Welcome to the Nexus of Ethics, Psychology, Morality, Philosophy and Health Care

Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy
Showing posts with label Psychology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Psychology. Show all posts

Friday, November 17, 2023

Humans feel too special for machines to score their morals

Purcell, Z. A., & Jean‐François Bonnefon. (2023).
PNAS Nexus, 2(6).

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) can be harnessed to create sophisticated social and moral scoring systems—enabling people and organizations to form judgments of others at scale. However, it also poses significant ethical challenges and is, subsequently, the subject of wide debate. As these technologies are developed and governing bodies face regulatory decisions, it is crucial that we understand the attraction or resistance that people have for AI moral scoring. Across four experiments, we show that the acceptability of moral scoring by AI is related to expectations about the quality of those scores, but that expectations about quality are compromised by people's tendency to see themselves as morally peculiar. We demonstrate that people overestimate the peculiarity of their moral profile, believe that AI will neglect this peculiarity, and resist for this reason the introduction of moral scoring by AI.‌

Significance Statement

The potential use of artificial intelligence (AI) to create sophisticated social and moral scoring systems poses significant ethical challenges. To inform the regulation of this technology, it is critical that we understand the attraction or resistance that people have for AI moral scoring. This project develops that understanding across four empirical studies—demonstrating that people overestimate the peculiarity of their moral profile, believe that AI will neglect this peculiarity, and resist for this reason the introduction of moral scoring by AI.

The link to the research is above.

My summary:

Here is another example of "myside bias" in which humans base decisions based on their uniqueness or better than average hypothesis.  This research study investigated whether people would accept AI moral scoring systems. The study found that people are unlikely to accept such systems, in large part because they feel too special for machines to score their personal morals.

Specifically, the results showed that people were more likely to accept AI moral scoring systems if they believed that the systems were accurate. However, even if people believed that the systems were accurate, they were still less likely to accept them if they believed that they were morally unique.

The study's authors suggest that these findings may be due to the fact that people have a strong need to feel unique and special. They also suggest that people may be hesitant to trust AI systems to accurately assess their moral character.

Key findings:
  • People are unlikely to accept AI moral scoring systems, in large part because they feel too special for machines to score their personal morals.
  • People's willingness to accept AI moral scoring is influenced by two factors: their perceived accuracy of the system and their belief that they are morally unique.
  • People are more likely to accept AI moral scoring systems if they believe that the systems are accurate. However, even if people believe that the systems are accurate, they are still less likely to accept them if they believe that they are morally unique.

Friday, August 4, 2023

Social Media and Morality

Van Bavel, J. J., Robertson, C. et al. (2023, June 6).

Abstract

Nearly five billion people around the world now use social media, and this number continues to grow. One of the primary goals of social media platforms is to capture and monetize human attention. One means by which individuals and groups can capture attention and drive engagement on these platforms is by sharing morally and emotionally evocative content. We review a growing body of research on the interrelationship of social media and morality–as well the consequences for individuals and society. Moral content often goes “viral” on social media, and social media makes moral behavior (such as punishment) less costly. Thus, social media often acts as an accelerant for existing moral dynamics – amplifying outrage, status seeking, and intergroup conflict, while also potentially amplifying more constructive facets of morality, such as social support, pro-sociality, and collective action. We discuss trends, heated debates, and future directions in this emerging literature.

From Discussions and Future Directions

Addressing the interplay between social media and morality 

There is a growing recognition among scholars and the public that social media has deleterious consequences for society and there is a growing appetite for greater transparency and some form of regulation of social media platforms (Rathje et al., 2023). To address the adverse consequences of social media, solutions at the system level are necessary (e.g., Chater & Loewenstein, 2022), but individual- or group-level solutions may be useful for creating behavioral change before system-level change is in place and for increasing public support for system-level solutions (Koppel et. al., 2023). In the following section, we discuss a range of solutions that address the adverse consequences of the interplay between social media and morality.

Regulation is one of the most heavily debated ways of mitigating the adverse features of social media. Regulating social media can be done both on platforms as well at the national or cross-national level, but always involves discussions about who should decide what should be allowed on which platforms (Kaye, 2019). Currently, there is relatively little editorial oversight with the content even on mainstream platforms, yet the connotations with censorship makes regulation inherently controversial. For instance, Americans believe that social media companies censor political viewpoints (Vogels et al., 2020) and believe it is hard to regulate social media because people cannot agree upon what should and should not be removed (PewResearch Center, 2019). Moreover, authoritarian states can suppress dissent through the regulation of speech on social media.

In general, people on the political left are supportive of regulating social media platforms (Kozyreva, 2023; Rasmussen, 2022), reflecting liberals’ general tendency to more supportive, and conservatives' tendency to more opposing, of regulatory policies (e.g. Grossman, 2015). In the context of content on social media, one explanation is that left-leaning people infer more harm from aggressive behaviors. In other words, they may perceive immoral behaviors on social media as more harmful for the victim, which in turn justifies regulation (Graham 2009; Crawford 2017; Walter 2019; Boch 2020). There are conflicting results, however, on whether people oppose regulating hate speech (Bilewicz et. al. 2017; Rasmussen 2023a) because they use hate to derogate minority and oppressed groups (Sidanius, Pratto, and Bobo 1996; Federico and Sidanius, 2002) or because of principled political preferences deriving from conservatism values (Grossman 2016; Grossman 2015; Sniderman & Carmines, 1997; Sniderman & Piazza, 1993; Sniderman, Piazza, Tetlock, & Kendrick, 1991). While sensitivity to harm contributes to making people on the political left more supportive of regulating social media, it is contested whether opposition from the political right derives from group-based dominance or principled opposition.

Click the link above to get to the research.

Here is a summary from me:
  • Social media can influence our moral judgments. Studies have shown that people are more likely to make moral judgments that align with the views of their social media friends and the content they consume on social media. For example, one study found that people who were exposed to pro-environmental content on social media were more likely to make moral judgments that favored environmental protection.
  • Social media can lead to moral disengagement. Moral disengagement is a psychological process that allows people to justify harmful or unethical behavior. Studies have shown that social media can contribute to moral disengagement by making it easier for people to distance themselves from the consequences of their actions. For example, one study found that people who were exposed to violent content on social media were more likely to engage in moral disengagement.
  • Social media can promote prosocial behavior. Prosocial behavior is behavior that is helpful or beneficial to others. Studies have shown that social media can promote prosocial behavior by connecting people with others who share their values and by providing opportunities for people to help others. For example, one study found that people who used social media to connect with others were more likely to volunteer their time to help others.
  • Social media can be used to spread misinformation and hate speech. Misinformation is false or misleading information that is spread intentionally or unintentionally. Hate speech is speech that attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as race, religion, or sexual orientation. Social media platforms have been used to spread misinformation and hate speech, which can have a negative impact on society.
Overall, the research on social media and morality suggests that social media can have both positive and negative effects on our moral judgments and behavior. It is important to be aware of the potential risks and benefits of social media and to use it in a way that promotes positive moral values.

Monday, June 19, 2023

On the origin of laws by natural selection

DeScioli, P.
Evolution and Human Behavior
Volume 44, Issue 3, May 2023, Pages 195-209

Abstract

Humans are lawmakers like we are toolmakers. Why do humans make so many laws? Here we examine the structure of laws to look for clues about how humans use them in evolutionary competition. We will see that laws are messages with a distinct combination of ideas. Laws are similar to threats but critical differences show that they have a different function. Instead, the structure of laws matches moral rules, revealing that laws derive from moral judgment. Moral judgment evolved as a strategy for choosing sides in conflicts by impartial rules of action—rather than by hierarchy or faction. For this purpose, humans can create endless laws to govern nearly any action. However, as prolific lawmakers, humans produce a confusion of contradictory laws, giving rise to a perpetual battle to control the laws. To illustrate, we visit some of the major conflicts over laws of violence, property, sex, faction, and power.

(cut)

Moral rules are not for cooperation

We have briefly summarized the  major divisions and operations of moral judgment. Why then did humans evolve such elaborate powers of the mind devoted to moral rules? What is all this rule making for?

One common opinion is that moral rules are for cooperation. That is, we make and enforce a moral code in order to cooperate more effectively with other people. Indeed, traditional  theories beginning with Darwin assume that morality is  the  same  as cooperation. These theories  successfully explain many forms of cooperation, such as why humans and other  animals  care  for  offspring,  trade  favors,  respect  property, communicate  honestly,  and  work  together  in  groups.  For  instance, theories of reciprocity explain why humans keep records of other people’s deeds in the form of reputation, why we seek partners who are nice, kind, and generous, why we praise these virtues, and why we aspire to attain them.

However, if we look closely, these theories explain cooperation, not moral  judgment.  Cooperation pertains  to our decisions  to  benefit  or harm someone, whereas moral judgment pertains to  our judgments of someone’s action  as right or  wrong. The difference  is crucial because these  mental  faculties  operate  independently  and  they  evolved  separately. For  instance,  people can  use moral judgment  to cooperate but also to cheat, such as a thief who hides the theft because they judge it to be  wrong, or a corrupt leader who invents a  moral rule  that forbids criticism of the leader. Likewise, people use moral judgment to benefit others  but  also  to  harm  them, such  as falsely  accusing an enemy of murder to imprison them. 

Regarding  their  evolutionary  history, moral  judgment is  a  recent adaptation while cooperation is ancient and widespread, some forms as old  as  the origins  of  life and  multicellular  organisms.  Recalling our previous examples, social animals like gorillas, baboons, lions, and hyenas cooperate in numerous ways. They care for offspring, share food, respect property, work together in teams, form reputations,  and judge others’ characters as nice or nasty. But these species do not communicate rules of action, nor do they learn, invent, and debate the rules. Like language, moral judgment  most likely evolved  recently in the  human lineage, long after complex forms of cooperation. 

From the Conclusion

Having anchored ourselves to concrete laws, we next asked, What are laws for? This is the central question for  any mental power because it persists only  by aiding an animal in evolutionary competition.  In this search,  we  should  not  be  deterred  by  the  magnificent creativity  and variety of laws. Some people suppose that natural selection could impart no more than  a  few fixed laws in  the  human mind, but there  are  no grounds for this supposition. Natural selection designed all life on Earth and its creativity exceeds our own. The mental adaptations of animals outperform our best computer programs on routine tasks such as loco-motion and vision. Why suppose that human laws must be far simpler than, for instance, the flight controllers in the brain of a hummingbird? And there are obvious counterexamples. Language is a complex  adaptation but this does not mean that humans speak just a few sentences. Tool use comes from mental adaptations including an intuitive theory of physics, and again these abilities do not limit but enable the enormous variety of tools.

Thursday, May 4, 2023

The Unchecked Rise of Psychological Testing Evidence in United States Courts.

King, C., & Neal, T. M. (2022, June 7).
https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/4hfd6

Abstract

Psychological testing, based on psychometric science, is often used in court to aid judges and juries in making legal decisions that profoundly affect people’s lives, such as eligibility for disability benefits, psychological damages, child custody, and whether and where someone will serve a criminal sentence. We provide a novel estimate of the pattern of psychological tests introduced as legal evidence throughout the entire history of United States case law, finding a sharp increase in this type of expert evidence in recent years. Although the law requires judges to screen evidence for relevance and reliability before allowing an expert to testify about it in court, legal challenges to psychological testing evidence are rare: across 28,824 judicial opinions citing psychological tests, just 479 involved a potential admissibility challenge (1.66%). This finding informs and raises questions for the public as well as legal and mental health professionals.

Discussion

Our results indicate that psychological testing evidence in U.S. courts has been increasing steadily in civil, family, and criminal cases over the past half-century, beginning roughly around the time that psychological testing emerged as a specialty in the field of psychology. Although we used a sizable sample, psychological testing evidence has undoubtedly occurred in many more cases than we could capture—with such evidence either not specified in written opinions, or judicial decisions not incorporated, for various reasons, into the large legal database we searched.

We also found evidence that legal professionals either rarely scrutinize psychological testing evidence, or admissibility decisions about such evidence are not typically deemed significant enough to warrant written explanations. This seems to be true irrespective of shifts in the strictness of admissibility standards over time. Potential challenge rates did, however, vary across individual psychological tests, and at least a third of the examined tests were challenged at least once. The two most commonly challenged types of tests provide a clue as to the type of case most likely to involve testing-related challenges: litigation concerning the civil commitment of certain convicted sex offenders. Nevertheless, the generally unchecked rise in psychological testing evidence, as suggested by this study, raises questions about the rigor of current admissibility standards, the functioning of the enforcers of those rules, and the seemingly broad deference afforded to mental health professionals’ highly varied test selections.

Thursday, March 30, 2023

Institutional Courage Buffers Against Institutional Betrayal, Protects Employee Health, and Fosters Organizational Commitment Following Workplace Sexual Harassment

Smidt, A. M., Adams-Clark, A. A., & Freyd, J. J. (2023).
PLOS ONE, 18(1), e0278830. 
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278830

Abstract

Workplace sexual harassment is associated with negative psychological and physical outcomes. Recent research suggests that harmful institutional responses to reports of wrongdoing–called institutional betrayal—are associated with additional psychological and physical harm. It has been theorized that supportive responses and an institutional climate characterized by transparency and proactiveness—called institutional courage—may buffer against these negative effects. The current study examined the association of institutional betrayal and institutional courage with workplace outcomes and psychological and physical health among employees reporting exposure to workplace sexual harassment. Adults who were employed full-time for at least six months were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform and completed an online survey (N = 805). Of the full sample, 317 participants reported experiences with workplace sexual harassment, and only this subset of participants were included in analyses. We used existing survey instruments and developed the Institutional Courage Questionnaire-Specific to assess individual experiences of institutional courage within the context of workplace sexual harassment. Of participants who experienced workplace sexual harassment, nearly 55% also experienced institutional betrayal, and 76% experienced institutional courage. Results of correlational analyses indicated that institutional betrayal was associated with decreased job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and increased somatic symptoms. Institutional courage was associated with the reverse. Furthermore, results of multiple regression analyses indicated that institutional courage appeared to attenuate negative outcomes. Overall, our results suggest that institutional courage is important in the context of workplace sexual harassment. These results are in line with previous research on institutional betrayal, may inform policies and procedures related to workplace sexual harassment, and provide a starting point for research on institutional courage.

Conclusion

Underlying all research on institutional betrayal and institutional courage is the idea that how one responds to a negative event—whether sexual harassment, sexual assault, and other types of victimization—is often as important or more important for future outcomes as the original event itself. In other words, it’s not only about what happens; it’s also about what happens next. In this study, institutional betrayal and institutional courage appear to have a tangible association with employee workplace and health outcomes. Furthermore, institutional courage appears to attenuate negative outcomes in both the employee workplace and health domains.

While we once again find that institutional betrayal is harmful, this study indicates that institutional courage can buffer against those harms. The ultimate goal of this research is to eliminate institutional betrayal at all levels of institutions by replacing it with institutional courage. The current study provides a starting point to achieving that goal by introducing a new measure of institutional courage to be used in future investigations and by reporting findings that demonstrate the power of institutional courage with respect to workplace sexual harassment.

Friday, March 17, 2023

Rational learners and parochial norms

Partington, S. Nichols, S., & Kushnir, T.
Cognition
Volume 233, April 2023, 105366

Abstract

Parochial norms are narrow in social scope, meaning they apply to certain groups but not to others. Accounts of norm acquisition typically invoke tribal biases: from an early age, people assume a group's behavioral regularities are prescribed and bounded by mere group membership. However, another possibility is rational learning: given the available evidence, people infer the social scope of norms in statistically appropriate ways. With this paper, we introduce a rational learning account of parochial norm acquisition and test a unique prediction that it makes. In one study with adults (N = 480) and one study with children ages 5- to 8-years-old (N = 120), participants viewed violations of a novel rule sampled from one of two unfamiliar social groups. We found that adults judgments of social scope – whether the rule applied only to the sampled group (parochial scope), or other groups (inclusive scope) – were appropriately sensitive to the relevant features of their statistical evidence (Study 1). In children (Study 2) we found an age difference: 7- to 8-year-olds used statistical evidence to infer that norms were parochial or inclusive, whereas 5- to 6-year olds were overall inclusive regardless of statistical evidence. A Bayesian analysis shows a possible inclusivity bias: adults and children inferred inclusive rules more frequently than predicted by a naïve Bayesian model with unbiased priors. This work highlights that tribalist biases in social cognition are not necessary to explain the acquisition of parochial norms.

From the General discussion

The widespread prevalence of parochial norms across history and cultures have led some to suggest parochialism is itself a human universal (Clark et al., 2019; Greene, 2013) in part owing to evolved, group-based biases in social norm acquisition (Chalik & Rhodes, 2020; Chudek & Henrich, 2011; Roberts et al., 2017). In this paper, we investigated whether a rational learning process can also explain this phenomenon. In Study 1, we found that adults can acquire distinctions of social scope in a statistically appropriate manner, and this finding was robust across two forms of measurement (rule judgments and open response). In Study 2, older children displayed the adult-like statistical sensitivity in their rule judgments, and even younger children did so in their open responses. Computational analyses suggests that rule judgments were inclusively biased: compared to an unbiased Bayesian learner, children tended to assume that novel rules apply to everyone in a candidate population. Adults also displayed an inclusive bias, albeit to a lesser extent than children.

Broadly, these findings suggest that rational learning processes can indeed explain the acquisition of parochial norms and highlight an important sense in which children's norm learning can be biased in the opposite direction of tribalism. At the least, the finding that children and adults are inclusively biased serves as an existence proof that deep-rooted tribal biases in social learning are not necessary to explain the acquisition of parochial norms. Rather, if children and adults are rational learners, they can acquire a parochial norm when presented with evidence that is consistent with parochialism. However, tribalism can still play a role in norm acquisition, for example, by influencing the sort of evidence that adults seek out, or the evidence to which children are exposed.

Thursday, March 16, 2023

Drowning in Debris: A Daughter Faces Her Mother’s Hoarding

Deborah Derrickson Kossmann
Psychotherapy Networker
March/April 2023

Here is an excerpt:

My job as a psychologist is to salvage things, to use the stories people tell me in therapy and help them understand themselves and others better. I make meaning out of the joy and wreckage of my own life, too. Sure, I could’ve just hired somebody to shovel all my mother’s mess into a dumpster, but I needed to be my family’s archaeologist, excavating and preserving what was beautiful and meaningful. My mother isn’t wrong to say that holding on to some things is important. Like her, I appreciate connections to the past. During the cleaning, I found photographs, jewelry passed down over generations, and my bronzed baby shoes. I treasure these things.

“Maybe I failed by not following anything the psychology books say to do with a hoarding client,” I tell my sister over the phone. “Sometimes I still feel like I wasn’t compassionate enough.”

“You handled it as best you could as her daughter,” my sister says. “You’re not her therapist.”

After six years, my mother has finally stopped saying she’s a “prisoner” at assisted living. She tells me she’s part of a “posse” of women who eat dinner together. My sister decorated her studio apartment beautifully, but the cluttering has begun again. Piles of magazines and newspapers sit in corners of her room. Sometimes, I feel the rage and despair these behaviors trigger in me. I still have nightmares where I drive to my mother’s house, open the door, and see only darkness, black and terrifying, like I’m looking into a deep cave. Then, I’m fleeing while trying to wipe feces off my arm. I wake up feeling sadness and shame, but I know it isn’t my own.

A few weeks ago, I pulled up in front of my mother’s building after taking her to the cardiologist. We turned toward each other and hugged goodbye. She opened the car door with some effort and determinedly waved off my help before grabbing the bag of books I’d brought for her.

“I can do it, Deborah,” she snapped. But after taking a few steps toward the building entrance, she turned around to look at me and smiled. “Thank you,” she said. “I really appreciate all you do for me.” She added, softly, “I know it’s a lot.”


The article is an important reminder that practicing psychologists cope with their own stressors, family dynamics, and unpleasant emotional experiences.  Psychologists are humans with families, value systems, emotions, beliefs, and shortcomings.

Thursday, October 27, 2022

Frequently asked questions about abortion laws and psychology practice

American Psychological Association
Updated 1 SEPT 2022

Since the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, many states have proposed, enacted, or resurrected a range of laws to either prohibit, significantly restrict, or protect reproductive rights and health care. Currently, the main targets of these laws appear to be medical providers who provide abortions or individuals seeking to obtain an abortion.

APA and APA Services Inc. are striving to provide psychologists with accurate and adequate information about the potential impact on them of reproductive health care laws. Since psychologists have embraced telehealth and many use technology to provide services across state lines, it’s important to be familiar with the laws governing the jurisdiction(s) where you are licensed as well as the jurisdiction(s) where your patients live.

In addition to this FAQ and other APA resources, psychologists will want to be familiar with guidance issued by federal and state agencies, their state licensing board(s), and their liability carrier. Some frequently asked questions follow.

While the situation is dynamic, good psychological practice remains unchanged. The changing landscape in states regarding access to reproductive health care does not change the fundamental approach to psychological care. Psychologists should continue to prioritize the welfare of their patients, protect confidentiality, and ensure their patients’ safety.

Practicing in states with changing abortion laws

Am I practicing in a state where abortion is, or is soon to be, illegal under all or certain circumstances?

The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has put the regulation of abortion in the hands of states. In anticipation of the ruling, 13 states enacted “trigger laws,” designed to ban or restrict abortion upon the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade. Not all trigger laws immediately kicked in, and some that did were immediately challenged in court, delaying their enforcement.

Staying current on laws affecting the states where you practice is important. For a list of existing abortion bans and restrictions within each state, the Center for Reproductive Rights has provided a map that is updated in real time. The Guttmacher Institute, a well-respected research group that collects information on abortion laws across the United States, also tracks current state abortion-related laws.

Tuesday, June 21, 2022

Gina Haspel Observed Waterboarding at CIA Black Site, Psychologist Testifies

Carol Rosenberg and J. E. Barnes
The New York Times
Originally posted 4 JUN 22

During Gina Haspel’s confirmation hearing to become director of the CIA in 2018, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., asked her if she had overseen the interrogations of a Saudi prisoner, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, which included the use of a waterboard.

Haspel declined to answer, saying it was part of her classified career.

While there has been reporting about her oversight of a CIA black site in Thailand where al-Nashiri was waterboarded, and where Haspel wrote or authorized memos about his torture, the precise details of her work as the chief of base, the CIA officer who oversaw the prison, have been shrouded in official secrecy.

But testimony at a hearing last month in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, included a revelation about the former CIA director’s long and secretive career. James E. Mitchell, a psychologist who helped develop the agency’s interrogation program, testified that the chief of base at the time, whom he referred to as Z9A in accordance with court rules, watched while he and a teammate subjected al-Nashiri to “enhanced interrogation” that included waterboarding at the black site.

Z9A is the code name used in court for Haspel.

The CIA has never acknowledged Haspel’s work at the black site, and the use of the code name represented the court’s acceptance of an agency policy of not acknowledging state secrets — even those that have already been spilled. Former officials long ago revealed that she ran the black site in Thailand from October 2002 until December 2002, during the time al-Nashiri was being tortured, which Mitchell described in his testimony.

Guantánamo Bay is one of the few places where America is still wrestling with the legacy of torture in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Torture has loomed over the pretrial phase of the death penalty cases for years and is likely to continue to do so as hearings resume over the summer.

Tuesday, March 22, 2022

Could we fall in love with robots?

Rich Wordsworth
eandt.theiet.org
Originally published 6 DEC 21

Here is an excerpt:

“So what are people’s expectations? They’re being fed a very particular idea of how [robot companions] should look. But when you start saying to people, ‘They can look like anything,’ then the imagination really opens up.”

Perhaps designing companion robots that deliberately don’t emulate human beings is the answer to that common sci-fi question of whether or not a relationship with a robot can ever be reciprocal. A robot with a Kindle for a head isn’t likely to hoodwink many people at the singles bar. When science fiction shows us robotic lovers, they are overwhelmingly portrayed as human (at least outwardly). This trips something defensive in us: the sense of unease or revulsion we feel when a non-human entity tries to deceive us into thinking that it’s human is such a common phenomenon (thanks largely to CGI in films and video games) that it has its own name: ‘the Uncanny Valley’. Perhaps in the future, the engineering of humanoid robots will progress to the point where we really can’t tell (without a signed waiver and a toolbox) whether a ‘person’ is flesh and blood or wires and circuitry. But in the meantime, maybe the best answer is simply not to bother attempting to emulate humans and explore the outlandish.

“You can form a friendship; you can form a bond,” says Devlin of non-humanlike machines. “That bond is one-way, but if the machine shows you any form of response, then you can project onto that and feel social. We treat machines socially because we are social creatures and it’s almost enough to make us buy into it. Not delusionally, but to suspend our disbelief and feel a connection. People feel connections with their vacuum cleaners: mine’s called Babbage and I watch him scurrying around, I pick him up, I tell him, ‘Don’t go there!’ It’s like having a robot pet – but I’m perfectly aware he’s just a lump of plastic. People talk to their Alexas when they’re lonely and they want to chat. So, yes: you can feel a bond there.

“It’s not the same as a human friendship: it’s a new social category that’s emerging that we haven’t really seen before.”

As for the question of reciprocity, Devlin doesn’t see a barrier there with robots that doesn’t already exist in human relationships.

“You’ll get a lot of people going, ‘Oh, that’s not true friendship; that’s not real.’,” Devlin says, sneeringly. “Well, if it feels real and if you’re happy in it, is that a problem? It’s the same people who say you can’t have true love unless it’s reciprocated, which is the biggest lie I’ve ever heard because there are so many people out there who are falling in love with people they’ve never even met! Fictional people! Film stars! Everybody! Those feelings are very, very valid to someone who’s experiencing them.”

“How are you guys doing here?” The waitress asks with perfect waitress-in-a-movie timing as Twombly and Catherine sit, processing the former’s new relationship with Samantha in silence.

“Fine,” Catherine blurts. “We’re fine. We used to be married but he couldn’t handle me; he wanted to put me on Prozac and now he’s madly in love with his laptop.”

In 2013, Spike Jonze’s script for ‘Her’ won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay (it was nominated for four others including Best Picture). A year later, Alex Garland’s script for ‘Ex Machina’ would be nominated for the same award while arguably presenting the same conclusion: we are a species that loves openly and to a fault. 

Wednesday, March 16, 2022

Autonomy and the Folk Concept of Valid Consent

Demaree-Cotton, J., & Sommers, R. 
(2021, August 17). 
https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/p4w8g

Abstract

Consent governs innumerable everyday social interactions, including sex, medical exams, the use of property, and economic transactions. Yet little is known about how ordinary people reason about the validity of consent. Across the domains of sex, medicine, and police entry, Study 1 showed that when agents lack autonomous decision-making capacities, participants are less likely to view their consent as valid; however, failing to exercise this capacity and deciding in a nonautonomous way did not reduce consent judgments. Study 2 found that specific and concrete incapacities reduced judgments of valid consent, but failing to exercise these specific capacities did not, even when the consenter makes an irrational and inauthentic decision. Finally, Study 3 showed that the effect of autonomy on judgments of valid consent carries important downstream consequences for moral reasoning about the rights and obligations of third parties, even when the consented-to action is morally wrong. Overall, these findings suggest that laypeople embrace a normative, domain-general concept of valid consent that depends consistently on the possession of autonomous capacities, but not on the exercise of these capacities. Autonomous decisions and autonomous capacities thus play divergent roles in moral reasoning about consent interactions: while the former appears relevant for assessing the wrongfulness of consented-to acts, the latter plays a role in whether consent is regarded as authoritative and therefore as transforming moral rights.

Conclusion 

Before these studies, it remained an open possibility that “valid consent” as a rich and normatively complex force existed only as a technical concept used in philosophical, legal and academic domains. We found, however, that the folk concept of consent involves normative distinctions between valid and invalid consent that are sensitive to the consenter’s autonomy, even if the linguistic utterance of “yes” is held constant, and that this concept plays an important role in moral reasoning. 

Specifically, the studies presented here examined the relationship between autonomy and intuitive judgments of valid consent in several domains: medical procedures, sexual relations, police searches, and agreements between buyers and sellers.  Across scenarios, we found that judgments of valid consent carried a specific relationship to autonomy: whether an agent possesses the mental capacity to make decisions in an autonomous way has a consistent impact on whether their consent is regarded as valid, and thus whether it was regarded as morally transformative of the rights and obligations of the consenter and of third parties.  Yet, whether the agent in fact makes their decision in an autonomous, rational way—based on their own authentic values and what is right for them—has little impact on perceptions of consent or associated rights, although it has relevance for whether the consent-obtainer is acting wrongly.  Autonomy thus has a subtle role in the ordinary reasoning about morally transformative consent, where consent given by an agent with autonomous capacities has a distinctive role in downstream moral reasoning.

Monday, February 7, 2022

On loving thyself: Exploring the association between self-compassion, self-reported suicidal behaviors, and implicit suicidality among college students

Zeifman, R. J., Ip, J., Antony, M. M., & Kuo, J. R. 
(2021). Journal of American college health
J of ACH, 69(4), 396–403.

Abstract

Suicide is a major public health concern. It is unknown whether self-compassion is associated with suicide risk above and beyond suicide risk factors such as self-criticism, hopelessness, and depression severity. 

Participants: Participants were 130 ethnically diverse undergraduate college students. 

Methods: Participants completed self-report measures of self-compassion, self-criticism, hopelessness, depression severity, and suicidal behaviors, as well as an implicit measure of suicidality. 

Results: Self-compassion was significantly associated with self-reported suicidal behaviors, even when controlling for self-criticism, hopelessness, and depression severity. Self-compassion was not significantly associated with implicit suicidality. 

Conclusions: The findings suggest that self-compassion is uniquely associated with self-reported suicidal behaviors, but not implicit suicidality, and that self-compassion is a potentially important target in suicide risk interventions. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.

Discussion

Clinical implications

Our findings suggest that self-criticism and self-compassion are uniquely predictive of self-reported suicidal behaviors.  Therefore, in addition to the importance of targeting self-criticism, self-compassion may also be an important, and independent, target within suicide risk interventions. Indeed, qualitative analysis of interviews conducted with individuals with borderline personality disorder (a psychiatric disorder characterized by high levels of suicide risk) and their service providers, identified self-compassion as an important theme in the process of recovery.  Interventions that specifically focus on fostering self-compassion, by generating feelings of self-reassurance, warmth, and self-soothing, include compassion-focused therapy and mindful self-compassion. Compassion based interventions have shown promise for a wide range of populations, including eating disorders, psychotic disorders, personality disorders, and healthy individuals.

Thursday, November 25, 2021

APF Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in the Practice of Psychology: Samuel Knapp

American Psychologist, 76(5), 812–814. 

This award recognizes a distinguished career and enduring contribution to the practice of psychology. Samuel Knapp’s long, distinguished career has resulted in demonstrable effects and significant contributions to best practices in professionalism, ethics education, positive ethics, and legislative advocacy as Director of Professional Affairs for the Pennsylvania Psychological Association and as an ethics educator extraordinaire. Dr. Knapp’s work has modified the way psychologists think about professional ethics through education, from avoiding disciplinary consequences to promoting overarching ethical principles to achieve the highest standards of ethical behavior. His focus on respectful collaboration among psychologists promotes honesty through nonjudgmental conversations. His Ethics Educators Workshop and other continuing education programs have brought together psychology practitioners and faculty to focus deeply on ethics and resulted in the development of the APA Ethics Educators Award.

From the Biography section

Ethics education became especially important in Pennsylvania when the Pennsylvania State Board of Psychology mandated ethics as part of its continuing education requirement. But even before that, members of the PPA Ethics Committee and Board of Directors, saw ethics education as a vehicle to help psychologists to improve the quality of their services to their patients. Also, to the extent that ethics education can help promote good decision-making, it could also reduce the emotional burden that professional psychologists often feel when faced with difficult ethical situations. Often the continuing education programs were interactive with the secondary goals of helping psychologists to build contacts with each other and an opportunity for the presenters to promote authentic and compassion-driven approaches to teaching ethics. Yes, Sam and the other PPA Ethics educators, such as the PPA attorney Rachael Baturin, also taught the laws, ethics codes, and the risk management strategies. facts.  But these were only one component of PPA’s ethics education program. More important was the development of a cadre of psychologists/ethicists who taught most of these continuing education programs.


Saturday, September 18, 2021

Fraudulent data raise questions about superstar honesty researcher

Cathleen O'Grady
Sciencemag.com
Originally posted 24 Aug 21

Here is an excerpt:

Some time later, a group of anonymous researchers downloaded those data, according to last week’s post on Data Colada. A simple look at the participants’ mileage distribution revealed something very suspicious. Other data sets of people’s driving distances show a bell curve, with some people driving a lot, a few very little, and most somewhere in the middle. In the 2012 study, there was an unusually equal spread: Roughly the same number of people drove every distance between 0 and 50,000 miles. “I was flabbergasted,” says the researcher who made the discovery. (They spoke to Science on condition of anonymity because of fears for their career.)

Worrying that PNAS would not investigate the issue thoroughly, the whistleblower contacted the Data Colada bloggers instead, who conducted a follow-up review that convinced them the field study results were statistically impossible.

For example, a set of odometer readings provided by customers when they first signed up for insurance, apparently real, was duplicated to suggest the study had twice as many participants, with random numbers between one and 1000 added to the original mileages to disguise the deceit. In the spreadsheet, the original figures appeared in the font Calibri, but each had a close twin in another font, Cambria, with the same number of cars listed on the policy, and odometer readings within 1000 miles of the original. In 1 million simulated versions of the experiment, the same kind of similarity appeared not a single time, Simmons, Nelson, and Simonsohn found. “These data are not just excessively similar,” they write. “They are impossibly similar.”

Ariely calls the analysis “damning” and “clear beyond doubt.” He says he has requested a retraction, as have his co-authors, separately. “We are aware of the situation and are in communication with the authors,” PNAS Editorial Ethics Manager Yael Fitzpatrick said in a statement to Science.

Three of the authors say they were only involved in the two lab studies reported in the paper; a fourth, Boston University behavioral economist Nina Mazar, forwarded the Data Colada investigators a 16 February 2011 email from Ariely with an attached Excel file that contains the problems identified in the blog post. Its metadata suggest Ariely had created the file 3 days earlier.

Ariely tells Science he made a mistake in not checking the data he received from the insurance company, and that he no longer has the company’s original file. He says Duke’s integrity office told him the university’s IT department does not have email records from that long ago. His contacts at the insurance company no longer work there, Ariely adds, but he is seeking someone at the company who could find archived emails or files that could clear his name. His publication of the full data set last year showed he was unaware of any problems with it, he says: “I’m not an idiot. This is a very easy fraud to catch.”

Wednesday, May 5, 2021

Top German psychologist found to have fabricated data—University Investigation Finds Anxiety Expert Pressured Whistleblowers

Hristio Boytchev
Science  09 Apr 2021:
Vol. 372, Issue 6538, pp. 117-118
DOI: 10.1126/science.372.6538.117

Here is an excerpt:

Wittchen was one of the top epidemiologists of psychiatry, and TU Dresden “has benefited greatly from him,” says Jürgen Margraf, a psychologist at Ruhr University, Bochum, who has collaborated with Wittchen. “If the commission’s findings turn out to be true, they are very disturbing for the entire field, and that would also have an impact on TU Dresden.” Thomas Pollmächer, director of the mental health center at Ingolstadt Hospital, says the allegations are “startling.” He worries about other possible irregularities in Wittchen’s extensive publication record. “Some time bombs may be ticking,” he says.

The study in question was a €2.4 million survey of staffing levels and quality at nearly 100 German psychiatric facilities. Working for TU Dresden’s Association for Knowledge and Technology Transfer (GWT), Wittchen was the principal investigator of the effort, which aimed to examine workloads at the clinics and inform government regulations.

But in February 2019, German media reported allegations, stemming from whistle-blowers close to the survey project, that study data had been fabricated. The university launched a formal investigation, led by law professor Hans-Heinrich Trute.

After 2 years of work, the commission, in its final report, has found that only 73 of 93 psychiatric clinics were actually surveyed. For the others, the report says, Wittchen instructed researchers to copy data from one clinic and apply them to another.

 “The violations were intentional, not negligent,” the report says. “Wittchen wanted to appear more successful than he was.”

Wittchen told Science he would not answer detailed questions “because they are the issue of legal proceedings.” But he denies any wrongdoing and says the study in question was “scientifically correct.”

The investigation report also shows how Wittchen sought to avoid repercussions. 

In April 2019, he sent an email to Hans Müller-Steinhagen, president of TU Dresden at the time, warning him to “stay out of the project” and stop the investigation, because otherwise there would be a “national political earthquake.” 

Tuesday, March 16, 2021

The Psychology of Dehumanization



People have an amazing capacity to see their fellow human beings as...not human. Psychologists have studied this both in its blatant and more subtle forms. What does it mean to dehumanize? How can researchers capture everyday dehumanization? Is it just prejudice? What does it say about how we think about non-human animals?

An important, well done 11 minute video.

Published  4 Feb 2021

Saturday, January 30, 2021

Checked by reality, some QAnon supporters seek a way out

David Klepper
Associated Press
Originally posted 28 January 21

Here are two excerpts:

It's not clear exactly how many people believe some or all of the narrative, but backers of the movement were vocal in their support for Trump and helped fuel the insurrectionists who overran the U.S. Capitol this month. QAnon is also growing in popularity overseas.

Former believers interviewed by The Associated Press liken the process of leaving QAnon to kicking a drug addiction. QAnon, they say, offers simple explanations for a complicated world and creates an online community that provides escape and even friendship.

Smith's then-boyfriend introduced her to QAnon. It was all he could talk about, she said. At first she was skeptical, but she became convinced after the death of financier Jeffrey Epstein while in federal custody facing pedophilia charges. Officials debunked theories that he was murdered, but to Smith and other QAnon supporters, his suicide while facing child sex charges was too much to accept.

Soon, Smith was spending more time on fringe websites and on social media, reading and posting about the conspiracy theory. She said she fell for QAnon content that presented no evidence, no counter arguments, and yet was all too convincing.

(cut)

“This isn't about critical thinking, of having a hypothesis and using facts to support it," Cohen said of QAnon believers. “They have a need for these beliefs, and if you take that away, because the storm did not happen, they could just move the goal posts.”

Some now say Trump's loss was always part of the plan, or that he secretly remains president, or even that Joe Biden's inauguration was created using special effects or body doubles. They insist that Trump will prevail, and powerful figures in politics, business and the media will be tried and possibly executed on live television, according to recent social media posts.

“Everyone will be arrested soon. Confirmed information,” read a post viewed 130,000 times this week on Great Awakening, a popular QAnon channel on Telegram. “From the very beginning I said it would happen.”

But a different tone is emerging in the spaces created for those who have heard enough.

“Hi my name is Joe,” one man wrote on a Q recovery channel in Telegram. “And I’m a recovering QAnoner.”

Monday, January 18, 2021

We Decoded The Symbols From The Storming Of The Capitol


We looked through hours of footage from the Capitol riot to decode the symbols that Trump supporters brought with them, revealing some ongoing threats to US democracy.

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Violent CRED s toward Out-Groups Increase Trustworthiness: Preliminary Experimental Evidence

Řezníček, D., & Kundt, R. (2020).
Journal of Cognition and Culture, 20(3-4), 262-281. 
doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/15685373-12340084

Abstract

In the process of cultural learning, people tend to acquire mental representations and behavior from prestigious individuals over dominant ones, as prestigious individuals generously share their expertise and know-how to gain admiration, whereas dominant ones use violence, manipulation, and intimidation to enforce obedience. However, in the context of intergroup conflict, violent thoughts and behavior that are otherwise associated with dominance can hypothetically become prestigious because parochial altruists, who engage in violence against out-groups, act in the interest of their group members, therefore prosocially. This shift would imply that for other in-groups, individuals behaving violently toward out-groups during intergroup conflicts become simultaneously prestigious, making them desirable cultural models to learn from. Using the mechanism of credibility enhancing displays (CRED s), this article presents preliminary vignette-based evidence that violent CRED s toward out-groups during intergroup conflict increase the perceived trustworthiness of a violent cultural model.

From the Discussion section

We found support for hypotheses H1–3 regarding the seemingly paradoxical relationship between trustworthiness, prestige, dominance, and violence during an intergroup conflict (see Figures 1 and 2). Violent cultural model’s trustworthiness was positively predicted by CREDs and prestige, while it was negatively predicted by dominance. This suggests that in-groups violent toward out-groups during an intergroup conflict are not perceived as dominant manipulators who are better to be avoided and not learned from but rather as prestigious heroes who deserve to be venerated. Thus, it appears that a positive perception of violence toward out-groups, as modeled or tested by various researchers (Bowles, 2008; Castano & Leidner, 2012; Choi & Bowles, 2007;Cohen, Montoya, & Insko, 2006; Roccas, Klar, & Liviatan, 2006), is an eligible notion. Our study offers preliminary evidence for the suggestion that fighting violently for one’s group may increase the social status of fighters via prestige, not dominance.

Sunday, November 15, 2020

Determined to Be Humble? Exploring the Relationship Between Belief in Free Will and Humility

Earp, B. D., et al.

Abstract

In recent years, diminished belief in free will or increased belief in determinism have been associated with a range of antisocial or otherwise negative outcomes: unjustified aggression, cheating, prejudice, less helping behavior, and so on. Only a few studies have entertained the possibility of prosocial or otherwise positive outcomes, such as greater willingness to forgive and less motivation to punish retributively. Here, five studies (open data, materials, and pre-print at https://osf.io/hmy39/) explore the relationship between belief in determinism and another positive outcome or attribute, namely, humility. The reported findings suggest that relative disbelief in free will is reliably associated in our samples with at least one type of humility—what we call ‘Einsteinian’ humility—but is not associated with, or even negatively associated with, other types of humility described in the literature.

From the Conclusion

At the same time, in our final study, we found a positive relationship between belief in free will and several other measures of humility: ethical/epistemic humility, Landrum humility, and modesty, with the last of these remaining significant even with a conservative alpha criterion. Although this is contrary to what we expected, it is consistent with the dominant narrative in the literature according to which belief in free will is associated with pro-social traits and behaviors. We believe we are the first to show a relationship of any kind between belief in free will and this particular trait—modesty—and we hope to explore this relationship in more detail in future work.