Companies face increasing pressure to adopt social responsibility initiatives while simultaneously providing shareholder value. However, consumers may respond negatively to ‘win-win’ initiatives that benefit society while bringing financial gain to the corporation, producing a backlash effect. Previous researchers have attributed this backlash effect to the violation of a communal relationship norm that companies trigger in consumers when communicating their win-win initiatives. We propose the alternative hypothesis that the backlash derives from people's deception aversion. We find evidence supporting deception aversion in three preregistered studies showing that companies are evaluated negatively when their actions differ from those implied by their stated prosocial policy and not, as predicted by the communal norm violation hypothesis, when they merely earn a profit. Our results suggest that companies should not fear that earning a profit from prosocial activities will carry reputational risk, so long as they are transparent.

This article examines how a firm’s prior record on corporate social responsibility (CSR) influences individual stakeholders’ perceptions of corporate hypocrisy in the wake of a corporate social irresponsibility (CSI) event. Our research extends extant corporate hypocrisy literature by highlighting the role of individual stakeholders’ inferences about a genuine CSR motive in their judgments of corporate hypocrisy. This can serve to differentiate perceived corporate hypocrisy from inconsistency that arises because of a lack of ability and/or resources. Our research further identifies a source for such perceptions: individual stakeholders’ perceptions of firm warmth generated by a firm’s prior record of CSR. In addition, we find that when CSR and CSI are in the same (vs. different) domains, it can strengthen perceptions of hypocrisy. This provides direct evidence to explain why markets react differently when CSR and CSI events occur in the same domain (vs. different ones).

Experiments often include multiple treatments, with the primary goal to compare the causal effects of those treatments. This study focuses on comparing the causal anatomies of multiple treatments through the use of causal mediation analysis. It proposes a novel set of comparative causal mediation (CCM) estimands that compare the mediation effects of different treatments via a common mediator. Further, it derives the properties of a set of estimators for the CCM estimands and shows these estimators to be consistent (or conservative) under assumptions that do not require the absence of unobserved confounding of the mediator–outcome relationship, which is a strong and nonrefutable assumption that must typically be made for consistent estimation of individual causal mediation effects. To illustrate the method, the study presents an original application investigating whether and how the international legal status of a foreign policy commitment can increase the domestic political “audience costs” that democratic governments suffer for violating such a commitment. The results provide novel evidence that international legalization can enhance audience costs via multiple causal channels, including by amplifying the perceived immorality of violating the commitment.

We investigate experimentally and numerically suppression of drill-string torsional vibration while drilling by using a sliding mode control. The experiments are conducted on the novel experimental drill-string dynamics rig developed at the University of Aberdeen (Wiercigroch, M., 2010, Modelling and Analysis of BHA and Drill-string Vibrations) and using commercial Polycrystalline Diamond Compact (PDC) drill-bits and rock-samples. A mathematical model of the experimental setup, which takes into account the dynamics of the drill-string and the driving motor, is constructed. Physical parameters of the experimental rig are identified in order to calibrate the mathematical model and consequently to ensure robust predictions and a close agreement between experimental and numerical results for stick–slip vibration is shown. Then, a sliding mode control method is employed to suppress stick–slip vibration. A special attention is paid to prove the Lyapunov stability of the controller in presence of model parameter uncertainties by defining a robust Lyapunov function. Again experimental and numerical results for the control cases are in a close agreement. Stick–slip vibration is eliminated and a significant reduction in vibration amplitude has been observed when using the sliding controller.

Does treatment mode matter in studies of the effects of candidate race or ethnicity on voting decisions? The assumption implicit in most such work is that such treatment mode differences are either small and/or theoretically well understood, so that the choice of how to signal the race of a candidate is largely one of convenience. But this assumption remains untested. Using a nationally representative sample of white voting-age citizens and a modified conjoint design, we evaluate whether signaling candidate ethnicity with ethnic labels and names results in different effects than signaling candidate ethnicity with ethnically identifiable photos and names. Our results provide strong evidence that treatment-mode effects are substantively large and statistically significant. Further, these treatment-mode effects are not consistent with extant theoretical accounts. These results highlight the need for additional theoretical and empirical work on race/ethnicity treatment-mode effects.

Multiple species infections with parasitic helminths, including nematodes, are common in wild rodent populations. In this paper we first define different types of associations and review experimental evidence for different categories of interactions. We conclude that whilst laboratory experiments have demonstrated unequivocally that both synergistic and antagonistic interactions involving nematodes exist, field work utilizing wild rodents has generally led to the conclusion that interactions between nematode species play no, or at most a minor, role in shaping helminth component communities. Nevertheless, we emphasize that analysis of interactions between parasites in laboratory systems has been fruitful, has made a fundamental contribution to our understanding of the mechanisms underlying host-protective intestinal immune responses, and has provided a rationale for studies on polyparasitism in human beings and domestic animals. Finally, we consider the practical implications for transmission of zoonotic diseases to human communities and to their domestic animals, and we identify the questions that merit research priority.

Ocean island volcanoes frequently develop local rift zones associated with flank movement and flank collapses. The ocean island El Hierro grew by coalescence and collapse of three volcanic edifices, which are an elongated topographic ridge (the Southern Ridge) and two semi-circular volcanic cones (Tiñor volcano, El Golfo volcano). During edifice growth and volcano coalescence, eruption fissures nucleated into rift zones that developed a complex triangle pattern. In scaled analogue experiments we could successfully reproduce the geometry of rift zones and unstable flanks as observed on El Hierro. The experimental results suggest that the rift configuration on El Hierro is the result of gravitational volcano spreading over deformable basal substrata, rather than of deep-seated magma updoming as thought previously. This paper elucidates the importance of the basal substratum and gravitational spreading, and the relationship to rifting and flank instability on El Hierro Island, and may help in understanding similar volcano architectures elsewhere.