Welcome to the Nexus of Ethics, Psychology, Morality, Philosophy and Health Care

Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Ethics Ratings of Nearly All Professions Down in U.S.

M. Brenan and J. M. Jones
gallup.com
Originally posted 22 Jan 24

Here is an excerpt:

New Lows for Five Professions; Three Others Tie Their Lows

Ethics ratings for five professions hit new lows this year, including members of Congress (6%), senators (8%), journalists (19%), clergy (32%) and pharmacists (55%).

Meanwhile, the ratings of bankers (19%), business executives (12%) and college teachers (42%) tie their previous low points. Bankers’ and business executives’ ratings were last this low in 2009, just after the Great Recession. College teachers have not been viewed this poorly since 1977.

College Graduates Tend to View Professions More Positively

About half of the 23 professions included in the 2023 survey show meaningful differences by education level, with college graduates giving a more positive honesty and ethics rating than non-college graduates in each case. Almost all of the 11 professions showing education differences are performed by people with a bachelor’s degree, if not a postgraduate education.

The largest education differences are seen in ratings of dentists and engineers, with roughly seven in 10 college graduates rating those professions’ honesty and ethical standards highly, compared with slightly more than half of non-graduates.

Ratings of psychiatrists, college teachers and pharmacists show nearly as large educational differences, ranging from 14 to 16 points, while doctors, nurses and veterinarians also show double-digit education gaps.

These educational differences have been consistent in prior years’ surveys.

Adults without a college degree rate lawyers’ honesty and ethics slightly better than college graduates in the latest survey, 18% to 13%, respectively. While this difference is not statistically significant, in prior years non-college graduates have rated lawyers more highly by significant margins.

Partisans’ Ratings of College Teachers Differ Most    
                
Republicans and Democrats have different views of professions, with Democrats tending to be more complimentary of workers’ honesty and ethical standards than Republicans are. In fact, police officers are the only profession with higher honesty and ethics ratings among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (55%) than among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (37%).

The largest party differences are seen in evaluations of college teachers, with a 40-point gap (62% among Democrats/Democratic leaners and 22% among Republicans/Republican leaners). Partisans’ honesty and ethics ratings of psychiatrists, journalists and labor union leaders differ by 20 points or more, while there is a 19-point difference for medical doctors.

Wednesday, January 17, 2024

Trump Is Coming for Obamacare Again

Ronald Brownstein
The Atlantic
Originally posted 10 Jan 24

Donald Trump’s renewed pledge on social media and in campaign rallies to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act has put him on a collision course with a widening circle of Republican constituencies directly benefiting from the law.

In 2017, when Trump and congressional Republicans tried and failed to repeal the ACA, also known as Obamacare, they faced the core contradiction that many of the law’s principal beneficiaries were people and institutions that favored the GOP. That list included lower-middle-income workers without college degrees, older adults in the final years before retirement, and rural communities.


Here's the gist:
  • Trump's stance: He believes Obamacare is a "catastrophe" and wants to replace it with "MUCH BETTER HEALTHCARE."
  • Challenges: Repealing Obamacare is likely an uphill battle. Its popularity has increased, and even some Republicans benefit from the law.
  • Potential consequences: If Trump succeeds, millions of Americans could lose their health insurance, while others face higher premiums.
  • Political implications: Trump's renewed focus on Obamacare could energize his base but alienate moderate voters.

Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Criminal Justice Reform Is Health Care Reform

Haber LA, Boudin C, Williams BA.
JAMA.
Published online December 14, 2023.

Here is an excerpt:

Health Care While Incarcerated

Federal law mandates provision of health care for incarcerated persons. In 1976, the US Supreme Court ruled in Estelle v Gamble that “deliberate indifference to serious medical needs of prisoners constitutes the ‘unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain,’” prohibited under the Eighth Amendment. Subsequent cases established that incarcerated individuals must receive access to medical care, enactment of ordered care, and treatment without bias to their incarcerated status.

Such court decisions establish rights and responsibilities, but do not fund or oversee health care delivery. Community health care oversight, such as the Joint Commission, does not apply to prison health care. When access to quality care is inadequate, incarcerated patients must resort to lawsuits to advocate for change—a right curtailed by the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996, which limited prisoners’ ability to file suit in federal court.

Despite Eighth Amendment guarantees, simply entering the criminal-legal system carries profound personal health risks: violent living conditions result in traumatic injuries, housing in congregate settings predisposes to the spread of infectious diseases, and exceptions to physical comfort, health privacy, and informed decision-making occur during medical care delivery. These factors compound existing health disparities commonly found in the incarcerated population.

The First Step Act

Signed under then-president Trump, the First Step Act of 2018 (FSA) was a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill designed to reduce the federal prison population while also protecting public safety. The legislation aimed to decrease entry into prison, provide rehabilitation during incarceration, improve protections for medically vulnerable individuals, and expedite release.

To achieve these goals, the FSA included prospective and retroactive sentencing reforms, most notably expanded relief from mandatory minimum sentences for drug distribution offenses that disproportionately affect Black individuals in the US. The FSA additionally called for the use of evidence-based tools, such as the Prisoner Assessment Tool Targeting Estimated Risk and Needs, to facilitate release decisions.

The legislation also addressed medical scenarios commonly encountered by professionals providing care to incarcerated persons, including prohibitions on shackling pregnant patients, deescalation training for correctional officers when encountering people with psychiatric illness or cognitive deficits, easing access to compassionate release for those with advanced age or life-limiting illness, and mandatory reporting on the use of medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder. With opioid overdose being the leading cause of postrelease mortality, the latter requirement has been particularly important for those transitioning out of correctional settings.

During the recent COVID-19 pandemic, FSA amendments expanding incarcerated individuals’ access to the courts led to a marked increase in successful petitions for early release from prison. Decarcerating those individuals most medically at risk during the public health crisis reduced the spread of viral illness associated with prison overcrowding, protecting both incarcerated individuals and those working in carceral settings.

Thursday, January 4, 2024

Americans’ Trust in Scientists, Positive Views of Science Continue to Decline

Brian Kennedy & Alec Tyson
Pew Research
Originally published 14 NOV 23

Impact of science on society

Overall, 57% of Americans say science has had a mostly positive effect on society. This share is down 8 percentage points since November 2021 and down 16 points since before the start of the coronavirus outbreak.

About a third (34%) now say the impact of science on society has been equally positive as negative. A small share (8%) think science has had a mostly negative impact on society.

Trust in scientists

When it comes to the standing of scientists, 73% of U.S. adults have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests. But trust in scientists is 14 points lower than it was at the early stages of the pandemic.

The share expressing the strongest level of trust in scientists – saying they have a great deal of confidence in them – has fallen from 39% in 2020 to 23% today.

As trust in scientists has fallen, distrust has grown: Roughly a quarter of Americans (27%) now say they have not too much or no confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests, up from 12% in April 2020.

Ratings of medical scientists mirror the trend seen in ratings of scientists generally. Read Chapter 1 of the report for a detailed analysis of this data.

Differences between Republicans and Democrats in ratings of scientists and science

Declining levels of trust in scientists and medical scientists have been particularly pronounced among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents over the past several years. In fact, nearly four-in-ten Republicans (38%) now say they have not too much or no confidence at all in scientists to act in the public’s best interests. This share is up dramatically from the 14% of Republicans who held this view in April 2020. Much of this shift occurred during the first two years of the pandemic and has persisted in more recent surveys.


My take on why this important:

Science is a critical driver of progress. From technological advancements to medical breakthroughs, scientific discoveries have dramatically improved our lives. Without public trust in science, these advancements may slow or stall.

Science plays a vital role in addressing complex challenges. Climate change, pandemics, and other pressing issues demand evidence-based solutions. Undermining trust in science weakens our ability to respond effectively to these challenges.

Erosion of trust can have far-reaching consequences. It can fuel misinformation campaigns, hinder scientific collaboration, and ultimately undermine public health and well-being.

Friday, September 8, 2023

He was a top church official who criticized Trump. He says Christianity is in crisis

S. Detrow, G. J. Sanchez, & S. Handel
npr.org
Originally poste 8 Aug 23

Here is an excerpt:

What's the big deal? 

According to Moore, Christianity is in crisis in the United States today.
  • Moore is now the editor-in-chief of the Christianity Today magazine and has written a new book, Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call For Evangelical America, which is his attempt at finding a path forward for the religion he loves.
  • Moore believes part of the problem is that "almost every part of American life is tribalized and factionalized," and that has extended to the church.
  • "I think if we're going to get past the blood and soil sorts of nationalism or all of the other kinds of totalizing cultural identities, it's going to require rethinking what the church is," he told NPR.
  • During his time in office, Trump embraced a Christian nationalist stance — the idea that the U.S. is a Christian country and should enforce those beliefs. In the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, Republican candidates are again vying for the influential evangelical Christian vote, demonstrating its continued influence in politics.
  • In Aug. 2022, church leaders confirmed the Department of Justice was investigating Southern Baptists following a sexual abuse crisis. In a statement, SBC leaders said: "Current leaders across the SBC have demonstrated a firm conviction to address those issues of the past and are implementing measures to ensure they are never repeated in the future."
  • In 2017, the church voted to formally "denounce and repudiate" white nationalism at its annual meeting.

What is he saying? 

Moore spoke to All Things Considered's Scott Detrow about what he thinks the path forward is for evangelicalism in America.

On why he thinks Christianity is in crisis:
It was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — "turn the other cheek" — [and] to have someone come up after to say, "Where did you get those liberal talking points?" And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, "I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ," the response would not be, "I apologize." The response would be, "Yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak." And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we're in a crisis.

The information is here. 

Friday, August 4, 2023

Social Media and Morality

Van Bavel, J. J., Robertson, C. et al. (2023, June 6).

Abstract

Nearly five billion people around the world now use social media, and this number continues to grow. One of the primary goals of social media platforms is to capture and monetize human attention. One means by which individuals and groups can capture attention and drive engagement on these platforms is by sharing morally and emotionally evocative content. We review a growing body of research on the interrelationship of social media and morality–as well the consequences for individuals and society. Moral content often goes “viral” on social media, and social media makes moral behavior (such as punishment) less costly. Thus, social media often acts as an accelerant for existing moral dynamics – amplifying outrage, status seeking, and intergroup conflict, while also potentially amplifying more constructive facets of morality, such as social support, pro-sociality, and collective action. We discuss trends, heated debates, and future directions in this emerging literature.

From Discussions and Future Directions

Addressing the interplay between social media and morality 

There is a growing recognition among scholars and the public that social media has deleterious consequences for society and there is a growing appetite for greater transparency and some form of regulation of social media platforms (Rathje et al., 2023). To address the adverse consequences of social media, solutions at the system level are necessary (e.g., Chater & Loewenstein, 2022), but individual- or group-level solutions may be useful for creating behavioral change before system-level change is in place and for increasing public support for system-level solutions (Koppel et. al., 2023). In the following section, we discuss a range of solutions that address the adverse consequences of the interplay between social media and morality.

Regulation is one of the most heavily debated ways of mitigating the adverse features of social media. Regulating social media can be done both on platforms as well at the national or cross-national level, but always involves discussions about who should decide what should be allowed on which platforms (Kaye, 2019). Currently, there is relatively little editorial oversight with the content even on mainstream platforms, yet the connotations with censorship makes regulation inherently controversial. For instance, Americans believe that social media companies censor political viewpoints (Vogels et al., 2020) and believe it is hard to regulate social media because people cannot agree upon what should and should not be removed (PewResearch Center, 2019). Moreover, authoritarian states can suppress dissent through the regulation of speech on social media.

In general, people on the political left are supportive of regulating social media platforms (Kozyreva, 2023; Rasmussen, 2022), reflecting liberals’ general tendency to more supportive, and conservatives' tendency to more opposing, of regulatory policies (e.g. Grossman, 2015). In the context of content on social media, one explanation is that left-leaning people infer more harm from aggressive behaviors. In other words, they may perceive immoral behaviors on social media as more harmful for the victim, which in turn justifies regulation (Graham 2009; Crawford 2017; Walter 2019; Boch 2020). There are conflicting results, however, on whether people oppose regulating hate speech (Bilewicz et. al. 2017; Rasmussen 2023a) because they use hate to derogate minority and oppressed groups (Sidanius, Pratto, and Bobo 1996; Federico and Sidanius, 2002) or because of principled political preferences deriving from conservatism values (Grossman 2016; Grossman 2015; Sniderman & Carmines, 1997; Sniderman & Piazza, 1993; Sniderman, Piazza, Tetlock, & Kendrick, 1991). While sensitivity to harm contributes to making people on the political left more supportive of regulating social media, it is contested whether opposition from the political right derives from group-based dominance or principled opposition.

Click the link above to get to the research.

Here is a summary from me:
  • Social media can influence our moral judgments. Studies have shown that people are more likely to make moral judgments that align with the views of their social media friends and the content they consume on social media. For example, one study found that people who were exposed to pro-environmental content on social media were more likely to make moral judgments that favored environmental protection.
  • Social media can lead to moral disengagement. Moral disengagement is a psychological process that allows people to justify harmful or unethical behavior. Studies have shown that social media can contribute to moral disengagement by making it easier for people to distance themselves from the consequences of their actions. For example, one study found that people who were exposed to violent content on social media were more likely to engage in moral disengagement.
  • Social media can promote prosocial behavior. Prosocial behavior is behavior that is helpful or beneficial to others. Studies have shown that social media can promote prosocial behavior by connecting people with others who share their values and by providing opportunities for people to help others. For example, one study found that people who used social media to connect with others were more likely to volunteer their time to help others.
  • Social media can be used to spread misinformation and hate speech. Misinformation is false or misleading information that is spread intentionally or unintentionally. Hate speech is speech that attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as race, religion, or sexual orientation. Social media platforms have been used to spread misinformation and hate speech, which can have a negative impact on society.
Overall, the research on social media and morality suggests that social media can have both positive and negative effects on our moral judgments and behavior. It is important to be aware of the potential risks and benefits of social media and to use it in a way that promotes positive moral values.

Sunday, May 7, 2023

Stolen elections: How conspiracy beliefs during the 2020 American presidential elections changed over time

Wang, H., & Van Prooijen, J. (2022).
Applied Cognitive Psychology.
https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3996

Abstract

Conspiracy beliefs have been studied mostly through cross-sectional designs. We conducted a five-wave longitudinal study (N = 376; two waves before and three waves after the 2020 American presidential elections) to examine if the election results influenced specific conspiracy beliefs and conspiracy mentality, and whether effects differ between election winners (i.e., Biden voters) versus losers (i.e., Trump voters) at the individual level. Results revealed that conspiracy mentality kept unchanged over 2 months, providing first evidence that this indeed is a relatively stable trait. Specific conspiracy beliefs (outgroup and ingroup conspiracy beliefs) did change over time, however. In terms of group-level change, outgroup conspiracy beliefs decreased over time for Biden voters but increased for Trump voters. Ingroup conspiracy beliefs decreased over time across all voters, although those of Trump voters decreased faster. These findings illuminate how specific conspiracy beliefs are, and conspiracy mentality is not, influenced by an election event.

From the General Discussion

Most studies on conspiracy beliefs provide correlational evidence through cross-sectional designs (van Prooijen & Douglas, 2018). The present research took full advantage of the 2020 American presidential elections through a five-wave longitudinal design, enabling three complementary contributions. First, the results provide evidence that conspiracy mentality is a relatively stable individual difference trait (Bruder et al., 2013; Imhoff & Bruder, 2014): While the election did influence specific conspiracy beliefs (i.e., that the elections were rigged), it did not influence conspiracy mentality. Second, the results provide evidence for the notion that conspiracy beliefs are for election losers (Uscinski & Parent, 2014), as reflected in the finding that Biden voters' outgroup conspiracy beliefs decreased at the individual level, while Trump voters' did not. The group-level effects on changes in outgroup conspiracy beliefs also underscored the role of intergroup conflict in conspiracy theories (van Prooijen & Song, 2021). And third, the present research examined conspiracy theories about one's own political ingroup, and found that such ingroup conspiracy beliefs decreased over time.

The decrease over time for ingroup conspiracy beliefs occurred among both Biden and Trump voters. We speculate that, given its polarized nature and contested result, this election increased intergroup conflict between Biden and Trump voters. Such intergroup conflict may have increased feelings of ingroup loyalty within both voter groups (Druckman, 1994), therefore decreasing beliefs that members of one's own group were conspiring. Moreover, ingroup conspiracy beliefs were higher for Trump than Biden voters (particularly at the first measurement point). This difference might expand previous findings that Republicans are more susceptible to conspiracy cues than Democrats (Enders & Smallpage, 2019), by suggesting that these effects generalize to conspiracy cues coming from their own ingroup.

Conclusion

The 2020 American presidential elections yielded many conspiracy beliefs that the elections were rigged, and conspiracy beliefs generally have negative consequences for societies. One key challenge for scientists and policymakers is to establish how conspiracy theories develop over time. In this research, we conducted a longitudinal study to provide empirical insights into the temporal dynamics underlying conspiracy beliefs, in the setting of a polarized election. We conclude that specific conspiracy beliefs that the elections were rigged—but not conspiracy mentality—are malleable over time, depending on political affiliations and election results.

Wednesday, May 3, 2023

Advocates of high court reform give Roberts poor marks

Kelsey Reichmann
Courthouse News Service
Originally published 27 April 23

The final straw for ethics experts wondering if the leader of one of the nation’s most powerful bodies would uphold the institutionalist views associated with his image came on Tuesday as Chief Justice John Roberts declined to testify before Congress about ethical concerns at the Supreme Court. 

“You can't actually have checks and balances if one branch is so powerful that the other branches cannot, in fact, engage in their constitutionally mandated role to provide a check on inappropriate or illegal behavior,” Caroline Fredrickson, a distinguished visitor from practice at Georgetown Law, said in a phone interview. “Then we have a defective system.” 

Roberts cited concerns about separation of powers as the basis for declining to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the court’s ethical standards — or lack thereof. Fredrickson said it was a canard that a system based on checks and balances would not be able to do just that. 

“It sort of puts the question to the entire structure of separation of powers and checks and balances,” Fredrickson said. 

For the past several weeks, one of the associate justices has been at the heart of controversy. After blockbuster reporting revealed that Republican megadonor Harlan Crow has footed the bill for decades of luxury vacations enjoyed by Justice Clarence Thomas, the revelations brought scrutiny on the disclosure laws that bind the justices and it called into question why the justices are not bound by ethics standards like the rest of the judiciary and other branches of government.

“For it to function, it relies on the public trust, and the trust of the other institutions to abide by the court's findings,” Virginia Canter, chief ethics counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said in a phone call. “If the court and its members are willing to live without any standards, then I think that ultimately the whole process and the institution start to unravel.” 

Many court watchers saw opportunity for action here on a call that has been made for years: the adoption of an ethics code.

“The idea that the Supreme Court would continue to operate without one, it's just ridiculous,” Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, said in a phone call. 

Along with his letter declining to testify before Congress on the court’s ethics, Roberts included a statement listing principles and practices the court “subscribes” to. The statement was signed by all nine justices. 

For ethics experts raising alarm bells on this subject, a restatement of guidelines that the justices are already supposed to follow did not meet the moment.

“It's just a random — in my view at least — conglomeration of paragraphs that rehash things you already knew, but, yeah, good for him for getting all nine justices on board with something that already exists,” Roth said. 

Wednesday, April 12, 2023

Why Americans Hate Political Division but Can’t Resist Being Divisive

Will Blakely & Kurt Gray
Moral Understanding Substack
Originally posted 21 FEB 23

No one likes polarization. According to a recent poll, 93% of Americans say it is important to reduce the country's current divides, including two-thirds who say it is very important to do so. In a recent Five-Thirty-Eight poll, out of a list of 20 issues, polarization ranked third on a list of the most important issues facing America. Which is… puzzling.

The puzzle is this: How can we be so divided if no one wants to be? Who are the hypocrites causing division and hatred while paying lip service to compromise and tolerance?

If you ask everyday Americans, they’ve got their answer. It’s the elites. Tucker Carlson, AOC, Donald Trump, and MSNBC. While these actors certainly are polarizing, it takes two to tango. We, the people, share some of the blame too. Even us, writing this newsletter, and even you, dear reader.

But this leaves us with a tricky question, why would we contribute to a divide that we can’t stand? To answer this question, we need to understand the biases and motivations that influence how we answer the question, “Who’s at fault here?” And more importantly, we need to understand the strategies that can get us out of conflict.

The Blame Game

The Blame Game comes in two flavors: either/or. Adam or Eve, Will Smith or Chris Rock, Amber Heard or Jonny Depp. When assigning blame in bad situations, our minds are dramatic. Psychology studies show that we tend to assign 100% of the blame to the person we see as the aggressor, and 0% to the side we see as the victim. So, what happens when all the people who are against polarization assign blame for polarization? You guessed it. They give 100% of the blame to the opposing party and 0% to their own. They “morally typecast” themselves as 100% the victim of polarization and the other side as 100% the perpetrator.

We call this moral “typecasting” because people’s minds firmly cast others into roles of victim and victimizer in the same way that actors get typecasted in certain roles. In the world of politics, if you’re a Democrat, you cast Republicans as victimizers, as consistently as Hollywood directors cast Kevin Hart as comic relief and Danny Trejo as a laconic villain.

But why do we rush to this all-or-nothing approach when the world is certainly more complicated? It’s because our brains love simplicity. In the realm of blame, we want one simple cause. In his recent book, “Complicit” Max Bazerman, professor at Harvard Business School, illustrated just how widespread this “monocausality bias” is. Bazerman gave a group of business executives the opportunity to allocate blame after reviewing a case of business fraud. 62 of the 78 business leaders wrote only one cause. Despite being given ample time and a myriad set of potential causes, these executives intuitively reached for their Ockham’s razor. In the same way, we all rush to blame a sputtering economy on the president, a loss on a kicker’s missed field goal, or polarization on the other side.

Saturday, January 14, 2023

Individuals prefer to harm their own group rather than help an opposing group

Rachel Gershon and Ariel Fridman
PNAS, 119 (49) e2215633119
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.221563311

Abstract

Group-based conflict enacts a severe toll on society, yet the psychological factors governing behavior in group conflicts remain unclear. Past work finds that group members seek to maximize relative differences between their in-group and out-group (“in-group favoritism”) and are driven by a desire to benefit in-groups rather than harm out-groups (the “in-group love” hypothesis). This prior research studies how decision-makers approach trade-offs between two net-positive outcomes for their in-group. However, in the real world, group members often face trade-offs between net-negative options, entailing either losses to their group or gains for the opposition. Anecdotally, under such conditions, individuals may avoid supporting their opponents even if this harms their own group, seemingly inconsistent with “in-group love” or a harm minimizing strategy. Yet, to the best of our knowledge, these circumstances have not been investigated. In six pre-registered studies, we find consistent evidence that individuals prefer to harm their own group rather than provide even minimal support to an opposing group across polarized issues (abortion access, political party, gun rights). Strikingly, in an incentive-compatible experiment, individuals preferred to subtract more than three times as much from their own group rather than support an opposing group, despite believing that their in-group is more effective with funds. We find that identity concerns drive preferences in group decision-making, and individuals believe that supporting an opposing group is less value-compatible than harming their own group. Our results hold valuable insights for the psychology of decision-making in intergroup conflict as well as potential interventions for conflict resolution.

Significance

Understanding the principles guiding decisions in intergroup conflicts is essential to recognizing the psychological barriers to compromise and cooperation. We introduce a novel paradigm for studying group decision-making, demonstrating that individuals are so averse to supporting opposing groups that they prefer equivalent or greater harm to their own group instead. While previous models of group decision-making claim that group members are driven by a desire to benefit their in-group (“in-group love”) rather than harm their out-group, our results cannot be explained by in-group love or by a harm minimizing strategy. Instead, we propose that identity concerns drive this behavior. Our theorizing speaks to research in psychology, political theory, and negotiations by examining how group members navigate trade-offs among competing priorities.

From the Conclusion

We synthesize prior work on support-framing and propose the Identity-Support model, which can parsimoniously explain our findings across win-win and lose-lose scenarios. The model suggests that individuals act in group conflicts to promote their identity, and they do so primarily by providing support to causes they believe in (and avoid supporting causes they oppose; see also SI Appendix, Study S1). Simply put, in win-win contexts, supporting the in-group is more expressive of one’s identity as a group member than harming the opposing group, thereby leading to a preference for in-group support. In lose-lose contexts, supporting the opposing group is more negatively expressive of one’s identity as a group member than harming the in-group, resulting in a preference for in-group harm. Therefore, the principle that individuals make decisions in group conflicts to promote and protect their identity, primarily by allocating their support in ways that most align with their values, offers a single framework that predicts individual behavior in group conflicts in both win-win and lose-lose contexts.

Monday, January 9, 2023

The Psychology of Online Political Hostility: A Comprehensive, Cross-National Test of the Mismatch Hypothesis

Bor, A., & Petersen, M. (2022).
American Political Science Review, 
116(1), 1-18.
doi:10.1017/S0003055421000885

Abstract

Why are online discussions about politics more hostile than offline discussions? A popular answer argues that human psychology is tailored for face-to-face interaction and people’s behavior therefore changes for the worse in impersonal online discussions. We provide a theoretical formalization and empirical test of this explanation: the mismatch hypothesis. We argue that mismatches between human psychology and novel features of online environments could (a) change people’s behavior, (b) create adverse selection effects, and (c) bias people’s perceptions. Across eight studies, leveraging cross-national surveys and behavioral experiments (total N = 8,434), we test the mismatch hypothesis but only find evidence for limited selection effects. Instead, hostile political discussions are the result of status-driven individuals who are drawn to politics and are equally hostile both online and offline. Finally, we offer initial evidence that online discussions feel more hostile, in part, because the behavior of such individuals is more visible online than offline.

From Conclusions and General Discussion

In this manuscript, we documented that online political discussions seem more hostile than offline discussions and investigated the reasons why such hostility gap exists. In particular, we provided a comprehensive test of the mismatch hypothesis positing that the hostility gap reflects psychological changes induced by mismatches between the features of online environments and human psychology. Overall, however, we found little evidence that mismatch-induced processes underlie the hostility gap. We found that people are not more hostile online than offline; that hostile individuals do not preferentially select into online (vs. offline) political discussions; and that people do not over-perceive hostility in online messages. We did find some evidence for another selection effect: Non-hostile individuals select out from all, hostile as well as non-hostile, online political discussions. Thus, despite the use of study designs with high power, the present data do not support the claim that online environments produce radical psychological changes in people.

Our ambition with the present endeavor was to initiate research on online political hostility, as more and more political interactions occur online. To this end, we took a sweeping approach, built an overarching framework for understanding online political hostility and provided a range of initial tests. Our work highlights important fruitful avenues for future research. First, future studies should assess whether mismatches could propel hostility on specific environments, platforms or situations, even if these mismatches do not generate hostility in all online environments. Second, all our studies were conducted online and, hence, it is key for future research to assess the mismatch hypothesis using behavioral data from offline discussions. Contrasting online versus offline communications directly in a laboratory setting could yield important new insights on the similarities and differences between these environments. Third, there is mounting evidence that, at least in the USA, online discussions are sometimes hijacked by provocateurs such as employees of Russia’s infamous Internet Research Agency. While recent research implies that the amount of content generated by these actors is trivial compared to the volume of social media discussions (Bail et al. 2020), the activities of such actors may nonetheless contribute to instilling hostility online, even among people not predisposed to be hostile offline.

Friday, January 6, 2023

Political sectarianism in America

Finkel, E. J., Bail, C. A., et al. (2020).
Science, 370(6516), 533–536.
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abe1715

Abstract

Political polarization, a concern in many countries, is especially acrimonious in the United States (see the first box). For decades, scholars have studied polarization as an ideological matter—how strongly Democrats and Republicans diverge vis-à-vis political ideals and policy goals. Such competition among groups in the marketplace of ideas is a hallmark of a healthy democracy. But more recently, researchers have identified a second type of polarization, one focusing less on triumphs of ideas than on dominating the abhorrent supporters of the opposing party (1). This literature has produced a proliferation of insights and constructs but few interdisciplinary efforts to integrate them. We offer such an integration, pinpointing the superordinate construct of political sectarianism and identifying its three core ingredients: othering, aversion, and moralization. We then consider the causes of political sectarianism and its consequences for U.S. society—especially the threat it poses to democracy. Finally, we propose interventions for minimizing its most corrosive aspects.

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Here, we consider three avenues for intervention that hold particular promise for ameliorating political sectarianism. The first addresses people’s faulty perceptions or intuitions. For example, correcting misperceptions of opposing partisans, such as their level of hostility toward one’s copartisans, reduces sectarianism.  Such correction efforts can encourage people to engage in cross-party interactions (SM) or to consider their own positive experiences with opposing partisans, especially a friend, family
member, or neighbor. Doing so can reduce the role of motivated partisan reasoning in the formation of policy opinions.

A related idea is to instill intellectual humility, such as by asking people to explain policy preferences at a mechanistic level—for example, why do they favor their position on a national flat tax or on carbon emissions.  According to a recent study, relative to people assigned to the more lawyerly approach of justifying their preexisting policy preferences, those asked to provide mechanistic explanations gain appreciation for the complexities involved.

(cut)

From the end of the article:

Political sectarianism cripples a nation’s ability to confront challenges. Bolstering the emphasis on political ideas rather than political adversaries is not a sufficient solution, but it is likely to be a major step in the right direction. The interventions proposed above offer some promising leads, but any serious effort will require multifaceted efforts to change leadership, media, and democratic systems in ways that are sensitive to human psychology. There are no silver bullets.


A good reminder for psychologists and those involved in the mental health field.

Tuesday, January 3, 2023

Varieties of White working-class identity

Knowles, E., McDermott, M., & Richeson, J.
(2021, July 2).
https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/mjhdy

Abstract

The present work demonstrates that, contrary to popular political narratives, working-class White Americans are far from monolithic in their class identities, social attitudes, and political preferences. Latent profile analysis (LPA) is used to distinguish three types of identity in a nationally representative sample of working-class Whites: Working Class Patriots, who valorize responsibility, embrace national identity, and disparage the poor; Class Conflict Aware, who regard social class as a structural phenomenon and ascribe elitist attitudes to higher classes; and Working Class Connected, who embrace working-class identity, sympathize with the poor, and feel disrespected because of the work they do. This identity typology appears unique to working-class Whites and is associated with distinct patterns of attitudes regarding immigration, race, and politics, such that Class Conflict Aware and Working Class Connected Whites are considerably more progressive than are Working Class Patriots. Implications for electoral politics and race relations are discussed.

Discussion

Despite often being characterized as a monolithic social and political force, members of theWhite working class display considerable diversity in their intergroup attitudes and voting behavior(Smith & Hanley, 2018; Teixeira & Rogers, 2000; Tyson & Maniam, 2016). In an ethnographic study of working-class Whites in Kentucky, Missouri, and Indiana, McDermott and colleagues(2019) identified three identity types among White working-class interviewees:  Working ClassPatriots, who identity strongly as American, emphasize responsibility, disparage the poor, and report feeling respected in their jobs; Class Conflict Aware Whites, who see the working class as locked in a conflictual relationship with socioeconomic elites; and Working Class Connected Whites, who identify strongly as members of the working class, feel compassion toward the poor, and report feeling looked down on because of the work they do. These researchers found that the three identity types were associated with different patterns of social attitudes—with Patriots tending to disparage Black people and Latino immigrants, Conflict Aware Whites displaying progressive attitudes toward these groups, and Class Connected Whites exhibiting a combination of tolerant attitudes toward immigrants and hostile attitudes toward Black people.

The present research represents a quantitative extension of these qualitative findings. In a nationally representative sample of working-class (non–college-educated) White Americans, we measured five themes emerging from previous qualitative work: American identification, the value placed on responsibility, psychological distance from the poor, the belief in stark divisions between social classes, and the tendency to feel looked down on by members of higher classes. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was then used to assess whether the White American population contains discrete types resembling the Working Class Patriot, Class Conflict Aware, and Working Class Connected groups. Indeed, the best LPA solution yielded three identity types based on our five indicators, and these types could be readily matched to those found in McDermott et al.’s (2019) qualitative work(Figure 1a). The representation of the types in our survey sample broadly matched the breakdown in the ethnographic study—with Patriots making up the majority of respondents and the remaining sample split roughly between Class Conflict Aware and Working Class Connected Whites.


Psychologists need to understand that white working class culture is not monolithic, just like other cultures.

Tuesday, October 25, 2022

More than a quarter of U.S. adults say they’re so stressed they can’t function

American Psychological Association
Press Release
Originally posted 19 OCT 22

Americans are struggling with multiple external stressors that are out of their personal control, with 27% reporting that most days they are so stressed they cannot function, according to a poll conducted for the American Psychological Association.

A majority of adults cited inflation (83%), violence and crime (75%), the current political climate (66%), and the racial climate (62%) as significant sources of stress.

The nationwide survey, fielded by The Harris Poll on behalf of APA, revealed that 70% of adults reported they do not think people in the government care about them, and 64% said they felt their rights are under attack. Further, nearly half of adults (45%) said they do not feel protected by the laws in the United States. More than a third (38%) said the state of the nation has made them consider moving to a different country.

More than three-quarters of adults (76%) said that the future of our nation is a significant source of stress in their lives, while 68% said this is the lowest point in our nation’s history that they can remember.

Various disparities in stressors emerged among population subgroups. For example, 72% of the members of the LGBTQIA+ community reported feeling as if their rights are under attack, which is a higher proportion than non-LGBTQIA+ adults (64%). Younger adult women (ages 18 to 34) were more likely to report that most days their stress is completely overwhelming, in comparison with older women (62% vs. 48% 35–44; 27% 45–64; 9% 65+) and men ages 35 or older (62% vs. 48% 35–44; 21% 45–64; 8% 65+). Seventy-five percent of Black adults said that the racial climate in the U.S. is a significant source of stress, while 70% of Latino/a adults, 69% of Asian adults and 56% of white adults reported the same.

Furthermore, Latinas were most likely, among racial/ethnic groups, to cite significant sources of stress related to violence, including violence and crime (89% Latinas; 80% Black women; 79% Asian women; 77% Latinos; 75% Black men; 73% white women; 72% white men; 70% Asian men), mass shootings (89% Latinas; 78% Latinos; 77% Black women; 77% Asian women; 73% white women; 71% Black men; 67% Asian men; 66% white men) and gun violence (87% Latinas; 83% Black women; 77% Asian women; 76% Latinos; 75% Black men; 69% white women; 68% white men; 63% Asian men).

“It’s clear that the impacts of uncontrollable stressors are profound for most Americans, but psychological science shows us that there are effective ways to talk about and cope with this type of stress,” said Arthur C. Evans Jr., PhD, APA’s chief executive officer. “Focusing on accomplishing goals that are in our control can help prevent our minds from getting overwhelmed by the many uncertainties in life. From using our breathing to slow racing thoughts, to intentionally limiting our social media consumption, or exercising our right to vote, action can be extremely empowering.”

Adults reported that stress has had an impact on their health; 76% of adults reported they had experienced at least one symptom in the last month as a result of stress—such as headache (38%), fatigue (35%), feeling nervous or anxious (34%) and feeling depressed or sad (33%). Seven in 10 adults (72%) experienced additional symptoms in the last month, including feeling overwhelmed (33%), experiencing changes in sleeping habits (32%), and/or worrying constantly (30%).

Sunday, August 28, 2022

Dr. Oz Shouldn’t Be a Senator—or a Doctor

Timothy Caulfield
Scientific American
Originally posted 15 DEC 21

While holding a medical license, Mehmet Oz, widely known as Dr. Oz, has long pushed misleading, science-free and unproven alternative therapies such as homeopathy, as well as fad diets, detoxes and cleanses. Some of these things have been potentially harmful, including hydroxychloroquine, which he once touted would be beneficial in the treatment or prevention of COVID. This assertion has been thoroughly debunked.

He’s built a tremendous following around his lucrative but evidence-free advice. So, are we surprised that Oz is running as a Republican for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania? No, we are not. Misinformation-spouting celebrities seem to be a GOP favorite. This move is very on brand for both Oz and the Republican Party.

His candidacy is a reminder that tolerating and/or enabling celebrity pseudoscience (I’m thinking of you, Oprah Winfrey!) can have serious and enduring consequences. Much of Oz’s advice was bunk before the pandemic, it is bunk now, and there is no reason to assume it won’t be bunk after—even if he becomes Senator Oz. Indeed, as Senator Oz, it’s all but guaranteed he would bring pseudoscience to the table when crafting and voting on legislation that affects the health and welfare of Americans.

As viewed by someone who researches the spread of health misinformation, Oz’s candidacy remains deeply grating in that “of course he is” kind of way. But it is also an opportunity to highlight several realities about pseudoscience, celebrity physicians and the current regulatory environment that allows people like him to continue to call themselves doctor.

Before the pandemic I often heard people argue that the wellness woo coming from celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow, Tom Brady and Oz was mostly harmless noise. If people want to waste their money on ridiculous vagina eggs, bogus diets or unproven alternative remedies, why should we care? Buyer beware, a fool and their money, a sucker is born every minute, etc., etc.

But we know, now more than ever, that pop culture can—for better or worse—have a significant impact on health beliefs and behaviors. Indeed, one need only consider the degree to which Jenny McCarthy gave life to the vile claim that autism is linked to vaccination. Celebrity figures like podcast host Joe Rogan and football player Aaron Rodgers have greatly added to the chaotic information regarding COVID-19 by magnifying unsupported claims.

Monday, August 8, 2022

Why are people antiscience, and what can we do about it?

Phillipp-Muller, A, Lee, W.S., & Petty, R. E.
PNAS (2022). 
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2120755119.

Abstract

From vaccination refusal to climate change denial, antiscience views are threatening humanity. When different individuals are provided with the same piece of scientific evidence, why do some accept whereas others dismiss it? Building on various emerging data and models that have explored the psychology of being antiscience, we specify four core bases of key principles driving antiscience attitudes. These principles are grounded in decades of research on attitudes, persuasion, social influence, social identity, and information processing. They apply across diverse domains of antiscience phenomena. Specifically, antiscience attitudes are more likely to emerge when a scientific message comes from sources perceived as lacking credibility; when the recipients embrace the social membership or identity of groups with antiscience attitudes; when the scientific message itself contradicts what recipients consider true, favorable, valuable, or moral; or when there is a mismatch between the delivery of the scientific message and the epistemic style of the recipient. Politics triggers or amplifies many principles across all four bases, making it a particularly potent force in antiscience attitudes. Guided by the key principles, we describe evidence-based counteractive strategies for increasing public acceptance of science.

Concluding Remarks

By offering an inclusive framework of key principles underlying antiscience attitudes, we aim to advance theory and research on several fronts: Our framework highlights basic principles applicable to antiscience phenomena across multiple domains of science. It predicts situational and personal variables (e.g., moralization, attitude strength, and need for closure) that amplify people’s likelihood and intensity of being antiscience. It unpacks why politics is such a potent force with multiple aspects of influence on antiscience attitudes. And it suggests a range of counteractive strategies that target each of the four bases. Beyond explaining, predicting, and addressing antiscience views, our framework raises unresolved questions for future research.

With the prevalence of antiscience attitudes, scientists and science communicators face strong headwinds in gaining and sustaining public trust and in conveying scientific information in ways that will be accepted and integrated into public understanding. It is a multifaceted problem that ranges from erosions in the credibility of scientists to conflicts with the identities, beliefs, attitudes, values, morals, and epistemic styles of different portions of the population, exacerbated by the toxic ecosystem of the politics of our time. Scientific information can be difficult to swallow, and many individuals would sooner reject the evidence than accept information that suggests they might have been wrong. This inclination is wholly understandable, and scientists should be poised to empathize. After all, we are in the business of being proven wrong, but that must not stop us from helping people get things right.

Thursday, August 4, 2022

Gab users are responding to the Doug Mastriano controversy by calling for antisemitic violence


Eric Hananoki
MediaMatters.org
Originally posted 1 AUG 22

Following criticism of Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano paying Gab for campaign help, users of the far-right platform are responding by posting antisemitic death threats and calls for violence against Jewish people. Those posts included such hate speech as “exterminate all jews,” “WHERE IS ADOLPH WHEN HE IS NEEDED,” and, “Dear Lord, SMITE JOSH SHAPIRO, that weasel, lying Jew.”

Gab caters to far-right extremists, including people who have been banned from other social media platforms. Many of its users are antisemites and neo-Nazis who use the site to express their hatred toward Jewish people. Gab CEO Andrew Torba is a virulent antisemite who this year reposted praise of Gab as a place to get “differing opinions” on the Holocaust. 

Gab’s extremist history is well-known, especially to people in Pennsylvania. In 2018, a Gab user posted antisemitic and violent remarks on the site before he allegedly killed 11 people in Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue. 

Still, Mastriano said in a campaign filing that he paid $5,000 to Gab for “consulting” services on April 28. Shortly afterward, he did a video interview with Torba in which he praised the Gab founder for “giving us a platform for free speech” and said, “Thank God for what you’ve done.” Mastriano also made clear he followed Torba, telling him at one point that he “liked that one meme” the Gab CEO shared. 

On July 8, Media Matters unearthed Mastriano’s campaign expenditure. Shortly afterward, HuffPost’s Christopher Mathias reported that the payment seemed to be for new followers, as “every new account currently being created on Gab automatically follows Mastriano.” (Torba denied this.) 

Pittsburgh’s WESA reported on July 13 that a Gab post by Mastriano "on July 9 — a criticism of Democratic economic policies — received 157 comments. At least two dozen of those responses — the most common response by far — were antisemitic insults about state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the Democratic candidate in the race for governor. Shapiro is Jewish.” 


Curator's Note: Sorry for this very Pennsylvania specific article.  This politician cannot hold any office, let alone the Governor's office of my beloved Commonwealth.  We need to vote like our rights depend on it, because they do.

Mastriano is pictured in Washington DC (on the right) on January 6.

Wednesday, July 13, 2022

Dangerous as the Plague

Samuel Huneke
The Baffler
Originally posted 23 JUN 22

Here is an excerpt:

There is not enough space here to enumerate all of the similarities and differences between National Socialism and today’s right, but the place of Christianity in each movement is instructive. The churches were always on tenuous terms at best with Hitler’s state. Many Nazi leaders were openly hostile to Christianity and to the “traditional” family. Homosexuality posed a threat to Nazism not in moral terms, but rather in social and political terms, threatening to undermine its homosocial order. In stark contrast, the American right today remains in thrall to white Christian nationalism, which openly seeks to impose its own version of morality on the nation. The threat queerness poses to this version of patriarchal Christianity, coupled with broader anxieties about loss of social status, is what appears to motivate the new right’s transphobia and homophobia.

The endurance of these tropes also highlights the limits of the professionalized LGBTQ political movement in this country, which has prioritized visibility and assimilation—eschewing more revolutionary strategies that would encompass the needs of the most marginalized. Groups like the Human Rights Campaign have been successful up to a point, but their strategies were always predicated on the notion that if queer people were visible and showed that they weren’t actually that different, prejudice would seep away. Because its aim was assimilation, this tactic fundamentally upheld the division between normal and abnormal on which animus rests. Instead of contesting that very division, it sought to put certain queer people on the “right” side of it. In this way, it also misunderstood hatred as a product of ignorance rather than a political strategy or an expression of sublimated anxieties.

Now animus against queer people—especially trans people—is back with a vengeance. From the conspiracy-addled world of QAnon, in which a shadowy cabal of pedophiles, juiced on the blood of children, runs the world, to the mendacity of trans-exclusionary radical feminists (or TERFs), a growing segment of the population seems willing to entertain the notion that lesbians, gay men, and trans people are “recruiting” children. The bestseller Irreversible Damage, published in 2020 and reaching audiences well beyond the fringe right, insisted that girls were being seduced by a “transgender craze” that it termed a “contagion.” Just before Pride month, U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has embraced the rhetoric of “grooming,” predicted that in “four or five generations, no one will be straight anymore.”

Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Donald Trump and the rationalization of transgressive behavior: The role of group prototypicality and identity advancement

Davies, B., Leicht, C., & Abrams, D.
Journal of Applied Social Psychology
Volume 52, Issue 7, July 2022
Pages 481-495

Abstract

Transgressive leadership, especially in politics, can have significant consequences for groups and communities. However, research suggests that transgressive leaders are often granted deviance credit, and regarded sympathetically by followers due to perceptions of the leader's group prototypicality and identity advancement. We extend previous work by examining whether these perceptions additionally play a role in rationalizing the transgressions of a leader and whether deviance credit persists after a leader exits their leadership position. The present three-wave longitudinal study (N = 200) addresses these questions using the applied context of the 2020 US Presidential election. Across three survey waves administered during and after Donald Trump's election loss, Republicans perceived three transgressive behaviors (sharing false information, nepotism, and abuse of power) as less unethical when committed by Donald Trump than when the same behaviors are viewed in isolation. Perceptions of Trump's identity advancement, but not his group prototypicality, predicted the extent to which Republicans downplayed the unethicalness of his transgressions. Decreases in identity advancement across time were also related to increases in perceptions of Trump's unethicalness. Implications for the social identity theory of leadership, subjective group dynamics, and the broader consequences of deviance credit to transgressive leaders are discussed.

Discussion

This study aimed to understand how followers of transgressive leaders rationalize their leader's behavior, to what extent group prototypicality and identity advancement encourage this rationalization, and whether these effects would persist after a leader exits their leadership position. Specifically, we expected that Republicans would downplay the perceived unethicalness of behavior by Donald Trump relative to the same behavior when unattributed, and that this downplaying would be predicted by perceptions of Trump's group prototypicality and identity advancement. We also expected that, following his election loss, Donald Trump would be perceived as less prototypical and less identity advancing, and concomitantly as more unethical. In partial support of these hypotheses, we found that Republicans did indeed downplay the perceived unethicalness of Donald Trump's behavior, but that this was only predicted by perceptions of his identity advancement, and not his group prototypicality. In contrast to expectations, perceptions of Donald Trump's prototypicality and identity advancement, after controlling for his encouragement of the Capitol riots, did not decrease after his election loss, and neither did perceptions of his unethicalness increase. However, we found that intra-individual drops in perceptions of Trump's identity advancement (but not group prototypicality) did correspond with increases in perceptions of his unethicalness for two of the three transgressive behaviors. Evidence from the cross-lagged analysis is consistent with the interpretation that initial perceptions of identity advancement influenced later evaluations of Donald Trump's unethicalness, rather than the reverse. Overall, these results provide an important extension of previous deviance credit theory and research, highlighting the role of identity advancement and presenting the rationalization of a leader's behavior as a novel mechanism in the support of transgressive leaders. The applied and longitudinal nature of this study additionally demonstrates how social psychological processes operate in real-world contexts, providing a much-needed contribution to more ecologically valid behavioral research.


Editor's note: Contemplate this research as you watch the J6 committee findings today and in the future. I wonder if these perceptions will change after the J6 hearings, in their entirety.

Monday, June 20, 2022

The Christian Right is violating the First Amendment by banning abortion

Noah Berlatsky
NBC News Cultural Critic
Originally published 18 JUN 22

The anti-abortion rights movement is largely faith based. Catholics and evangelical Christians argue that life begins at conception, and that fetuses have souls. On those grounds, they want to prevent anyone from obtaining abortion services.

They’ve had a good deal of success with that recently. A leaked Supreme Court draft opinion suggests the high court is set to overturn Roe v. Wade, effectively gutting the constitutional right to abortion. In anticipation, many conservative states have passed sweeping anti-abortion legislation.

But not everyone is Christian. And imposing Christian morality and Christian dogma on non-Christians is a good working definition of religious tyranny — which the First Amendment of the Constitution explicitly rejects. 

That principle of religious freedom is the basis of a lawsuit brought by Congregation L’Dor Va-Dor, a synagogue in Boynton Beach, Florida, against a sweeping state abortion ban set to take effect on July 1. Congregation L’Dor Va-Dor is challenging a single law on behalf of a single religion. But the case is also a broader challenge to the anti-abortion rights movement, which conflates a right-wing Christian demand for forced birth with universal morality, and insists on subjugating the country to a sectarian code.

The new Florida law bans most abortions after 15 weeks. There are no exceptions for cases of incest, rape or human trafficking. It does allow an abortion to save a pregnant person’s life or to prevent serious physical injury. But these exceptions aren’t enough to keep the law from violating the free exercise of the Jewish faith. The congregation’s lawsuit states that the Florida law violates Jewish religious beliefs holding that abortion “is required if necessary to protect the health, mental or physical well-being of the woman,” among other reasons.