Social Contexts of Distress

Social Contexts and Social Pragmatics

We consider the social relationships between autonomous principals, assuming that each principal is represented in a computational multiagent system via a unique agent. Work on commitment protocols [1, 7] has shown that the meaning of interactions may be expressed in terms of (social) commitments [3]: C(x, y, p, q) represents an expectation of y (creditor) that x (the debtor) will bring about q...

Rational Choices - Social Contexts

In neoclassical economic theory, rational actors are very simple entities: they know everything, they value more better than less, and given a decision situation with certain physical constraints they are able to calculate the optimal outcome and to behave accordingly (cf. Kiser/Ostrom). Any form of social interaction enters the decision situation as an additional constraint. Relaxing the condi...

Universals, Necessities, and Social Contexts

Elbers* does an excellent job of integrating, analyzing, and extending recent theoretical and empirical work concerning the relation of learning and development. The purpose of this commentary is to challenge Elbers to address the difficult question of universal sequences in human development. In order to focus the issue, a specific sequence in the development of logical reasoning is proposed.

Social Preferences in Relational Contexts

This paper reports the results of an empirical investigation of the ways in which task-dependencies and inter-personal relationships influence the social preferences and outcomes of two-party negotiations. The investigation used a game, Colored Trails, configured for two -players in an ultimatum-game -like arrangement, but with more task context. It varied the player(s) who needed assistance an...

Handbook of Social Influences in School Contexts