Extensive experimental research on public good games documents that many subjects are “conditional cooperators” in that they positively correlate their contribution with (their belief about) contributions of other subjects in their peer group. The goal of our study is to shed light on what preference and decision-making patterns drive this observed regularity. We consider reciprocity, conformity, inequality aversion and residual factors, such as confusion and anchoring, as potential explanations. Effects of these drivers are separated by varying how others’ contributions are determined and the informational content of the conditioning variable across treatments. Assuming additive separability of the effects of the four drivers, we find that, of the average conditionally cooperative behavior, at least 40 percent is driven by residual factors. For the remainder, most is accounted for by inequality aversion, some by conformity and very little by reciprocity. These findings carry an important message for how to interpret conditional cooperation observed in the lab. We also discuss what these findings mean for understanding conditional cooperation in fundraising applications in the field.

We use a limited information environment to assess the role of confusion in the repeated voluntary contributions game. A comparison with play in a standard version of the game suggests, that the common claim that decision errors due to confused subjects biases estimates of cooperation upwards, is not necessarily correct. Furthermore, we find that simple learning cannot generate the kind of contribution dynamics commonly attributed to the existence of conditional cooperators. We conclude that cooperative behavior and its decay observed in public goods games is not a pure artefact of confusion and learning.

People behave much more cooperatively than predicted by the self-interest hypothesis in social dilemmas such as public goods games. Some studies have suggested that many decision makers cooperate not because of genuine cooperative preferences but because they are confused about the incentive structure of the game—and therefore might not be aware of the dominant strategy. In this research, we experimentally manipulate whether decision makers receive explicit information about which strategies maximize individual income and group income or not. Our data reveal no statistically significant effects of the treatment variation, neither on elicited contribution preferences nor on unconditional contributions and beliefs in a repeated linear public goods game. We conclude that it is unlikely that confusion about optimal strategies explains the widely observed cooperation patterns in social dilemmas such as public goods games.

Delirium frequently occurs among hospital in-patients, with significant attributable healthcare costs. It is associated with long-term adverse outcomes, including an eightfold increased risk of subsequent dementia. The purpose of this article is to inform clinicians of the best practices for spotting, stopping and treating delirium and provide guidance on common challenging clinical dilemmas. For spotting delirium, suggested screening tools are the 4 ‘A's Test (in general medical settings) and the Confusion Assessment Method for the Intensive Care Unit (CAM-ICU). Prevention is best achieved with multicomponent interventions and targeted strategies focusing on: (a) avoiding iatrogenic causes; (b) brain optimisation by ensuring smooth bodily functioning; (c) maintaining social interactions and normality. Non-pharmacological approaches are the first line for treatment; they largely mirror prevention strategies, but the focus of empirical evidence is on prevention. Although sufficient evidence is lacking for most pharmacological approaches, an antipsychotic at low doses for short durations may be of utility for highly distressing or high-risk situations, particularly in hyperactive delirium, but only as a last resort.

This Article considers how trademark law should interpret the commitment in legislative history to the 1946 (US) Lanham Act that one of the principal purposes of trademark law is “to protect the public so that it may be confident that, in purchasing a product bearing a particular trademark which it favorably knows, it will get the product which it asks for and which it wants to get”. It looks back to highlight the often under-appreciated role of the consumer protection rationale in recent expansions in trademark protection, and then considers the different ways by which that basic objective might now be pursued by trademark law. It concludes that, without disregarding the core consumer protection purpose of trademark law, we need to start viewing the question of ensuring consumers get what they want both with a broader view of consumer interests and more explicit attention to a wider array of values.

Why does human cooperation often unravel in economic experiments despite a promising start? Previous studies have interpreted the decline as the reaction of disappointed altruists retaliating in response to non-altruists (Conditional Cooperators hypothesis). This interpretation has been considered evidence of a uniquely human form of cooperation, motivated by an altruistic concern for equality (‘fairness’) and requiring special evolutionary explanations. However, experiments have typically shown individuals not only information about the decisions of their groupmates (social information) but also information about their own payoffs. Showing both confounds explanations based on conditional cooperation with explanations based on confused individuals learning how to better play the game (Confused Learners hypothesis). Here we experimentally decouple these two forms of information, and thus these two hypotheses, in a repeated public-goods game. Analysing 616 Swiss university participants, we find that payoff information leads to a greater decline, supporting the Confused Learners hypothesis. In contrast, social information has a small or negligible effect, contradicting the Conditional Cooperators hypothesis. We also find widespread evidence of both confusion and selfish motives, suggesting that human cooperation is maybe not so unique after all.

Speakers are confused about identity if they mistake one thing for two or two things for one. I present two plausible models of confusion, the Frege model and the Millikan model. I show how a prominent objection to Fregean models fails and argue that confusion consists in having false implicit beliefs involving the identity relation. Further, I argue that confused identity has characteristic corruptive effects on singular cognition and on the proper function of singular terms in linguistic communication.