This research is motivated by a number of open questions in the behavioural finance literature. Firstly, if investors do not learn in a rational Bayesian manner but rather suffer from biases set out in the naïve reinforcement hypothesis, rationality assumptions in individual preference models may not hold. I use a unique longitudinal dataset comprising in excess of 1.5 million fixed-odds financial bets, where bettors perform identical, consecutive decisions which mimic financial choices made in a laboratory, but the use of their own funds departs from the artificiality of an experiment. I present evidence of unwarranted overconfidence generated by reinforcement learning in both real and simulated markets. Secondly, Kahneman and Tversky (1979) state that losses loom larger than gains. I examine whether the disposition to avoid losses is driving behaviour in the losing domain in the dataset and conclude that there is little evidence of loss aversion. I differentiate between betting on Financial Markets, in which agents may perceive an internal locus of control, and betting on the simulated market, where results are uncorrelated and in which the emotions of regret and disappointment may not loom as large. Finally, Odean (1998) provides evidence that investors readily realise paper gains by selling their winning stocks, yet hold on to their losing stocks too long. This loss aversion is consistent with Kahneman and Tversky (1979) prospect theory, however, how long would the investor hold on to a stock that is losing value on a day-to-day basis? Conversely, would an investor rush to sell a stock that has yielded positive returns in each month during the past year? I test the interaction between learning and loss aversion in a financial betting experiment in which two treatment groups are subjected to consecutive gains or losses.

“Will my flight be cancelled?” “Will I win the eBay auction?” These consumption and product acquisition situations would trigger the experience of . . . suspense. Suspense is defined as the overall anticipatory arousal associated with the hope and/or fear felt by a consumer assessing the likelihood of occurrence of an important and imminent consumption or acquisition event. If one views a potential outcome as causing pleasure (an approach appraisal), hope will be felt, while if one views a potential outcome as causing pain (an avoidance appraisal), fear will be felt. Other variables expected to indirectly impact suspense are frequency of probability change, degree of probability change and anticipation time. The conceptual model in this dissertation also proposes that people have an attitude toward the anticipation period and identifies four resolution emotions, satisfaction, disappointment, relief, and anguish, which may occur once the outcome is known. Further, attitude toward anticipation period and the resolution emotions are expected to affect attitude toward overall experience. Three studies were conducted. The objective of Studies 1 and 2 was to develop scales yielding reliable scores of hope, fear, and suspense. Fifty words related to hope, fear, and suspense were generated. In Study 1, 553 participants rated the words on the evaluative and activity dimensions using 18 semantic differential scale items. O-technique factor analysis was used to analyze the data in Study 1. In Study 2, 354 participants read one of three suspenseful stories, then indicated their hope, fear, and suspense. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used in Study 2. Study 3 consisted of an experiment in which 241 participants read a suspenseful house-buying scenario, then indicated their hope, fear, and suspense. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data in Study 3. Results supported the conceptualization of suspense: both hope and fear had a positive effect on suspense. Additionally, approach appraisal had a positive effect on hope, and avoidance appraisal had a positive effect on fear. The moderating effect of frequency of probability change was not supported. However, frequency of probability change did have a positive effect on both hope and fear.

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in New Zealand men and the second highest cause of male deaths. This Heideggerian study explores the experience of six men, with prostate cancer: five of whom were approximately five months post a robotic prostatectomy and one man post brachytherapy. The purpose of the study is to understand and describe the meaning men attach to the disease using a hermeneutic existential phenomenological approach to research. Four themes emerged from the interviews: 1) Disappointment, 2) Being-a-man, 3) Sense of Control, and 4) Life-Threatening Disease. The findings of the study suggest men's identities changed due to the side effects of treatments, the need of a sense of control to deal with the disease, and the importance of understanding prostate cancer as a potentially life-threatening disease within the Heideggerian concept of "being-towards-death". Using this concept future research was also identified. The outcomes of the study suggest implications for health professionals in promoting existential care to the men by listening and taking into account their concerns.

Submitted by Júlia Fonseca (julia.f.fonseca@gmail.com) on 2013-06-24T17:08:45Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Julia Fonseca.pdf: 901363 bytes, checksum: 4df97de4c5783eb1e3f3acea7c9e8e25 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marcia Bacha (marcia.bacha@fgv.br) on 2013-06-27T12:57:48Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Julia Fonseca.pdf: 901363 bytes, checksum: 4df97de4c5783eb1e3f3acea7c9e8e25 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-06-27T12:58:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Julia Fonseca.pdf: 901363 bytes, checksum: 4df97de4c5783eb1e3f3acea7c9e8e25 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-06-17 / We investigate the eff ect of aggregate uncertainty shocks on real variables. More speci fically, we introduce a shock in the volatility of productivity in an RBC model with long-run volatility risk and preferences that exhibit generalised disappointment aversion. We find that, when combined with a negative productivity shock, a volatility shock leads to further decline in real variables, such as output, consumption, hours worked and investment. For instance, out of the 2% decrease in output as a result of both shocks, we attribute 0.25% to the e ffect of an increase in volatility. We also fi nd that this e ffect is the same as the one obtained in a model with Epstein-Zin- Weil preferences, but higher than that of a model with expected utility. Moreover, GDA preferences yield superior asset pricing results, when compared to both Epstein-Zin-Weil preferences and expected utility.

No description available.

Today more and more algorithms and their applications are entering into the everyday life of each of us. Algorithms can help people to make more effective choices through historical data analysis, generating predictions to present to the user in the form of advice and suggestions. Given the increasing popularity of these suggestions, a greater understanding of how people could increase their judgment through the suggestions presented is needed, in order to improve the interface design of these applications. Since the envision of Artificial Intelligence (AI), technical progress has the intent of surpassing human performance and abilities (Crandall et al., 2018). Less consideration has been given to improve cooperative relationships between human agents and computer agents during decision tasks. No study up to date has investigated the negative emotions that could arise from a bad outcome after following the suggestion given by an intelligent system, and how to cope with the potential distrust that could affect the long-term use of the system. According to Zeelenberg et al. (Martinez & Zeelenberg, 2015; Martinez, Zeelenberg, & Rijsman, 2011a; Zeelenberg & Pieters, 1999), there are two emotions strongly related to wrong decisions, regret, and disappointment. The objective of this research is to understand the different effects of disappointment and regret on participants’ behavioral responses to failed suggestions given by algorithm-based systems. The research investigates how people deal with a computer suggestion that brings to a not satisfying result, compared to a human suggestion. To achieve this purpose, three different scenarios were tested in three different experiments. In the first experiment, the comparison was amongst two wrong suggestions in a between-subjects design through the presentation of a flight ticket scenario with two tasks. The first study analyzed exploratory models that explain the involvement of the source of suggestion and the trust in the systems in the experience of counterfactual emotions and responsibility attribution. The second experiment takes advantage of a typical purchase scenario, already used in the psychological literature, which had the aim to solve the issues found in the first study and test the algorithm aversion paradigm through the lenses of a classic study of regret literature. Results showed that, contrary to early predictions, people blame more the source of the suggestion when it comes from a human as compared with an intelligent computer suggestion. The third study had the aim to understand the role of counterfactuals through a paradigmatic experiment from algorithm aversion literature. In this study, the main finding is about the reliance people have on the algorithmic suggestion, which is higher compared to the reliance they have with a human suggestion. Nevertheless, people felt more guilt when they had a wrong outcome with a computer compared with a suggestion given by a person. Results are relevant in order to better understand how people decide and trust algorithm-based systems after a wrong outcome. This thesis is the first attempt to understand this algorithm aversion from the experienced counterfactual emotions and their different behavioral consequences. However, some of these findings showed contradictory results in the three experiments; this could be due to the different scenarios and participants’ thoughts and perceptions of artificial intelligence-based systems. From this work, three suggestions can be inferred to help designers of intelligent systems. The first regards the effective involvement of counterfactuals during the user interaction with a wrong outcome and the potential behavioral consequences that could affect the future use of the intelligent system. The second suggestion is the contribution to the importance of the context in which decisions are made, and the third guideline suggests the designer rethink about anthropomorphism as the best practice to present suggestions in the occurrence of potential wrong outcomes. Future works will investigate, in a more detailed way the perceptions of users and test different scenarios and decision domains.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-17T15:02:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 2155279 bytes, checksum: 53804ac6a554f2d7d98ef250d9777f97 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-07-11 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The proposal of this dissertation was to make a reflection on religious consumerism is a historical process and is even more present nowadays in one of the most showy scenario Brazilian neo-churches, the UCKG. We analyze the process of symbolic exchanges inside of an event that has the same as flagship of their deals donation campaigns in Exchange for blessings, the Holy Fire of Israel. Furthermore we seek to understand the content and operation of your speeches of prosperity theology, which lined the right the conquest of wealth and material possessions through the sacrifices financial donations made in the name of faith. Our overall objective was: analyzing the testimonies of the faithful participants of campaigns the fire Santa of Israel of the IURD, with lines about the expressions of hope and success in attendance, as well as, the symbolisms expressed in most recurrent reports of the frustrations and disappointments of the participants who have not obtained answers to the sacrifices made by them. For this harvest, through secondary data and the Internet, the speeches of hope while expectations of care of the requests made by the faithful, as well as the frustration and disappointment that the faithful feel when they are not met within in these campaigns. The main theorists that inspired this research were: Lipovetsky (2007 and 2007), Bauman (2008), Baudrillard (1995 and 2000), Eliade (1992), Debord (1997), Kehl (1995) / A proposta desta dissertação foi a de fazer uma reflexão sobre o consumismo religioso que é um processo histórico e que se faz ainda mais presente nos dias de hoje dentro de uma das mais chamativas igrejas do cenário neopentecostal brasileiro, a IURD. Analisamos o processo de trocas simbólicas dentro de um evento que a mesma tem como carro-chefe de suas campanhas de doação de ofertas em troca de bênçãos, a Fogueira Santa de Israel. Além disso, buscamos compreender o conteúdo e funcionamento dos seus discursos da Teologia da Prosperidade, os quais pautados no direito a conquista da riqueza e bens materiais através dos sacrifícios doações financeiras feitos em nome da fé. Nosso objetivo geral foi: Analisar os testemunhos dos fieis participantes das Campanhas da Fogueira Santa de Israel da IURD, com as falas sobre as expressões da esperança e sucesso no atendimento dos mesmos, bem como, os simbolismos expressos nos relatos mais recorrentes das frustrações e decepções dos participantes que não obtiveram respostas aos sacrifícios feitos por eles. Para isso colhemos, através de dados secundários e na Internet, os discursos de esperança enquanto expectativas do atendimento dos pedidos feitos pelos fiéis, bem como os de frustração e decepção que os fiéis sentem quando não são atendidos dentro nessas campanhas. Os principais teóricos que inspiraram esta pesquisa foram: Lipovetsky (2007 e 2007), Bauman (2008), Baudrillard (1995 e 2000), Eliade (1992), Debord (1997), Kehl (1995)

Cette thèse étudie le choix de portefeuille et l'évaluation d'actifs avec des préférences qui vont au-Delà des préférences d'espérance d'utilité et de moyenne-Variance standard. La première partie de cette thèse porte sur un modèle de décision dans lequel le décideur forme des croyances endogènes compte tenu de son utilité d'anticipation et de sa déception à posteriori. Les implications du modèle en termes de choix de portefeuille et d'évaluation d'actifs sont dérivées et comparées aux implications du modèle d'espérance d'utilité standard. La deuxième partie de cette thèse porte sur des investisseurs qui dérivent l'utilité des trois premiers moments du rendement de leur portefeuille. Nous dérivons et testons les conditions sous lesquelles des actifs supplémentaires peuvent améliorer l'univers d'investissement des investisseurs avec des préférences moyenne-variance-skewness. Les implications de ces préférences pour les rendements d'actifs à l'équilibre sont ensuite analysées et testées avec des rendements boursiers. / This thesis studies portfolio choice and asset pricing with preferences which go beyond the standard expected utility and mean-Variance preferences. The first part of this thesis analyses a decision model in which the decision maker forms endogenous beliefs given his anticipation utility and his ex-Post disappointment. Portfolio choice and asset pricing implications of the model are derived and compared to the implications of the standard expected utility framework. The second part of this thesis analyses investors choice when preferences are derived from the first three moments of portfolio returns. We derive and test the conditions under which additional assets can improve the investment opportunity set of investors with mean-Variance-Skewness preferences. The implications of these preferences for the equilibrium cross-Section of asset returns are then analyzed and tested with stock returns.

No description available.

Evidence-based psychotherapeutic methods compete with each other, while meta-analysis have shown that variability due to different methods related to outcome is remarkably low. In this qualitative study six former patients were interviewed about experiences of method and technique in Affect-focused therapy, with a slight overweight towards unsatisfactory experiences. Responses were analysed and categorised in emergent themes. Methodological focus on affect showed to be a much appreciated, as well as insufficient, element. Alongside positive experiences or summaries of therapy, methodological frames were felt to be at times restrictive, even invalidating, as far as not allowing focus on what was felt to be the more predominant need. These needs were varied and individual; e.g. more/less of undetermined space free of preconceptions, more/less focus on affect, more direction forward, or more space for existentially oriented aspects. Results found good support in previous research except for a strong validation of therapists, even when aspects of therapy had been severely problematic. Experiences of applied method differed extremely among participants. The study highlighted lack of relation between method and outcome, and that positive regard of therapy and alliance were not synonymous with good outcome. Prominent themes were quality of methodological focus on affect and of therapeutic relationship, basic humanistic values, and individual factors of variance. Future research was suggested to focus on integration of methods, on therapists’ common factors, as well as on issues of power in the therapeutic relationship.