Fairytales have always reflected the morals of the age. It’s not a sin to rewrite them

Martha Gill

The Guardian

Originally posted 4 June 23

Here are two excerpts:

General outrage greeted “woke” updates to Roald Dahl books this year, and still periodically erupts over Disney remakes, most recently a forthcoming film with a Latina actress as Snow White, and a new Peter Pan & Wendy with “lost girls”. The argument is that too much fashionable refurbishment tends to ruin a magical kingdom, and that cult classics could do with the sort of Grade I listing applied to heritage buildings. If you want to tell new stories, fine – but why not start from scratch?

But this point of view misses something, which is that updating classics is itself an ancient part of literary culture; in fact, it is a tradition, part of our heritage too. While the larger portion of the literary canon is carefully preserved, a slice of it has always been more flexible, to be retold and reshaped as times change.

Fairytales fit within this latter custom: they have been updated, periodically, for many hundreds of years. Cult figures such as Dracula, Frankenstein and Sherlock Holmes fit there too, as do superheroes: each generation, you might say, gets the heroes it deserves. And so does Bond. Modernity is both a villain and a hero within the Bond franchise: the dramatic tension between James – a young cosmopolitan “dinosaur” – and the passing of time has always been part of the fun.

This tradition has a richness to it: it is a historical record of sorts. Look at the progress of the fairy story through the ages and you get a twisty tale of dubious progress, a moral journey through the woods. You could say fairytales have always been politically correct – that is, tweaked to reflect whatever morals a given cohort of parents most wanted to teach their children.

(cut)

The idea that we are pasting over history – censoring important artefacts – is wrongheaded too. It is not as if old films or books have been burned, wiped from the internet or removed from libraries. With today’s propensity for writing things down, common since the 1500s, there is no reason to fear losing the “original” stories.

As for the suggestion that minority groups should make their own stories instead – this is a sly form of exclusion. Ancient universities and gentlemen’s clubs once made similar arguments; why couldn’t exiled individuals simply set up their own versions? It is not so easy. Old stories weave themselves deep into the tapestry of a nation; newer ones will necessarily be confined to the margins.

The info is here.

My take: Updating classic stories can be beneficial and even necessary to promote inclusion, diversity, equity, and fairness. By not updating these stories, we risk perpetuating harmful stereotypes and narratives that reinforce the dominant culture. When we update classic stories, we can create new possibilities for representation and understanding that can help to build a more just and equitable world.  Dominant cultures need to cede power to promote more unity in a multicultural nation.

Gender-Affirming Care for Trans Youth Is Neither New nor Experimental: A Timeline and Compilation of Studies

Julia Serano

Medium.com

Originally posted 16 May 23

Trans and gender-diverse people are a pancultural and transhistorical phenomenon. It is widely understood that we, like LGBTQ+ people more generally, arise due to natural variation rather than the result of pathology, modernity, or the latest conspiracy theory.

Gender-affirming healthcare has a long history. The first trans-related surgeries were carried out in the 1910s–1930s (Meyerowitz, 2002, pp. 16–21). While some doctors were supportive early on, most were wary. Throughout the mid-twentieth century, these skeptical doctors subjected trans people to all sorts of alternate treatments — from perpetual psychoanalysis, to aversion and electroshock therapies, to administering assigned-sex-consistent hormones (e.g., testosterone for trans female/feminine people), and so on — but none of them worked. The only treatment that reliably allowed trans people to live happy and healthy lives was allowing them to transition. While doctors were initially worried that many would eventually come to regret that decision, study after study has shown that gender-affirming care has a far lower regret rate (typically around 1 or 2 percent) than virtually any other medical procedure. Given all this, plus the fact that there is no test for being trans (medical, psychological, or otherwise), around the turn of the century, doctors began moving away from strict gatekeeping and toward an informed consent model for trans adults to attain gender-affirming care.

Trans children have always existed — indeed most trans adults can tell you about their trans childhoods. During the twentieth century, while some trans kids did socially transition (Gill-Peterson, 2018), most had their gender identities disaffirmed, either by parents who disbelieved them or by doctors who subjected them to “gender reparative” or “conversion” therapies. The rationale behind the latter was a belief at that time that gender identity was flexible and subject to change during early childhood, but we now know that this is not true (see e.g., Diamond & Sigmundson, 1997; Reiner & Gearhart, 2004). Over the years, it became clear that these conversion efforts were not only ineffective, but they caused real harm — this is why most health professional organizations oppose them today.

Given the harm caused by gender-disaffirming approaches, around the turn of the century, doctors and gender clinics began moving toward what has come to be known as the gender affirmative model — here’s how I briefly described this approach in my 2016 essay Detransition, Desistance, and Disinformation: A Guide for Understanding Transgender Children Debates:

Rather than being shamed by their families and coerced into gender conformity, these children are given the space to explore their genders. If they consistently, persistently, and insistently identify as a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth, then their identity is respected, and they are given the opportunity to live as a member of that gender. If they remain happy in their identified gender, then they may later be placed on puberty blockers to stave off unwanted bodily changes until they are old enough (often at age sixteen) to make an informed decision about whether or not to hormonally transition. If they change their minds at any point along the way, then they are free to make the appropriate life changes and/or seek out other identities.

The info is here.

Using the Veil of Ignorance to align AI systems with principles of justice

Weidinger, L. McKee, K.R., et al. (2023).

PNAS, 120(18), e2213709120

Abstract

The philosopher John Rawls proposed the Veil of Ignorance (VoI) as a thought experiment to identify fair principles for governing a society. Here, we apply the VoI to an important governance domain: artificial intelligence (AI). In five incentive-compatible studies (N = 2, 508), including two preregistered protocols, participants choose principles to govern an Artificial Intelligence (AI) assistant from behind the veil: that is, without knowledge of their own relative position in the group. Compared to participants who have this information, we find a consistent preference for a principle that instructs the AI assistant to prioritize the worst-off. Neither risk attitudes nor political preferences adequately explain these choices. Instead, they appear to be driven by elevated concerns about fairness: Without prompting, participants who reason behind the VoI more frequently explain their choice in terms of fairness, compared to those in the Control condition. Moreover, we find initial support for the ability of the VoI to elicit more robust preferences: In the studies presented here, the VoI increases the likelihood of participants continuing to endorse their initial choice in a subsequent round where they know how they will be affected by the AI intervention and have a self-interested motivation to change their mind. These results emerge in both a descriptive and an immersive game. Our findings suggest that the VoI may be a suitable mechanism for selecting distributive principles to govern AI.

Significance

The growing integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into society raises a critical question: How can principles be fairly selected to govern these systems? Across five studies, with a total of 2,508 participants, we use the Veil of Ignorance to select principles to align AI systems. Compared to participants who know their position, participants behind the veil more frequently choose, and endorse upon reflection, principles for AI that prioritize the worst-off. This pattern is driven by increased consideration of fairness, rather than by political orientation or attitudes to risk. Our findings suggest that the Veil of Ignorance may be a suitable process for selecting principles to govern real-world applications of AI.

From the Discussion section

What do these findings tell us about the selection of principles for AI in the real world? First, the effects we observe suggest that—even though the VoI was initially proposed as a mechanism to identify principles of justice to govern society—it can be meaningfully applied to the selection of governance principles for AI. Previous studies applied the VoI to the state, such that our results provide an extension of prior findings to the domain of AI. Second, the VoI mechanism demonstrates many of the qualities that we want from a real-world alignment procedure: It is an impartial process that recruits fairness-based reasoning rather than self-serving preferences. It also leads to choices that people continue to endorse across different contexts even where they face a self-interested motivation to change their mind. This is both functionally valuable in that aligning AI to stable preferences requires less frequent updating as preferences change, and morally significant, insofar as we judge stable reflectively endorsed preferences to be more authoritative than their nonreflectively endorsed counterparts. Third, neither principle choice nor subsequent endorsement appear to be particularly affected by political affiliation—indicating that the VoI may be a mechanism to reach agreement even between people with different political beliefs. Lastly, these findings provide some guidance about what the content of principles for AI, selected from behind a VoI, may look like: When situated behind the VoI, the majority of participants instructed the AI assistant to help those who were least advantaged.

The research is here.

We need to examine the beliefs of today’s tech luminaries

Anjana Ahuja

Financial Times

Originally posted 10 MAY 23

People who are very rich or very clever, or both, sometimes believe weird things. Some of these beliefs are captured in the acronym Tescreal. The letters represent overlapping futuristic philosophies — bookended by transhumanism and longtermism — favoured by many of AI’s wealthiest and most prominent supporters.

The label, coined by a former Google ethicist and a philosopher, is beginning to circulate online and usefully explains why some tech figures would like to see the public gaze trained on fuzzy future problems such as existential risk, rather than on current liabilities such as algorithmic bias. A fraternity that is ultimately committed to nurturing AI for a posthuman future may care little for the social injustices committed by their errant infant today.

As well as transhumanism, which advocates for the technological and biological enhancement of humans, Tescreal encompasses extropianism, a belief that science and technology will bring about indefinite lifespan; singularitarianism, the idea that an artificial superintelligence will eventually surpass human intelligence; cosmism, a manifesto for curing death and spreading outwards into the cosmos; rationalism, the conviction that reason should be the supreme guiding principle for humanity; effective altruism, a social movement that calculates how to maximally benefit others; and longtermism, a radical form of utilitarianism which argues that we have moral responsibilities towards the people who are yet to exist, even at the expense of those who currently do.

(cut, and the ending)

Gebru, along with others, has described such talk as fear-mongering and marketing hype. Many will be tempted to dismiss her views — she was sacked from Google after raising concerns over energy use and social harms linked to large language models — as sour grapes, or an ideological rant. But that glosses over the motivations of those running the AI show, a dazzling corporate spectacle with a plot line that very few are able to confidently follow, let alone regulate.

Repeated talk of a possible techno-apocalypse not only sets up these tech glitterati as guardians of humanity, it also implies an inevitability in the path we are taking. And it distracts from the real harms racking up today, identified by academics such as Ruha Benjamin and Safiya Noble. Decision-making algorithms using biased data are deprioritising black patients for certain medical procedures, while generative AI is stealing human labour, propagating misinformation and putting jobs at risk.

Perhaps those are the plot twists we were not meant to notice.

The article is here.

The illusion of the mind–body divide is attenuated in males.

Berent, I. 

Sci Rep 13, 6653 (2023).

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-33079-1

Abstract

A large literature suggests that people are intuitive Dualists—they tend to perceive the mind as ethereal, distinct from the body. Here, we ask whether Dualism emanates from within the human psyche, guided, in part, by theory of mind (ToM). Past research has shown that males are poorer mind-readers than females. If ToM begets Dualism, then males should exhibit weaker Dualism, and instead, lean towards Physicalism (i.e., they should view bodies and minds alike). Experiments 1–2 show that males indeed perceive the psyche as more embodied—as more likely to emerge in a replica of one’s body, and less likely to persist in its absence (after life). Experiment 3 further shows that males are less inclined towards Empiricism—a putative byproduct of Dualism. A final analysis confirms that males’ ToM scores are lower, and ToM scores further correlate with embodiment intuitions (in Experiments 1–2). These observations (from Western participants) cannot establish universality, but the association of Dualism with ToM suggests its roots are psychological. Thus, the illusory mind–body divide may arise from the very workings of the human mind.

Discussion

People tend to consider the mind as ethereal, distinct from the body. This intuitive Dualist stance has been demonstrated in adults and children, in Western and non-Western participants and its consequences on reasoning are widespread.

Why people are putative Dualists, however, is unclear. In particular, one wonders whether Dualism arises only by cultural transmission, or whether the illusion of the mind–body divide can also emerge naturally, from ToM.

To address this question, here, we investigated whether individual differences in ToM capacities, occurring within the neurotypical population—between males and females—are linked to Dualism. Experiments 1–2 show that this is indeed the case.

Males, in this sample, considered the psyche as more strongly embodied than females: they believed that epistemic states are more likely to emerge in a replica of one’s body (in Experiment 1) and that psychological traits are less likely to persist upon the body’s demise, in the afterlife (in Experiment 2). Experiment 3 further showed that males are also more likely to consider psychological traits as innate—this is expected by past findings, suggesting that Dualism begets Empiricism.

A follow-up analysis has confirmed that these differences in reasoning about bodies and minds are linked to ToM. Not only did males in this sample score lower than females on ToM, but their ToM scores correlated with their Dualist intuitions.

As noted, these results ought to be interpreted with caution, as the gender differences observed here may not hold universally, and it certainly does not speak to the reasoning of any individual person. And indeed, ToM abilities demonstrably depend on multiple factors, including linguistic experience and culture. But inasmuch as females show superior ToM, they ought to lean towards Dualism and Empiricism. Dualism, then, is linked to ToM.

The research is here.

Rules

Almeida, G., Struchiner, N., Hannikainen, I.

(April 17, 2023). Kevin Tobia (Ed.), 

Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Jurisprudence. 

Cambridge University Press, Forthcoming

Abstract

Rules are ubiquitous. They figure prominently in all kinds of practical reasoning. Rules are especially important in jurisprudence, occupying a prominent role in answers to the question of “what is law?” In this chapter, we start by reviewing the evidence showing that both textual and extra-textual elements exert influence over rule violation judgments (section II). Most studies about rules contrast text with an extra-textual element identified as the “purpose” or “spirit” of the rule. But what counts as the purpose or the spirit of a rule? Is it the goal intended by the rule maker? Or is purpose necessarily moral? Section III reviews the results of experiments designed to answer these questions. These studies show that the extra-textual element that's relevant for the folk concept of rule is moral in nature. Section IV turns to the different explanations that have been entertained in the literature for the pattern of results described in Sections II and III. In section V we discuss some other extra-textual elements that have been investigated in the literature. Finally, in section VI, we connect the results about rules with other issues in legal philosophy. We conclude with a brief discussion of future directions.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we have provided an overview of the experimental jurisprudence of rules. We started by reviewing evidence that shows that extra-textual elements influence rule violation judgments (section II). We then have seen that those elements are likely moral in nature (section III). There are several ways to conceptualize the relationship between the moral and descriptive elements at play in rule violation judgments. We have reviewed some of them in section IV, where we argued that the evidence favors the hypothesis that the concept of rule has a dual character structure. In section V, we reviewed some recent studies showing that other elements, such as enforcement, also play a role in the concept of rule. Finally, in section VI, we considered the implications of these results for some other debates in legal philosophy.

While we have focused on research developed within experimental jurisprudence, empirical work in moral psychology and experimental philosophy have investigated several other questions related to rules which might be of interest for legal philosophers, such as closure rules and the process of learning rules (Nichols, 2004, 2021). But an even larger set of questions about the concept of rule haven’t been explored from an empirical perspective yet. We will end this chapter by discussing a few of them.

The book chapter is here.

If you do legal work, this chapter may help with your expertise. The authors explore how ordinary people understand the law. Are they more intuitive in terms of interpretation or do they think that law is intrinsically moral?

What’s wrong with virtue signaling?

Hill, J., Fanciullo, J. 

Synthese 201, 117 (2023).

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04131-4

Abstract

A novel account of virtue signaling and what makes it bad has recently been offered by Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke. Despite plausibly vindicating the folk?s conception of virtue signaling as a bad thing, their account has recently been attacked by both Neil Levy and Evan Westra. According to Levy and Westra, virtue signaling actually supports the aims and progress of public moral discourse. In this paper, we rebut these recent defenses of virtue signaling. We suggest that virtue signaling only supports the aims of public moral discourse to the extent it is an instance of a more general phenomenon that we call norm signaling. We then argue that, if anything, virtue signaling will undermine the quality of public moral discourse by undermining the evidence we typically rely on from the testimony and norm signaling of others. Thus, we conclude, not only is virtue signaling not needed, but its epistemological effects warrant its bad reputation.

Conclusion

In this paper, we have challenged two recent defenses of virtue signaling. Whereas Levy ascribes a number of good features to virtue signaling—its providing higher-order evidence for the truth of certain moral judgments, its helping us delineate groups of reliable moral cooperators, and its not involving any hypocrisy on the part of its subject—it seems these good features are ascribable to virtue signaling ultimately and only because they are good features of norm signaling, and virtue signaling entails norm signaling. Similarly, whereas Westra suggests that virtue signaling uniquely benefits public moral discourse by supporting moral progress in a way that mere norm signaling does not, it seems virtue signaling also uniquely harms public moral discourse by supporting moral regression in a way that mere norm signaling does not. It therefore seems that in each case, to the extent it differs from norm signaling, virtue signaling simply isn’t needed.

Moreover, we have suggested that, if anything, virtue signaling will undermine the higher order evidence we typically can and should rely on from the testimony of others. Virtue signaling essentially involves a motivation that aims at affecting public moral discourse but that does not aim at the truth. When virtue signaling is rampant—when we are aware that this ulterior motive is common among our peers—we should give less weight to the higher-order evidence provided by the testimony of others than we otherwise would, on pain of double counting evidence and falling for unwarranted confidence. We conclude, therefore, that not only is virtue signaling not needed, but its epistemological effects warrant its bad reputation. 

A pdf is here.

Many people in U.S., other advanced economies say it’s not necessary to believe in God to be moral

Janell Fetteroff & Sarah Austin

Pew Research Center

Originally published 20 APR 23

Most Americans say it’s not necessary to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values, according to a spring 2022 Pew Research Center survey. About two-thirds of Americans say this, while about a third say belief in God is an essential component of morality (65% vs. 34%).

However, responses to this question differ dramatically depending on whether Americans see religion as important in their lives. Roughly nine-in-ten who say religion is not too or not at all important to them believe it is possible to be moral without believing in God, compared with only about half of Americans to whom religion is very or somewhat important (92% vs. 51%). Catholics are also more likely than Protestants to hold this view (63% vs. 49%), though views vary across Protestant groups.

There are also divisions along political lines: Democrats and those who lean Democratic are more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to say it is not necessary to believe in God to be moral (71% vs. 59%). Liberal Democrats are particularly likely to say this (84%), whereas only about half of conservative Republicans (53%) say the same.

In addition, Americans under 50 are somewhat more likely than older adults to say that believing in God is not necessary to have good values (71% vs. 59%). Those with a college degree or higher are also more likely to believe this than those with a high school education or less (76% vs. 58%).

A chart showing that Majorities in most countries say belief in God is not necessary to be moral.

Views of the link between religion and morality differ along similar lines in 16 other countries surveyed. Across those countries, a median of about two-in-three adults say that people can be moral without believing in God, just slightly higher than the share in the United States.

The info is here.

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.

The research is here.

A Psychologist Explains How AI and Algorithms Are Changing Our Lives

Danny Lewis

The Wall Street Journal

Originally posted 21 MAR 23

In an age of ChatGPT, computer algorithms and artificial intelligence are increasingly embedded in our lives, choosing the content we’re shown online, suggesting the music we hear and answering our questions.

These algorithms may be changing our world and behavior in ways we don’t fully understand, says psychologist and behavioral scientist Gerd Gigerenzer, the director of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy at the University of Potsdam in Germany. Previously director of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, he has conducted research over decades that has helped shape understanding of how people make choices when faced with uncertainty. 

In his latest book, “How to Stay Smart in a Smart World,” Dr. Gigerenzer looks at how algorithms are shaping our future—and why it is important to remember they aren’t human. He spoke with the Journal for The Future of Everything podcast.

The term algorithm is thrown around so much these days. What are we talking about when we talk about algorithms?

It is a huge thing, and therefore it is important to distinguish what we are talking about. One of the insights in my research at the Max Planck Institute is that if you have a situation that is stable and well defined, then complex algorithms such as deep neural networks are certainly better than human performance. Examples are [the games] chess and Go, which are stable. But if you have a problem that is not stable—for instance, you want to predict a virus, like a coronavirus—then keep your hands off complex algorithms. [Dealing with] the uncertainty—that is more how the human mind works, to identify the one or two important cues and ignore the rest. In that type of ill-defined problem, complex algorithms don’t work well. I call this the “stable world principle,” and it helps you as a first clue about what AI can do. It also tells you that, in order to get the most out of AI, we have to make the world more predictable.

So after all these decades of computer science, are algorithms really just still calculators at the end of the day, running more and more complex equations?

What else would they be? A deep neural network has many, many layers, but they are still calculating machines. They can do much more than ever before with the help of video technology. They can paint, they can construct text. But that doesn’t mean that they understand text in the sense humans do.

The article is here.

Toward Parsimony in Bias Research: A Proposed Common Framework of Belief-Consistent Information Processing for a Set of Biases

Oeberst, A., & Imhoff, R. (2023).

Perspectives on Psychological Science, 0(0).

https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916221148147

Abstract

One of the essential insights from psychological research is that people’s information processing is often biased. By now, a number of different biases have been identified and empirically demonstrated. Unfortunately, however, these biases have often been examined in separate lines of research, thereby precluding the recognition of shared principles. Here we argue that several—so far mostly unrelated—biases (e.g., bias blind spot, hostile media bias, egocentric/ethnocentric bias, outcome bias) can be traced back to the combination of a fundamental prior belief and humans’ tendency toward belief-consistent information processing. What varies between different biases is essentially the specific belief that guides information processing. More importantly, we propose that different biases even share the same underlying belief and differ only in the specific outcome of information processing that is assessed (i.e., the dependent variable), thus tapping into different manifestations of the same latent information processing. In other words, we propose for discussion a model that suffices to explain several different biases. We thereby suggest a more parsimonious approach compared with current theoretical explanations of these biases. We also generate novel hypotheses that follow directly from the integrative nature of our perspective.

Conclusion

There have been many prior attempts of synthesizing and integrating research on (parts of) biased information processing (e.g., Birch & Bloom, 2004; Evans, 1989; Fiedler, 1996, 2000; Gawronski & Strack, 2012; Gilovich, 1991; Griffin & Ross, 1991; Hilbert, 2012; Klayman & Ha, 1987; Kruglanski et al., 2012; Kunda, 1990; Lord & Taylor, 2009; Pronin et al., 2004; Pyszczynski & Greenberg, 1987; Sanbonmatsu et al., 1998; Shermer, 1997; Skov & Sherman, 1986; Trope & Liberman, 1996). Some of them have made similar or overlapping arguments or implicitly made similar assumptions to the ones outlined here and thus resonate with our reasoning. In none of them, however, have we found the same line of thought and its consequences explicated.

To put it briefly, theoretical advancements necessitate integration and parsimony (the integrative potential), as well as novel ideas and hypotheses (the generative potential). We believe that the proposed framework for understanding bias as presented in this article has merits in both of these aspects. We hope to instigate discussion as well as empirical scrutiny with the ultimate goal of identifying common principles across several disparate research strands that have heretofore sought to understand human biases.

The research is here.

This article proposes a common framework for studying biases in information processing, aiming for parsimony in bias research. The framework suggests that biases can be understood as a result of belief-consistent information processing, and highlights the importance of considering both cognitive and motivational factors.

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.

The info is here.

White Supremacist Networks Gab and 8Kun Are Training Their Own AI Now

David Gilbert

Vice News

Originally posted 22 FEB 23

Here are two excerpts:

Artificial intelligence is everywhere right now, and many are questioning the safety and morality of the AI systems released by some of the world’s biggest companies, including Open AI’s ChatGPT, Bing’s Sydney, and Google’s Bard. It was only a matter of time until the online spaces where extremists gather became interested in the technology.

Gab is a social network filled with homophobic, christian nationalist and white supremacist content. On Tuesday its CEO Andrew Torba announced the launch of its AI image generator, Gabby.

“At Gab, we have been experimenting with different AI systems that have popped up over the past year,” Torba wrote in a statement. “Every single one is skewed with a liberal/globalist/talmudic/satanic worldview. What if Gab AI Inc builds a Gab .ai (see what I did there?) that is based, has no ‘hate speech” filters and doesn’t obfuscate and distort historical and Biblical Truth?”

Gabby is currently live on Gab’s site and available to all members. Like Midjourney and DALL-E, it is an image generator that users interact with by sending it a prompt, and within seconds it will generate entirely new images based on that prompt.

Echoing his past criticisms of Big Tech platforms like Facebook and Twitter, Torba claims that mainstream platforms are now “censoring” their AI systems to prevent people from discussing right-wing topics such as Christian nationalism. Torba’s AI, by contrast, will have ”the ability to speak freely without the constraints of liberal propaganda wrapped tightly around its neck.”

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8chan, which was founded to support the Gamergate movement, became the home of QAnon in early 2018 and was taken offline in August 2019 after the man who killed 20 people at an El Paso Walmart posted an anti-immigrant screed on the site.

Watkins has been speaking about his AI system for a few weeks now, but has yet to reveal how it will work or when it will launch. Watkins’ central selling point, like Torba’s, appears to be that his system will be “uncensored.”

“So that we can compete against these people that are putting up all of these false flags and illusions,” Watkins said on Feb. 13 when he was asked why he was creating an AI system.  “We are working on our own AI that is going to give you an uncensored look at the way things are going,” Watkins said in a video interview at the end of January.But based on some of the images the engine is churning out, Watkins still has a long way to go to perfect his AI image generator.

The info is here.

Seeing your life story as a Hero's Journey increases meaning in life

B. Rogers, H. Chicas, J. M. Kelly, & E. Kubin

researchgate.com

Originally posted January 2023

Abstract

Meaning in life is tied to the stories people tell about their lives. We explore whether one timeless story—the Hero’s Journey—might make people’s lives feel more meaningful. This enduring story appears across history and cultures, and provides a template for ancient myths (e.g., Beowulf) and blockbuster books and movies (e.g., Harry Potter). Eight studies reveal that the Hero’s Journey predicts and can causally increase people’s experience of meaning in life. We first distill the Hero’s Journey into seven key elements—Protagonist, Shift, Quest, Allies, Challenge, Transformation, Legacy—and then develop a new measure that assesses the perceived presence of the Hero’s Journey narrative in people’s life stories: the Hero’s Journey Scale. Using this scale, we find a positive relationship between the Hero’s Journey and meaning in life with both online participants (Studies 1-2) and older adults in a community sample (Study 3). We then develop a re-storying intervention that leads people to see the events of their life as a Hero’s Journey (Study 4). This intervention causally increases meaning in life (Study 5) by prompting people to reflect on important elements of their lives and connecting them into a coherent and compelling narrative (Study 6). This Hero’s Journey re-storying intervention also increases the extent to which people perceive meaning in an ambiguous grammar task (Study 7) and increases their resilience to life’s challenges (Study 8). These results provide initial evidence that enduring cultural narratives like the Hero’s Journey both reflect meaningful lives and can help to create them.

General Discussion

Humans are natural storytellers. People make sense of their lives using stories and how they tell their stories shapes the way they see and react to the world (McAdams & McLean, 2013). While these stories are drawn from events in their lives, they are inherently subjective and people frame their experiences using common cultural narratives (Hammack, 2008; Meltzoff, 1988, McLean & Syed, 2016). In this paper, we tested whether one of the most enduring culturalnarratives—the Hero’s Journey—is tied to meaning in life.

Across eight studies and six supplementary studies, we found that Hero’s Journey narratives predicted meaning in life. We began by distilling the Hero’s Journey into its basic narrative elements and constructing a psychological measure using these elements (Supplementary Studies 1-3). Next, in Studies 1-3, we tested our first prediction that there is an association between the Hero’s Journey narrative and meaning in life. We found that the perceived presence of the Hero’s Journey in people’s lives correlated with meaning in life (Study 1 and Supplementary Study 4). The connection between the Hero’s Journey and life meaning also manifested in the stories people told to others. Life stories rated by independent coders as more similar to a Hero’s Journey predicted higher levels of meaning in life and a sense of

flourishing in the self-reports of the storytellers (Studies 2-3).

Studies 4-8 confirmed our second prediction that people can use a re-storying intervention to reframe their personal narratives as a Hero’s Journey (Study 4) which can increase meaning and benefit their well-being (Study 5 and Supplementary Studies 5-6). We provided evidence that the intervention increased meaning in life by helping people to identify and connect the important narrative elements in their lives into the culturally resonant Hero’s Journey framework (Study 6). The intervention did not only bring psychological benefits, but it also helped people to see more meaning in their ongoing experiences, from perceiving patterns in letter strings (Study 7) to finding solutions for their personal challenges (Study 8).

The research is here.

Once again, social psychology has significant contributions to clinical psychology.

I’m a psychology expert in Finland, the No. 1 happiest country in the world—here are 3 things we never do

Frank Martela

CNBC.com

Originally posted 5 Jan 23

For five years in a row, Finland has ranked No. 1 as the happiest country in the world, according to the World Happiness Report. 

In 2022′s report, people in 156 countries were asked to “value their lives today on a 0 to 10 scale, with the worst possible life as a 0.” It also looks at factors that contribute to social support, life expectancy, generosity and absence of corruption.

As a Finnish philosopher and psychology researcher who studies the fundamentals of happiness, I’m often asked: What exactly makes people in Finland so exceptionally satisfied with their lives?

To maintain a high quality of life, here are three things we never do:

1. We don’t compare ourselves to our neighbors.

Focus more on what makes you happy and less on looking successful. The first step to true happiness is to set your own standards, instead of comparing yourself to others.

2. We don’t overlook the benefits of nature.

Spending time in nature increases our vitality, well-being and a gives us a sense of personal growth. Find ways to add some greenery to your life, even if it’s just buying a few plants for your home.

3. We don’t break the community circle of trust.

Think about how you can show up for your community. How can you create more trust? How can you support policies that build upon that trust? Small acts like opening doors for strangers or giving up a seat on the train makes a difference, too.

The details of the principles are here.

Moral foundations, values, and judgments in extraordinary altruists

Amormino, P., Ploe, M.L. & Marsh, A.A.

Sci Rep 12, 22111 (2022).

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-26418-1

Abstract

Donating a kidney to a stranger is a rare act of extraordinary altruism that appears to reflect a moral commitment to helping others. Yet little is known about patterns of moral cognition associated with extraordinary altruism. In this preregistered study, we compared the moral foundations, values, and patterns of utilitarian moral judgments in altruistic kidney donors (n = 61) and demographically matched controls (n = 58). Altruists expressed more concern only about the moral foundation of harm, but no other moral foundations. Consistent with this, altruists endorsed utilitarian concerns related to impartial beneficence, but not instrumental harm. Contrary to our predictions, we did not find group differences between altruists and controls in basic values. Extraordinary altruism generally reflected opposite patterns of moral cognition as those seen in individuals with psychopathy, a personality construct characterized by callousness and insensitivity to harm and suffering. Results link real-world, costly, impartial altruism primarily to moral cognitions related to alleviating harm and suffering in others rather than to basic values, fairness concerns, or strict utilitarian decision-making.

Discussion

In the first exploration of patterns of moral cognition that characterize individuals who have engaged in real-world extraordinary altruism, we found that extraordinary altruists are distinguished from other people only with respect to a narrow set of moral concerns: they are more concerned with the moral foundation of harm/care, and they more strongly endorse impartial beneficence. Together, these findings support the conclusion that extraordinary altruists are morally motivated by an impartial concern for relieving suffering, and in turn, are motivated to improve others’ welfare in a self-sacrificial manner that does not allow for the harm of others in the process. These results are also partially consistent with extraordinary altruism representing the inverse of psychopathy in terms of moral cognition: altruists score lower in psychopathy (with the strongest relationships observed for psychopathy subscales associated with socio-affective responding) and higher-psychopathy participants most reliably endorse harm/care less than lower psychopathy participants, with participants with higher scores on the socio-affective subscales of our psychopathy measures also endorsing impartial beneficence less strongly.

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Notably, and contrary to our predictions, we did not find that donating a kidney to a stranger is strongly or consistently correlated (positively or negatively) with basic values like universalism, benevolence, power, hedonism, or conformity. That suggests extraordinary altruism may not be driven by unusual values, at least as they are measured by the Schwartz inventory, but rather by specific moral concerns (such as harm/care). Our findings suggest that reported values may not in themselves predict whether one acts on those values when it comes to extraordinary altruism, much as “…a person can value being outgoing in social gatherings, independently of whether they are prone to acting in a lively or sociable manner”. Similarly, people who share a common culture may value common things but acting on those values to an extraordinarily costly and altruistic degree may require a stronger motivation––a moral motivation.

The research is here.

The AI Ethicist's Dirty Hands Problem

H. S. Sætra, M. Coeckelbergh, & J. Danaher

Communications of the ACM, January 2023, 

Vol. 66 No. 1, Pages 39-41

Assume an AI ethicist uncovers objectionable effects related to the increased usage of AI. What should they do about it? One option is to seek alliances with Big Tech in order to "borrow" their power to change things for the better. Another option is to seek opportunities for change that actively avoids reliance on Big Tech.

The choice between these two strategies gives rise to an ethical dilemma. For example, if the ethicist's research emphasized the grave and unfortunate consequences of Twitter and Facebook, should they promote this research by building communities on said networks? Should they take funding from Big Tech to promote the reform of Big Tech? Should they seek opportunities at Google or OpenAI if they are deeply concerned about the negative implications of large-scale language models?

The AI ethicist’s dilemma emerges when an ethicist must consider how their success in communicating an

identified challenge is associated with a high risk of decreasing the chances of successfully addressing the challenge.  This dilemma occurs in situations in which the means to achieve one’s goals are seemingly best achieved by supporting that which one wishes to correct and/or practicing the opposite of that which one preaches.

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The Need for More than AI Ethics

Our analysis of the ethicist’s dilemma shows why close ties with Big Tech can be detrimental for the ethicist seeking remedies for AI related problems.   It is important for ethicists, and computer scientists in general, to be aware of their links to the sources of ethical challenges related to AI.  One useful exercise would be to carefully examine what could happen if they attempted to challenge the actors with whom they are aligned. Such actions could include attempts to report unfortunate implications of the company’s activities internally, but also publicly, as Gebru did. Would such actions be met with active resistance, with inaction, or even straightforward sanctions? Such an exercise will reveal whether or not the ethicist feels free to openly and honestly express concerns about the technology with which they work. Such an exercise could be important, but as we have argued, these individuals are not necessarily positioned to achieve fundamental change in this system.

In response, we suggest the role of government is key to balancing the power the tech companies have

through employment, funding, and their control of modern digital infrastructure. Some will rightly argue that political power is also dangerous.   But so are the dangers of technology and unbridled innovation, and private corporations are central sources of these dangers. We therefore argue that private power must be effectively bridled by the power of government.  This is not a new argument, and is in fact widely accepted.

The info is here.

Things could be better

Mastroianni, A., & Ludwin-Peery, E. 

(2022, November 14). 

https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/2uxwk

Abstract

Eight studies document what may be a fundamental and universal bias in human imagination: people think things could be better. When we ask people how things could be different, they imagine how things could be better (Study 1). The bias doesn't depend on the wording of the question (Studies 2 and 3). It arises in people's everyday thoughts (Study 4). It is unrelated to people's anxiety, depression, and neuroticism (Study 5). A sample of Polish people responding in English show the same bias (Study 6), as do a sample of Chinese people responding in Mandarin (Study 7). People imagine how things could be better even though it's easier to come up with ways things could be worse (Study 8). Overall, it seems, human imagination has a bias: when people imagine how things could be, they imagine how things could be better.

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Why Does Human Imagination Work Like This?

Honestly, who knows. Brains are weird, man.

When all else fails, we can always turn to natural selection: maybe this bias helped our ancestors survive. Hungry, rain-soaked hunter-gatherers imagined food in their bellies and roofs over their heads and invented agriculture and architecture. Once warm and full, they out-reproduced their brethren who were busy imagining how much hungrier and wetter they could be.

But really, this is a mystery. We may have uncovered something fundamental about how human imagination works, but it might be a long time before we understand it.

Perhaps This is Why You Can Never Be Happy

Everybody knows about the hedonic treadmill: once you’re moderately happy, it’s hard to get happier. But nobody has ever really explained why this happens. People say things like, “oh, you get used to good things,” but that’s just a description, not an explanation. Why do people get used to good things?

Now we might have an answer: people get used to good things because they’re always imagining how things could be better. So even if things get better, you might not feel better. When you live in a cramped apartment, you dream of getting a house. When you get a house, you dream of a second house. Or you dream of lower property taxes. Or a hot tub. Or two hot tubs. And so on, forever.

The research is here.

Deeply Rational Reasons for Irrational Beliefs

Barlev, M., & Neuberg, S. L. (2022, December 7).

https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/avcq2

Abstract

Why do people hold irrational beliefs? Two accounts predominate. The first spotlights the information ecosystem and how people process this information; this account either casts those who hold irrational beliefs as cognitively deficient or focuses on the reasoning and decision-making heuristics all people use. The second account spotlights an inwardly-oriented and proximate motivation people have to enhance how they think and feel about themselves. Here, we advance a complementary, outwardly-oriented, and more ultimate account—that people often hold irrational beliefs for evolutionarily rational reasons. Under this view, irrational beliefs may serve as rare and valued information with which to rise in prestige, as signals of group commitment and loyalty tests, as ammunition with which to derogate rivals in the eyes of third-parties, or as outrages with which to mobilize the group toward shared goals. Thus, although many beliefs may be epistemically irrational, they may also be evolutionarily rational from the perspective of the functions they are adapted to serve. We discuss the implications of this view for puzzling theoretical phenomena and for changing problematic irrational beliefs.

Conclusions

Why do we hold irrational beliefs that often are not only improbable, but impossible? According to some, the information ecosystem is to blame, paired with deficiencies in how people process information or with heuristic modes of processing. According to others, it is because certain beliefs—regardless of their veracity—can enhance how we think and feel about ourselves. We suggest that such accounts are promising but incomplete: many irrational beliefs exist because they serve crucial interpersonal (and more ultimate rather than proximal) functions.

We have argued that many irrational beliefs are generated, entertained, and propagated by psychological mechanisms specialized for rising in prestige, signaling group commitment and testing group loyalty, derogating disliked competitors in the eyes of third-parties, or spreading common knowledge and coordination toward shared goals. Thus, although many beliefs are epistemically irrational, they can be evolutionarily rational from the perspective of the functions they are adapted to serve.

Is it not costly to individuals to hold epistemically irrational beliefs? Sometimes. Jehovah's Witnesses reject life-saving blood transfusions, a belief most consider to be very costly, explaining why courts sometimes compel blood transfusions such as in the case of children. Yet even here, the benefits to individuals of carrying such costly beliefs may outweigh their costs, at least for some. For example, if such belief are designed to signal group commitment, they might emerge among particularly devout members of groups or among groups in which the need to signal commitment is particularly strong; the costlier the belief, the more honest a signal of group commitment it is (Petersen et al., 2021). However, such cases are the exception—most of the irrational beliefs people hold tend to be inferentially isolated and behaviorally inert. For example, the belief that God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one may function for a Christian as a signal of group affiliation and commitment, without carrying for the individual many costly inferences or behavioral implications (Petersen et al., 2021; Mercier, 2020).

The info is here.

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.

The research is here.