Is Dan Ariely Telling the Truth?

Tom Bartlett

The Chronicle of Higher Ed

Originally posted 18 Feb 24

Here is an excerpt:

In August 2021, the blog Data Colada published a post titled “Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Field Experiment About Dishonesty.” Data Colada is run by three researchers — Uri Simonsohn, Leif Nelson, and Joe Simmons — and it serves as a freelance watchdog for the field of behavioral science, which has historically done a poor job of policing itself. The influential field experiment in question was described in a 2012 paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, by Ariely and four co-authors. In the study, customers of an insurance company were asked to report how many miles they had driven over a period of time, an answer that might affect their premiums. One set of customers signed an honesty pledge at the top of the form, and another signed at the bottom. The study found that those who signed at the top reported higher mileage totals, suggesting that they were more honest. The authors wrote that a “simple change of the signature location could lead to significant improvements in compliance.” The study was classic Ariely: a slight tweak to a system that yields real-world results.

But did it actually work? In 2020, an attempted replication of the effect found that it did not. In fact, multiple attempts to replicate the 2012 finding all failed (though Ariely points to evidence in a recent, unpublished paper, on which he is a co-author, indicating that the effect might be real). The authors of the attempted replication posted the original data from the 2012 study, which was then scrutinized by a group of anonymous researchers who found that the data, or some of it anyway, had clearly been faked. They passed the data along to the Data Colada team. There were multiple red flags. For instance, the number of miles customers said they’d driven was unrealistically uniform. About the same number of people drove 40,000 miles as drove 500 miles. No actual sampling would look like that — but randomly generated data would. Two different fonts were used in the file, apparently because whoever fudged the numbers wasn’t being careful.

In short, there is no doubt that the data were faked. The only question is, who did it?

The article is here.

This article discusses an investigation into the research conduct of Dr. Dan Ariely, a well-known behavioral economist at Duke University. The investigation, prompted by concerns about potential data fabrication, concluded that while no evidence of fabricated data was found, Ariely did commit research misconduct by failing to adequately vet findings and maintain proper records.

The article highlights several specific issues identified by the investigation, including inconsistencies in data and a lack of supporting documentation for key findings. It also mentions that Ariely made inaccurate statements about his personal history, such as misrepresenting his age at the time of a childhood accident.

While Ariely maintains that he did not intentionally fabricate data and attributes the errors to negligence and a lack of awareness, the investigation's findings have damaged his reputation and raised questions about the integrity of his research. The article concludes by leaving the reader to ponder whether Ariely's transgressions can be forgiven or if they represent a deeper pattern of dishonesty.

It's important to note that the article presents one perspective on a complex issue and doesn't offer definitive answers. Further research and analysis are necessary to form a complete understanding of the situation.

The meaning of ‘reasonable’: Evidence from a corpus-linguistic study

Lucien Baumgartner & Markus Kneer

In Kevin P. Tobia (ed.), The Cambridge 

Handbook of Experimental Jurisprudence. 

Cambridge University Press (forthcoming)

Abstract

The reasonable person standard is key to both Criminal Law and Torts. What does and does not count as reasonable behavior and decision-making is frequently determined by lay jurors. Hence, laypeople’s understanding of the term must be considered, especially whether they use it predominately in an evaluative fashion. In this corpus study based on supervised machine learning models, we investigate whether laypeople use the expression ‘reasonable’ mainly as a descriptive, an evaluative, or merely a value-associated term. We find that ‘reasonable’ is predicted to be an evaluative term in the majority of cases. This supports prescriptive accounts, and challenges descriptive and hybrid accounts of the term—at least given the way we operationalize the latter. Interestingly, other expressions often used interchangeably in jury instructions (e.g. ‘careful,’ ‘ordinary,’ ‘prudent,’ etc), however, are predicted to be descriptive. This indicates a discrepancy between the intended use of the term ‘reasonable’ and the understanding lay jurors might bring into the court room.

From the Discussion section

Our research reports an intriguing discovery: the expression ‘reasonable’ is most often not just a straightforward descriptive term. In fact, only 17.18% of uses in our sample fall into this category.  Interestingly, other words that are commonly used to elucidate ‘reasonable’ in jury instructions, like ‘average,’ ‘ordinary,’ ‘rational,’ and ‘prudent’ are primarily descriptive. In terms of multidimensional proximity, ‘reasonable’ inhabits a very different part of the space. Considering that these terms are used somewhat interchangeably in jury instructions, our data suggests that jurors enter the courtroom with a different concept than the one intended or expected by legislators. However, it is important to keep in mind that we are not directly comparing the language of laypeople and experts and therefore cannot make direct inferences about possible differences between the two. And yet, judging from the fact that laypeople use ‘reasonable’ in a completely different way than other terms used to characterize ‘reasonable’ in the jury instructions, this suggests, at least indirectly, a certain discrepancy in language use. Furthermore, our results align with the findings by Willemsen et al. (2023) that laypeople tend to use certain terms in a more evaluative manner, compared to legal professionals—at least if the jury instructions are used as a proxy thereof. This disparity in understanding can have significant ramifications during trial, as jurors and legal professionals may not be on the same page. For a more comprehensive investigation of this discrepancy, further comparative studies are required.

A pdf is here.

My quick summary:

The authors argue that beliefs surrounding reasonableness has implications for the law. They suggest that the reasonable person standard should be interpreted as an evaluative standard, rather than a descriptive one. This would mean that jurors would be more likely to consider the social and cultural context when making their judgments about what is reasonable.

The authors also found that other terms that are often used interchangeably with "reasonable" in jury instructions, such as "careful" and "prudent," are more likely to be used in a descriptive sense. This suggests that there is a discrepancy between the way the law intends these terms to be used and the way lay jurors might understand them.

The article concludes by calling for more research on the meaning of "reasonable" in the context of the law. The authors argue that this research could help to improve the fairness and accuracy of the legal system.

Outcome effects, moral luck and the hindsight bias

M. Kneer & I. Skoczen

Cognition

Volume 232, March 2023, 105258

Abstract

In a series of ten preregistered experiments (N = 2043), we investigate the effect of outcome valence on judgments of probability, negligence, and culpability – a phenomenon sometimes labelled moral (and legal) luck. We found that harmful outcomes, when contrasted with neutral outcomes, lead to an increased perceived probability of harm ex post, and consequently, to a greater attribution of negligence and culpability. Rather than simply postulating hindsight bias (as is common), we employ a variety of empirical means to demonstrate that the outcome-driven asymmetry across perceived probabilities constitutes a systematic cognitive distortion. We then explore three distinct strategies to alleviate the hindsight bias and its downstream effects on mens rea and culpability ascriptions. Not all strategies are successful, but some prove very promising. They should, we argue, be considered in criminal jurisprudence, where distortions due to the hindsight bias are likely considerable and deeply disconcerting.

Highlights

• In a series of ten studies (N = 2043) we examine the relation between moral luck, negligence and probability

• Most people deem outcome irrelevant for ascriptions of negligence & blame in WS studies, so there’s no “puzzle of moral luck”

• In between-subjects designs, the effect of luck on negligence and blame seems to be driven by the hindsight bias

• We examine three strategies to alleviate the hindsight bias on perceived probability, negligence and blame

• Two alleviation strategies significantly decrease the hindsight bias and could potentially be used in legal trials

Conclusion

In a series of experiments with 2043 participants, we explored the effect of outcome on judgments of subjective and objective probability, mens rea and culpability. For mens rea and blame attributions (though not for deserved punishment), the outcome effect constitutes a bias. The distorted assessment of mens rea and blame, we showed, is ultimately rooted in the hindsight bias: People tend to assess a potential harm as more likely when it does come to pass than when it does not; they therefore ascribe more negligence to the agent, and consequently consider him more culpable.

Echoing the literature from behavioral economics and legal psychology, we argued that the downstream effects of the hindsight bias constitute a serious threat to the just adjudication of legal trials, in particular in countries where mens rea is determined by lay juries (such as the US and the UK). And although it is well established that the hindsight bias is pervasive and difficult to overcome, we have shown that there are measures to reduce its impact. Among a series of different debiasing strategies we have put to the test, we showed that expert probability stabilizing (which, on occasion, is already in use in courts) and entertaining counterfactual outcomes hold considerable promise. We would strongly urge further research conducted jointly with legal practitioners that explores the most suitable ways of introducing (or further implementing) these techniques in the courtroom, so as to make the law more just and equal.

The research is here.

One thought too few: Why we punish negligence

Sarin, A., & Cushman, F. A. (2022, November 7).

https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/mj769

Abstract

Why do we punish negligence? Leading accounts explain away the punishment of negligence as a consequence of other, well-known phenomena: outcome bias, character inference, or the volitional choice not to exercise due care. Although they capture many important cases, these explanations fail to account for others. We argue that, in addition to these phenomena, there is something both fundamental and unique to the punishment of negligence itself: People hold others directly responsible for the basic fact of failing to bring to mind information that would help them to avoid important risks. In other words, we propose that at its heart negligence is a failure of thought. Drawing on the current literature in moral psychology, we suggest that people find it natural to punish such failures, even when they don’t arise from conscious, volitional choice. Then, drawing on the literature on how thoughts come to mind, we argue that punishing a person for forgetting will help them remember in the future. This provides new insight on the structure and function of our tendency to punish negligent actions.

Conclusion

Why do we punish negligence? Psychologists and philosophers have traditionally offered two answers: Outcome bias (a punitive response elicited by the harm caused) and lack of due care (a punitive response elicited by the antecedent intentional choices that made negligence possible). These factors doubtlessly contribute in many cases, and they align well with psychological models that  posit  causation  and  intention  as  the  primary  determinants of punishment (Cushman, 2008; Laurent et al., 2016; Nobes et al., 2009; Shultz et al., 1986). Another potential explanation, rooted in character-based models of moral  judgment (Gray et al., 2012; Malle, 2011; A. Smith, 2017; Sripada, 2016; Uhlmann et al., 2015), is that  negligence speaks to an insufficient concern for others.

These models each attempt to “explain away” negligence as an outgrowth of other, better-understood parts of our moral psychology. We have argued, however, that there is something both fundamental and unique to negligence itself: That people simply hold others responsible for the basic fact of forgetting(or, more broadly, failing to call mind) things that would have made them act better.  In other words, at its heart, negligence is a failure of thought–a failure to make relevant dispositional knowledge occurrent at the right time.

Our challenge, then,  is to explain the design principles behind this mechanism of moral judgment. If we hold people directly responsible for their failures of thought, what purpose does this serve? To address this question, we draw on the literature on how thoughts come to mind.  It offers a model both of how negligence occurs, and why punishing such involuntary forgetting is adaptive. Value determines which  actions, outcomes, and pieces of knowledge come to mind. Specifically, actions come to mind when they have high value, outcomes when they have high absolute value, and other sorts of knowledge structures when they contribute in valuable ways to the task at hand. After an action is chosen and executed, a person receives various kinds of positive and negative feedback –environmental, social, and internal. All kinds of feedback alter value –of actions, outcomes, and other knowledge structures.  Value and feedback therefore form a self-reinforcing loop: value determines what comes to mind and feedback (rewards and punishments) update value.

The research is here.

Mental control and attributions of blame for negligent wrongdoing

Murray, S., Krasich, K., et al. (2022).

Journal of Experimental Psychology: 

General. Advance online publication.

https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001262

Abstract

Third-personal judgments of blame are typically sensitive to what an agent knows and desires. However, when people act negligently, they do not know what they are doing and do not desire the outcomes of their negligence. How, then, do people attribute blame for negligent wrongdoing? We propose that people attribute blame for negligent wrongdoing based on perceived mental control, or the degree to which an agent guides their thoughts and attention over time. To acquire information about others’ mental control, people self-project their own perceived mental control to anchor third-personal judgments about mental control and concomitant responsibility for negligent wrongdoing. In four experiments (N = 841), we tested whether perceptions of mental control drive third-personal judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing. Study 1 showed that the ease with which people can counterfactually imagine an individual being non-negligent mediated the relationship between judgments of control and blame. Studies 2a and 2b indicated that perceived mental control has a strong effect on judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing and that first-personal judgments of mental control are moderately correlated with third-personal judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing. Finally, we used an autobiographical memory manipulation in Study 3 to make personal episodes of forgetfulness salient. Participants for whom past personal episodes of forgetfulness were made salient judged negligent wrongdoers less harshly compared with a control group for whom past episodes of negligence were not salient. Collectively, these findings suggest that first-personal judgments of mental control drive third-personal judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing and indicate a novel role for counterfactual thinking in the attribution of responsibility.

Conclusion

Models  of  blame  attribution  predict  that  judgments  of  blame  for  negligent  wrongdoing  are sensitive to the perceived  capacity of the individual  to  avoid being negligent. In  this paper, we explored two extensions of these models. The first is that people use perceived degree of mental control to inform judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing. Information about mental control is acquired through self-projection. These results suggest a novel role for counterfactual thinking in attributing blame, namely that counterfactual thinking is the process whereby people self-project to acquire information that is used to inform judgments of blame.

A pdf of the research is here.

Hackers are not main cause of health data breaches

Lisa Rapaport
Reuters News
Originally posted November 19, 2018

Most health information data breaches in the U.S. in recent years haven’t been the work of hackers but instead have been due to mistakes or security lapses inside healthcare organizations, a new study suggests.

Most health information data breaches in the U.S. in recent years haven’t been the work of hackers but instead have been due to mistakes or security lapses inside healthcare organizations, a new study suggests.

Another 25 percent of cases involved employee errors like mailing or emailing records to the wrong person, sending unencrypted data, taking records home or forwarding data to personal accounts or devices.

“More than half of breaches were triggered by internal negligence and thus are to some extent preventable,” said study coauthor Ge Bai of the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School in Washington, D.C.

The info is here.

No Luck for Moral Luck

Markus Kneer, University of Zurich Edouard Machery, University of Pittsburgh
Draft, March 2018

Abstract

Moral philosophers and psychologists often assume that people judge morally lucky and morally unlucky agents differently, an assumption that stands at the heart of the puzzle of moral luck. We examine whether the asymmetry is found for reflective intuitions regarding wrongness, blame, permissibility and punishment judgments, whether people's concrete, case-based judgments align with their explicit, abstract principles regarding moral luck, and what psychological mechanisms might drive the effect. Our experiments  produce three findings: First, in within-subjects experiments favorable to reflective deliberation, wrongness, blame, and permissibility judgments across different moral luck conditions are the same for the vast majority of people. The philosophical puzzle of moral luck, and the challenge to the very possibility of systematic ethics it is frequently taken to engender, thus simply does not arise. Second, punishment judgments are significantly more outcome-dependent than wrongness, blame, and permissibility  judgments. While this is evidence in favor of current dual-process theories of moral  judgment, the latter need to be qualified since punishment does not pattern with blame. Third, in between-subjects experiments, outcome has an effect on all four types of moral  judgments. This effect is mediated by negligence ascriptions and can ultimately be explained as due to differing probability ascriptions across cases.

The manuscript is here.

State Supreme Court Establishes Right To Sue Over Medical Record Breaches

Edmund H. Mahony
Hartford Courant
Originally published January 10, 2018

The state Supreme Court established Thursday that patients in Connecticut have the right to sue doctors and other health care providers for the unauthorized and negligent disclosure of their confidential medical records.

The majority decision creates new state law and adds Connecticut to a growing number of states that allow patients to sue for damages over the release of private records by their physicians. Courts in Connecticut have held previously — as have courts elsewhere — that private suits were blocked by federal law under the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA law.

HIPAA laws establish procedures to protect medical records and empower government to impose civil and criminal penalties for violation. But HIPAA does not permit private suits to collect damages for unauthorized disclosures.

“Finally we have a remedy in Connecticut that recognizes that there is a duty of confidentiality, the breach of which can lead to compensation for damages,” said attorney Bruce L. Elstein of Trumbull, whose client, Emily Byrne, sued over an unauthorized release of her medical history.

The article is here.

Healthcare Data Breaches Up 40% Since 2015

Alexandria Wilson Pecci
MedPage Today
Originally posted February 26, 2017

Here is an excerpt:

Broken down by industry, hacking was the most common data breach source for the healthcare sector, according to data provided to HealthLeaders Media by the Identity Theft Resource Center. Physical theft was the biggest breach category for healthcare in 2015 and 2014.

Insider theft and employee error/negligence tied for the second most common data breach sources in 2016 in the health industry. In addition, insider theft was a bigger problem in the healthcare sector than in other industries, and has been for the past five years.

Insider theft is alleged to have been at play in the Jackson Health System incident. Former employee Evelina Sophia Reid was charged in a fourteen-count indictment with conspiracy to commit access device fraud, possessing fifteen or more unauthorized access devices, aggravated identity theft, and computer fraud, the Department of Justice said. Prosecutors say that her co-conspirators used the stolen information to file fraudulent tax returns in the patients' names.

The article is here.

Accused gunman's doctor, university face lawsuits

By Jim Spellman,
CNN
Originally published January 17, 2013


The university psychiatrist who treated the accused gunman in last year's deadly Colorado theater rampage could face more than a dozen lawsuits that blame her and the school for not properly handling James Holmes' treatment.

At least 14 people have filed legal documents indicating they are planning to sue the University of Colorado Denver and Dr. Lynne Fenton for negligence.

Holmes, 25, was a doctoral student in neuroscience at the university.

Fenton has testified that her contact with Holmes ended on June 11, more than a month before he allegedly walked into a crowded movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, and opened fire, killing 12 people and wounding 58 others during a screening of the new Batman film.

She said she later contacted campus police because she was "so concerned" about what happened during her last meeting with him, but she declined to detail what bothered her.

The entire story is here.

Suit filed against Capitola psychologist for allegedly sexually abusing a child patient

By Jessica M. Pasko
The Santa Cruz Sentinel
Originally published October 23, 2012

A civil lawsuit has been filed against a Capitola psychologist who is facing criminal charges of sexual abuse against a child.

Dr. John William Visher was arrested last month at his La Selva Beach home after Capitola police investigated allegations that he committed lewd acts against an 8-year-old girl. The girl had been his patient and detectives believe the incidents occurred at Visher's former Bay Avenue office in 2009.

Last week, the girl's family filed a personal injury suit against Visher in the civil divisions of Santa Cruz County Court. It charges him with sexual harassment, professional negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and seeks unspecified damages.

Visher pleaded not guilty on Oct. 9 to five felony charges that include lewd acts upon a child, sending obscene material and possession of material depicting a minor engaging in sexual conduct. He is due back in court Nov. 14.

The entire story is here.

California places psychologist David Van Zak's license on probation

Psychiatric Crimes Database
Originally published July 5, 2012

On January 26, 2012, the California Board of Psychology placed DAVID VAN ZAK, Ph.D.’s license on probation for five years. According to the Board’s Accusation, Van Zak committed, among other things, repeated acts of negligence by accepting financial gifts from a patient, as well as the patient’s invitation to join her and her husband on a Mexican cruise.

The entire story is here.

Most Teens Who Self-Harm Are Not Evaluated for Mental Health in ER

By Mary Elizabeth Dallas
MedicineNet.com

Most children and teens who deliberately injure themselves are discharged from emergency rooms without an evaluation of their mental health, a new study shows.

The findings are worrisome since risk for suicide is greatest right after an episode of deliberate self-harm, according to researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

The researchers also found the majority of these kids do not receive any follow-up care with a mental health professional up to one month after their ER visit.

"Emergency department personnel can play a unique role in suicide prevention by assessing the mental health of patients after deliberate self-harm and providing potentially lifesaving referrals for outpatient mental health care," said lead study author Jeff Bridge, principal investigator at the hospital's Center for Innovation in Pediatric Practice, in a news release. "However, the coordination between emergency services for patients who deliberately harm themselves and linkage with outpatient mental health treatment is often inadequate."

The story can be found here.

The study is from Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Volume 51, Issue 2, pages 213-222.  Here is the conclusion of the study from the abstract.

"A substantial proportion of young Medicaid beneficiaries who present to EDs with deliberate self-harm are discharged to the community and do not receive emergency mental health assessments or follow-up outpatient mental health care."

Jury Rules in Favor of Man Suing Therapist for Sparking Relationship with his Wife during Counseling

by TaMaryn Waters

Tallahassee Democrat

This is not a made-for-television-movie scenario, but it felt like one for Richard Webb. His 25-year marriage was crumbling so he sought counseling from Kevin Ragsdale from September 2007 to January 2008, court records show.

Within the four-month span of counseling, Webb's wife was brought in to joint counseling sessions.

But Webb didn't know Ragsdale conducted private sessions with his wife and later sparked a relationship.

Webb sued Ragsdale, who married Webb's wife in January 2010, for emotional damages and a Leon County jury has ruled the therapist violated several code of ethics...

<snip>

Dana Brooks, Webb's attorney, said the jury ruled Ragsdale was 65 percent responsible for negligence that caused a "legal cause of harm or loss" to Webb and 35 percent of the negligence was caused by Webb.

Brooks, however, said there was no evidence presented at trial related to Webb's role in negligence.

She plans to file a motion for a post trial hearing.

Brooks said a judge will make a judgment on what the final verdict should be for Webb, including damages, during the post trial, which could be sometime next month.

She said her client, the father of three children ages 14, 18 and 21 during the time of the counseling, said Webb continues to have "a great deal of difficulty on any kind of parenting issues" now that Ragsdale has married his ex-wife.

"My client feels like he is being completing supplanted and replaced," she said.

================

Thanks to Ken Pope for this story.

For some reason, the Tallahassee Democrat no longer has the full story on their web site.