Jerzy Osiński

Social discounting: The effect of outcome uncertainty.

The purpose of the study was to determine the lowest hypothetical amount a participant would keep for himself/herself, preferring it over a reward that he/she would have shared with another individual representing various levels of past reciprocation. Other manipulated aspects were: emotional closeness of the receiver (close vs. distant person), procedure for deciding on how to share the reward (mutual decision vs. decision made by partner) and amount of reward to be shared (PLN 494 vs. PLN 49,400). It was found that preference for the reward to be shared increased as a function of reciprocity, and that it is higher when sharing with an emotionally close person, when the decision does not depend entirely on the partner, and when sharing a small reward. The effect of the level of reciprocity was the smallest when the reward was shared with an emotionally close person and the decision was mutual.

A comparative study of the behavioral patterns of RLA/Verh and RHA/Verh rats in the exploration box.

Roman high- and low-avoidance (RHA/Verh and RLA/Verh) rats differ in their emotionality profiles. As emotional processes are considered to play an important role in exploratory behavior, differences between the Roman sublines in responding to a novel environment can be anticipated. The present study provides a quantitative (based on the frequency of particular responses) and qualitative (based on the frequency of behavioral sequences) comparison of exploratory behavior of RHA/Verh and RLA/Verh rats. Rats of both sexes were tested individually for 30 min in an exploration box containing a few objects. Observation periods were divided, based on earlier studies, into three consecutive blocks of 5, 10, and 15 min, respectively. Analysis of quantitative data showed differences in sniffing (RHA/Verh scoring higher) and in immobility (RLA/Verh scoring higher), both persisting throughout all measurement periods. Males of both sublines were generally more active and exploratory than their respective females. The analysis of sequential data revealed that during the first 5 min RHA/Verh rats showed a less diverse but more exploratory repertoire and that during the first 15 min males of both sublines showed more behavioral sequences than females. This study indicates that the Roman rat sublines should provide a useful model to study the mechanisms of exploratory behavior.