Search results for "Contagion"

2019

In this diary study with N = 348 employees, we examine whether the contagion effect of workplace incivility transfers beyond one work day that is whether the experience of workplace incivility is r...

Structural contagion and vulnerability to unexpected liquidity shortfalls

2012

This paper assumes that financial fluctuations are the result of the dynamic interaction between liquidity and solvency conditions of individual economic units. The framework is an extention of Sordi and Vercelli (2012) designed as an heterogeneous agent model which proceeds through discrete time steps within a finite time horizon. The interaction at the micro-level between economic units monitors the spread of contagion and systemic risk, producing interesting complex dynamics. The model is analysed by means of numerical simulations and systemic risk modelling, where local interaction of units is captured and analysed by the bilateral provision of liquidity among units. The behaviour and e…

Being Moved by Unfamiliar Sad Music Is Associated with High Empathy

2016

The paradox of enjoying listening to music that evokes sadness is yet to be fully understood. Unlike prior studies that have explored potential explanations related to lyrics, memories, and mood regulation, we investigated the types of emotions induced by unfamiliar, instrumental sad music, and whether these responses are consistently associated with certain individual difference variables. One hundred and two participants were drawn from a representative sample to minimize self-selection bias. The results suggest that the emotional responses induced by unfamiliar sad music could be characterized in terms of three underlying factors: Relaxing sadness, Moving sadness, and Nervous sadness. Re…

From Continuous to Discontinuous Transitions in Social Diffusion

2018

Models of social diffusion reflect processes of how new products, ideas or behaviors are adopted in a population. These models typically lead to a continuous or a discontinuous phase transition of the number of adopters as a function of a control parameter. We explore a simple model of social adoption where the agents can be in two states, either adopters or non-adopters, and can switch between these two states interacting with other agents through a network. The probability of an agent to switch from non-adopter to adopter depends on the number of adopters in her network neighborhood, the adoption threshold $T$ and the adoption coefficient $a$, two parameters defining a Hill function. In c…

Facebook’s Emotional Contagion Experiment as a Challenge to Research Ethics

2016

This article analyzes the ethical discussion focusing on the Facebook emotional contagion experiment published by the <em>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</em> in 2014. The massive-scale experiment manipulated the News Feeds of a large amount of Facebook users and was successful in proving that emotional contagion happens also in online environments. However, the experiment caused ethical concerns within and outside academia mainly for two intertwined reasons, the first revolving around the idea of research as manipulation, and the second focusing on the problematic definition of informed consent. The article concurs with recent research that the era of social med…

Empiricism and common sense: the management of public health in the Kingdom of Sicily (1575-1860)

2020

The research outlines the evolution of the public health management system in the Kingdom of Sicily between the second half of the 16th century and the first half of the 19th century, emphasizing the specific features of the Sicilian case and highlighting the possible causes. It frames the evolution of public health institutions in Sicily both in the process of centralization and organization of the administrative apparatus of modern State, and in the development of medical theories concerning contagion. Through the analysis of the legislation and of the documentation produced by the competent bodies, it has been proved that there is no break in continuity in the activity of the various ins…

Wavelet analysis of financial contagion

2011

The aim is to estimate a factor model fitted to financial returns to disentagle the role played by common shock and idiosincratic shocks in shaping the comovement between asset returns during periods of calm and financial turbulence. For this purpose, we use wavelet analysis and, in particular, the Maximum Overlapping Discrete Wavelet Transform, to decompose the covariance matrix of the asset returns on a scale by scale basis, where each scale is associated to a given frequency range. This decomposition will give enough moment conditions to identify the role played by common and idiosincratic shocks. A Montecarlo simulation experiment shows that our testing methodology has good size and power …

Testing for contagion: a time-scale decomposition

2011

The aim of the paper is to test for financial contagion by estimating a simultaneous equation model subject to structural breaks. For this purpose, we use the Maximum Overlapping Discrete Wavelet Transform, MODWT, to decompose four asset returns into different scale components (each associated with a given frequency range). The decomposition will enable us to obtain the moment conditions necessary to (over)identify a structural form model with a single dummy and the one with multiple dummies capturing shifts in the co-movement of asset returns occurring during periods of financial turmoil. A Montecarlo simulation exercise shows that test based on a single dummy structural form model has goo…

Volatility co-movements: a time scale decomposition analysis

2014

In this paper we are interested in detecting contagion from US to European stock market volatilities in the period immediately after the Lehman Brothers’ collapse. The analysis, based on a factor decomposition of the covariance matrix of implied and realized volatilities, is carried for different sub-samples (identified as normal and crisis periods) and across different (high) frequency bands. In particular, the analysis is split in two stages. In the first stage, we retrieve the time series of wavelet coefficients for each volatility series for high frequency scales, using the Maximal Overlapping Discrete Wavelet transform and, in a second stage, we apply Maximum Likelihood for a factor de…

Is It Really That Funny? Laughter, Emotional Contagion, and Heuristic Processing During Shared Media Use

2017

ABSTRACTWhen people use humorous media content, their behavior and assessments of the content may depend on the emotional expressions (e.g., laughter) of those around them. In a laboratory experiment in which 80 participants watched a movie clip with a confederate who either laughed or remained silent, we identified two parallel processes. The confederate’s laughter induced behavioral responses in our participants (laughing or smiling). Through those responses, a corresponding appraisal of the media content was generated: The content was rated funnier in comparison to situations in which the confederate did not laugh. This effect corresponds to emotional contagion processes and was especial…