How moral bioenhancement affects perceived praiseworthiness

Lucas, S., Douglas, T., & Faber, N. S. (2023).

Bioethics. https://doi.org/10.1111/bioe.13237

Abstract

Psychological literature indicates that actions performed with the assistance of cognition-enhancing biomedical technologies are often deemed to be less praiseworthy than similar actions performed without such assistance. This study examines (i) whether this result extends to the bioenhancement of moral capacities, and (ii) if so, what explains the effect of moral bioenhancement on perceived praiseworthiness. The findings indicate that actions facilitated by morally bioenhanced individuals are considered less deserving of praise than similar actions facilitated by ‘traditional’ moral enhancement—for example, moral self-education. This diminished praise does not seem to be driven by an aversion to (moral) bioenhancement per se. Instead, it appears to be primarily attributable to a perceived lack of effort exerted by bioenhanced individuals in the course of their moral enhancement. Our findings advance the philosophical discourse on the foundations of praise in the context of moral bioenhancement by elucidating the empirical basis underlying some assumptions commonly employed to argue for or against the permissibility of moral bioenhancement.

It is an open source article.  Link above works.

My summary:

This research shows whether people are less likely to praise morally bioenhanced individuals for their actions. The authors found that people do perceive morally bioenhanced individuals as less deserving of praise than those who achieve moral enhancement through traditional means, such as moral self-education.

The authors argue that this diminished praise is not due to an aversion to moral bioenhancement per se, but rather to a perceived lack of effort on the part of the bioenhanced individual. In other words, people believe that bioenhanced individuals have not had to work as hard to achieve their moral excellence, and therefore deserve less praise for their accomplishments.

This finding has important implications for the development and use of moral bioenhancement technologies. If people are less likely to praise morally bioenhanced individuals, it could lead to a number of negative consequences, such as social stigma and discrimination. Additionally, it could discourage people from using moral bioenhancement technologies, even if they believe that these technologies could help them to become more moral people.

Bias in bias recognition: People view others but not themselves as biased by preexisting beliefs and social stigmas

Wang Q, Jeon HJ (2020) 

PLoS ONE 15(10): e0240232. 

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240232

Abstract

Biases perpetuate when people think that they are innocent whereas others are guilty of biases. We examined whether people would detect biased thinking and behavior in others but not themselves as influenced by preexisting beliefs (myside bias) and social stigmas (social biases). The results of three large studies showed that, across demographic groups, participants attributed more biases to others than to themselves, and that this self-other asymmetry was particularly salient among those who hold strong beliefs about the existence of biases (Study 1 and Study 2). The self-other asymmetry in bias recognition dissipated when participants made simultaneous predictions about others’ and their own thoughts and behaviors (Study 3). People thus exhibit bias in bias recognition, and this metacognitive bias may be remedied when it is highlighted to people that we are all susceptible to biasing influences.

From the Discussion

Indeed, the current studies reveal the critical role of explicit beliefs about biases in underlying the biased reasoning concerning one’s own and others’ thoughts and behaviors: The more strongly people believed that biases widely existed, the more inclined they were to ascribe biases to others but not themselves. These findings suggest that the conviction that the world is generally biased and yet the self is the exception contributes to the self-other asymmetry in bias recognition. They further suggest important individual differences whereby some individuals more strongly believe that myside bias and social biases widely exist and yet convince themselves that “I’m not one of them” when making judgements about these biases in everyday situations. In comparison, individuals who held weaker beliefs about the biases attributed less bias overall and exhibited less self-other asymmetry in recognizing the biases. These findings thus provide valuable information for future focus-group interventions. They further suggest that when learning about bias, as occurs in most introductory psychology classes, students should be reminded that they are equally susceptible as others to biasing influences.

The research is here.

It’s in Your Control: Free Will Beliefs and Attribution of Blame to Obese People and People with Mental Illness

Chandrashekar, S. P. (2020).
Collabra: Psychology, 6(1), 29.
DOI: http://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.305

Abstract

People’s belief in free will is shown to influence the perception of personal control in self and others. The current study tested the hypothesis that individuals who believe in free will attribute stronger personal blame to obese people and to people with mental illness (schizophrenia) for their adverse health outcomes. Results from a sample of 1110 participants showed that the belief in free will subscale is positively correlated with perceptions of the controllability of these adverse health conditions. The findings suggest that free will beliefs are correlated with attribution of blame to people with obesity and mental health issues. The study contributes to the understanding of the possible negative implications of people’s free will beliefs.

Discussion

The purpose of this brief report was to test the hypothesis that belief in free will is strongly correlated with attribution of personal blame to obese people and to people with mental illness for their adverse health outcomes. The results showed consistent positive correlations between the free will subscale and the extent of blame to obese individuals and individuals with mental illness. The study employed both generic survey measures of internal blame attributions and a survey that measured the responses based on a person described in a vignette. The current study, although correlational, contributes to recent work that argues that belief in free will is linked to processes underlying human social perception (Genschow et al., 2017). Besides theoretical implications, the findings demonstrate the societal consequences of free-will beliefs. Perception of controllability and personal responsibility is a well-documented predictor of negative stereotypes and stigma associated with people with mental illness and obesity (Blaine & Williams, 2004; Crandall, 1994). Perceptions of controllability related to people with health issues have detrimental social outcomes such as social rejection of the affected individuals (Crandall & Moriarty, 1995), and reduced social support and help from others (Crandall, 1994). The current study underlines that belief in free will as an individual-level factor is particularly relevant for developing a broader understanding of predictors of stigmatization of those with mental illness and obesity.

Concealment of nonreligious identity: Exploring social identity threat among atheists and other nonreligious individuals

Mackey, C. D., Silver, and others
(2020). Group Processes & Intergroup Relations.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430220905661

Abstract

Negative attitudes toward the nonreligious persist in America. This may compel some nonreligious individuals to conceal their identity to manage feelings of social identity threat. In one correlational study and one experiment, we found evidence of social identity threat and concealment behavior among nonreligious Americans. Our first study showed that Southern nonreligious individuals reported higher levels of stigma consciousness and self-reported concealment of nonreligious identity, which in turn predicted lower likelihood of self-identifying as “atheist” in public settings than in private settings. Our second study successfully manipulated feelings of social identity threat by showing that atheists who read an article about negative stereotypes of their group subsequently exhibited higher concealment scores than did atheists who read one of two control articles. Implications for how nonreligious individuals negotiate social identity threat and future directions for nonreligion research are discussed.

Stressed Out at the Office? Therapy Can Come to You

Rachel Feintzeig
The Wall Street Journal
Originally published 31 Jan 20

Here is an excerpt:

In the past, discussion of mental-health issues at the office was uncommon. Workers were largely expected to leave their personal struggles at home. Crying was confined to the bathroom stall.

Today, that’s changing. One reason is a broadening of the popular understanding of “mental health” to encompass anxiety, stress and other widespread issues.

It’s also a reflection of a changing workplace. Younger workers are more comfortable talking about their struggles and expect their employers to take emotional distress seriously, says Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Senior leaders are responding, rolling out mental-health services and sometimes speaking about their own experiences. Lloyds Banking Group Plc chief executive António Horta-Osório has said publicly in recent years that the pressure he felt around the bank’s financial situation in 2011 dominated his thoughts, leaving him unable to sleep and exhausted. He took eight weeks off from the company to recover, working with a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist later helped him devise a mental-health program for Lloyds employees.

Brynn Brichet, a lead product manager at Cerner Corp., a maker of electronic medical-records systems, said she sometimes returns from her counseling appointments with an on-site therapist red-faced from crying. (The therapist sits a few floors down.) If colleagues ask, she tells them that she just got out of an intense therapy session. Some are taken aback when she mentions her therapy, she said. But she thinks it’s important to be open.

“We all are terrified. We all are struggling,” she said. “If we don’t talk about it, it can run our lives.”

The info is here.

More Religious Leaders Challenge Silence, Isolation Surrounding Suicide

Cheryl Platzman Weinstock
npr.org
Originally posted February 11, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

Until recently, many religious leaders were not well-prepared to talk about suicide with their congregants. Now some clergy have become an important part of suicide prevention.

"Where there's faith, there's hope, and where there's hope, there's life," says David Litts, co-leader of the Faith Communities Task Force of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention.

Arnold also leads that task force. "If someone dies from heart disease, for instance, or in an accident, they may wonder where God is, but when someone dies by suicide, a whole lot of other questions get raised," she says. "When you can't talk about this in church, then it feels like God can't talk about it either."

But in her church, she says, there isn't shame surrounding suicide. During the pastoral prayer, for instance, she says she lifts up congregants dealing with cancer, heart disease or mental health issues. "It's a way of signaling to people this is a safe place to talk about such things and be honest about them."

The article is here.

After long battle, mental health will be part of New York's school curriculum

Bethany Bump
Times Union
Originally published January 27, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

The idea of teaching young people about mental health is not a new one.

The mental hygiene movement of the early 1900s introduced society to the concept that mental wellness could be just as important as physical wellness.,

In 1928, a nationwide group of superintendents recommended that mental hygiene be included in the teaching of health education, but it was not.

"When you talk about mental health and mental illness, people are still, because of the stigma, in the closet about it," Liebman said. "People just don't talk about it like they talk about physical illness."

Social media has strengthened the movement to de-stigmatize mental illness, he said. "People are being more candid about their mental health issues and seeking support and using social media as kind of a fulcrum for gaining support, peers and friends in their recovery," Liebman said.

Making the case

Advocates of the law want people to know they are not pushing for students or schoolteachers to become diagnosticians. They say that is best left to professionals.

Adding mental health literacy to the curriculum will provide youth with the knowledge of how to prevent mental disorders, recognize when a disorder is developing, know how and where to seek help and treatment, strategies for dealing with milder issues, and strategies for supporting others who are struggling.

The information is here.

Why doctors are leery about seeking mental health care for themselves

By Nathaniel P. Morris
The Washington Post
Originally published January 7, 2016

A survey of 2,000 U.S. physicians released in September found that roughly half believed they had met criteria for a mental health disorder in the past but had not sought treatment. The doctors listed a number of reasons they had shunned care, including worries that they’d be stigmatized and an inability to find the time.

But they also voiced a troubling reason for avoiding treatment: medical licensing applications.

After graduating from medical school, doctors must complete residency training and apply for state medical licenses to practice medicine. According to a study that appeared in 2008, about 90 percent of state medical boards have licensing forms that include questions about an applicant’s mental health.

Such questions are intended to protect the public, based on the idea that impaired or distressed physicians could endanger patients. A physician having hallucinations, for example, might not be able to focus or practice safely.

The article is here.

The Ethics of Behavioral Health Information Technology

Michelle Joy, Timothy Clement, and Dominic Sisti
JAMA. Published online September 08, 2016.
doi:10.1001/jama.2016.12534

Here is an excerpt:

Individuals with mental illness and addiction experience negative stereotyping, prejudice, discrimination, distancing, and marginalization—social dynamics commonly called stigma. These dynamics are also often internalized and accepted by individuals with mental health conditions, amplifying their negative effect. Somewhat counterintuitively, stigmatizing beliefs about these patients are common among health care workers and often more common among mental health care professionals. Given these facts, the reinforcement of any stigmatizing concept within the medical record system or health information infrastructure is ethically problematic.

Stigmatizing iconography presents the potential for problematic clinical consequences. Patients with dual psychiatric and medical conditions often receive low-quality medical care and experience worse outcomes. One factor in this disparity is the phenomenon of diagnostic overshadowing. For example, diagnostic overshadowing can occur in patients with co-occurring mental illness and conditions such as cardiovascular disease or diabetes. These patients are less likely to receive appropriate medical care than patients without a mental health condition—their psychiatric conditions overshadow their other conditions, potentially biasing the clinician’s judgment about diagnosis and treatment such that the clinician may misattribute physical symptoms to mental health problems.

The article is here.

Pentagon perpetuates stigma of mental health counseling, study says

Gregg Zoroya
USA Today
Originally published May 5, 2016

Even as troop suicides remain at record levels, the Pentagon has failed to persuade servicemembers to seek counseling without fears that they'll damage their careers, a stinging government review concludes.

Despite six major Pentagon or independent studies from 2007 through 2014 that urged action to end the persistent stigma linked to mental health counseling, little has changed, analysts said in the April report by the Government Accountability Office.

The article is here.

Is health profiling morally permissible?

Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen
J Med Ethics doi:10.1136/medethics-2015-103360

R. Scott Braithwaite, Elizabeth R. Stevens and Arthur Caplan argue that some risk stratifications—that is, “employing patient characteristics to reduce the uncertainty that a future event will occur”—amount to profiling and, thus, invidious discrimination. These are forms of risk stratification “in which there is concern that ethical harms exceed likely or proven benefits for a group, and in the case of health care, involves any differential treatment in response to a personal characteristic that may cause an unwanted consequence for that person or for other persons with that characteristic”. Braithwaite et al recognise the potential benefits of (increasingly fine-grained) risk stratification: “It can make the provision of therapies safer…[and] improve diagnostic accuracy… Additionally, it can promote the efficient utilization of resources”. However, risk stratification also involves ‘ethical harms’, which must be weighed against the benefits, that is, it can (1) stigmatise groups; (2) violate privacy; (3) increase distributive injustice, for example, by making an already unjustly disadvantaged group suffer further disadvantages relative to a ‘counterfactual situation of no risk stratification’; and (4) imperil autonomy.

The article is here.

Doctors Often Fail To Treat Depression Like A Chronic Illness

Shfali Luthra
NPR.org
Originally published March 7, 2016

Depression prompts people to make about 8 million doctors' appointments a year, and more than half are with primary care physicians. A study suggests those doctors often fall short in treating depression because of insurance issues, time constraints and other factors.

More often than not, primary care doctors fail to teach patients how to manage their care and don't follow up to see how they're doing, according to the study, which was published Monday in Health Affairs. Those are considered effective tactics for treating chronic illnesses.

"The approach to depression should be like that of other chronic diseases," said Dr. Harold Pincus, vice chair of psychiatry at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons and one of the study's co-authors. But "by and large, primary care practices don't have the infrastructure or haven't chosen to implement those practices for depression."

Most people with depression seek help from their primary care doctors, the study notes. That can be because patients often face shortages and limitations of access to specialty mental health care, including lack of insurance coverage, the authors write. Plus there's stigma: Patients sometimes feel nervous or ashamed to see a mental health specialist, according to the authors.

The article is here.

The Whitewashing Effect: Using Racial Contact to Signal Trustworthiness and Competence

Stephen T. La Macchia, Winnifred R. Louis, Matthew J. Hornsey, M. Thai, & F. K. Barlow
Pers Soc Psychol Bull January 2016 42: 118-129
doi:10.1177/0146167215616801

Abstract

The present research examines whether people use racial contact to signal positive and negative social attributes. In two experiments, participants were instructed to fake good (trustworthy/competent) or fake bad (untrustworthy/incompetent) when reporting their amount of contact with a range of different racial groups. In Experiment 1 (N = 364), participants faking good reported significantly more contact with White Americans than with non-White Americans, whereas participants faking bad did not. In Experiment 2 (N = 1,056), this pattern was replicated and was found to be particularly pronounced among those with stronger pro-White bias. These findings suggest that individuals may use racial contact as a social signal, effectively “whitewashing” their apparent contact and friendships when trying to present positively.

The entire article is here.

The Impact of Mental Illness Stigma on Seeking and Participating in Mental Health Care

Patrick W. Corrigan, Benjamin G. Druss, and Deborah A. Perlick
Psychological Science in the Public Interest 2014, Vol. 15(2) 37–70.

Summary 

Treatments have been developed and tested to successfully reduce the symptoms and disabilities of many mental illnesses. Unfortunately, people distressed by these illnesses often do not seek out services or choose to fully engage in them. One factor that impedes care seeking and undermines the service system is mental illness stigma. In this article, we review the complex elements of stigma in order to understand its impact on participating in care. We then summarize public policy considerations in seeking to tackle stigma in order to improve treatment engagement. Stigma is a complex construct that includes public, self, and structural components. It directly affects people with mental illness, as well as their support system, provider network, and community resources. The effects of stigma are moderated by knowledge of mental illness and cultural relevance. Understanding stigma is central to reducing its negative impact on care seeking and treatment engagement. Separate strategies have evolved for counteracting the effects of public, self, and structural stigma. Programs for mental health providers may be especially fruitful for promoting care engagement. Mental health literacy, cultural competence, and family engagement campaigns also mitigate stigma’s adverse impact on care seeking. Policy change is essential to overcome the structural stigma that undermines government agendas meant to promote mental health care. Implications for expanding the research program on the connection between stigma and care seeking are discussed.

The entire article is here.

Social media, big data and the next generation of e-health interventions

By Professor Helen Christensen
MAPS, Executive Director
Black Dog Institute and Professor of Mental Health, University of New South Wales

The Internet is a place where we, as psychologists, can quickly learn about new developments in our area, source research papers, publish research, connect with our colleagues and clients, undertake online training, manage accounts, and keep records. For those who use our services, we can also learn about useful apps or websites that offer online assessments, psychoeducation, self-help and supplementary therapies. However, as ordinary people in everyday life, we use the Internet far more frequently. We make social connections, keep in touch with our families, pay bills, upload our exercise data from our Jawbones and Fitbits, send out invitations, make appointments, read the news, text our family members, look at television programs we missed over the past week and even check the rain radar before we walk to work. Internet enabled activities are ubiquitous in Australia, as they are in almost all countries, and we can’t get enough of them.

The entire article is here.

When Hearing Voices Is a Good Thing

A new study suggests that schizophrenic people in more collectivist societies sometimes think their auditory hallucinations are helpful.

By Olga Khazan
The Atlantic
Originally posted July 23, 2014

Here are two excerpts:

But a new study suggests that the way schizophrenia sufferers experience those voices depends on their cultural context. Surprisingly, schizophrenic people from certain other countries don't hear the same vicious, dark voices that Holt and other Americans do. Some of them, in fact, think their hallucinations are good—and sometimes even magical.

(cut)

The Americans tended to described their voices as violent—"like torturing people, to take their eye out with a fork, or cut someone's head and drink their blood, really nasty stuff," according to the study.

The entire article is here.

Defending Disgust

By Jason A. Clark and Philip A. Powell
Emotional Researcher

Many argue that moral disgust developed as a regulator of social behavior, and that it still dutifully serves that purpose (Tybur et al. 2013). However, a growing number have criticised disgust as a morally objectionable emotion in modern society, emphasizing features that, while adaptive in response to pathogens, render disgust unsuitable for policing morality (Nussbaum 2009; Kelly 2011; Bloom 2013). These include: cognitive and behavioral inflexibility, the generation of “dumbfounded” moral judgments lacking reasons, insensitivity to contextual factors and reappraisal, dehumanization, and a focus on the whole person, rather than their actions (Schnall et al. 2008; Russell & Giner-Sorolla 2011).

Critics of disgust compare it unfavorably with other moral emotions (especially anger), which they hold to be more flexible and reasoned, and lump it together with related emotions such as shame, which are often viewed negatively for similar reasons. Specifically moral critiques of disgust have been largely qualitative, based on historical case studies and anecdotal examples. Arguments condemning disgust as a moral emotion emphasise disgust’s negative role in instances of stigmatization, such as homophobia, racism, and genocide.

The entire article is here.

Brooklyn man encourages everyone to proclaim 'I Have a Therapist'!

Bipolar sufferer starts blog to break down the stigma of mental health treatment. There's nothing wrong with seeking help when you need it.

By Simone Weichselbaum
New York Daily News
Originally posted November 4, 2013 (and I just found out about it a couple of days ago)

Got a therapist? Well, let’s hear about it!

Thousands of shrink-goers are logging onto the blog, “I Have a Therapist,” created just three weeks ago by a bipolar Brooklyn man hoping to break the stigma of seeking professional mental health help.
“Therapy is the best thing to ever happen to me,” said webpreneur Elad Nehorai, 29, whose Tumblr blog encourages people to get help when they need it — and then to share their stories.

The entire article is here.

Charidy started a "I have a therapist." campaign on Tumblr.

According to Charidy's Tumblr account:

Charidy is a startup based in Brooklyn, New York.  We are a fundraising platform for non-profits. But we’re more than that.  We want to make our site, our marketing, and our whole identity revolve around doing good for the world, in which fundraising is an integral part of a larger whole. And that’s why we’re doing this campaign (among others that will be launching soon).  We strongly believe in this cause and believe that by putting our hearts into it, we can really change the world.

Charidy's page is here.

The Tumblr page is here.

This is an interesting use of social media.

I have been reblogging some of these post from the Ethics and Psychology Tumblr page.

Perception of Addiction and Its Effects on One's Moral Responsibility

By Justin Caouette
AJOB Neuroscience
Volume 4, Issue 3, 2013

Addressing concerns about framing addiction as disease, authors (Hammer et. al 2013) argue that we should refrain from doing so as such a categorization may unfairly stigmatize the addict.  They suggest that an analysis of disease metaphors bolsters their view, and the utility that could be had by labeling addiction as disease is outweighed by the potential disutility in doing so. Tolend support to their view they appeal to intuitions about the common folk‟s analysis of diseased individuals. Their claim is that a common understanding of disease unfairly depicts addicts as “wretches” or “sinners”.   They use this as evidence in favor of rejecting the addiction -as-disease model. We argue that the author‟s metaphoric framing of how common folks often view diseased individuals is misguided for a number of reasons. We focus on three points of contention.

The entire piece is here.

Focus on Mental Health Laws to Curb Violence Is Unfair, Some Say

By ERICA GOODE and JACK HEALY
The New York Times
Published: January 31, 2013

In their fervor to take action against gun violence after the shooting in Newtown, Conn., a growing number of state and national politicians are promoting a focus on mental illness as a way to help prevent further killings.

Legislation to revise existing mental health laws is under consideration in at least a half-dozen states, including Colorado, Oregon and Ohio. A New York bill requiring mental health practitioners to warn the authorities about potentially dangerous patients was signed into law on Jan. 15. In Washington, President Obama has ordered “a national dialogue” on mental health, and a variety of bills addressing mental health issues are percolating on Capitol Hill.

But critics say that this focus unfairly singles out people with serious mental illness, who studies indicate are involved in only about 4 percent of violent crimes and are 11 or more times as likely than the general population to be the victims of violent crime.

And many proposals — they include strengthening mental health services, lowering the threshold for involuntary commitment and increasing requirements for reporting worrisome patients to the authorities — are rushed in execution and unlikely to repair a broken mental health system, some experts say.

“Good intentions without thought make for bad laws, and I think we have a risk of that,” said J. Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist and clinical professor at the University of California, San Diego, who has studied rampage killers.

The entire story is here.