Would You Lie for Me?

By Vanessa K. Bohns
The New York Times Sunday Review
Originally published February 7, 2014

Here is an excerpt:

Countless studies have subsequently shown that we find it similarly difficult to resist social pressure from peers, friends and colleagues. Our decisions regarding everything from whether to turn the lights off when we leave a room to whether to call in sick to take a day off from work are affected by the actions and opinions of our neighbors and colleagues.

But what about those times when we are the ones trying to get someone to act unethically? Do we realize how much power we wield with a simple request, suggestion or dare? New research by my students and me suggests that we don’t.

The entire article is here.

The research article is here.

Abstract

We examined the psychology of “instigators,” people who surround an unethical act and influence the wrongdoer (the “actor”) without directly committing the act themselves. In four studies, we found that instigators of unethical acts underestimated their influence over actors. In Studies 1 and 2, university students enlisted other students to commit a “white lie” (Study 1) or commit a small act of vandalism (Study 2) after making predictions about how easy it would be to get their fellow students to do so. In Studies 3 and 4, online samples of participants responded to hypothetical vignettes, for example, about buying children alcohol and taking office supplies home for personal use. In all four studies, instigators failed to recognize the social pressure they levied on actors through simple unethical suggestions, that is, the discomfort actors would experience by making a decision that was inconsistent with the instigator’s suggestion.

Medical Start-up Invited Millions Of Patients To Write Reviews They May Not Realize Are Public

By Kashmir Hill
Forbes
Originally posted October 21, 2014

Here is an excerpt:

Much like a Facebook policy change, it seems that doctors and patients wound up having data exposed or used in a way they didn’t expect. But this is a much more serious case in that it involves sensitive health conditions. Medical privacy laws spell out explicitly what health providers and their “business associates,” a.k.a. vendors, are allowed to do with patient information. While Practice Fusion says contacting patients for reviews is a service done on behalf of doctors — as is required by HIPAA — the cynical take is that they used their access to patient records for business purposes — to build a review site to compete with ZocDoc and Yelp.

Deven McGraw, a medical privacy law expert at the Center for Democracy and Technology, was also troubled by the messaging. “Anything they want to do with patient data, they’re supposed to do on behalf of the doctor. It’s not a license or invitation to take the data you get and use it for your own business purposes,” she says.

The entire story is here.

Can We Resolve Quantum Paradoxes by Stepping Out of Space and Time?

By George Musser
Scientific American Blog
Originally posted June 21, 2013

Here is an excerpt:

As is evident from von Baeyer’s article, quantum theory truly challenges us to think outside the box—and, in this case, I submit that the box is spacetime itself. If this seems farfetched, consider the eloquent point made by physicist and philosopher Ernan McMullin:

“Imaginability must not be made the test for ontology. The realist claim is that the scientist is discovering the structures of the world; it is not required in addition that these structures be imaginable in the categories of the macroworld.”

Only if we face the strange non-classical features of the physical world head-on can we have a physical, non-observer-dependent account of our reality that solves longstanding puzzles such as the problem of Schrödinger’s Cat.

The entire blog post is here.

Moral Foundations Theory: The Pragmatic Validity of Moral Pluralism

By Jesse Graham, Jonathan Haidt, S. Koleva, M. Motyl,  R. Iyera, S. P. Wojcikd, & P. H. Ditto
in press, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology

Abstract: 

Where does morality come from? Why are moral judgments often so similar across cultures, yet sometimes so variable? Is morality one thing, or many? Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) was created to answer these questions. In this chapter we describe the origins, assumptions, and current conceptualization of the theory, and detail the empirical findings that MFT has made possible, both within social psychology and beyond. Looking toward the future, we embrace several critiques of the theory, and specify five criteria for determining what should be considered a foundation of human morality. Finally, we suggest a variety of future directions for MFT and for moral psychology. 

Here is an excerpt:

But what if, in some cultures, even the most advanced moral thinkers value groups, institutions, traditions, and gods? What should we say about local rules for how to be a good group member, or how to worship? If these rules are not closely linked to concerns about justice or care, then should we distinguish them from true moral rules, as Turiel did when he labeled such rules as “social conventions?” Shweder (1990) argued that the cognitive-developmental tradition was studying only a subset of moral concerns, the ones that are most highly elaborated in secular Western societies. Shweder argued for a much more extensive form of pluralism based on his research in Bhubaneswar, India (Shweder, Much, Mahapatra, & Park, 1997). He proposed that around the world, people talk in one or more of three moral languages: the ethic of autonomy (relying on concepts such as harm, rights, and justice, which protect autonomous individuals), the ethic of community (relying on concepts such as duty, respect, and loyalty, which preserve institutions and social order), and the ethic of divinity (relying on concepts such as purity, sanctity, and sin, which protect the divinity inherent in each person against the degradation of hedonistic selfishness.) 

The entire piece is here.

Science Faction: Why Most Scientific Research Results are Wrong

Bloggingheads.tv
John Horgan and George Johnson discuss issues related to science

Why most scientific research results are wrong?

Is competition making fudged data more likely?

Science is not a triumphal march

Can academic publishing be reformed?

Essential and inessential skills for young science writers

The Big Bang and the case against falsifiability

HIPAA data breaches climb 138 percent

By Erin McCann
Healthcareitnews.com
Originally posted February 6, 2014

When talking HIPAA privacy and security, the numbers do most of the talking.

Take 29.3 million, for instance, the number of patient health records compromised in a HIPAA data breach since 2009, or 138 percent, the percent jump in the number of health records breached just from 2012.

These numbers, compiled in a February 2014 breach report by healthcare IT security firm Redspin, though, don't tell the whole story, as these are numbers reported to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by HIPAA covered entities.

The entire article is here.

Political Unrest and Conflict in the Ukraine

Ukrainian readers are the second most frequent international visitors to Ethics and Psychology.

Here is how American television is covering this tragedy.



Our hopes for a nonviolent solution to the political turmoil.

(Un)Ethical Behavior in Organizations

Linda Klebe Treviño, Niki A. den Nieuwenboer, and Jennifer J. Kish-Gephart
Annual Review of Psychology
Vol. 65: 635-660 (Volume publication date January 2014)
First published online as a Review in Advance on July 3, 2013
DOI: 10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143745

Abstract

This review spotlights research related to ethical and unethical behavior in organizations. It builds on previous reviews and meta-analyses of the literature on (un)ethical behavior in organizations and discusses recent advances in the field. The review emphasizes how this research speaks to the influence of the organizational context on (un)ethical behavior, proceeding from a more macro to a more micro view on (un)ethical behavior and covering ethical infrastructures, interpersonal influences, individual differences, and cognitive and affective processes. The conclusion highlights opportunities for future research.

Introduction

Starting in the 1980s, the systematic study of (un)ethical behavior in organizations—often referred to as behavioral ethics in organizations or as organizational ethics (Treviño et al. 2006)—began to take shape. Over the years, a series of ethical debacles has only increased the salience of this area of study for practitioners and researchers alike. Indeed, as a testament to the growing interest among researchers, a number of literature reviews have appeared in recent years—including several qualitative reviews (O'Fallon & Butterfield 2005, Tenbrunsel & Smith-Crowe 2008, Treviño et al. 2006), a meta-analysis of research on the sources of unethical choice in organizations (Kish-Gephart et al. 2010), a meta-analysis of the ethical climate literature (Martin & Cullen 2006), and a meta-analysis of the whistleblowing literature (Mesmer-Magnus & Viswesvaran 2005). The meta-analytic reviews, in particular, represent a major advance, showing that enough research has been conducted for investigators to undertake such statistical reviews.

The entire article is here, behind the paywall.

The DSM-5: A Vehicle For High-Profit Patent Extensions?

Gregg Fields & Lisa Cosgrove | Labcast
Harvard University SoundCloud Podcast

The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders affects drugs with sales in the billions of dollars. In research supported by the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Lisa Cosgrove of UMass-Boston investigated financial ties between DSM panel members and the pharmaceutical companies that have a vested interest in finding new indications for their blockbuster drugs. In this podcast, she tells journalist Gregg Fields what she found, what it means—and why we all should care.

"Tripartite Conflicts of Interest and High Stakes Patent Extensions in the DSM-5," Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics.