The Cognitive Basis of Institutions: A Synthesis of Behavioral and Institutional Economics synthesizes modern research in behavioral economics with traditional institutional economics. This work emphasizes that institution and agent are inextricably linked, and that both cognitive and institutional processes coalesce to influence human decision-making. It integrates cognition and institution through the behavioral economics theoretical lens of bounded rationality. Methodologically, it develops game-theoretical, complexity and neuroeconomic solutions to unite study of the two areas. The work concludes by proposing general implications for the economic study of decisions using the cognitive-institutional approach, also providing specific recommendations for public policy. - Reveals how institutional structures and individual actions interact and coevolve cognitively - Connects individual decision-making, decision-making processes and institutional formation - Unites our understanding of cooperative 'prosocial' behavior with the institutional dynamics that may create it - Discusses the implications of the behavioral-institutional paradigm for paternalism and libertarianism in public policy

This book establishes the study of ToM in adults as a new field of enquiry and identifies and addresses the key questions that need to be asked by cognitive psychologists to develop a new cognitive model of ToM.

Having pioneered the concept in economics that institutions structure incentives, Douglass North's later work posed the question, in turn: what structures institutions? His approach explored the role of culture, norms, and ideas and eventually drew its focus on shared mental models as the basis of institutions. An ongoing literature takes up North's fundamental question. In this paper, we contribute to this literature by bringing together North's mental-models approach and the work of philosopher John Searle. Searle pioneered the concept in philosophy that institutions are constitutive rules, established through collective assignment of particular status to objects in the world. Drawing upon cognitive science research on knowledge, learning, and habituation, as well as computer science research on artificial intelligence, we develop Searle's framework to pose a simple yet general account of the cognitive origins of institutions and the implications of this link for social theory. Our framework reconciles the social science approach to institutions as regulative rules with the philosophy approach to institutions as constitutive rules. It also provides a basis for considering impediments to social interaction that arise when individuals possess conflicting normative ideas and affiliate into groups whose shared understandings appear to conflict.

Winner of the 2011 Kenneth W. Mildenberger Prize Exploring fluency from multiple vantage points that together constitute a cognitive science perspective, this book examines research in second language acquisition and bilingualism that points to promising avenues for understanding and promoting second language fluency. Cognitive Bases of Second Language Fluency covers essential topics such as units of analysis for measuring fluency, the relation of second language fluency to general cognitive fluidity, social and motivational contributors to fluency, and neural correlates of fluency. The author provides clear and accessible summaries of foundational empirical work on speech production, automaticity, lexical access, and other issues of relevance to second language acquisition theory. Cognitive Bases of Second Language Fluency is a valuable reference for scholars in SLA, cognitive psychology, and language teaching, and it can also serve as an ideal textbook for advanced courses in these fields.

Gregory Bateson was a philosopher, anthropologist, photographer, naturalist, and poet, as well as the husband and collaborator of Margaret Mead. This classic anthology of his major work includes a new Foreword by his daughter, Mary Katherine Bateson. 5 line drawings.

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In this classic text, Masahiko Aoki explores how the 2008-9 financial crisis demanded a re-examination of the role of corporations and the working of financial markets around the world, providing a compelling new analysis of the corporate firm; the role of shareholders, managers and workers; and institutional governance structures. In recent decades the firm has predominantly been seen as an organization run and governed in the interests of shareholders, where management act as the agent of shareholders, and the workers simply as instruments for share-value maximization. This book reverses this viewpoint. It sees corporations as associational cognitive systems where 'cognitive actions' are distributed amongst managers and workers, with shareholders supplying 'cognitive tools' and monitoring their use in the systems. Aoki analyses the different relationships that can exist between shareholders, managers, and workers from this perspective, and identifies a range of different models of organizational architecture and associated governance structures. He also discusses ways in which corporations act as players in social, political, and organizational games, as well as global economic games; how these inter-related social dynamics may change particular distinctive national structures into the diversity incorporated in the global corporate landscape; and how they now call for new roles for financial markets.