What Makes a Perfect Parent? and a Perfect Spouse? The Role of Incentives

Missed Opportunities tradeoffs have psychological consequences = “opportunity costs” The cost of any option involves passing up the opportunities that a different option would have afforded. e.g., food courts, hiring UR professors = The “cost” of any decision is whatever you pay for it, plus the passed up opportunity of doing something else.

Cost Structures are Essentially Incentive Structures Opportunity costs = the cost of foregone alternatives (what you can’t have) Fixed costs = refer to the costs associated with a product, that are fixed over a number of units. Thus, regardless of the number of units produced and sold, the fixed costs remain the same (e.g., farming & a tractor). Marginal costs = the cost of the additional inputs needed to produce an additional unit of output (e.g., farming & seeds). Sunk costs = non-recoverable costs (e.g., R&D for digital products or pharmaceuticals). Example: an extra MRI vs. an extra house UR example: taking 20 Tulane students for a semester last year after Hurricane Katrina

The Psychology of Tradeoffs & Avoiding Decisions More choices means more tradeoffs and, thus, more opportunity costs, which frustrates people; risk assessment: swimming pools vs. handguns & pop-quizzes vs. take-home exams Scenario(s): (1.) 4 tests (25% each), or 1 final exam (100%) (2.) 4 tests (25% each), or 1 final exam (100%), or 4 pop-quizzes (20% each) and 1 take-home (20%) (3.)1 final exam (100%), or 4 quizzes (20% each) and 1 take-home (20%), or 2 pop-quizzes (20% each), 1 final exam (40%), and 1 take home (20%), or 1 mid-term (25%), 4 quizzes (10% each), 1 pop quiz (10%), and 1 take home (25%) (4.) 1 final exam (100%), or 4 quizzes (20% each) and 1 final exam (20%), or 3 quizzes (10% each), 1 pop quiz (10%), 1 mid-term (30%) and 1 take home (30%), or 10 quizzes (5% each), 10 pop quizzes (5% each)

What Makes a Perfect Parent? Roughly 50% of a child’s personality and abilities are determined by their genes What seems to matter in terms of “academic performance/progress” (generally, who parents are): - The child has highly educated parents. - The child’s parents have high socioeconomic status. - The child’s mother was 30 or older at the time of her first birth. - The child has low birth-weight. - The child’s parents speak English in the home. - The child is adopted. - The child’s parents are involved in the PTA. - The child has many books in the home. What does not seem to matter in terms of “academic performance/progress” (generally, what parents do): - The child’s family is intact. - The child’s parents recently moved into a better neighborhood. - The child’s mother didn’t work between birth and kindergarten. - The child attended Head Start. - The child’s parents regularly take him to museums. - The child is regularly spanked. - The child frequently watches television. - The child’s parents read to him every day.

Children’s Names and Life Trajectories Fryer’s mission is the study of black underachievement virtual segregation of culture: Seinfeld, cigarettes and children’s names Primary Question: “Is distinctive black culture a cause of the economic disparity between blacks and whites or merely a reflection of it?” Dependent variables: level of education, income, and health outcomes Independent variables: individual’s name, and his/her mother’s—level of education, income, date of birth, marital status, health insurance status, and zip code statistics (per capita income, racial composition) Conclusion: “Names are an indicator—not a cause—of life outcome’s.”

The Price of “Acting White” & the “Tall Poppy Syndrome” Roland G. Fryer & Paul Torelli: “Acting white is a pejorative term used to describe black students who engage in behaviors viewed as characteristic of whites, such as making good grades, reading books or having an interest in the fine arts.” Focus: Relationship, if any, between popularity (# of friends, dependent variable) and academic achievement (independent variable). Findings: (1.) For white teenagers it finds … (2.) For blacks, popularity peaks at a GPA of … (3.) The threshold for Hispanics is much lower: popularity begins to decline at a GPA of… (4.) These losses are not offset … (5.) The stigma attached to "acting white" appears more pronounced in racially …

The Price of “Acting White” & the “Tall Poppy Syndrome”

"These findings suggest the achievement gap is not about cultural dysfunctionality," notes Fryer, and that contrary to conventional wisdom, the phenomenon may be more prevalent among blacks living in the more affluent suburbs than among those living in the inner city. Why is "acting white" absent in mostly black schools? The Price of “Acting White” & the “Tall Poppy Syndrome”