Attitudes in an interpersonal context: Psychological safety as a route to attitude change

Itzchakov, G., & DeMarree, K. G. (2022).

Frontiers in Psychology, 13.

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.932413

Abstract

Interpersonal contexts can be complex because they can involve two or more people who are interdependent, each of whom is pursuing both individual and shared goals. Interactions consist of individual and joint behaviors that evolve dynamically over time. Interactions are likely to affect people’s attitudes because the interpersonal context gives conversation partners a great deal of opportunity to intentionally or unintentionally influence each other. However, despite the importance of attitudes and attitude change in interpersonal interactions, this topic remains understudied. To shed light on the importance of this topic. We briefly review the features of interpersonal contexts and build a case that understanding people’s sense of psychological safety is key to understanding interpersonal influences on people’s attitudes. Specifically, feeling psychologically safe can make individuals more open-minded, increase reflective introspection, and decrease defensive processing. Psychological safety impacts how individuals think, make sense of their social world, and process attitude-relevant information. These processes can result in attitude change, even without any attempt at persuasion. We review the literature on interpersonal threats, receiving psychological safety, providing psychological safety, and interpersonal dynamics. We then detail the shortcomings of current approaches, highlight unanswered questions, and suggest avenues for future research that can contribute in developing this field.

The info is here.

This is part of the reason psychotherapy works.

My summary:

Attitudes are evaluations of people, objects, or ideas, and they can be influenced by a variety of factors, including interpersonal interactions. Psychological safety is a climate in which individuals feel safe to take risks, make mistakes, and be vulnerable. When people feel psychologically safe, they are more likely to express their true thoughts and feelings, which can lead to attitude change.

There are a number of ways that psychological safety can promote attitude change. First, feeling psychologically safe can make people more open-minded. When people feel safe, they are more likely to consider new information and perspectives, even if they challenge their existing beliefs. Second, psychological safety can increase reflective introspection. When people feel safe to be vulnerable, they are more likely to reflect on their own thoughts and feelings, which can lead to deeper insights and changes in attitude. Third, psychological safety can decrease defensive processing. When people feel safe, they are less likely to feel threatened by new information or perspectives, which makes them more open to considering them.

Research has shown that psychological safety can lead to attitude change in a variety of interpersonal contexts, including romantic relationships, friendships, and work teams. For example, one study found that couples who felt psychologically safe in their relationships were more likely to change their attitudes towards each other over time. Another study found that employees who felt psychologically safe in their teams were more likely to change their attitudes towards diversity and inclusion.

Lies and bullshit: The negative effects of misinformation grow stronger over time

Petrocelli, J. V., Seta, C. E., & Seta, J. J. (2023). 

Applied Cognitive Psychology, 37(2), 409–418. 

https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.4043

Abstract

In a world where exposure to untrustworthy communicators is common, trust has become more important than ever for effective marketing. Nevertheless, we know very little about the long-term consequences of exposure to untrustworthy sources, such bullshitters. This research examines how untrustworthy sources—liars and bullshitters—influence consumer attitudes toward a product. Frankfurt's (1986) insidious bullshit hypothesis (i.e., bullshitting is evaluated less negatively than lying but bullshit can be more harmful than are lies) is examined within a traditional sleeper effect—a persuasive influence that increases, rather than decays over time. We obtained a sleeper effect after participants learned that the source of the message was either a liar or a bullshitter. However, compared to the liar source condition, the same message from a bullshitter resulted in more extreme immediate and delayed attitudes that were in line with an otherwise discounted persuasive message (i.e., an advertisement). Interestingly, attitudes returned to control condition levels when a bullshitter was the source of the message, suggesting that knowing an initially discounted message may be potentially accurate/inaccurate (as is true with bullshit, but not lies) does not result in the long-term discounting of that message. We discuss implications for marketing and other contexts of persuasion.

General Discussion

There is a considerable body of knowledge about the antecedents and consequences of lying in marketing and other contexts (e.g., Ekman, 1985), but much less is known about the other untrustworthy source: The Bullshitter. The current investigation suggests that the distinction between bullshitting and lying is important to marketing and to persuasion more generally. People are exposed to scores of lies and bullshit every day and this exposure has increased dramatically as the use of the internet has shifted from a platform for socializing to a source of information (e.g., Di Domenico et al., 2021). Because things such as truth status and source status fade faster than familiarity, illusory truth effects for consumer products can emerge after only 3 days post-initial exposure (Skurnik et al., 2005), and within the hour for basic knowledge questions (Fazio et al., 2015). As mirrored in our conditions that received discounting cues after the initial attitude information, at times people are lied to, or bullshitted, and only learn afterwards they were deceived. It is then that these untrustworthy sources appear to have a sleeper effect creating unwarranted and undiscounted attitudes.

It should be noted that our data do not suggest that the impact of lie and bullshit discounting cues fade differentially. However, the discounting cue in the bullshit condition had less of an immediate and long-term suppression effect than in the lie condition. In fact, after 14 days, the bullshit communication not only had more of an influence on attitudes, but the influence was not significantly different from that of the control communication. This finding suggests that bullshit can be more insidious than lies. As it relates to marketing, the insidious nature of exposure to bullshit can create false beliefs that subsequently affect behavior, even when people have been told that the information came from a person known to spread bullshit. The insidious nature of bullshit is magnified by the fact that even when it is clear that one is expressing his/her opinion via bullshit, people do not appear to hold the bullshitter to the same standard as the liar (Frankfurt, 1986). People may think that at least the bullshitter often believes his/her own bullshit, whereas the liar knows his/her statement is not true (Bernal, 2006; Preti, 2006; Reisch, 2006). Because of this difference, what may appear to be harmless communications from a bullshitter may have serious repercussions for consumers and organizations. Additionally, along with the research of Foos et al. (2016), the present research suggests that the harmful influence of untrustworthy sources may not be recognized initially but appears over time. The present research suggests that efforts to fight the consequences of fake news (see Atkinson, 2019) are more difficult because of the sleeper effect. The negative effects of unsubstantiated or false information may not only persist but may grow stronger over time.

The research is here.

Towards a Social Psychology of Cynicism

Neumann, E., & Zaki, j. (2022, September 13).

https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/gjm8c

Abstract

Cynicism is the attitude that people are primarily motivated by self-interest. It tracks numerous negative outcomes, and yet many people are cynical. To understand this “cynicism paradox,” we review and call for more social psychological work on how cynicism spreads, with implications for how we might slow it down.

The Cynicism Paradox

Out of almost 8,000 respondents from 41 countries, many agree that “powerful people tend to exploit others” or that “kind-hearted people usually suffer losses”. This indicates widespread cynicism, the attitude that people are primarily motivated by self-interest, often accompanied by emotions such as contempt, anger, and distress, and antagonistic interactions with others. What explains such cynicism? Perhaps it reflects a realistic perception of the suffering caused by human self-interest. But workin social psychology regularly demonstrates that attitudes are not always perfect  mirrors of reality.  We will argue  that  people  often  overestimate self-interest,  create  it through their expectations, or overstate their own to not appear naïve. Cynicism rises when people witness self-interest, but social psychology –so far relatively quiet on the topic –can explain why they get trapped in this worldview even when it stops tracking reality.

Cynicism is related, but not reducible to, a lack of trust. Trust is often defined as accepting vulnerability based on positive expectations of others. Generalized trust implies a general tendency to  have  positive  expectations  of  others,  and  shares  with  cynicism  the  tendency  to  judge  the character of a whole group of people. But cynicism is more than reduced positive expectations.It entails a strongly negative view of human nature. The intensity of cynicism’s hostility further differentiates it from mere generalized distrust. Finally, while people can trust and distrust others’ competence,  integrity,  and  predictability,  cynicism  usually  focuses  on  judgments  of  moral character.  This  differentiates  cynicism  from  mere  pessimism,  which  encompasses  any  negative beliefs about the future, moral or non-moral alike. 

The info is here.

Direct applications to psychotherapy.

“Everybody’s doing it”: Exploring the consequences of intergroup contact norms

Boss, H., Buliga, E., & MacInnis, C. C. (2022). 

Group Processes & Intergroup Relations.

https://doi.org/10.1177/13684302221106926

Abstract

Newcomers to a country can strongly benefit from having positive intergroup contact with host country residents. Often, however, such contact does not occur. Norms surrounding intergroup contact between newcomers and host country residents were explored over three studies. Correlational relationships among positive perceived contact norms, positive attitudes, and behavioural intentions supporting contact were demonstrated over multiple studies. Further, an experimental manipulation indicating higher (vs. lower and control) contact between host country residents and newcomers predicted behavioural intentions toward future intergroup contact through heightened intergroup contact norms and more positive attitudes toward newcomers. Implications of using norms as a means to impact intergroup relations are discussed.

From General Discussion

Across studies, we demonstrated that perceived norms surrounding contact between Canadians and newcomers can influence attitudes toward newcomers, and one’s willingness to engage in contact with them. These findings are consistent with the theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991), such that perceived ingroup norms and attitudes are important predictors of behavioural intentions. Our findings were also consistent with group norms theory (Sherif & Sherif, 1953), such that perceived norms were strong predictors of attitudes toward newcomers. A manipulation involving reading a single newspaper article had clear implications for the perceived norms of participants in Studies 2–3. This has implications for discussions of newcomers in the media. For example, newcomer-serving organizations seeking to attract volunteers should be careful with how requests are framed. Projecting perceptions of ingroup disinterest in or disengagement from outgroups may damage attitudes and contact intentions among individuals who might otherwise be desired volunteers. As such, it may be ideal for newcomer-serving agencies to focus on the contact that is occurring rather than on the lack of contact when seeking to attract new volunteers.

Conclusion

We provide evidence that perceived social norms surrounding contact between ingroup and outgroup members can play an important role in attitudes toward outgroups and intentions to interact with these individuals in the future. Our findings are specific to the context of contact between Canadians and newcomers to Canada but may generalize to similar contexts. Our findings suggest that norm-based interventions can be a means to promote positive intergroup relations. Promoting positive norms about intergroup contact to the dominant group may be a valuable tool for increasing contact with newcomers, an important outcome given that intergroup contact can facilitate positive integration for new immigrants and refugees.

The research is here.

Attributions of emotion and reduced attitude openness prevent people from engaging others with opposing views

Teeny, J. D., & Petty, R. E. (2022).

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 

102, 104373.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2022.104373

Abstract

People exhibit a general unwillingness to engage others on social issues for which they disagree (e.g., political elections, police funding, vaccine mandates, etc.), a phenomenon that contributes to the political polarization vexing societies today. Previous research has largely attributed this unwillingness to the perception that such counterattitudinal targets are extreme, certain, and/or difficult to change on these topics. However, the present research offers an additional theoretical explanation. First, we introduce a less studied perception of targets, their affective-cognitive attitude basis (i.e., the degree to which an attitude is seemingly based on emotions versus reasons) that is critical in determining engagement willingness. Specifically, perceivers are less willing to engage with targets who are perceived to hold an affective (vs. cognitive) attitude basis on a topic, because these targets are inferred to have low attitudinal openness on it (i.e., expected to be unlikely to genuinely “hear out” the perceiver). Second, we use a series of multimethod studies with varied U.S. samples to show why this person perception process is central to understanding counterattitudinal engagement. Compared to proattitudinal targets, perceivers on both sides of an issue ascribe more affective (vs. cognitive) attitude bases to rival (counterattitudinal) targets, which cues inferences of reduced attitudinal openness, thereby diminishing people's willingness to engage with these individuals.

From the General Discussion

One of the foremost paths to combatting political polarization is to have people of opposing views engage with counterattitudinal others (e.g., Broockman & Kalla, 2016). Unfortunately, people tend to be unwilling to do this, which previous research has largely attributed to perceptions about the target’s attitudinal extremity, certainty, and the perceived difficulty required to change the target’s mind. However, in the current research, effects on these measures were not only inconsistent (see Footnotes 2 and 4 as well as the web appendix), but they also had reduced explanatory power relative to the focal perceptions outlined here. That is, regardless of how certain, extreme, or difficult to change a counterattitudinal target was perceived to be, it was the affect (relative to cognition) ascribed to their attitude that predicted inferences of reduced attitudinal openness, which in turn determined bipartisan engagement.

These findings emerged across multiple topics, varied study designs, and in light of targets presenting actual rationale for their opinions.  Moreover, post-hoc analyses reveal that these effects were neither moderated by which side of the issue the participants took, nor the participant’s ideological stance (i.e., both liberals and conservatives demonstrated these effects), nor the participants’ own perceived attitude basis.

A pdf is here.

The psychology of hate: Moral concerns differentiate hate from dislike

Pretus, C., Ray, J. L., et al. (2018, June 25). 

https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/x9y2p

Abstract

We investigated whether any differences in the psychological conceptualization of hate and dislike were simply a matter of degree of negativity (i.e., hate falls on the end of the continuum of dislike) or also morality (i.e., hate is imbued with distinct moral components that distinguish it from dislike). In three lab studies in Canada and the US, participants reported disliked and hated attitude objects and rated each on dimensions including valence, attitude strength, morality, and emotional content. Quantitative and qualitative measures revealed that hated attitude objects were more negative than disliked attitude objects and associated with moral beliefs and emotions, even after adjusting for differences in negativity. In study four, we analyzed the rhetoric on real hate sites and complaint forums and found that the language used on prominent hate websites contained more words related to morality, but not negativity, relative to complaint forums.

Discussion

In our first study, we examined whether the conceptual differences between hate and dislike are simply a matter of degree of negativity or also a matter of morality. We found support for the intensity hypothesis—hated objects were viewed as more negative than disliked objects—suggesting that the difference between hate and dislike is indeed a matter of intensity. However, we also found support for the morality hypothesis—hated attitude objects were rated as more connected to participants’ core moral beliefs and were associated with higher levels of moral emotions (contempt, anger, and disgust) than disliked attitude objects—suggesting that the difference between hate and dislike may also be a matter of morality. We found convergent evidence for this latter hypothesis across quantitative and qualitative analyses, with self-reports, expressions of moral emotions, and spontaneous descriptions.

We note that differences in morality were attenuated when participants were asked about disliked attitudinal objects first. We discuss possible explanations of this order effect below. Importantly, the results supporting the morality hypothesis remained significant even when adjusting for negativity. Above and beyond the effect of negativity, both moral concerns and moral emotions explained the variance in ratings of hated versus disliked attitude objects. Likewise, participants spontaneously reported that hated objects were more closely tied to morality than disliked objects in their qualitative responses. These findings provide preliminary evidence that the conceptualization of hate may differ from dislike, and that morality may play a key role in explaining this difference.

The research is here.

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.

The research is here.

How Other- and Self-Compassion Reduce Burnout through Resource Replenishment

Kira Schabram and Yu Tse Heng

Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 65, No. 2

Abstract

The average employee feels burnt out, a multidimensional state of depletion likely to persist without intervention. In this paper, we consider compassion as an agentic action by which employees may replenish their own depleted resources and thereby recover. We draw on conservation of resources theory to examine the resource-generating power of two distinct expressions of compassion (self- and other-directed) on three dimensions of burnout (exhaustion, cynicism, inefficacy). Utilizing two complementary designs—a longitudinal field survey of 130 social service providers and an experiential sampling methodology with 100 business students across 10 days—we find a complex pattern of results indicating that both compassion expressions have the potential to generate salutogenic resources (self-control, belonging, self-esteem) that replenish different dimensions of burnout. Specifically, self-compassion remedies exhaustion and other-compassion remedies cynicism—directly or indirectly through resources—while the effects of self- and other-compassion on inefficacy vary. Our key takeaway is that compassion can indeed contribute to human sustainability in organizations, but only when the type of compassion provided generates resources that fit the idiosyncratic experience of burnout.

From the Discussion Section

Our work suggests a more immediate benefit, namely that giving compassion can serve an important resource generative function for the self. Indeed, in neither of our studies did we find either compassion expression to ever have a deleterious effect. While this is in line with the broader literature on self-compassion (Neff, 2011), it is somewhat surprising when it comes to other-compassion. Hobfoll (1989) speculated that when people find themselves depleted, giving support to others should sap them further and such personal costs have been identified in previously cited research on prosocial gestures (Bolino & Grant, 2016; Lanaj et al., 2016; Uy et al., 2017). Why then did other-compassion serve a singularly restorative function? As we noted in our literature review, compassion is distinguished among the family of prosocial behaviors by its principal attendance to human needs (Tsui, 2013) rather than organizational effectiveness, and this may offer an explanation. Perhaps, there is something fundamentally more beneficial for actors about engaging in acts of kindness and care (e.g. taking someone who is having a hard time out for coffee) than in providing instrumental support (e.g. exerting oneself to provide a friendly review). We further note that our study also did not find any evidence of ‘compassion fatigue’ (Figley, 2013), identified frequently by practitioners among the social service employees that comprised our first sample. In line with the ‘desperation corollary’ of COR (Hobfoll et al., 2018), which suggests that individuals can reach a state of extreme depletion characterized by maladaptive coping, it may be that there exists a tipping point after which compassion ceases to offer benefits. If there is, however, it must be quite high to not have registered in either the longitudinal or diary designs. 

The research is here, behind a paywall.

Moderators of The Liking Bias in Judgments of Moral Character

Bocian, K. Baryla, W. & Wojciszke, B. 

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 

(2021)

Abstract 

Previous research found evidence for a liking bias in moral character judgments because judgments of liked people are higher than those of disliked or neutral ones. The present article sought conditions moderating this effect. In Study 1 (N = 792), the impact of the liking bias on moral character judgments was strongly attenuated when participants were educated that attitudes bias moral judgments. In Study 2 (N = 376), the influence of liking on moral character attributions was eliminated when participants were accountable for the justification of their moral judgments. Overall, these results suggest that even though liking biases moral character attributions, this bias might be reduced or eliminated when deeper information processing is required to generate judgments of others’ moral character. Keywords: moral judgments, moral character, attitudes, liking bias, accountability.

General Discussion

In this research, we sought to replicate the past results that demonstrated the influence of liking on moral character judgments, and we investigated conditions that could limit this influence. We demonstrated that liking elicited by similarity (Study 1) and mimicry (Study 2) biases the perceptions of another person’s moral character. Thus, we corroborated previous findings by Bocian et al. (2018), who found that attitudes bias moral judgments. More importantly, we showed conditions that moderate the liking bias. Specifically, in Study 1, we found evidence that forewarning participants that liking can bias moral character judgments weaken the liking bias two times. In Study 2, we demonstrated that the liking bias was eliminated when we made participants accountable for their moral decisions. 

By systematically examining the conditions that reduce the liking influences on moral character attributions, we built on and extended the past work in the area of moral cognition and biases reduction. First, while past studies have focused on the impact of accountability on the fundamental attribution error (Tetlock, 1985), overconfidence (Tetlock & Kim, 1987), or order of information (Schadewald & Limberg, 1992), we examined the effectiveness of accountability in debiasing moral judgments. Thus, we demonstrated that biased moral judgments could be effectively corrected when people are obliged to justify their judgments to others. Second, we showed that educating people that attitudes might bias their moral judgments, to some extent, effectively helped them debiased their moral character judgments. We thus extended the past research on the effectiveness of forewarning people of biases in social judgment and decision-making (Axt et al., 2018; Hershberger et al., 1997) to biases in moral judgments. 

A pdf is here.

What do you believe? Atheism and Religion

Kristen Weir

Monitor on Psychology

Vol. 51, No. 5, p. 52

Here is an excerpt:

Good health isn’t the only positive outcome attributed to religion. Research also suggests that religious belief is linked to prosocial behaviors such as volunteering and donating to charity.

But as with health benefits, Galen’s work suggests such prosocial benefits have more to do with general group membership than with religious belief or belonging to a specific religious group (Social Indicators Research, Vol. 122, No. 2, 2015). In fact, he says, while religious people are more likely to volunteer or give to charitable causes related to their beliefs, atheists appear to be more generous to a wider range of causes and dissimilar groups.

Nevertheless, atheists and other nonbelievers still face considerable stigma, and are often perceived as less moral than their religious counterparts. In a study across 13 countries, Gervais and colleagues found that people in most countries intuitively believed that extreme moral violations (such as murder and mutilation) were more likely to be committed by atheists than by religious believers. This anti-atheist prejudice also held true among people who identified as atheists, suggesting that religious culture exerts a powerful influence on moral judgments, even among non­believers (Nature Human Behaviour, Vol. 1, Article 0151, 2017).

Yet nonreligious people are similar to religious people in a number of ways. In the Understanding Unbelief project, Farias and colleagues found that across all six countries they studied, both believers and nonbelievers cited family and freedom as the most important values in their own lives and in the world more broadly. The team also found evidence to counter a common assumption that atheists believe life has no purpose. They found the belief that the universe is “ultimately meaningless” was a minority view among non­believers in each country.

“People assume that [non­believers] have very different sets of values and ideas about the world, but it looks like they probably don’t,” Farias says.

For the nonreligious, however, meaning may be more likely to come from within than from above. Again drawing on data from the General Social Survey, Speed and colleagues found that in the United States, atheists and the religiously unaffiliated were no more likely to believe that life is meaningless than were people who were religious or raised with a religious affiliation. 

Why Do Social Identities Matter?

Linda Martín Alcoff
thephilosopher1923.0rg
Originally published

Here is an excerpt:

What has come to be known as identity politics gives a negative answer to these questions. If social identities continue to structure social interactions in debilitating ways, progress on this front requires showing varied identities in leadership, among other things, so that prejudices can be reformed. But the use of identities in this way can of course be manipulated. Certain experiences and interests might be implied when in reality there are no good grounds for either. For example, when President Donald Trump chose Ben Carson, an African American, to head up the federal department overseeing low-income, public housing, it appeared to be a choice of someone with an inside experience who would know first-hand the effects of government policies. Carson was not a housing expert, nor did he have any experience in housing administration, but his identity seemed like it might be helpful. When the appointment was announced, many applauded it, assuming that Carson must have lived in public housing, and neglected to investigate any further. Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee claimed that Carson was the first Housing and Urban Development Secretary to have lived in public housing, and called Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi a racist for criticizing Carson’s credentials. Carson’s appointment helped to make President Trump appear to be making appointments with an eye toward an insider’s perspective, unless one checked the subsequent news outlets that explained Carson’s actual background. In fact, Carson never lived in public housing. As a neurosurgeon, it is far from clear what in Carson’s background prepared him for a role leading the federal housing department other than the superficial feature of his racial background.

Clearly, social identities are not always misleading in this way, but they can be purposefully used to misdirect. They can also be used to manufacture or heighten conflict. Allowing housing discrimination to continue to flourish has created significant differences in real estate values across neighbourhoods with different ethnic and racial constitutions, causing the most substantial part of the differences in wealth between groups. These differences, and the related differences of interest that result, are not a natural outcome of racial differences, but the product of real estate policies and practices that segregated neighbourhoods and orchestrated economic disparities that would cross multiple generations. It is important to understand the conflicts of interest that result from such differences as produced by political policy, rather than being reflective of natural or pre-political conflicts. While our shared identities can signal true commonalities, we need to ask: what is the true source of these commonalities?

The info is here.

How to Fix Science's Diversity Problem

Benjamin Deen
Scientific American
Originally posted 11 July 20

Here is an excerpt:

As bothered as I was by my own behavior, I’m inspired by the simplicity of the fix: just flag the importance of representation when making decisions about who exists and is heard in academia. Scientists at all levels make these decisions. As trainees, we decide whom to cite in our manuscripts, whose research to read and engage with. Later, we begin choosing people to invite to talks, and students to mentor. Ultimately, as senior scientists, we have an even more direct gatekeeping role, deciding whom to hire and, thus, who constitutes the scientific enterprise. These choices are all levers that can be used to nudge the system away from its default, white male–heavy state.

We tend to think about racism as a personality trait: someone can be racist, nonracist or antiracist. But this simple model that we use to understand other people belies an incredibly complex underlying reality. We contain multitudes. We can be aware of the problems, read Baldwin and Coates, and still have patterns of thinking and behavior that perpetuate racial discrimination.

I’m not sure if we can convince the rest of the country to make concrete behavioral changes, to focus their effort on this issue and face the uncomfortable need to change. But I have more hope for science, which is largely composed of liberal and thoughtful people.

The info is here.

A Social Identity Approach to Engaging Christians in the Issue of Climate Change

Goldberg, M. H., Gustafson, A., Ballew, M. T.,
Rosenthal, S. A., & Leiserowitz, A.
(2019). Science Communication, 
41(4), 442–463.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547019860847

Abstract

Using two nationally representative surveys (total N = 2,544) and two experiments (total N = 1,620), we investigate a social identity approach to engaging Christians in the issue of climate change. Results show Christian Americans say “protecting God’s creation” is a top reason for wanting to reduce global warming. An exploratory experiment and a preregistered replication tested a “stewardship frame” message with Christian Americans and found significant increases in pro-environmental and climate change beliefs, which were explained by increases in viewing environmental protection as a moral and religious issue, and perceptions that other Christians care about environmental protection.

From the Discussion:

Two studies using large diverse samples demonstrate that a social identity approach to engaging Christians in the issue of climate change is a promising strategy. In Study 1, in a combined sample of two nationally representative waves of survey data, we found that “protect God’s creation” is one of the most important motivations Christians report for wanting to mitigate global warming. This is important because it indicates that many Americans, and especially Christians, are willing to view climate change through a religious lens, and that messages that frame climate change as a religious issue could encourage greater engagement in the issue among this population.

Does AI Ethics Need to be More Inclusive?

Patrick Lin
Forbes.com
Originally posted October 29, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

Ethics is more than a survey of opinions

First, as the study’s authors allude to in their Nature paper and elsewhere, public attitudes don’t dictate what’s ethical or not.  People believe all kinds of crazy things—such as that slavery should be permitted—but that doesn’t mean those ethical beliefs are true or have any weight.  So, capturing responses of more people doesn’t necessarily help figure out what’s ethical or not.  Sometimes, more is just more, not better or even helpful.

This is the difference between descriptive ethics and normative ethics.  The former is more like sociology that simply seeks to describe what people believe, while the latter is more like philosophy that seeks reasons for why a belief may be justified (or not) and how things ought to be.

Dr. Edmond Awad, lead author of the Nature paper, cautioned, “What we are trying to show here is descriptive ethics: peoples’ preferences in ethical decisions.  But when it comes to normative ethics, which is how things should be done, that should be left to experts.”

Nonetheless, public attitudes are a necessary ingredient in practical policymaking, which should aim at the ethical but doesn’t always hit that mark.  If expert judgments in ethics diverge too much from public attitudes—asking more from a population than what they’re willing to agree to—that’s a problem for implementing the policy, and a resolution is needed.

The info is here.

The Importance of Making the Moral Case for Immigration

Ilya Somin
reason.com
Originally posted on October 23, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

The parallels between racial discrimination and hostility to immigration were in fact noted by such nineteenth century opponents of slavery as Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. These similarities suggest that moral appeals similar to those made by the antislavery and civil rights movements can also play a key role in the debate over immigration.

Moral appeals were in fact central to the two issues on which public opinion has been most supportive of immigrants in recent years: DACA and family separation. Overwhelming majorities supporting letting undocumented immigrants who were brought to America as children stay in the US, oppose the forcible separation of children from their parents at the border. In both cases, public opinion seems driven by considerations of justice and morality, not narrow self-interest (although letting DACA recipients stay would indeed benefit the US economy). Admittedly, these are relatively "easy" cases because both involve harming children for the alleged sins of their parents. But they nonetheless show the potency of moral considerations in the immigration debate. And most other immigration restrictions are only superficially different: instead of punishing children for their parents' illegal border-crossing, they victimize adults and children alike because their parents gave birth to them in the wrong place.

The key role of moral principles in struggles for liberty and equality should not be surprising. Contrary to popular belief, voters' political views on most issues are not determined by narrow self-interest. Public attitudes are instead generally driven by a combination of moral principles and perceived benefits to society as a whole. Immigration is not an exception to that tendency.

This is not to say that voters weigh the interests of all people equally. Throughout history, they have often ignored or downgraded those of groups seen as inferior, or otherwise undeserving of consideration. Slavery and segregation persisted in large part because, as Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney notoriously put it, many whites believed that blacks "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." Similarly, the subordination of women was not seriously questioned for many centuries, because most people believed that it was a natural part of life, and that men were entitled to rule over the opposite sex. In much the same way, today most people assume that natives are entitled to keep out immigrants either to preserve their culture against supposedly inferior ways or because they analogize a nation to a house or club from which the "owners" can exclude newcomers for almost any reason they want.

The info is here.

Embracing the robot

John Danaher
aeon.co
Originally posted March 19, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

Contrary to the critics, I believe our popular discourse about robotic relationships has become too dark and dystopian. We overstate the negatives and overlook the ways in which relationships with robots could complement and enhance existing human relationships.

In Blade Runner 2049, the true significance of K’s relationship with Joi is ambiguous. It seems that they really care for each other, but this could be an illusion. She is, after all, programmed to serve his needs. The relationship is an inherently asymmetrical one. He owns and controls her; she would not survive without his good will. Furthermore, there is a third-party lurking in the background: she has been designed and created by a corporation, which no doubt records the data from her interactions, and updates her software from time to time.

This is a far cry from the philosophical ideal of love. Philosophers emphasise the need for mutual commitment in any meaningful relationship. It’s not enough for you to feel a strong, emotional attachment to another; they have to feel a similar attachment to you. Robots might be able to perform love, saying and doing all the right things, but performance is insufficient.

The information is here.

The tech bias: why Silicon Valley needs social theory

Jan Bier
aeon.com
Originally posted February 14, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

That Google memo is an extreme example of an imbalance in how different ways of knowing are valued. Silicon Valley tech companies draw on innovative technical theory but have yet to really incorporate advances in social theory. The inattention to such knowledge becomes all too apparent when algorithms fail in their real-life applications – from automated soap-dispensers that fail to turn on when a user has dark brown skin, to the new iPhone X’s inability to distinguish among different Asian women.

Social theorists in fields such as sociology, geography, and science and technology studies have shown how race, gender and class biases inform technical design. So there’s irony in the fact that employees hold sexist and racist attitudes, yet ‘we are supposed to believe that these same employees are developing “neutral” or “objective” decision-making tools’, as the communications scholar Safiya Umoja Noble at the University of Southern California argues in her book Algorithms of Oppression (2018).

In many cases, what’s eroding the value of social knowledge is unintentional bias – on display when prominent advocates for equality in science and tech undervalue research in the social sciences. The physicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, for example, has downplayed the link between sexism and under-representation in science. Apparently, he’s happy to ignore extensive research pointing out that the natural sciences’ male-dominated institutional cultures are a major cause of the attrition of female scientists at all stages of their careers.

The article is here.

Would you be willing to zap your child's brain? Public perspectives on parental responsibilities and the ethics of enhancing children with transcranial direct current stimulation

Katy Wagner, Hannah Maslen, Justin Oakley, and Julian Savulescu
AJOB Empirical Bioethics Vol. 0, Iss. ja, 2018

Abstract

BACKGROUND:
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is an experimental brain stimulation technology that may one day be used to enhance the cognitive capacities of children. Discussion about the ethical issues that this would raise has rarely moved beyond expert circles. However, the opinions of the wider public can lead to more democratic policy decisions and broaden academic discussion of this issue.

METHODS:
We performed a quantitative survey of members of the US public. A between-subjects design was employed, where conditions varied based on the trait respondents considered for enhancement.

RESULTS:
227 responses were included for analysis. Our key finding was that the majority were unwilling to enhance their child with tDCS. Respondents were most reluctant to enhance traits considered fundamental to the self (such as motivation and empathy). However, many respondents may give in to implicit coercion to enhance their child in spite of an initial reluctance. A ban on tDCS was not supported if it were to be used safely for the enhancement of mood or mathematical ability. Opposition to such a ban may be related to the belief that tDCS use would not represent cheating or violate authenticity (as it relates to achievements rather than identity).

CONCLUSIONS:
The wider public appears to think that crossing the line from treatment to enhancement with tDCS would not be in a child's best interests. However, an important alternative interpretation of our results is that lay people may be willing to use enhancers that matched their preference for 'natural' enhancers. A ban on the safe use of tDCS for enhancing non-fundamental traits would be unlikely to garner public support. Nonetheless, it could become important to regulate tDCS in order to prevent misuse on children, because individuals reluctant to enhance may be likely to give in to implicit coercion to enhance their child.

The research is here.

When and why we torture: A review of psychology research.

Shannon C. Houck & Meredith Repke
Translational Issues in Psychological Science
September 2017

Abstract

There is an ongoing debate about the treatment of detainees, torture use, and torture efficacy. Missing from this debate, however, is empirical research on the psychology of torture. When and why do people justify the use of torture, and what influences torture endorsement? Psychological science has a valuable opportunity to address the applied problem of torture by further investigating when and why people justify its use. Our goals are to (a) contribute to the public debate about torture with empirical arguments, and (b) inform and promote the inclusion of psychological expertise in the development of policy related to torture. With those goals in mind, this article provides an overview of the psychology research on torture to date, and discusses how this research translates to the torture debate and policy-making. Further, we highlight the need for conducting additional empirical research on torture’s ineffectiveness, as well as the need for researchers to engage in the public discussion of issues related to torture.

Here’s how the article ends:

If popular opinion dictates that torture is justifiable in under the right conditions, torture will continue, regardless of policies or ethics. Psychologists’ input is relevant to many topics, however the highest stakes are at risk when it comes to the issue of torture, making the input of psychological researchers of the utmost importance.

The article is here, available for download.

Morally Reframed Arguments Can Affect Support for Political Candidates

Jan G. Voelkel and Matthew Feinberg
Social Psychological and Personality Science
First Published September 28, 2017

Abstract

Moral reframing involves crafting persuasive arguments that appeal to the targets’ moral values but argue in favor of something they would typically oppose. Applying this technique to one of the most politically polarizing events—political campaigns—we hypothesized that messages criticizing one’s preferred political candidate that also appeal to that person’s moral values can decrease support for the candidate. We tested this claim in the context of the 2016 American presidential election. In Study 1, conservatives reading a message opposing Donald Trump grounded in a more conservative value (loyalty) supported him less than conservatives reading a message grounded in more liberal concerns (fairness). In Study 2, liberals reading a message opposing Hillary Clinton appealing to fairness values were less supportive of Clinton than liberals in a loyalty-argument condition. These results highlight how moral reframing can be used to overcome the rigid stances partisans often hold and help develop political acceptance.

The research is here.