This dissertation reports a series of studies on social influences in decision making with wide ranging marketing implications in areas such as gamification initiatives, participative pricing mechanisms, and charity fundraising strategies. The body of this work comprises of three indepth, stand-alone studies. The first study, "Contagion of the Competitive Spirit: The Influence of a Competition on Non-Competitors", investigates the influence of a competition on noncompetitors who do not participate in it but are aware of it. In a series of experimental studies, the study shows that the mere awareness of a competition can affect a non-competitor's performance in similar tasks. These experiments provide confirmatory and process evidence for this contagion effect, showing that it is driven by heightened social comparison motivation due to mere awareness of the competition. In addition, the study finds evidence that the reward level for the competitors could moderate the contagion effect on the non-competitors. The second study, "The Negative Effects of Precommitment on Reciprocal Behaviour: Evidence from a Series of Voluntary Payment Experiments", examines the effects of precommitment on reciprocal behaviour towards a forthcoming benefit. Through a series of experiments in several countries, the study shows that precommitment often weakens reciprocal behaviour. In two field experiments, a laboratory and an online experiment, the study finds consistent evidence that voluntary payment amounts decrease for individuals who are asked to precommit their payment. The results from a final online trust-game experiment support the posited mental-accounting mechanism for the effect. The third study, "Hold-Up Induced by Demand for Fairness: Theory and Experimental Evidence", explores the domain of hold-up and fairness concerns. While recent research suggests that fairness concerns could mitigate hold-up problems, this study proposes a starkly opposite possibility: that fairness concerns can also induce hold-up problems and thus significant inefficiencies. The study reports theoretical analysis and experimental evidence of hold-up in scenarios in which it will not occur if agents are purely self-interested, but could occur if they care about fairness at ex post negotiation.

Sweden has an active and growing culture of feminist comic book artists that use comedy as a mean of disseminating political ideas and critic. In this essay I do a reparative reading of Sara Granér’s comic book All I Want for Christmas is planekonomi in order to find out if it advocates alternative orders and/or ways of expression. By exploring what the comic book does to me as a reader and how, using the term ”skev” – a hybrid of queer that examines normativity not strictly tied to sexuality – and gulesque theory – a mix of feminism, cuteness, the grotesque and riot grrrl –, I show that the comic book, through the use of comedy, works as a trojan My Little Pony, reclaiming the girly franchise, while challenging several so-called dichotomies, such as: femininity/masculinity; youth/adult; high art/kitsch. I conclude that the comic book contain feminist figures of resistance, and that it creates affects and nourishment that can be used as a means to imagine a feminist other.

Synthèse des travaux de recherche effectués, sur will + BV, sur le conditionnel français, son invariant sémantique et sa traduction en anglais, sur les repères hypothétiques, l'opposition entre irréel et potentiel, le conditionnel journalistique et le discours indirect libre ; sur certaines constructions verbales (want, will) ; sur le sujet, la prédication, les constructions participiales, la qualification ; sur la focalisation (just ; l'exception) ; sur les prépositions ; sur les mots en wh. Présentation d'une réflexion actuelle qui porte entre autres sur la qualification, les structures résultatives, l'apposition, la coprédication, les nexus, les paradigmatiques, les structures de focalisation. L'auteur en est arrivé à essayer de rendre compte systématiquement dans ses travaux, entre autres, en relation avec la spécificité des phénomènes étudiés, de trois séries d'observables linguistiques dont les propriétés sont loin d'être entièrement explorées : trois modes de repérage - structurel, sémantico-référentiel, énonciatif ; trois incidences fondamentales - prédicative, co-prédicative, interne au syntagme ; trois types de constituants de base - syntagmes, nexus, propositions.

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For many years, community colleges that chose to offer community college baccalaureate (CCB) programs were looked upon in a negative light (Rice, 2015). However, as the need for specialized baccalaureates within specific fields and job markets have continued to grow (McKee, 2005), CCB programs are becoming more widely accepted throughout the United States. In spite of this paradigm shift, Mississippi is one of the remaining states that have not embraced the idea of CCB programs, in spite of its statistical deficiency in regards to baccalaureate degree holding citizens (Williams, 2010). The focus of this study was to explore the perceptions of community college administrators in Mississippi with regards to the influence of CCB programs to the community college mission of institutions in their state. This study indicates that administrators in Mississippi recognize the benefits of offering CCB programs, but do not want CCB programs to take away from the well-established statewide higher education system through mission creep. Many of the strong position statements received overwhelmingly neutral responses. In contrast, Administrators who chose to give their opinion indicated that they are not familiar with how CCB programs are implemented, and do not believe that Mississippi is ready for CCB programs across the state. However, respondents felt that the community college mission is always evolving, should meet students’ needs, and varies from location to location. The findings also show that administrators are favorable to the piloting of CCB programs at a few (1-2) institutions, even though they believe the programs will take funding away from current programs and do not want community colleges evolving into 4-year institutions. The study also concludes that there is a significant difference between institution size and survey questions #18 and #20. There is also a significant difference between length of time in the community college sector and survey questions #15, #17, and #18.