{"title":"On abstract goals' perverse effects on proxies: The dynamics of unattainability.","authors":"José-Miguel Fernández-Dols","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X23002911","DOIUrl":"10.1017/S0140525X23002911","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Proxies should not be classified as failures or successes because, in most cases, they are impossible translations of abstract, polysemous goals to supposedly univocal concrete measures. The \"success\" or \"failure\" of a proxy does not depend on its actual accuracy as a valid indicator of goal attainment, but on a social system's willingness to maintain an illusion of its accomplishment.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":16.6,"publicationDate":"2024-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140911636","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Claire E Robertson, Kareena Del Rosario, Steve Rathje, Jay J Van Bavel
{"title":"Changing the incentive structure of social media may reduce online proxy failure and proliferation of negativity.","authors":"Claire E Robertson, Kareena Del Rosario, Steve Rathje, Jay J Van Bavel","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X23002935","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X23002935","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Social media takes advantage of people's predisposition to attend to threatening stimuli by promoting content in algorithms that capture attention. However, this content is often not what people expressly state they would like to see. We propose that social media companies should weigh users' expressed preferences more heavily in algorithms. We propose modest changes to user interfaces that could reduce the abundance of threatening content in the online environment.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":29.3,"publicationDate":"2024-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140911628","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Navigating proxy failures in education: Learning from human and animal play.","authors":"Robin Samuelsson","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X23002972","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X23002972","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The notion of proxy failure provides considerable insight into educational processes, and in childhood education has the potential to elucidate known problems stemming from the early implementation of overly regulated educational regimes. This commentary expands on play and how its relation to learning provides a useful perspective on how activities based on nongoal-oriented interactions can lead to desired outcomes.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":29.3,"publicationDate":"2024-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140911635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jakob Kapeller, Stephan Pühringer, Johanna Rath, Matthias Aistleitner
{"title":"Proxy failures in practice: Examples from the sociology of science.","authors":"Jakob Kapeller, Stephan Pühringer, Johanna Rath, Matthias Aistleitner","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X23002856","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X23002856","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Following John et al., we provide examples of failing proxies that might help to contextualize the role of proxy failures in applied research. We focus on examples from the sociology of science and illustrate how the notion of proxy failure can sharpen applied analysis, if used in a way that does not obscure other dysfunctional effects of proxies.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":29.3,"publicationDate":"2024-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140911602","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Subjective and objective corruption of intuition and rational choice.","authors":"David Haig","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X23002819","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X23002819","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>A societal shift has occurred toward making impactful decisions on the basis of objective metrics rather than subjective impressions. This shift is commonly justified by claims that we should not trust subjective intuitions. These are often unjust and thereby corrupt. However, the proxies used to make objective decisions are subject to a different form of corruption, characterized as proxy failure.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":29.3,"publicationDate":"2024-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140911638","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Proxy failure as a feature of adaptive control systems.","authors":"Tuomas K Pernu","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X23002844","DOIUrl":"10.1017/S0140525X23002844","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The analysis of John et al. is lacking a fully general account of proxy failure. It is here proposed that proxy failure can be understood as a feature of all adaptive control systems. Whether proxies \"fail\" or \"succeed\" depends on the more encompassing view one can adopt for observing such systems.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":16.6,"publicationDate":"2024-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140911589","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Animal welfare science, performance metrics, and proxy failure.","authors":"Heather Browning, Walter Veit","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X2300300X","DOIUrl":"10.1017/S0140525X2300300X","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In their target article, John et al. make a convincing case that there is a unified phenomenon behind the common finding that measures become worse targets over time. Here, we will apply their framework to the domain of animal welfare science and present a pragmatic solution to reduce its impact that might also be applicable in other domains.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":16.6,"publicationDate":"2024-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140911500","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"It's the biology, stupid! Proxy failures in economic decision making.","authors":"Pier Luigi Sacco","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X23002947","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X23002947","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Utilitarian characterizations of economic decision making fail to capture the complex, conditional, and heterogeneous motivations underlying human behavior as shaped by the predictive, multicriterial drivers of biological regulation. Unless economic models start to acknowledge that humans have bodies and a biology with its own adaptive logic and tradeoffs, economic policies will be systematically exposed to, and systematic generators of, proxy failures.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":29.3,"publicationDate":"2024-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140911634","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Proxy failure in academia: More than just another example.","authors":"Milind Watve","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X23002984","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X23002984","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Proxy failure in academia has progressed much ahead of what John et al. describe. We see advanced phenomena such as proxy complimentarity in which different players push each others' proxy failures; proxy exploitation in which external agents exploit players' proxies and predatory proxies that devour the goal itself. Academics need to avoid proxy failures by designing behaviorally sound systems.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":29.3,"publicationDate":"2024-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140911591","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Proxy failure in social policies as one of the main causes of persistent sexism and racism.","authors":"Konrad Szocik","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X23002996","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X23002996","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>One example of proxy failure is current antisexist and antiracist policies. One of the most popular proxy in them is the number of representatives of marginalized groups - women and nonwhite people - in power structures. Here I show that such measures do not lead to combating sexism and racism, which flourish despite their application.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":29.3,"publicationDate":"2024-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140911594","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}