Listening to bridge societal divides

Santoro, E., & Markus, H. R. (2023).

Current opinion in psychology, 54, 101696.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2023.101696

Abstract

The U.S. is plagued by a variety of societal divides across political orientation, race, and gender, among others. Listening has the potential to be a key element in spanning these divides. Moreover, the benefits of listening for mitigating social division has become a culturally popular idea and practice. Recent evidence suggests that listening can bridge divides in at least two ways: by improving outgroup sentiment and by granting outgroup members greater status and respect. When reviewing this literature, we pay particular attention to mechanisms and to boundary conditions, as well as to the possibility that listening can backfire. We also review a variety of current interventions designed to encourage and improve listening at all levels of the culture cycle. The combination of recent evidence and the growing popular belief in the significance of listening heralds a bright future for research on the many ways that listening can diffuse stereotypes and improve attitudes underlying intergroup division.

The article is paywalled, which is not really helpful in spreading the word.  This information can be very helpful in couples and family therapy.  Here are my thoughts:

The idea that listening can help bridge societal divides is a powerful one. When we truly listen to someone from a different background, we open ourselves up to understanding their perspective and experiences. This can help to break down stereotypes and foster empathy.

Benefits of Listening:

• Reduces prejudice: Studies have shown that listening to people from different groups can help to reduce prejudice. When we hear the stories of others, we are more likely to see them as individuals, rather than as members of a stereotyped group.
• Builds trust: Listening can help to build trust between people from different groups. When we show that we are willing to listen to each other, we demonstrate that we are open to understanding and respecting each other's views.
• Finds common ground: Even when people disagree, listening can help them to find common ground. By focusing on areas of agreement, rather than on differences, we can build a foundation for cooperation and collaboration.

Challenges of Listening:

It is important to acknowledge that listening is not always easy. There are a number of challenges that can make it difficult to truly hear and understand someone from a different background. These challenges include:

• Bias: We all have biases, and these biases can influence the way we listen to others. It is important to be aware of our own biases and to try to set them aside when we are listening to someone else.
• Distraction: In today's world, there are many distractions that can make it difficult to focus on what someone else is saying. It is important to create a quiet and distraction-free environment when we are trying to have a meaningful conversation with someone.
• Discomfort: Talking about difficult topics can be uncomfortable. However, it is important to be willing to listen to these conversations, even if they make us feel uncomfortable.

Tips for Effective Listening:

• Pay attention: Make eye contact and avoid interrupting the speaker.
• Be open-minded: Try to see things from the speaker's perspective, even if you disagree with them.
• Ask questions: Ask clarifying questions to make sure you understand what the speaker is saying.
• Summarize: Briefly summarize what you have heard to show that you were paying attention.
• By practicing these tips, we can become more effective listeners and, in turn, help to bridge the divides that separate us.

Evaluating Tradeoffs between Autonomy and Wellbeing in Supported Decision Making

Veit, W., Earp, B.D., Browning, H., Savulescu, J.

American Journal of Bioethics 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354327526 

A core challenge for contemporary bioethics is how to address the tension between respecting an individual’s autonomy and promoting their wellbeing when these ideals seem to come into conflict (Notini  et  al.  2020).  This  tension  is  often  reflected  in  discussions  of  the  ethical  status  of guardianship and other surrogate decision-making regimes for individuals with different kinds or degrees of cognitive ability and (hence) decision-making capacity (Earp and Grunt-Mejer 2021), specifically when these capacities are regarded as diminished or impaired along certain dimensions (or with respect to certain domains). The notion or practice of guardianship, wherein a guardian is legally appointed to make decisions on behalf of someone with different/diminished capacities, has been particularly controversial. For example, many people see guardianship as unjust, taking too  much  decisional  authority  away  from  the  person  under  the  guardian’s  care  (often  due  to prejudiced attitudes, as when people with certain disabilities are wrongly assumed to lack decision-making capacity); and as too rigid, for example, in making a blanket judgment about someone’s (lack of) capacity, thereby preventing them from making decisions even in areas where they have the requisite abilities (Glen 2015).

It is  against  this  backdrop that  Peterson,  Karlawish, and  Largent (2021) offer  a  useful philosophical framework for the notion of ‘supported decision-making’ as a compelling alternative for  individuals  with  ‘dynamic  impairments’  (i.e.,  non-static  or  domain-variant  perceived mpairments  in  decision-making  capacity).  In  a  similar spirit,  we  have  previously  argued  that bioethics would benefit from a more case-sensitive rather than a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach when it comes to issues of cognitive diversity (Veit et al. 2020; Chapman and Veit 2020). We therefore agree with most of the authors’ defence of supported decision-making, as this approach allows for case- and context-sensitivity. We also agree with the authors that the categorical condemnation of guardianships  or  similar  arrangements  is  not  justified,  as  this  precludes  such  sensitivity.  For instance, as the authors note, if a patient is in a permanent unaware/unresponsive state – i.e., with no  current  or  foreseeable  decision-making  capacity  or  ability  to  exercise  autonomy  –  then  a guardianship-like regime may be the most appropriate means of promoting this person’s interests. A similar point can be made in relation to debates about intended human enhancement of embryos and children.  Although some critics  claim that  such interventions  violate the autonomy  of the enhanced person, proponents may argue that respect for autonomy and consent do not apply in certain cases, for example, when dealing with embryos (see Veit 2018); alternatively, they may argue that interventions to enhance the (future) autonomy of a currently pre-autonomous (or partially autonomous) being can be justified on an enhancement framework without falling prey to such objections (see Earp 2019, Maslen et al. 2014). 

A pdf is here.

How to know who’s trustworthy

T. Ryan Byerly

psyche.co

Originally posted 4 Nov 2020

Here is an excerpt:

An interesting fact about the virtues of intellectual dependability is that they are both intellectual and moral virtues. They’re ‘intellectual’ in the sense that they’re concerned with intellectual goods such as knowledge and understanding; but they’re moral virtues too, because they’re concerned with the intellectual goods of others. Indeed, the moral, other-regarding features of these virtues are especially central in a way that’s different to other intellectual virtues, such as inquisitiveness or intellectual perseverance.

It is in part because of the centrality of their other-regarding dimensions that the virtues of intellectual dependability haven’t taken on a larger role in education. The reigning paradigm of what we should aim for in education is that of the critical thinker. But being a critical thinker doesn’t necessarily mean that you possess other-regarding qualities, such as the virtues of intellectual dependability.

While we might lament this fact when it comes to formal education, we can still make efforts to become more intellectually dependable on our own. And we arguably should try to do so. After all, it’s not just us who are in need of dependable guides in our networks – we need to be intellectually dependable for the sake others, too.

If we want to grow in these virtues of intellectual dependability – to become more benevolent, transparent and so on – what can we do? The following are four strategies that researchers tend to agree can help us grow in intellectual virtue.

A first strategy is direct instruction – learning about the nature of particular intellectual virtues that we hope to cultivate. Ideally, we’ll gain an account of what the virtue involves, and we might learn about the vices that oppose it. Part of the reason why direct instruction is important is that it helps to reduce our cognitive load. It gives us a framework to think through our intellectual life. It also helps us set a target to aim for.

A second strategy is to think how intellectual virtues apply in particular situations, considering what the intellectual virtue – and perhaps also its opposing vices – looks like in action. You might select some historical, contemporary or even fictional examples of people who appear to act in accordance with the virtue or its opposing vice. By encountering exemplars, you might gain a taste or sensibility for the virtue, and a person to emulate. More generally, this exercise can help you to practise evaluating scenarios in which intellectual virtues can influence behaviour. When done well, this can help you appreciate the variety of contexts in which intellectual virtues make a difference, and the different kinds of behaviour they lead to.

The info is here.

Suicide attempt survivors’ recommendations for improving mental health treatment for attempt survivors.

Melanie A. Hom and others
Psychological Services. 
Advance online publication.
https://doi.org/10.1037/ser0000415

Abstract

Research indicates that connection to mental health care services and treatment engagement remain challenges among suicide attempt survivors. One way to improve suicide attempt survivors’ experiences with mental health care services is to elicit suggestions directly from attempt survivors regarding how to do so. This study aimed to identify and synthesize suicide attempt survivors’ recommendations for how to enhance mental health treatment experiences for attempt survivors. A sample of 329 suicide attempt survivors (81.5% female, 86.0% White/Caucasian, mean age = 35.07 ± 12.18 years) provided responses to an open-ended self-report survey question probing how treatment might be improved for suicide attempt survivors. Responses were analyzed utilizing both qualitative and quantitative techniques. Analyses identified four broad areas in which mental health treatment experiences might be improved for attempt survivors: (a) provider interactions (e.g., by reducing stigma of suicidality, expressing empathy, and using active listening), (b) intake and treatment planning (e.g., by providing a range of treatment options, including nonmedication treatments, and conducting a thorough assessment), (c) treatment delivery (e.g., by addressing root problems, bolstering coping skills, and using trauma-informed care), and (d) structural issues (e.g., by improving access to care and continuity of care). Findings highlight numerous avenues by which health providers might be able to facilitate more positive mental health treatment experiences for suicide attempt survivors. Research is needed to test whether implementing the recommendations offered by attempt survivors in this study might lead to enhanced treatment engagement, retention, and outcomes among suicide attempt survivors at large.

Here is an excerpt from the Discussion:

On this point, this study revealed numerous recommendations for how providers might be able to improve their interactions with attempt survivors. Suggestions in this domain aligned with prior studies on treatment experiences among suicide attempt survivors. For instance, recommendations that providers not stigmatize attempt survivors and, instead, empathize with them, actively listen to them, and humanize them, are consistent with aforementioned studies (Berglund et al., 2016; Frey et al., 2016; Shand et al., 2018; Sheehan et al., 2017; Taylor et al., 2009). This study’s findings regarding the importance of a collaborative therapeutic relationship are also consistent with previous work (Shand et al., 2018). Though each of these factors has been identified as salient to treatment engagement efforts broadly (see Barrett et al., 2008, for review), several suggestions that emerged in this study were more specific to attempt survivors. For example, ensuring that patients feel comfortable openly discussing suicidal thoughts and behaviors and taking disclosures of suicidality seriously are suggestions specifically applicable to the care of at-risk individuals. These recommendations not only support research indicating that asking about suicidality is not iatrogenic (see DeCou & Schumann, 2018, for review), but they also underscore the importance of considering the unique needs of attempt survivors. Indeed, given that most participants provided a recommendation in this area, the impact of provider-related factors should not be overlooked in the provision of care to this group.

4 Ways Lying Becomes the Norm at a Company

Ron Carucci
Harvard Business Review
Originally published February 15, 2019

Many of the corporate scandals in the past several years — think Volkswagen or Wells Fargo — have been cases of wide-scale dishonesty. It’s hard to fathom how lying and deceit permeated these organizations. Some researchers point to group decision-making processes or psychological traps that snare leaders into justification of unethical choices. Certainly those factors are at play, but they largely explain dishonest behavior at an individual level and I wondered about systemic factors that might influence whether or not people in organizations distort or withhold the truth from one another.

This is what my team set out to understand through a 15-year longitudinal study. We analyzed 3,200 interviews that were conducted as part of 210 organizational assessments to see whether there were factors that predicted whether or not people inside a company will be honest. Our research yielded four factors — not individual character traits, but organizational issues — that played a role. The good news is that these factors are completely within a corporation’s control and improving them can make your company more honest, and help avert the reputation and financial disasters that dishonesty can lead to.

The stakes here are high. Accenture’s Competitive Agility Index — a 7,000-company, 20-industry analysis, for the first time tangibly quantified how a decline in stakeholder trust impacts a company’s financial performance. The analysis reveals more than half (54%) of companies on the index experienced a material drop in trust — from incidents such as product recalls, fraud, data breaches and c-suite missteps — which equates to a minimum of $180 billion in missed revenues. Worse, following a drop in trust, a company’s index score drops 2 points on average, negatively impacting revenue growth by 6% and EBITDA by 10% on average.

The info is here.

Ethical Free Riding: When Honest People Find Dishonest Partners

Jörg Gross, Margarita Leib, Theo Offerman, & Shaul Shalvi
Psychological Science
https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797618796480

Abstract

Corruption is often the product of coordinated rule violations. Here, we investigated how such corrupt collaboration emerges and spreads when people can choose their partners versus when they cannot. Participants were assigned a partner and could increase their payoff by coordinated lying. After several interactions, they were either free to choose whether to stay with or switch their partner or forced to stay with or switch their partner. Results reveal that both dishonest and honest people exploit the freedom to choose a partner. Dishonest people seek a partner who will also lie—a “partner in crime.” Honest people, by contrast, engage in ethical free riding: They refrain from lying but also from leaving dishonest partners, taking advantage of their partners’ lies. We conclude that to curb collaborative corruption, relying on people’s honesty is insufficient. Encouraging honest individuals not to engage in ethical free riding is essential.

Conclusion
The freedom to select partners is important for the establishment of trust and cooperation. As we show here, however, it is also associated with potential moral hazards. For individuals who seek to keep the risk of collusion low, policies providing the freedom to choose one’s partners should be implemented with caution. Relying on people’s honesty may not always be sufficient because honest people may be willing to tolerate others’ rule violations if they stand to profit from them. Our results clarify yet again that people who are not willing to turn a blind eye and stand up to corruption should receive all praise.

Can we collaborate with robots or will they take our place at work?

TU/e Research Project
ethicsandtechnology.eu

Here is an excerpt:

Finding ways to collaborate with robots

In this project, the aim is to understand how robotisation in logistics can be advanced whilst maintaining workers’ sense of meaning in work and general well-being, thereby preventing or undoing resilience towards robotisation. Sven Nyholm says: “People typically find work meaningful if they work within a well-functioning team or if they view their work as serving some larger purpose beyond themselves. Could human-robot collaborations be experienced as team-work? Would it be any kind of mistake to view a robot as a colleague? The thought of having a robot as a collaborator can seem a little weird. And yes, the increasingly robotized work environment is scary, but it is exciting at the same time. The further robotisation at work could give workers new important responsibilities and skills, which can in turn strengthen the feeling of doing meaningful work”.

The information in here.

Can we please discuss ethics in the future of work?

Sylvia Vorhauser-Smith
Forbes
Originally published

Here is an excerpt:

Our brains have a very distinct and subliminal way of normalizing just about anything we are exposed to if we experience it long enough – even if we don’t like it. Look at how social norms have evolved over the past fifty years: back then a teenager would instinctively forego a seat on a bus for the elderly, men in suits wore ties, women never touched up their makeup in public and no one swore at policemen. Today, these aspects of social etiquette have changed significantly. Some for better, some for worse. New norms apply.

Equally, the workplace is a very different environment to what it used to be. Much of it better – safer, more engaging, more stimulating, more collaborative. But there have been trade-offs. Our working days are longer, technology has dissolved many of the boundaries between home and work and we are expected to be more self-sufficient and productive than ever before. And that’s before the next wave of innovations.

The information is here.

How can groups make good decisions? Deliberation & Diversity

Mariano Sigman and Dan Ariely
TED Talk
Originally recorded April 2017

We all know that when we make decisions in groups, they don't always go right -- and sometimes they go very wrong. How can groups make good decisions? With his colleague Dan Ariely, neuroscientist Mariano Sigman has been inquiring into how we interact to reach decisions by performing experiments with live crowds around the world. In this fun, fact-filled explainer, he shares some intriguing results -- as well as some implications for how it might impact our political system. In a time when people seem to be more polarized than ever, Sigman says, better understanding how groups interact and reach conclusions might spark interesting new ways to construct a healthier democracy.

Social Mission in Health Professions Education: Beyond Flexner

Fitzhugh Mullan
JAMA: Viewpoint
Originally published June 26, 2017

Here is an excerpt:

Today, with a broader recognition of the importance of social determinants of health and a better understanding of the substantial health disparities within the United States, new ideas are circulating and important experiments in curricular redesign are taking place at many schools. Accountable care organizations, primary care medical homes, interprofessional education, cost consciousness, and teaching health centers are all present to some degree in the curricula of health professions schools and teaching hospitals, and all have dimensions of social mission. These developments are encouraging, but the creative focus on social mission that they represent needs to be widely embraced, becoming a core value of all health professions educational institutions, including schools, teaching hospitals, and postgraduate training programs.

Toward that end, the unqualified commitment of these institutions to teaching and modeling social mission is needed, as are the voices of academic professional organizations, accrediting bodies, and student groups who have important roles in defining the values of young professionals. The task is interprofessional and should involve other disciplines including nursing, dentistry, public health, physician assistants, and, perhaps, law and social work. The commitments needed are not the domain of any one profession, and collaborative initiatives at the educational level will reinforce social mission norms in practice. The precision with which health disparities and the morbidity and mortality that they represent can be documented calls on all health professions schools, academic health centers, and teaching hospital to place their commitment to social mission alongside their dedication to education, research, and service in pursuit of a healthier and fairer society.

The article is here.

Make business ethics a cumulative science

Jonathan Haidt & Linda Trevino
Nature - Human Behavior


Business ethics research is not currently a cumulative science, but it must become one. The benefits to humanity from research that helps firms improve their ethics could be enormous, especially if that research also shows that strong ethics improves the effectiveness of companies.

Imagine a world in which medical researchers did experiments on rats, but never on people. Furthermore, suppose that doctors ignored the rat literature entirely. Instead, they talked to each other and swapped tips, based on their own clinical experience. In such a world medicine would not be the cumulative science that we know today.

That fanciful clinical world is the world of business ethics research. University researchers do experiments, mostly on students who come into the lab for pay or course credit. Experiments are run carefully, social and cognitive processes are elucidated, and articles get published in academic journals. But business leaders do not read these journals, and rarely even read about the studies second-hand. Instead, when they think and talk about ethics, they rely on their own experience, and the experience of their friends. CEOs share their insights on ethical leadership. Ethics and compliance officers meet at conferences to swap ‘best practices’ that haven't been research-tested. There are fads, but there is no clear progress.

The article is here.

The New Era of Informed Consent

Getting to a Reasonable-Patient Standard Through Shared Decision Making

Erica S. Spatz, Harlan M. Krumholz, MD, Benjamin W. Moulton
JAMA. 2016; 315(19):2063-2064. doi:10.1001/jama.2016.3070.

Here is an excerpt:

Informed consent discussions are often devoid of details about the material risks, benefits, and alternatives that are critical to meaningful patient decision making. Informed consent documents for procedures, surgery, and medical treatments with material risks (eg, radiation therapy) tend to be generic, containing information intended to protect the physician or hospital from litigation. These documents are often written at a high reading level and sometimes presented in nonlegible print, putting a premium on health literacy and proactive information-seeking behavior. Moreover, informed consent documents are often signed minutes before the start of a procedure, a time when patients are most vulnerable and least likely to ask questions—hardly consistent with what a reasonable patient would deem acceptable. In the United States, with the exception of 1 state, Washington, that explicitly recognizes shared decision making as an alternative to the traditional informed consent process, the law has yet to promote a process that truly supports a reasonable-patient–centered standard through shared decision making.

The article is here.

How to Become the Smartest Group in the Room

Minds for Business
Association for Psychological Science
Originally published January 28, 2016

Here are two excerpts:

You’re a manager tasked with putting together a team to tackle a new project. What qualities do you look for in creating such a crack team?

Research from psychological scientists Anita Williams Woolley (Carnegie Mellon University), Ishani Aggarwal (Fundação Getulio Vargas), and Thomas Malone (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) finds that the smartest groups don’t necessarily have the highest IQs – rather, what they do tend to have are excellent social skills.

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Instead, their studies revealed that social skills were much better than IQ at predicting a group’s collective intelligence. Social perceptiveness was measured by people’s ability to judge others’ emotions based on pictures of their eyes. Groups with members who were highly socially attuned — that is, good at reading emotions — were more collectively intelligent than other groups.

The results suggest that social perceptiveness allows group members to communicate more effectively, ultimately allowing the group to capitalize on each member’s skills and experience.

The article is here.

Scale of medical decisions shifts to offer varied balances of power

By Karen Ravn
The Los Angeles Times
Originally published June 6, 2014

Patients never used to worry about making healthcare decisions. They didn't have to. Their doctors made just about all of their decisions for them. Everyone simply assumed that doctors knew what was best.

But that paternalistic view of doctors as know-it-alls has gone by the board, says Dr. Clarence Braddock, vice dean for education at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "Now doctors are seen as the experts on medical information and choices," he explains, "but patients are seen as the experts on what those choices mean in their own lives."

The upshot? Doctors still make decisions sometimes, but sometimes patients make them, and sometimes doctors and patients make them together.

The entire article is here.

Montreal Statement on Research Integrity in Cross-Boundary Research Collaborations

The Montreal Statement on Research Integrity in Cross-Boundary Research Collaborations was developed as part of the 3rd World Conference on Research Integrity, 5-8 May 2013, in Montréal, as a global guide to the responsible conduct of research. It is not a regulatory document and does not represent the official policies of the countries or organizations that funded or participated in the Conference.

Preamble. 

Research collaborations that cross national, institutional, disciplinary and sector boundaries are important to the advancement of knowledge worldwide. Such collaborations present special challenges for the responsible conduct of research, because they may involve substantial differences in regulatory and legal systems, organizational and funding structures, research cultures, and approaches to training. It is critically important, therefore, that researchers be aware of and able to address such differences, as well as issues related to integrity that might arise in cross-boundary research collaborations. Researchers should adhere to the professional responsibilities set forth in the Singapore Statement on Research Integrity. In addition, the following responsibilities are particularly relevant to collaborating partners at the individual and institutional levels and fundamental to the integrity of collaborative research. Fostering the integrity of collaborative research is the responsibility of all individual and institutional partners.

The entire statement is here.

'Selfish' Genes Create Cooperative Organisms

Rosa Rubicondior
June 9, 2013

Here are some excerpts:

One of the criticisms of Richard Dawkins' seminal work, and the work which initially made him famous as an evolutionary biologist, The Selfish Gene, is that it portrayed life itself as essentially selfish, so undermining any claim Atheists might have to be moral, empathetic and considerate people. This was of course always nonsense and is an example of attacking a scientific theory based on its consequences not on its validity, as though truth is subject to a human convenience test - rather like claiming nuclear fission doesn't work because atom bombs are destructive or that the Big Bang can't have been an uncaused event because that would shut god(s) out of the picture.

But the consequences of 'selfish' genes are not as is claimed anyway. In fact, anything more than a cursory glance at biology will reveal how cooperation, at all levels of organisation, has almost always been the key to long-term success.

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Cooperative alliances are the single greatest achievement of selfish genes. The entire web of mutually interdependent life on Earth owes its existence to these alliances, even the mutual interdependence of plant and animal life as animals provide the carbon dioxide for plants to use to make the sugars for animals to eat.

The entire blog post is here.