We are advertising a fully funded SWDTP BBSRC/ESRC
PhD position in the Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour, Psychology,
University of Exeter.
Project Title: Executive control and
investment decisions: an ecological perspective on planning for the
future, Psychology – MPhil/PhD (Funded) Ref: 3027
About the award: This studentship is offered
as part of a call between SWBio DTP (BBSRC) and SWDTP (ESRC) for a
competition-funded studentship to commence in September 2018.
Location: Streatham campus, University of Exeter
Academic Supervisors:
Dr Lisa A. Leaver (University of Exeter)
Prof. Sarah Smith (University of Bristol)
Dr Tim W. Fawcett (University of Exeter)
Project Description:
An individual’s ability to inhibit a pre-potent response or “executive control”, often conceptualised as self-control, is an important aspect of cognitive flexibility and has been used as an assay of cognitive performance in a number of studies. Psychological studies of executive control often involve abstract tests in the laboratory to measure specific inhibition-of-response times across individuals. Executive control has been identified as an important factor in gambling and drug addiction, but the importance of executive control in less extreme behaviours has been largely overlooked. One such behaviour that is crucial for wellbeing and ensuring future security is investment behaviour, which necessarily entails planning for the future. Investment in the future can take many forms across species, and requires some degree of executive control because an individual needs to inhibit current use of an asset to store it away for a future which is, inevitably, uncertain.
Grey squirrels are an ideal model species for
studying the link between executive control and investment because they
are natural and prolific investors. Grey squirrels are well known to
cache food widely for later use, a risk-averse behavioural
strategy that involves storing nuts during times of plenty in order to
provide a reliable source of food when resources are scarce. Squirrels
not only decide whether to cache a food item, eat it, or reject it, but
caching itself involves a series of predation
and pilferage risk trade-offs, which reliably co-vary with food value.
As such, investment decisions and effort directly reflect future
discounting and ought to be linked to executive control.
This PhD project will provide a unique opportunity
to engage in cross-disciplinary research that incorporates ecological
relevance and economic decision making. The project will investigate
the role of executive control in investment decisions
by wild grey squirrels. The student will begin by reviewing economic
models of saving (standard and behavioural) and identify how these
models might apply to squirrels. The student will then construct a
mathematical model of adaptive investment behaviour based
on executive control and future discounting, to generate predictions
that can be tested in both squirrels and people. He/she will test the
model by collecting experimental data on squirrels and use panel data on
humans for a comparative study. By devising
field experiments to verify abstract laboratory tests of executive
control, he/she will generate reliable measures of executive control in
squirrels and measure their investment outcomes, a real-life measure of
delaying gratification.
For more information on how to apply please see:
http://www.exeter.ac.uk/studying/funding/award/?id=3027
The closing date for applications is midnight on Thursday 22nd February 2018. Interviews will be held at the University of Bristol on the 22nd and 23rd of March.