Abstract:
The traditional view in economics is that individuals respond to incentives, but absent strong incentives to the contrary selfishness prevails. Moreover, this “greed is good” approach is deemed “rational” behavior. Nevertheless, in daily interactions and in numerous laboratory studies, a high degree of cooperative behavior prevails - even among strangers. A possible explanation for the substantial amount of “irrational” behavior observed in markets (and elsewhere) is that humans are a highly social species and to an extent value what other humans think of them. This behavior can be termed trustworthiness - cooperating when someone places trust in us. I also present the cross-country evidence for environments that produce high or low trust. A number of recent experiments from my lab have demonstrated that the neuroactive hormone oxytocin facilitates trust between strangers, and appears to induce trustworthiness. In rodents, oxytocin has been associated with maternal bonding, pro-social behaviors, and in some species long-term pair bonds, but prior to the work reviewed here, the behavioral effects of oxytocin in humans had not been studied. This chapter discusses the neurobiology of positive social behaviors and how these are facilitated by oxytocin. My experiments show that positive social signals cause oxytocin to be released by the brain, producing an unconscious attachment to a stranger. I also discuss recent research that manipulates oxytocin levels, and functional brain imaging research on trust.

An Apache webserver with PHP and MySQL develops its full power now on every USB Stick on the world. Faithful to the Plug&Play motto:

“Plug in and Play”

(Here it really works Just plug in your USB stick. A complete Apache webserver with PHP and MySQL starts. And you can enjoy the full power of WOS (Webserver on Stick).

Should you use CSS or (horror of horrors) tables? And what do you do when images are ‘blocked’?

HTML email - you either love it or you hate it. Some love the simplicity of text-only emails, while others praise the flexibility and good looks of HTML. But it doesn’t really matter whether you love it or hate it because sooner or later a client will ask you to design one of those ‘pretty looking email thingies’ for their own customers, and then what do you do?

* Blentwell is an ongoing document of the evolution of blended music.
* A daily link log of all of the hot mixes and beats found online.
* Blentwell’s Links is based on the online linking system Scuttle which in turn is loosely based on the del.icio.us online linking system.

There are two link sections:
1.) Blentwell Links - excellent mix links editorialized by the mysterious Mr. Blentwell.
2.) The People’s Link - get in touch with the mix link zeitgeist through the posting power of the People.