could, perhaps, cause students to increase persistence. Experiment 2 was designed to replicate Experiment 1 and extend this line of research by investigating the stimulus preference and within-trial contrast hypothesizes. To increase the number of participants and allow for the evaluation of three conditions, college students served as participants for Experiment 2. In Experiment 2, no significant differences among groups (i.e., control group with only target problems, experimental group with brief problems interspersed, and experimental group with long problems interspersed) were found in the amount of time before college students quit working or in their problem completion accuracy levels. Interspersal of the long problems significantly reduced the number of target problems completed. The results failed to support stimulus preference or within-trial contrast theories. Discussion focuses on theoretical and applied implications related to the additive interspersal procedure, the discrete task completion hypothesis, and the delay reduction hypothesis. Applied implications suggest that educators avoid interspersing longer discrete tasks and exercise caution when interspersing brief tasks.

The thesis consists of a summary and four papers, concerned with food consumption, behavior associated with overconsumption of food and analysis of the economic policy reforms designed to improve health. Paper [I] estimates a hedonic price model on breakfast cereal, crisp bread and potato product data. The purpose is to examine the marginal implicit prices for food characteristics associated with health. A trade-off exists between health and taste. For instance, sugar, salt and fat are tasty but can be unhealthy if overconsumed; whereas fiber is unhealthy if underconsumed. If the marginal implicit price for sugar is negative, consumers value health over its taste. Our results are the marginal implicit price for sugar is negative for breakfast cereals and crisp bread—consumers value health over the taste of sugar. For salt, we find the opposite—a positive marginal implicit price, suggesting people value its taste over health. For fat, we find a negative marginal implicit price of fat in breakfast cereals and potato products containing salt, whereas we find a positive marginal implicit price of fat in hard bread and potato products that contain no salt. For the one healthy characteristic, fiber, we find a negative marginal implicit price in breakfast cereals and a positive implicit price in hard bread. Paper [II] uses a general equilibrium model to derive the optimal policy if people overconsume unhealthy food due to self-control problems. Individuals lacking self-control have a preference for immediate gratification, at the expense of future health. We show the optimal policy to help individuals with self-control problems to behave rationally is a combination of subsidies for the health capital stock and the physical capital stock. Paper [III] estimates a demand system for grain consumption based on household panel data and detailed product characteristics, and simulate the effect on grain consumption of economic policy reforms designed to encourage a healthier grain diet. Our results imply it is more cost-efficient to subsidize the fiber content than to subsidize products rich in fiber given the goal to increase the fiber intake of the average Swedish household. Our results also imply subsidies alone give rise to an increase in fiber, and to other unhealthy nutrients. Also, subsidies alone have negative effects on the budget. We therefore simulate the effect of policy reforms in which the subsidies are funded either by taxes on the content of unhealthy nutrients or by taxes on products that are overconsumed. Our results suggest that price instruments need to be substantial to change consumption. For instance, removing the VAT on products rich in fiber has little effect on consumption. Paper [IV] explores habit persistence in breakfast cereal purchases. To perform the analysis, we use a mixed multinomial logit model, on household panel data on breakfast cereal purchases. If habit persistence in consumption is strong, short and long-run responses to policy reforms will differ. Our results are breakfast cereal purchases are strongly associated with habit persistence. Our results also imply preferences for breakfast cereals are heterogeneous over households and the strength of habit persistence is similar over educational and income groups.

Indigenous tourism is an expansive sector in the growing tourism industry. The Sami people living in Sápmi in northern Europe have started to engage in tourism, particularly in view of the rationalised and modernised methods of reindeer herding. Sami tourism offers job opportunities and enables the spreading of information. On the other hand, Sami tourism may jeopardise the indigenous culture and harm the sensitive environment in which the Sami live. The aim of this thesis is to analyse the supply and demand of Sami tourism in northern Sweden. This is presented in four articles. The first article analyses the potential of the emerging Sami tourism in Sweden, with special emphasis on the access to Sami tourism products. The study shows that there is a growing supply of tourism activities related to the Swedish Sami. The development of tourism is, however, restricted by factors such as the peripheral location and the lack of traditions of entrepreneurship. The second article analyse which factors influence tourists when they make their decisions about Sami tourism. In the article the respondents are requested to answer a number of hypothetical questions, ranking their preferences regarding supply, price and access. The study indicates that tourism related to the Sami and Sami culture has a considerable future potential, but also that there is a gap between supply and demand. In the third article the analysis shows that the festival in Jokkmokk, thanks to continuously added attractions, has been able to retain a rather high level of popularity, despite its peripheral location. Finally, the fourth article analyses to what extent the winter festival in Jokkmokk is a genuinely indigenous event, and to what extent it is staged. It is argued that the indigenous culture presented at the festival and in media is highly staged, although backstage experiences are available for the Sami and for the tourists who show a special interest.

This doctoral thesis consists of four papers. Strategic behavior across gender: A comparison of female and male expert chess players analyzes gender differences in risk behavior in chess. We use a panel data set with 1.4 million games. Most notably, the data contains an objective measure of individual playing skill. We find that women are more risk averse and that men choose riskier strategies when playing against female opponents even though this reduces their winning probability. Gender differences in time preference and inconsistency among expert chess players presents findings on gender differences in time preference and inconsistency in chess. Impatience is estimated by measuring preferences for game durations while inconsistency by exploiting the 40th move time control. The results reveal that men are more impatient while women are more time inconsistent. Moreover, the difference in impatience increases with expertise while the difference in inconsistency decreases. Beauty queens and battling knights: Risk taking and attractiveness in chess explores the relationship between attractiveness and risk taking in chess. We examine whether people use riskier strategies when playing with attractive opponents and whether this affects performance. Our results suggest that male, but not female, chess players choose significantly riskier strategies when playing against an attractive female opponent, although this does not improve their performance. Strategic Learning in Repeated Chess Games, examines if chess players in repeated games with the same opponent, learn about the opponent’s type and adapt future strategies accordingly. It also shows how matching background characteristics affect the choice of strategy. The findings show that chess players learn about the opponent’s type. Players with similar background characteristics coordinate better than players of different gender or nationality but this difference decreases as the players update their beliefs. / At the time of doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows:Paper 2: Manuscript. Paper 3: Manuscript. Paper 4: Manuscript.

The aim of this thesis is to study political opinions and party voting in relation to class. The range of opinions studied consists of a socioeconomic dimension, dealing with issues of economic equality, and a socio-cultural dimension, dealing with questions of culture and morality. Following Pierre Bourdieu, the object of the study is conceptualised as a field of consumption of political opinions consisting of a space of political opinions or stances, a space of political party preferences, and a space of social positions or opinion holders defined by (among other things) their cultural and economic capital. The field of consumption is examined through multiple correspondence analysis and Euclidean classification. Overall, the field of consumption of political opinions is found to be relatively homologous to the social space. The field of consumption is found to be a two-dimensional space, with one dimension separating left-wing from rightwing opinions and the second distinguishing between socio economic and socio- cultural opinions. The tendency to vote left wing and to have left-leaning socio-economic opinions corresponds to a low total volume of capital and possessions dominated by cultural capital, whereas the tendency to vote right wing and to have right-leaning socio-economic opinions corresponds to a high total volume of capital. Liberal socio-cultural opinions correspond to a high level of possession cultural capital (and its relative weight in the structure of the total possession of capital), whereas the opposite is true for conservative opinions. Furthermore, the socio-cultural dimension is found to harbour two different aspects: liberalism or conservatism with regard to traditional morality and liberalism or conservatism with regard to the idea of a national culture. This thesis also studies how individuals tend to combine opinions from the two dimensions into tangible constellations of opinions.

Benzodiazepines are widely abused by anxious individuals. Consequently, this thesis modeled anxiety in a mouse model in order to investigate benzodiazepine motivation within this sub-population. Using the Tube test of Social Dominance and the Resident/Intruder Paradigm I investigated whether animals identified as dominant or submissive/defeated would differentially display a preference for 0.25 mg/kg midazolam in a conditioned place preference paradigm. Consistent with my hypotheses, benzodiazepine preference was mediated by negative reinforcement as submissive but not dominant mice displayed a preference for midazolam. Furthermore, different neural systems mediated benzodiazepine preference dependent on the stress status of the animal (acute vs. chronic stress) such that, acutely stressed animals experienced benzodiazepine preference through a dopamine-independent pathway whereas chronically stressed animals experienced benzodiazepine preference through a dopamine-dependent pathway. Within chronically stressed mice, blockade of either D1 or D2 receptors attenuated benzodiazepine preference.

The purpose of this study is, on one hand, to obtain an understanding of how children in municipal music- and culture schools choose instruments and what forms of recruitment methods they are subjected to, and on the other hand, how you can make them continue to play once they have begun. To acquire this information, I have interviewed five music teachers and two principals at municipal music- and culture schools in Värmland. The questions treated, among other things, what affects children’s instrument preferences, recruitment methods and what you can do to keep interest for the chosen instrument alive. The result of the study shows some apparent tendencies. Even though some of the instruments have trouble recruiting students and other instruments have trouble keeping them, the old methods, which obviously do not work in a satisfactory manner, are still being used. Instead, increased commitment at the occasion of recruitment, more group teaching which strengthens the social bonds through role models and a will to have the courage to change the organization when it does not work, is required.

Benzodiazepines are widely abused by anxious individuals. Consequently, this thesis modeled anxiety in a mouse model in order to investigate benzodiazepine motivation within this sub-population. Using the Tube test of Social Dominance and the Resident/Intruder Paradigm I investigated whether animals identified as dominant or submissive/defeated would differentially display a preference for 0.25 mg/kg midazolam in a conditioned place preference paradigm. Consistent with my hypotheses, benzodiazepine preference was mediated by negative reinforcement as submissive but not dominant mice displayed a preference for midazolam. Furthermore, different neural systems mediated benzodiazepine preference dependent on the stress status of the animal (acute vs. chronic stress) such that, acutely stressed animals experienced benzodiazepine preference through a dopamine-independent pathway whereas chronically stressed animals experienced benzodiazepine preference through a dopamine-dependent pathway. Within chronically stressed mice, blockade of either D1 or D2 receptors attenuated benzodiazepine preference.

Objectives. The objective of this project was to ascertain and quantify the effects of gender, age, payment method, and practice size on clinical output of GP/FPs. While the identification of these effects has been undertaken previously, this study is the first attempt to quantify the proportion of variance in physician output explained by this group of variables.<p>Background. The question is of vital importance to academics, health professionals, and citizens. The physician population is aging and feminizing while physicians are softening their opposition to fixed remuneration methods and displaying a greater predilection to group practice. Implications exist for the supply of physician services as gender, age, payment method, and practice size have been found to influence physician output, and therefore the availability of primary care services. <p>Methods. The study employed self-reported data obtained from 1006 Canadian general and family practitioners in 2004. Respondents provided their gender, age, payment method, and practice size, as well as the number of patient visits they conducted (both during regular hours and while on call) and the number of hours they worked in an average week. These data were used to measure the effects of the four independent variables on GP/FP output and to quantify their total collective affect. <p>Results. By and large, the analysis confirmed the prevailing view of the literature, as female physicians; physicians in the youngest and oldest age categories; physicians remunerated mainly through fixed payment methods; and physicians in group practice reported lower levels of output than their counterparts. Despite the presence of obvious trends in the data, in some cases the analysis was unable to uncover statistically significant differences in output between groups of physicians.<p>In terms of the contribution made by these four variables to the variance in GP/FP output, significant and parsimonious models contributed 16.2% of the variance in total patient visits, 19.3% of the variance in patient visits during regular hours, 2.5% of the variance in patient visits while on call, 11.1% of variance in hours worked per week, and 8.9% of the variance in patient visits per hour worked. <p>Conclusion. The four factor variables explained less than one fifth of the variance in all output categories. This first attempt to quantify their contribution identifies an important question: what accounts for the remaining variance? If the unidentified factors are measurable, perhaps they can be added to these models in the future in order to increase our understanding of the forces behind GP/FP output of primary care services.

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