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Fabian Heß

@fabianhess.bsky.social

Trying to warp his scientific heritage to fit his continuing sensory promptings.

Social Psychologist @UniJena | interested in social identity, intergroup behavior, and philosophy | latest research https://rdcu.be/ejnEo

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Reposted by Fabian Heß

Julia M. Rohrer

@dingdingpeng.the100.ci

Gambetta & Origgi on the LL Game, in which agents prefer to deliver and receive (!) low quality.

This paper is absolutely savage but also feels uncomfortably relevant to parts of academia outside of Italy 👀

diegogambetta.org/wp-content/u...

Abstract
We investigate a phenomenon which we have experienced as common when dealing
with an assortment of Italian public and private institutions: people promise to exchange
high-quality goods and services, but then something goes wrong and the quality delivered
is lower than had been promised. While this is perceived as ‘cheating’ by outsiders,
insiders seem not only to adapt to, but to rely on this outcome. They do not resent
low-quality exchanges; in fact, they seem to resent high-quality ones, and are inclined
to put pressure on or avoid dealing with agents who deliver high quality. The equilibrium
among low-quality producers relies on an unusual preference ranking which differs from
that associated with the Prisoners’ Dilemma and similar games, whereby self-interested
rational agents prefer to dish out low quality in exchange for high quality. While equally
‘lazy’, agents in our low-quality worlds are oddly ‘pro-social’: for the advantage of
maximizing their raw self-interest, they prefer to receive low-quality goods and services,
provided that they too can in exchange deliver low quality without embarrassment. They
develop a set of oblique social norms to sustain their preferred equilibrium when threatened by the intrusion of high quality. We argue that high-quality collective outcomes are
endangered not only by self-interested individual defectors, but by ‘cartels’ of mutually
satisfied mediocrities.

October 16, 2025 at 2:08 PM

Fabian Heß

@fabianhess.bsky.social

Rapid climate change threat can foster antagonistic radical responses (pro-road blocks and anti-activists):
doi.org/10.1037/vio0...

August 5, 2025 at 3:26 PM

Fabian Heß

@fabianhess.bsky.social

New research: threat does not necessarily increase radicalism/hostility but ingroup norm conformity (which can also promote harmony/friendliness etc.):
doi.org/10.1002/casp...