By Hal Arkes
doi: 10.1177/0963721413489988
Current Directions in Psychological Science October 2013 vol. 22 no. 5 356-360
Abstract
The hindsight bias manifests in the tendency to exaggerate the extent to which a past event could have been predicted beforehand. This bias has particularly detrimental effects in the domain of medical decision making. I present a demonstration of the bias, its contribution to overconfidence, and its involvement in judgments of medical malpractice. Finally, I point out that physicians and psychologists can collaborate to the mutual benefit of both professions.
The hindsight bias manifests in the tendency to exaggerate the extent to which a past event could have been predicted beforehand. First systematically investigated by Fischhoff (1975), the bias is sometimes called “Monday morning quarterbacking” or the “I knew-it-all-along effect” (Wood, 1978). The hindsight bias has particularly detrimental effects in the domain of medical decision making. I begin with the classic study demonstrating how the bias diminishes the salutary impact of a medical education exercise.
The Hindsight Bias as an Impediment to Learning
A clinicopathologic conference (CPC) is a dramatic event at a hospital. A young physician, such as a resident, is given all of the documentation except the autopsy report that pertains to a deceased patient. After studying the material for a week or so, the physician presents the case to the assembled medical staff, going over the case and listing the differential diagnosis, which consists of the several possible diagnoses for this patient. Finally, the presenting physician announces the diagnosis that he or she thinks is the correct one. The presenter then sits down, sweating profusely, as the pathologist who did the autopsy takes the podium and announces the correct diagnosis. The cases are chosen because they are difficult, so the presenting physician’s hypothesis often is incorrect.
The entire article is here, behind a pay wall. Hopefully you can obtain it through your university library.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Watchful Eye in Nursing Homes
By Jan Hoffman
The New York Times
Originally published November 18, 2013
Here are some excerpts:
In June, Mike DeWine, the Ohio state attorney general, announced that his office, with permission from families, had placed cameras in residents’ rooms in an unspecified number of state facilities. Mr. DeWine has moved to shut down at least one facility, in Zanesville, where, he said, cameras caught actions like an aide’s repeatedly leaving a stroke patient’s food by his incapacitated side.
The recordings can have an impact. Based on Ms. Racher’s videos, one aide pleaded guilty to abuse and neglect. The other appears to have fled the country. Similar scenes of abuse have been captured in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and other states by relatives who placed cameras in potted plants and radios, webcams and iPhones.
(cut)
But the secret monitoring of a resident raises ethical and legal questions. Families must balance fears for their relative’s safety against an undignified invasion of their privacy. They must also consider the privacy rights of others who pass through the room, including roommates and visitors.
Proponents of hidden cameras argue that expectations of privacy have fallen throughout society: nanny cams, webcams and security cameras are ubiquitous.
The entire article is here.
The New York Times
Originally published November 18, 2013
Here are some excerpts:
In June, Mike DeWine, the Ohio state attorney general, announced that his office, with permission from families, had placed cameras in residents’ rooms in an unspecified number of state facilities. Mr. DeWine has moved to shut down at least one facility, in Zanesville, where, he said, cameras caught actions like an aide’s repeatedly leaving a stroke patient’s food by his incapacitated side.
The recordings can have an impact. Based on Ms. Racher’s videos, one aide pleaded guilty to abuse and neglect. The other appears to have fled the country. Similar scenes of abuse have been captured in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and other states by relatives who placed cameras in potted plants and radios, webcams and iPhones.
(cut)
But the secret monitoring of a resident raises ethical and legal questions. Families must balance fears for their relative’s safety against an undignified invasion of their privacy. They must also consider the privacy rights of others who pass through the room, including roommates and visitors.
Proponents of hidden cameras argue that expectations of privacy have fallen throughout society: nanny cams, webcams and security cameras are ubiquitous.
The entire article is here.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
The Moral Behavior of Ethicists and the Power of Reason
By Joshua Rust and Eric Schwitzgebel
Professional ethicists behave no morally better, on average, than do other professors. At least that’s what we have found in a series of empirical studies that we will summarize below. Our results create a prima facie challenge for a certain picture of the relationship between intellectual reasoning and moral behavior – a picture on which explicit, intellectual cognition has substantial power to change the moral opinions of the reasoner and thereby to change the reasoner’s moral behavior. Call this picture the Power of Reason view. One alternative view has been prominently defended by Jonathan Haidt. We might call it the Weakness of Reason view, or more colorfully the Rational Tail view, after the headline metaphor of Haidt’s seminal 2001 article, “The emotional dog and its rational tail” (in Haidt’s later 2012 book, the emotional dog becomes an “intuitive dog”). According to the Rational Tail view (which comes in different degrees of strength), emotion or intuition drives moral opinion and moral behavior, and explicit forms of intellectual cognition function mainly post-hoc, to justify and socially communicate conclusions that flow from emotion or intuition. Haidt argues that our empirical results favor his view (2012, p. 89). After all, if intellectual styles of moral reasoning don’t detectably improve the behavior even of professional ethicists who build their careers on expertise in such reasoning, how much hope could there be for the rest of us to improve by such means? While we agree with Haidt that our results support the Rational Tail view over some rationalistic rivals, we believe that other models of moral psychology are also consistent with our findings, and some of these models reserve an important role for reasoning in shaping the reasoner’s behavior and attitudes. Part One summarizes our empirical findings. Part Two explores five different theoretical models, including the Rational Tail, more or less consistent with those findings.
The entire article is here.
Professional ethicists behave no morally better, on average, than do other professors. At least that’s what we have found in a series of empirical studies that we will summarize below. Our results create a prima facie challenge for a certain picture of the relationship between intellectual reasoning and moral behavior – a picture on which explicit, intellectual cognition has substantial power to change the moral opinions of the reasoner and thereby to change the reasoner’s moral behavior. Call this picture the Power of Reason view. One alternative view has been prominently defended by Jonathan Haidt. We might call it the Weakness of Reason view, or more colorfully the Rational Tail view, after the headline metaphor of Haidt’s seminal 2001 article, “The emotional dog and its rational tail” (in Haidt’s later 2012 book, the emotional dog becomes an “intuitive dog”). According to the Rational Tail view (which comes in different degrees of strength), emotion or intuition drives moral opinion and moral behavior, and explicit forms of intellectual cognition function mainly post-hoc, to justify and socially communicate conclusions that flow from emotion or intuition. Haidt argues that our empirical results favor his view (2012, p. 89). After all, if intellectual styles of moral reasoning don’t detectably improve the behavior even of professional ethicists who build their careers on expertise in such reasoning, how much hope could there be for the rest of us to improve by such means? While we agree with Haidt that our results support the Rational Tail view over some rationalistic rivals, we believe that other models of moral psychology are also consistent with our findings, and some of these models reserve an important role for reasoning in shaping the reasoner’s behavior and attitudes. Part One summarizes our empirical findings. Part Two explores five different theoretical models, including the Rational Tail, more or less consistent with those findings.
The entire article is here.
Higher emotional intelligence leads to better decision-making
Press Release
mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto, Rotman School of Management
Toronto – The anxiety people feel making investment decisions may have more to do with the traffic they dealt with earlier than the potential consequences they face with the investment, but not if the decision-maker has high emotional intelligence a recent study published in Psychological Science suggests.
The study shows that understanding the source and relevance of emotions influences how much sway they have over individuals' decision-making and can affect the willingness to take risks.
"People often make decisions that are influenced by emotions that have nothing to do with the decisions they are making," says Stéphane Côté, a professor at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, who co-wrote the study with lead researcher Jeremy Yip of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. "Research has found that we fall prey to this all the time.
"People are driving and it's frustrating," says Prof. Côté. "They get to work and the emotions they felt in their car influences what they do in their offices. Or they invest money based on emotions that stem from things unrelated to their investments. But our investigation reveals that if they have emotional intelligence, they are protected from these biases."
The study's first experiment showed that participants with lower levels of emotional understanding allowed anxiety unrelated to decisions they were making concerning risk influence these decisions. Those with higher emotional intelligence did not.
The entire press release is here.
mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto, Rotman School of Management
Toronto – The anxiety people feel making investment decisions may have more to do with the traffic they dealt with earlier than the potential consequences they face with the investment, but not if the decision-maker has high emotional intelligence a recent study published in Psychological Science suggests.
The study shows that understanding the source and relevance of emotions influences how much sway they have over individuals' decision-making and can affect the willingness to take risks.
"People often make decisions that are influenced by emotions that have nothing to do with the decisions they are making," says Stéphane Côté, a professor at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, who co-wrote the study with lead researcher Jeremy Yip of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. "Research has found that we fall prey to this all the time.
"People are driving and it's frustrating," says Prof. Côté. "They get to work and the emotions they felt in their car influences what they do in their offices. Or they invest money based on emotions that stem from things unrelated to their investments. But our investigation reveals that if they have emotional intelligence, they are protected from these biases."
The study's first experiment showed that participants with lower levels of emotional understanding allowed anxiety unrelated to decisions they were making concerning risk influence these decisions. Those with higher emotional intelligence did not.
The entire press release is here.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Vignette: 29: A Blog Attack
Psychologist Dr. Shermer
learns from a colleague that she has been described in very unfavorable terms
in a blog posted by an individual who publicly identifies herself as a patient
of Dr. Shermer.
Dr. Shermer reviews the
blog information. The author is likely not a current patient.
The blogger insults Dr.
Shermer’s appearance, her style of dress, and her office. In essence, the
blogger combines factual and inaccurate information into a well-formed, yet
highly erroneous, description about Dr. Shermer’s role in the community and in
the legal system.
There are many
descriptions of Dr. Shermer that are blatantly false or misleading. Some of the
falsehoods on the blog would be serious violations of the Ethics Code.
Upon reviewing the charts
of several possible candidates as the offensive blogger, Dr. Shermer believes
the blogger to be someone she evaluated in the past for a national security
position. The likely blogger can be emotionally labile and frequently
feels a victim of “the system.” Dr. Shermer indicated a number of pathological
characteristics in the report. Dr. Shermer does not make the
determination for the security clearance, but serves as a consultant for the
government agency.
Dr. Shermer has a presence
on social media and fears how her online reputation may be adversely affected
by these ongoing blog posts. She also fears that if she draws too much
attention to the blog, then the blogger will gain greater traction.
Dr. Shermer fears the risk
that the information could go to a licensing board and result in an
investigation. Although completely unwarranted, an investigation would
add unnecessary stress in her life. There is also a risk that her
reputation could be ruined if the former client’s blog posts gain a larger
following.
The psychologist wonders
how she can take proactive action.
Dr. Shermer considers
hiring an attorney.
Dr. Shermer also considers
hiring an online reputation management company.
Dr. Shermer calls you for
a consultation. What are some recommendations that you would make to Dr.
Shermer?
How would you feel if you
were Dr. Shermer?
Monday, December 2, 2013
The Pervasive Problem With Placebos in Psychology
By Walter R. Boot, Daniel J. Simons, Cary Stothart, and Cassie Stutts
doi: 10.1177/1745691613491271
Perspectives on Psychological Science July 2013 vol. 8 no. 4 445-454
Abstract
To draw causal conclusions about the efficacy of a psychological intervention, researchers must compare the treatment condition with a control group that accounts for improvements caused by factors other than the treatment. Using an active control helps to control for the possibility that improvement by the experimental group resulted from a placebo effect. Although active control groups are superior to “no-contact” controls, only when the active control group has the same expectation of improvement as the experimental group can we attribute differential improvements to the potency of the treatment. Despite the need to match expectations between treatment and control groups, almost no psychological interventions do so. This failure to control for expectations is not a minor omission—it is a fundamental design flaw that potentially undermines any causal inference. We illustrate these principles with a detailed example from the video-game-training literature showing how the use of an active control group does not eliminate expectation differences. The problem permeates other interventions as well, including those targeting mental health, cognition, and educational achievement. Fortunately, measuring expectations and adopting alternative experimental designs makes it possible to control for placebo effects, thereby increasing confidence in the causal efficacy of psychological interventions.
The entire article is here.
doi: 10.1177/1745691613491271
Perspectives on Psychological Science July 2013 vol. 8 no. 4 445-454
Abstract
To draw causal conclusions about the efficacy of a psychological intervention, researchers must compare the treatment condition with a control group that accounts for improvements caused by factors other than the treatment. Using an active control helps to control for the possibility that improvement by the experimental group resulted from a placebo effect. Although active control groups are superior to “no-contact” controls, only when the active control group has the same expectation of improvement as the experimental group can we attribute differential improvements to the potency of the treatment. Despite the need to match expectations between treatment and control groups, almost no psychological interventions do so. This failure to control for expectations is not a minor omission—it is a fundamental design flaw that potentially undermines any causal inference. We illustrate these principles with a detailed example from the video-game-training literature showing how the use of an active control group does not eliminate expectation differences. The problem permeates other interventions as well, including those targeting mental health, cognition, and educational achievement. Fortunately, measuring expectations and adopting alternative experimental designs makes it possible to control for placebo effects, thereby increasing confidence in the causal efficacy of psychological interventions.
The entire article is here.
Don’t Mess With My ‘Sacred Values’
By FRANK ROSE
The New York Times
Published: November 16, 2013
Here are two excerpts:
Faced with mundane choices, people will readily alter their behavior in response to money. You can pay someone to clean your house or defend you in a murder trial. But with issues like gun control or abortion, a fundamentally different calculus seems to be at work. Economic trade-offs — like lifting an embargo in exchange for concessions — suddenly become unacceptable. As Professor Tetlock (now also at the University of Pennsylvania) has observed, even to suggest such a trade-off is to invite moral outrage, along with feelings of contamination and a need for moral cleansing.
(cut)
Not every issue can be so easily finessed — but whatever the circumstance, money seems a subject best avoided. When Scott Atran of the French National Center for Scientific Research and Jeremy Ginges of the New School for Social Research asked people in the Middle East about potential solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they found that the mention of money frequently incited moral outrage. Among Palestinian refugees, those who were open to compromise responded favorably to the idea of giving up their right of return to Israel in exchange for financial support for the new state of Palestine. But when moral absolutists among the refugees were offered this solution, they greeted it with anger, disgust and increased support for violence. Symbolic gestures — like Israel’s giving up of its claim on the West Bank — had the opposite effect. The same pattern held with Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
The entire article is here.
The New York Times
Published: November 16, 2013
Here are two excerpts:
Faced with mundane choices, people will readily alter their behavior in response to money. You can pay someone to clean your house or defend you in a murder trial. But with issues like gun control or abortion, a fundamentally different calculus seems to be at work. Economic trade-offs — like lifting an embargo in exchange for concessions — suddenly become unacceptable. As Professor Tetlock (now also at the University of Pennsylvania) has observed, even to suggest such a trade-off is to invite moral outrage, along with feelings of contamination and a need for moral cleansing.
(cut)
Not every issue can be so easily finessed — but whatever the circumstance, money seems a subject best avoided. When Scott Atran of the French National Center for Scientific Research and Jeremy Ginges of the New School for Social Research asked people in the Middle East about potential solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they found that the mention of money frequently incited moral outrage. Among Palestinian refugees, those who were open to compromise responded favorably to the idea of giving up their right of return to Israel in exchange for financial support for the new state of Palestine. But when moral absolutists among the refugees were offered this solution, they greeted it with anger, disgust and increased support for violence. Symbolic gestures — like Israel’s giving up of its claim on the West Bank — had the opposite effect. The same pattern held with Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
The entire article is here.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Morality, Disgust, and Countertransference in Psychotherapy
John
D. Gavazzi, Psy.D., ABPP
Samuel
Knapp, Ed.D., ABPP
At the most
basic level, successful outcomes in psychotherapy require a strong therapeutic
alliance between psychologist and patient. A strong therapeutic bond can be
cultivated in many different ways including, but not limited to, similarities
between psychologist and patient (such as age, socioeconomic status, gender,
etc.), psychologist empathy and acceptance, and patient confidence in the psychologist’s
skills. A similarity in moral beliefs likely enhances the working relationship
and correlates with positive outcomes in psychotherapy.
Just as
shared values and moral similarities can strengthen the therapeutic
relationship, negative moral judgments about a patient’s behaviors and beliefs (both
past and current) can erode or rupture the helping relationship. In clinical terms,
moral judgments can lead to negative countertransference. When a psychologist
experiences a negative, morally-driven emotion related to the patient, this
dynamic may adversely affect the quality of the therapeutic relationship. Within
the therapeutic discourse, there are many topics related to the patient’s
values, personal responsibility, and moral behaviors. Moral judgments and
beliefs, like countertransference, are complex, intuitive, automatic, and emotional.
In this article, we will focus on one theory of moral origins to understand how
these complicated, instinctive, and gut-level reactions may promote negative countertransference.
The Crisis in Social Psychology: Paul Bloom on Bloggingheads.tv
Paul Bloom interviews Joseph Simmons about the crisis in social psychology. They discuss the experimental method, the ability to replicate studies, false positives, and studies with "sexy findings".
The entire web site is here.
The entire web site is here.
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