PubMed Health⌕ Search
Home/Archive/PubMed

PubMed · 12291060

The Easterlin effect.

F C Pampel·H E Peters
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

"The Easterlin effect posits cyclical changes in demographic and social behavior as the result of fluctuations in birth rates and cohort size during the post-World War II period.... The Easterlin effect has generated a large literature in the several decades since it was first proposed. Our review of the empirical studies notes the diversity of support across behaviors, time periods, and nations.... Our review emphasizes both the contingent nature of the Easterlin effect and the way in which conditions have changed in recent decades to reduce the salience of cohort size for social and demographic behavior."

Explore related subjects

BehaviorBirth RateCohort StudiesDemographyEconomicsFertilityPopulationPopulation DynamicsResearchSocial BehaviorCohort AnalysisDemographic FactorsEasterlin HypothesisEconomic FactorsFertility MeasurementsLiterature ReviewMicroeconomic FactorsPopulation Dynamics--determinantsResearch MethodologySocial Behavior--determinantsWorldJournal Article

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

F C Pampel, H E Peters. 1995. The Easterlin effect.. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.so.21.080195.001115

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related citations

PubMed2025

The inversion In(2L)t impacts complex, environmentally sensitive behaviors in Drosophila melanogaster.

Genetic variation in behavioral traits allows organisms to respond and adapt to environmental challenges. Genetic variation in behavior is often affected by many genes and thus has a complex genetic basis. Inversions, the reorientation of genes along the chromosome, tightly link genetic variants together because they suppress recombination. Therefore, inversions are believed to have a major impact on phenotypic variation because they combine the effects of multiple genes, which can pleiotropically alter multiple aspects of behavior. This study investigates how the inversion In(2L)t, found in Drosophila melanogaster populations around the world, impacts different aspects of behavior in an environment-sensitive manner. We test the activity, foraging, and startle-induced behavior of flies with different In(2L)t genotypes across sex and temperatures. We observe that Drosophila homozygous for In(2L)t sleep less frequently, spend more time away from a food source, and have a longer duration of startle response. Additionally, the impacts of In(2L)t on aspects of behavior can be sex-specific and are largely consistent across temperatures. Taken together, our research demonstrates that inversions can regulate aspects of behavior, and suggests hypotheses explaining the distribution of In(2L)t across space and time.

Behavior↗
PubMed2003

Dissociating valence of outcome from behavioral control in human orbital and ventral prefrontal cortices.

The precise role of orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) in affective processing is still debated. One view suggests OFC represents stimulus reward value and supports learning and relearning of stimulus-reward associations. An alternate view implicates OFC in behavioral control after rewarding or punishing feedback. To discriminate between these possibilities, we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging in subjects performing a reversal task in which, on each trial, selection of the correct stimulus led to a 70% probability of receiving a monetary reward and a 30% probability of obtaining a monetary punishment. The incorrect stimulus had the reverse contingency. In one condition (choice), subjects had to choose which stimulus to select and switch their response to the other stimulus once contingencies had changed. In another condition (imperative), subjects had simply to track the currently rewarded stimulus. In some regions of OFC and medial prefrontal cortex, activity was related to valence of outcome, whereas in adjacent areas activity was associated with behavioral choice, signaling maintenance of the current response strategy on a subsequent trial. Caudolateral OFC-anterior insula was activated by punishing feedback preceding a switch in stimulus in both the choice and imperative conditions, indicating a possible role for this region in signaling a change in reward contingencies. These results suggest functional heterogeneity within the OFC, with a role for this region in representing stimulus-reward values, signaling changes in reinforcement contingencies and in behavioral control.

Behavior↗