The environment is abundant with visual information. Each moment, this information competes for representation in the brain. From billboards and pop-up ads to smart phones and flat screens, in modern society our attention is constantly drawn from one salient object to the next. Learning how to focus on the objects that are most important for the current task is a major developmental hurdle. Fortunately, rewards help us to learn what is important by providing feedback signals to the brain. Sometimes, in adolescence for example, reward seeking can become the pre-potent response. This can ultimately lead to risky and impulsive behaviors that have devastating consequences. Until recently, little has been known about how rewards operate to influence the focus of attention. In this document, I first demonstrate the robustness of various behavioral paradigms designed to measure reward processing in vision. I found that even mundane rewards, such as images of money, are effective enough to prime the attentional system on the basis of value. Remarkably, this effect extended to images of Monopoly money. This observation suggests that whole classes of visual stimuli, such as food, pornography, commercial logos, corporate brands, or money, each with its own reward salience value, are likely vying for representation in the brain. This work has implications for the growing digital economy as it suggests that novel value systems, such as the digital currency Bitcoin, could eventually become as psychologically relevant as physical currency provided sufficient use and exposure. Likewise, this work has implications for gamification in the industrial setting. Next, I examined the sensitivity of the system to make optimal economic decisions. When faced with an economic choice normative theories of decision-making suggest that the economic actor will choose the response that affords the greatest expected utility. Contrary to this account, I developed a new behavioral paradigm (reward contingent capture) and reveal that the attentional homunculus is a fuzzy mathematician. Specifically, I found that low-level attentional processes conform to the same probability distortions observed in prospect theory. This finding supports a unified value learning mechanism across several domains of cognition and converges with evidence from monkey models. Then, I demonstrate the influence of rewards on high-order search parameters. I found that images of money can implicitly encourage observers to preferentially adopt one of two search strategies – one that values salience versus one that values goals. Together, my results expose two distinct ways in which the very same rewards can affect attentional behavior – by tuning the salience of specific features and by shaping global search mode settings. Lastly, I draw from my empirical results to present a unified model of the manifold role of rewards on visual attention. This model makes clear predictions for clinical applications of rewarded attention paradigms because it incorporates a dimension of complexity upon which learning processes can operate on attention. Thus, future work should acknowledge how individual traits such as developmental trajectory, impulsivity, and risk-seeking factors differentially interact with low- and high-level attentional processes. In sum, this document puts forward the notion that rewards serve a compelling role in visual awareness. The key point however is not that rewards can have an effect on attention but that due to the nature of visual processing, reward signals are likely always tuning attention. In this way we can consider reward salience an attentional currency. This means then that deciding where to attend is a matter of gains and losses.

<p><strong>Title:</strong> Yes, but…<em> - How changes in banks in Västerbotten are linked to the current financial crisis, but are still normal organizational development</em></p><p><strong>Background: </strong>In the beginning of the 90’s, there was a financial crisis in Sweden which hit Swedish banks hard. The Swedish bank Gota banken went bankrupt and Nordbanken was taken over by the government, in large part because of their apathetic reactions to the situation they were so surprised to find themselves in. Today, almost 20 years later, the banks of Sweden find themselves in a new crisis. Because of the important position banks have in society, it is extremely important that they remain stable and have the capacity to ride out a crisis situation comfortably. As the banks did not show any crisis management strategy or skills in the 1992 crisis, it is relevant to explore if the previous experience has given Swedish banks the ability to handle a crisis situation in an efficient way.</p><p><strong>Purpose:</strong> The purpose of this study is to apply organizational development theory, crisis management theory and adversity reaction theory to the primary data collected from the interviews with the banks and through that analyze if Swedish banks are acting to prevent the financial crisis from affecting them badly.</p><p><strong>Method:</strong> The study has a hermeneutical approach and was carried out by interviewing managers from the five major banks in Västerbotten. The primary data collected has been analyzed to get an understanding of the current development in the banks and its possible link to the financial crisis.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>We found that banks are constantly changing in order to keep up with their competitors, changes in technology, society and the increasing demands from customers. The current events and changes in the banks are undoubtedly linked to the financial crisis, it has accelerated change, it has slowed down ongoing processes and it has facilitated harder decisions and less popular changes. But the crisis has not caused drastic changes in the organizations or their way of doing business. In fact, it can be said that the changes due to the financial crisis is normal organizational development, as the banks have responded to it in much the same fashion as they do to all changes in the external environment.</p><p><strong>Key words:</strong> crisis management, organizational development, threat rigidity, prospect theory, financial crisis</p>

Consumers’ purchase decisions typically involve two brands: the manufacturer brand (the “what brand to buy” decision) and the retailer brand (the “where to buy” decision). While extant research suggests that consumers’ product evaluation is affected by both, much less is known about how the two brands jointly affect consumers’ preferences. Building upon prospect theory and mental accounting principles, I hypothesize that the joint effect of the two brands on consumers’ evaluation of different products depends on the reference point evoked, and whether each of the two brands is perceived as a gain or loss relative to the reference point. Five lab experiments provide empirical support for the hypothesized effects. Study 1 reveals that the joint effect of manufacturer and retailer brands depends on the reference product in a manner consistent with prospect theory and mental accounting principles. The results of Study 2 and 3 show that the majority of participants use a reputable brand sold at a reputable retailer as their reference product. For this group, there is a positive interaction effect of the manufacturer and retailer brands on consumers’ willingness to pay. Study 4 extends the results of Study 3 by testing the theoretical framework using a non-price measure of consumers’ product evaluation (i.e., attitude toward the offer). The results provide converging support for H1 and H2 and demonstrate the mediating role of gain and loss feelings, thus providing preliminary evidence for the proposed cognitive process. Finally, Study 5 provides supporting evidence for the predictions through the use of a priming method. This research contributes to the literature on behavioral decision theory and branding by extending the study of mental accounting from quantitative information (e.g., money, time) to qualitative information such as that derived from brand reputation. The findings have prescriptive implications as they can help managers understand how their brands can be leveraged, how consumers react to reference products available in the marketplace, and how to best price products across different outlets depending on the reputation of their brands and the reputation of the outlets.

Title: Yes, but… - How changes in banks in Västerbotten are linked to the current financial crisis, but are still normal organizational development Background: In the beginning of the 90’s, there was a financial crisis in Sweden which hit Swedish banks hard. The Swedish bank Gota banken went bankrupt and Nordbanken was taken over by the government, in large part because of their apathetic reactions to the situation they were so surprised to find themselves in. Today, almost 20 years later, the banks of Sweden find themselves in a new crisis. Because of the important position banks have in society, it is extremely important that they remain stable and have the capacity to ride out a crisis situation comfortably. As the banks did not show any crisis management strategy or skills in the 1992 crisis, it is relevant to explore if the previous experience has given Swedish banks the ability to handle a crisis situation in an efficient way. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to apply organizational development theory, crisis management theory and adversity reaction theory to the primary data collected from the interviews with the banks and through that analyze if Swedish banks are acting to prevent the financial crisis from affecting them badly. Method: The study has a hermeneutical approach and was carried out by interviewing managers from the five major banks in Västerbotten. The primary data collected has been analyzed to get an understanding of the current development in the banks and its possible link to the financial crisis. Conclusion: We found that banks are constantly changing in order to keep up with their competitors, changes in technology, society and the increasing demands from customers. The current events and changes in the banks are undoubtedly linked to the financial crisis, it has accelerated change, it has slowed down ongoing processes and it has facilitated harder decisions and less popular changes. But the crisis has not caused drastic changes in the organizations or their way of doing business. In fact, it can be said that the changes due to the financial crisis is normal organizational development, as the banks have responded to it in much the same fashion as they do to all changes in the external environment. Key words: crisis management, organizational development, threat rigidity, prospect theory, financial crisis

Drug addiction is a complex behavioral disorder that has been extensively studied in an attempt to uncover its underlying biological mechanisms. This paper contributes to the literature on addiction by demonstrating that addiction is a result of an improperly functioning decision making process. The areas of the brain that are most implicated in decision making demonstrate significant overlap with those areas most affected by addiction. Specifically, the limbic structures of the brain (amygdala, basal ganglia, and mesolimbic reward pathway) and the prefrontal cortices (orbitofrontal cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex) are discussed in relation to their involvement in prominent theories of decision making such as Prospect Theory and the Somatic Marker Hypothesis. This paper will then use the above knowledge regarding the specific brain mechanisms that control decision making and apply it to neurobiological theories of addiction. The view that addiction is a behavioral disorder that results primarily from a degradation of the brain mechanisms involved in decision making processes is important to consider because it can help provide a concrete approach to developing more individualized and effective treatment programs in the future.

The decision to become an organ donor involves considering both self-relevant risks and the needs of others. This study applied prospect theory to examine how message frames that focus on the possible survival or death of a potential organ transplant recipient affect participants' willingness to become organ donors. Perceived personal risk and ambivalence were examined as moderating variables. Results indicate that risk, rather than ambivalence, played an instrumental role in participants' decisions to donate. Although no main effects or interactions related to message frame emerged in initial analyses, a supplemental analysis revealed a modest persuasive advantage for the loss-framed message among low-risk participants. Additional analyses revealed that for low-risk participants, perceived benefits of organ donation were higher for the loss frame than the gain frame, whereas the opposite pattern was found for high-risk participants. Findings suggest that decisions about organ donation may be associated with unique responses to message frames.

In many areas of Artificial Intelligence (AI), we are interested in helping people make better decisions. This help can result in two advantages. First, computers can process large amounts of data and perform quick calculations, leading to better decisions. Second, if a user does not have to think about some decisions, they have more time to focus on other things they find important. Since users' preferences are private, in order to make intelligent decisions, we need to elicit an accurate model of the users' preferences for different outcomes. We are specifically interested in outcomes involving a degree of risk or uncertainty. A common goal in AI preference elicitation is minimizing regret, or loss of utility. We are often interested in minimax regret, or minimizing the worst-case regret. This thesis examines three important aspects of preference elicitation and minimax regret. First, the standard elicitation process in AI assumes users' preferences follow the axioms of Expected Utility Theory (EUT). However, there is strong evidence from psychology that people may systematically deviate from EUT. Cumulative prospect theory (CPT) is an alternative model to expected utility theory which has been shown empirically to better explain humans' decision-making in risky settings. We show that the standard elicitation process can be incompatible with CPT. We develop a new elicitation process that is compatible with both CPT and minimax regret. Second, since minimax regret focuses on the worst-case regret, minimax regret is often an overly cautious estimate of the actual regret. As a result, using minimax regret can often create an unnecessarily long elicitation process. We create a new measure of regret that can be a more accurate estimate of the actual regret. Our measurement of regret is especially well suited for eliciting preferences from multiple users. Finally, we examine issues of multiattribute preferences. Multiattribute preferences provide a natural way for people to reason about preferences. Unfortunately, in the worst-case, the complexity of a user's preferences grows exponentially with respect to the number of attributes. Several models have been proposed to help create compact representations of multiattribute preferences. We compare both the worst-case and average-case relative compactness.

Investmentföretag har funnits sedan urminnes tider men har under senare år ofta fått stå tillbaka som investeringsalternativ till fördel för aktiefonder. Detta är lite motsägelsefullt då svenska investmentföretagen historiskt har haft en högre avkastning än den svenska aktiefondförvaltaren. Större delen av forskningen kring investmentföretag har fokuserat på substansrabatten. Vi fann väldigt få studier som berört investmentföretagens risktagande, speciellt ur ett portföljperspektiv. För att underlätta för den individuella investeraren ville vi använda ett riskmått som är lätt att förstå. Valet föll därför på Value at Risk (VaR) som vi anser ger ett lättförståeligt mått på risken i en portfölj samtidigt som det valideras genom Basel II. Då investmentföretagen är väldigt heterogena med avseende på deras portföljsammansättningar och investeringsstrategier valde vi att genomföra en fallstudie på Industrivärden och Svolder. Valet av dessa företag möjliggjorde också en jämförelse mellan ett större och mindre investmentföretag. Vi ville undersöka och jämföra hur deras risktagande påverkas och förklaras utifrån olika faktorer, med utgångspunkt från den tidigare omkringliggande forskningen. De teoretiska utgångspunkterna hämtades från fyra olika områden, risk och portföljvalsteori, Behavioural Finance, Corporate Governance och makroekonomisk statistik. Vi valde att genomföra en kvantitativ studie för att undersöka Industrivärdens och Svolders risktagande. Studien är baserad på investmentföretagens kvartalsrapporter mellan 2000 till 2011. Utifrån vår referensram definierade vi 13 olika variabler som statistiskt prövades mot risktagandet med hjälp av multipla regressioner. Från våra resultat kunde vi konstatera att den makroekonomiska statistiken förklarade mest av investmentföretagens risktagande. Gemensamt för båda investmentföretagen var att industriproduktionen, Fed fund rate och konjunkturbarometern visade på ett signifikant samband med risktagande. Vi fann även indikationer på att den geografiska exponeringen för deras portföljer hade betydelse för att förklara risktagandet. Vår studie pekade också på att investmentföretagens risktagande visade upp en trend och korrelerade negativt med börsmarknaden.

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