This study originated in the phenomenon that has been observed in the South African Saddle Horse Industry of substantial investments being made over time in the absence of obvious financial or economic reward. A literature study confirmed that, internationally, investment without obvious financial and economic rewards is not unknown and at the same time it was obvious that it is a rarely studied subject. From the literature study it was also evident that this phenomenon occurs where passion and, to a lesser extent, commitment is involved. Economic models on decision making is lacking in perspective on the influence of emotions which were proven to be substantial in an emotionally-laden market, such as the South African Saddle Horse industry. Consumption theory in marketing describes consumption decisions where the consumer is so influenced by emotions that rational influences barely come into play. It is in this context that the study seeks to qualify the investment decisions in the South African Saddle Horse industry by the adaption of consumption theory to investment theory. Research on the indicated strategic phenomenon fits within the critical realism paradigm and is essentially inductive, theory building research. In this case, the adaption of consumer theory as investment theory. Qualifying the influence of emotions in the investment decision – the “why” and “how” questions about a contemporary set of events, over which the researcher has no control – indicates case study as the applicable method of research. In this research, the case study theory is built by generalising case data to prior theory seeking replication or theoretical replication. With prior theory embracing the mentioned consumer theory and case selection dictated by the information, a case study can assist to identify the motivators of the investment decision. Once qualified, the influence of emotions on the investment decision in the mentioned strategic phenomenon can be quantified. Quantifying the influence of emotions on the investment decision leaves two alternatives, the first of which is developing a data set in a statistical survey. However, neuroeconomic findings indicate that opportunity cost comparisons for decisions are supported by our emotional circuitry that is commonly below our conscious awareness. This finding has the direct implication that opportunity cost questions in retrospect do not yield reliable information. The second alternative would be to use dependable historic investment decision data series, such as auction prices. But in the South African Saddle Horse industry, only African Saddle Horse Futurity (ASF) offers any usable investment decision data series, with the AACup being the mother competition in the USA, offering a compatible data series but much more complete and evolved. Therefore, in quantifying the influence of emotions on investment decisions, ASF data and extended AACup auction data is used in an Ordinary Least Squares regression (OLS) analysis and for further calculations. In the literature study it was evident that emotions will be a major influence in investment decisions in the horse industry. This was confirmed by the multiple case study, proving applicability of consumption theory to the investment decision in the South African Saddle Horse industry. The OLS analysis rendered the magnitude of influence of emotions on the investment decision as both prohibitive and irregular on the theoretical determinants of the investment decisions. In all the research done, emotions were unanimously proven to be the determining influence on the investment decision in the South African Saddle Horse industry. But in a free market system where price equates demand and supply, the confirmed influence of emotions in the establishment of price hampers the effective distribution of scarce production resources. In this, the influence of emotions results in a cost to the industry. By manipulating the data set used in the dissertation, an indication of the historic cost of the influence of emotions in the investment decision at the ASF and AACup competitions became apparent. Also, the influence of emotions can be equally crucial in, for example, exploiting economic growth potential. For example, the Saddle Horse industry is a world-wide multimillion dollar industry, with coincidently proven and strong connections with good growth potential to South Africa’s rural areas. These connections contain sustainable development potential to improve the quality of life for many people living in these rural areas. But in order to successfully exploit this potential, more information on emotions as an economic variable is needed in stimulating the industry. In accordance with the incidence of emotions as an influence in decision making, evident in literature and this research, this argument for more information is extendable to numerous other emotionally influenced markets. Therefore, in order to improve reliability of predictions on economic investment and also economic growth, emotions as an influence have to be accounted for. / MSc (Agric), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

<p>Emotions guide the way individuals interact with the world, influencing nearly every psychological process from attention, to learning, to metacognition. Constructionist models of emotion posit that emotions arise out of combinations of more general psychological ingredients. These psychological ingredients, however, also form the building blocks of other affective responses such as subjective reactions to rewarding and social stimuli. Here, I propose a domain-general account of affective functioning; I contend that subjective responses to emotional, rewarding, and social stimuli all depend on common psychological and neural mechanisms. I support this hypothesis with three independent studies using both a basic science approach and a clinical approach. In the first study (Chapter 2) I demonstrate that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), which has been implicated in encoding the value of primary, monetary, and social rewards, also encodes the hedonic value of emotional stimuli. In addition to showing that the mechanisms responsible for processing affective information are shared across reward and emotional processing, I also discuss the relevance of a domain-general constructionist account of affect for clinical disorders. In particular, I hypothesize that in anorexia nervosa (AN), affective disturbances should be manifest across responses to emotional, rewarding, and social stimuli (Chapter 3). In Chapter 4, I provide empirical evidence for this conclusion by demonstrating that when viewing social stimuli, women with a history of AN show disturbances in the insula, a brain region that is responsible for interoceptive and affective processing. This suggests that the interpersonal difficulties frequently observed in patients with AN may be due to biases in domain-general affective responses. In Chapter 5, I support this conclusion by showing that individual differences in harm avoidance in healthy women, women with a current diagnosis of AN, and women who have recovered from AN explain the relationship between disordered eating and social dysfunction. Collectively, these results indicate that subjective affective responses to rewarding, emotional, and social information all rely on common mechanisms as would be suggested by a domain-general theory of affect. Furthermore, the application of a constructionist domain-general account of affect can help to explain the fundamental nature of affective disturbances in psychiatric disorders such as AN.</p> / Dissertation

<p>Finns det ett samband mellan belöningssystem och finansiell aktieägartillväxt i publika</p><p>svenska företag? En intressant och högaktuell fråga, som det visade sig, och som kommer</p><p>att försöka besvaras i denna uppsats.</p><p>Inledningsvis undersöktes om det fanns någon relevant svensk statistik som kunde belysa</p><p>de exekutiva ledarnas förtjänstutveckling under senare år. Statistiska Centralbyråns</p><p>inkomststatistik gav inte svar på frågan. LO-ekonomernas statistik visade sig vara relevant</p><p>och bekräftade mitt antagande att inkomstutveckling för denna grupp varit osedvanligt god.</p><p>Med antagandet bekräftad och således stärkt i tron ställdes tre frågor som uppsatsens syfte</p><p>var att besvara:</p><p>Fråga 1 Hur ser de belöningsmodeller ut som tillämpas av svenska företag avseende</p><p>ersättningar till medlemmar i företagens exekutiva ledningsgrupper?</p><p>Fråga 2 Hur förhåller sig de tillämpade belöningsmodellerna till relevant belöningsoch</p><p>motivationsteori?</p><p>Fråga 3 Finns det ett samband mellan aktieägarnas finansiella utveckling i dessa företag</p><p>och företagens belöningar till den studerade yrkesgruppen?</p><p>Lämpliga teorier att applicera på de undersökta företagens belöningsmodeller visade sig</p><p>vara agentteorin och förväntansteorin. Dessa två teorier jämfördes med de fyra undersökta</p><p>företagens, Ericsson, Handelsbanken, IKEA och Skandia belöningssystem genom studier</p><p>av dessa bolags årsredovisningar för åren 2000-2004. Det visade sig härvid att de företag</p><p>(två st.) som hade de högsta belöningsnivåerna redovisade sämst resultatutveckling och</p><p>negativ avkastning till aktieägarna, medan det företag (en st.) med den lägsta</p><p>belöningsnivån, hade en god resultatutveckling och en fördelaktig avkastning till</p><p>aktieägarna. För IKEA var studiematerialet för knapphändigt för att kunna uttala sig om</p><p>hur belöningsnivån utvecklats även om aktieägarens avkastning var den mest fördelaktiga</p><p>bland de undersökta företagen. Samtliga företag, IKEA undantagen, har konstaterats</p><p>ersätta sina exekutiva ledare med grundlön, rörlig lön, anställningsförmåner och</p><p>pensionslösningar även om Handelsbanken uppger att man inte tillämpar rörlig bonus eller</p><p>rörligt tantiem.</p><p>Slutledningsvis konstaterades att det inte i något fall förelåg något samband mellan hur</p><p>företagen ersätter sina exekutiva ledare och aktieägarnas finansiella tillväxt.</p>

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a chronic disabling condition that results from exposure to traumatic stress. However, although trauma is fairly common, PTSD will only occur in a small proportion of people. This suggests that resilience is a common response to trauma. The neurobiology underlying this adaptive response is thought to involve reward related areas as well as reward functions. This dissertation proposes that reward and reward-related areas have a role in anxiety disorders such as PTSD. This hypothesis was explored using an animal model of PTSD as well as a human mode of psychosical stress. The hypothesis that the ventral tegmental area (VTA), crucial for reward processing, is part of the neural circuitry involved in the symptomatology of PTSD was explored. To assess the role of VTA in PTSD, cells in this area were reversibly inactivated during a single exposure to inescapable foot-shock in a rodent model. Animals that underwent inactivation of VTA neurons decreased avoidance and lowered long-term anxiety-like behaviors in comparison with control groups. To assess short- and long-term electrophysiological effects of trauma on VTA cells, in vivo extracellular recordings were conducted. Results showed that the firing frequency of VTA cells changed both in the short- and long-term, following shock procedures. A human model of psychosical stress was used to test the hypothesis that the ability to respond appropriately to positive stimuli is important for the preservation of positive emotions following stressful events. The results show a positive correlation between trait resilience and trait reward sensitivity. To investigate the link between resilience and reward sensitivity further, the empirical portion of this study used a Monetary Incentive Delay Task (MID) to measure reward sensitivity before and after exposure to a psychosocial stressor. Moreover, behavioral reward sensitivity (as measured by MID and self-report satisfaction after the reward task) also correlated positively with trait and behaviorally measured resilience. The results shown in this dissertation suggest that the neural circuits involved in reward processing and reward function may be involved in resilient responses to stress.

Artificial rearing of infant rats is a useful method for studying the role of early experiences in neural and behavioural development because it permits precise control over key features of the early environment without maternal influence. The present thesis examined the behavioural response of artificially reared rats towards natural and drug-mediated rewards, as well as novel environments. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were separated from their mother and litter-mates starting on post-natal day five and reared artificially (AR, n = 39), or they were reared naturally with a foster mother and litter (MR, n = 43). On post-natal day 21, half the rats from each rearing group were housed in isolation and the other half were group-housed with 3-4 rats per cage. Following three weeks in their respective housing conditions, all rats were exposed to three behavioural tests in the following order: open field, elevated plus-maze and sucrose preference. Additionally, one of the two cohorts used in adolescent behavioural testing was later tested in adulthood for conditioned place preference in response to morphine injection (intraperitoneal, 10 mg/kg). Adolescent AR rats were found to be more active in the open field and in the elevated plus-maze than MR rats. Furthermore, although there were no differences between the groups in fearfulness in the open field, in their first experience on the elevated plus-maze AR rats were more anxious than MR rats in exploring the open arms. AR rats also showed increased preference for sucrose consumption relative to chow, although their overall caloric intake during the 1h test was lower than that of MR rats. In adulthood, AR rats displayed a stronger conditioned place preference response to morphine. There were no significant effects of housing condition on any of these outcome measures. These findings support the potential of this model to contribute to the understanding of the role of early experience in the development of behavioural motivation.

Pollinator-driven selection is thought to drive much of the extraordinary diversity of flowering plants. Plants that produce floral traits preferred by particular pollinators are more likely to receive conspecific pollen and to evolve further adaptations to those pollinators that enhance pollination and ultimately generate floral diversity. Two mechanisms in particular, sensory bias and learning, are thought to explain how pollinator preference can contribute to divergence and speciation in flowering plants. While the preferences of pollinators, such as bees, flies, and birds, are frequently implicated in patterns of floral trait evolution, the role of learning in generating reproductive isolation and trait divergence for different floral types within plant populations is not well understood. Floral color polymorphism in particular provides an excellent opportunity to examine how pollinator behavior and learning might maintain the different floral morphs. In this study we asked if bumble bees showed innate preferences for different color morphs of the pollen-only plant Solanum tridynamum, whether bees formed preferences for the morphs with which they had experience collecting pollen from, and the strength of those learned preferences. Using an absolute conditioning protocol, we gave bees experience collecting pollen from a color polymorphic plant species that offered only pollen rewards. Despite initially-naïve bees showing no apparent innate bias toward human-white versus human-purple flower morphs, we did find evidence of a bias in learning. Specifically, bees learned strong preferences for purple corollas, but learned only weak preferences for hypochromic (human-white) corollas. We discuss how our results might explain patterns of floral display evolution, particularly as they relate to color polymorphisms. Additionally, we propose that the ease with which floral visual traits are learned—i.e., biases in learning—can influence the evolution of floral color as a signal to pollinators.

The experiments in this thesis investigated the mechanisms controlling input and output gating of working memory. In chapter 3, accuracy and reaction time data from a precision/capacity working memory task with prospective and retrospective cues were analysed. The results suggest that retrocues boost performance by facilitating output gating from working memory. In chapter 4, the role of perceptual cortex in mediating the cue benefits in this task was investigated with magnetoencephalography (MEG). The pattern of alpha (8-12Hz) power in visual cortex was modulated by cue direction following both precues and retrocues, but whilst this modulation was sustained following a precue (until presentation of the memory array) it was transient following a retrocue, suggesting that a memory representation was briefly retrieved or refreshed, but that there was not a sustained biasing of top-down input to visual cortex following retrocues. This argues against the standard model of working memory as sustained attention to internal representations, and in favour of a more dynamic view in which perceptual cortex is recruited transiently, and otherwise freed up for on-going processing. In chapter 5, the role of frontal networks in precueing and retrocueing was investigated. An fMRI meta-analysis identified control networks involved in preparatory and mnemonic selection: whilst the fronto-parietal network is recruited in both cases, the cingulo-opercular network is recruited only by retrocues. This spatial pattern was replicated with a source-space ROI analysis of MEG induced-responses. These data also characterised the time-course of control network activation shedding light on their functional roles. The fronto-parietal network was activated immediately following both precues and retrocues, consistent with a direct role in top-down influence over perceptual cortex. By contrast, the cingulo-opercular network was activated following retrocues only after the perceptual refreshing event was complete, suggesting a downstream role, perhaps in selecting representations to guide action. Chapter 6 investigated the role of reward associations in controlling access to working memory, testing behavioural predictions of two theories implicating the dopamine system and basal ganglia in control of working memory. The results supported a temporal gating account in which encountering reward associated items triggers a brief (<300ms) window in which there is a boost of encoding for WM. Chapter 7 discusses the implications of the current work and suggests some future directions.

There is a long history of research on the effects of reward motivation on memory, but there are still questions concerning how such motivational variables affect memory. In a study that examined the influence of reward anticipation on episodic memory, Adcock, Thangavel, Whitfield-Gabireli, Knutson, and Gabrieli (2006) found that memory was better for scenes preceded by high value reward cues than low value cues (see also Cushman, 2012; Spaniol, Schain, & Bowen, 2013). More recently, Castel, Murayama, Friedman, McGillivray, & Link (2013) observed that anticipation of reward influences selective attention to “to be remembered” (TBR) words and the memories that are formed in both younger (YA) and older adults (OA). Finally, in an examination of reward-motivated memory for both word items and pairs, Mutter, Luttrell, & Steen (2013) found that high reward enhanced associative memory for word pairs for both YA and OA. The theoretical explanation for this finding attributed word pair stimuli as promoting and high reward motivation as selectively enhancing relational encoding strategies for both OA and YA, producing reward effects for associative recognition performance only. The present study conceptually replicated the methodology from Mutter, Luttrell, and Steen (2013) in an examination of how reward motivation at study affects non-verbal single item recognition and dual item recognition for picture pair stimuli. It was expected that high reward will induce both YA and OA to engage in more extensive encoding of TBR information, but that, due to age-related associative deficits (e.g., Naveh – Benjamin, Hussain, Guez, & Bar-On, 2003), the type of encoded representations would differ for the two groups. YA would perform better than OA on the types of recognition that require memory for relational information (i.e., associative and context recognition), but YA and OA would perform equally well on the types of recognition that require memory for item-specific information (i.e., pair and no context recognition). As compared to the word pair stimuli used by Mutter and colleagues (2013), it was expected that picture pair stimuli would alternatively promote item-specific encoding strategies for both OA and YA and high reward would selectively enhance single item recognition performance.

The problem was the relationship of responses of individuals with demonstrated differences in internal-external reward characteristics and directive, client-centered group counseling techniques.

Problems in statistical analysis, economics, and many other disciplines often involve a trade-off between rewards and additional information that could yield higher future rewards. This thesis investigates such a trade-off, using a class of problems known as bandit problems. In these problems, a reward-seeking agent makes decisions based upon his beliefs about a parameter that controls rewards. While some choices may generate higher short-term rewards, other choices may provide information that allows the agent to learn about the parameter, thereby potentially increasing future rewards. Learning occurs if the agent's subjective beliefs about the parameter converge over time to the parameter's true value. However, depending upon the environment, learning may or may not be optimal, as in the end, the agent cares about maximizing rewards and not necessarily learning the true value of the underlying parameter.