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

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Ambivalence in the Cognitive Enhancement Debate

By Neil Levy
The Neuroethics Blog
Originally posted October 14, 2014

The most hotly debated topic in neuroethics surely concerns the ethics of cognitive enhancement. Is it permissible, or advisable, for human beings already functioning within the normal range to further enhance their capacities? Some people see in the prospect of enhancing ourselves the exciting prospect of becoming more than human; others see it as threatening our humanity so that we become something less than we were.

In an insightful article, Erik Parens (2005) has argued that truthfully we are all on both sides of this debate. We are at once attracted and repulsed by the prospect that we might become something more than we already are. Parens thinks both frameworks are deeply rooted in Western culture and history; perhaps they are universal themes. We are deeply attached to a gratitude framework and to a more Promeathean framework. Hence we find ourselves torn with regard to self-transformation.

The entire blog post is here.

Using Pseudoscience to Shine Light on Good Science

Published on Jul 16, 2014

If instructors want students to think like scientists, they have to teach them about decidedly nonscientific ways of thinking, argues Scott O. Lilienfeld, Emory University, in his APS--David Myers Lecture for the Science and Craft of Teaching Psychology at the 2014 APS Annual Convention.



How to Recognize Pseudoscience

One key to teaching about pseudoscience, said Lilienfeld, is being able to recognize it. While there isn’t a strict dividing line between so-called “good” and “bad” science, there are some warning signs that pseudoscientific findings tend to share, including:

  • extraordinary claims that aren't backed by evidence;
  • overreliance on testimonial or anecdotal experiences;
  • undue reliance on authority figures;
  • emphasis on confirmation rather than falsification;
  • use of imprecise terminology;
  • entrenched claims that don’t accommodate new evidence;
  • an evasion of the peer-review process; and
  • overuse of ad hoc explanations for negative findings

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Anxious, Threatened, and Also Unethical: How Anxiety Makes Individuals Feel Threatened and Commit Unethical Acts

By Kouchaki, Maryam; Desai, Sreedhari D.
Journal of Applied Psychology, Sep 22 , 2014

Abstract

People often experience anxiety in the workplace. Across 6 studies, we show that anxiety, both induced and measured, can lead to self-interested unethical behavior. In Studies 1 and 2, we find that compared with individuals in a neutral state, anxious individuals are more willing (a) to participate in unethical actions in hypothetical scenarios and (b) to engage in more cheating to make money in situations that require truthful self-reports. In Studies 3 and 4, we explore the psychological mechanism underlying unethical behaviors when experiencing anxiety. We suggest and find that anxiety increases threat perception, which, in turn, results in self-interested unethical behaviors. Study 5 shows that, relative to participants in the neutral condition, anxious individuals find their own unethical actions to be less problematic than similar actions of others. In Study 6, data from subordinate–supervisor dyads demonstrate that experienced anxiety at work is positively related with experienced threat and unethical behavior. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

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The findings in this article tell us something new and fundamental about people's behavior when they are under the influence of experienced anxiety. Our findings demonstrate that compared with people in a neutral state, those who experience anxiety tend to behave unethically when the situation permits. This unethical behavior is mediated by perceived threat.

The article is here.

Who Accepts Responsibility for Their Transgressions?

By Karina Schumann and Carol S. Dweck
Pers Soc Psychol Bull 0146167214552789,
first published on September 24, 2014
doi: 10.1177/0146167214552789

Abstract

After committing an offense, transgressors can optimize their chances of reconciling with the victim by accepting responsibility. However, transgressors may be motivated to avoid admitting fault because it can feel threatening to accept blame for harmful behavior. Who, then, is likely to accept responsibility for a transgression? We examined how implicit theories of personality-whether people see personality as malleable (incremental theory) or fixed (entity theory)-influence transgressors' likelihood of accepting responsibility. We argue that incremental theorists may feel less threatened by accepting responsibility because they are more likely to view the situation as an opportunity for them to grow as a person and develop their relationship with the victim. We found support for our predictions across four studies using a combination of real-world and hypothetical offenses, and correlational and experimental methods. These studies therefore identify an important individual difference factor that can lead to more effective responses from transgressors.



The entire article is here, behind a paywall.

Monday, November 17, 2014

Suicide surpassed war as the military's leading cause of death

By Gregg Zoroya
USA Today
Originally published October 31, 2014

War was the leading cause of death in the military nearly every year between 2004 and 2011 until suicides became the top means of dying for troops in 2012 and 2013, according to a bar chart published this week in a monthly Pentagon medical statistical analysis journal.

The entire article is here.

Is Social Psychology Biased Against Republicans?

By Maria Konnikova
The New Yorker
Originally published October 30, 2014

Here is an excerpt:

Social psychology, Haidt went on, had an obvious problem: a lack of political diversity that was every bit as dangerous as a lack of, say, racial or religious or gender diversity. It discouraged conservative students from joining the field, and it discouraged conservative members from pursuing certain lines of argument. It also introduced bias into research questions, methodology, and, ultimately, publications. The topics that social psychologists chose to study and how they chose to study them, he argued, suffered from homogeneity. The effect was limited, Haidt was quick to point out, to areas that concerned political ideology and politicized notions, like race, gender, stereotyping, and power and inequality. “It’s not like the whole field is undercut, but when it comes to research on controversial topics, the effect is most pronounced,” he later told me. (Haidt has now put his remarks in more formal terms, complete with data, in a paper forthcoming this winter in Behavioral and Brain Sciences.)

The entire article is here.

Sunday, November 16, 2014

A Contemporary Death: Death with Dignity and Autonomy

By Peggy Battin
TEDMED 2014
Originally published October 29, 2014

Philosopher and bioethicist Peggy Battin tells us the moving story of how and why her husband chose to die.  She addresses death, end of life issues, and individual choices in the process.  She shares her emotional reactions to the process.


Saturday, November 15, 2014

Scientific faith: Belief in science increases in the face of stress and existential anxiety

Miguel Fariasa, Anna-Kaisa Newheiserb, Guy Kahanec, and Zoe de Toledo
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Volume 49, Issue 6, November 2013, Pages 1210–1213

Abstract

Growing evidence indicates that religious belief helps individuals to cope with stress and anxiety. But is this effect specific to supernatural beliefs, or is it a more general function of belief — including belief in science? We developed a measure of belief in science and conducted two experiments in which we manipulated stress and existential anxiety. In Experiment 1, we assessed rowers about to compete (high-stress condition) and rowers at a training session (low-stress condition). As predicted, rowers in the high-stress group reported greater belief in science. In Experiment 2, participants primed with mortality (vs. participants in a control condition) reported greater belief in science. In both experiments, belief in science was negatively correlated with religiosity. Thus, some secular individuals may use science as a form of “faith” that helps them to deal with stressful and anxiety-provoking situations.

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The suggested parallels between religious belief and belief in science may seem to be in tension with recent work emphasizing the intuitive character of religious belief. Tasks involving more analytic processing were shown to decrease religious belief (Gervais & Norenzayan, 2012), whereas the stimulation of a more intuitive mindset led to a greater belief in God (Shenhav, Rand, & Greene, 2012). Contrary to religion, scientific practice is defined by analytical thinking; rational enquiry and weighing of evidence are given precedence even when they conflict with intuition. But when it comes to believing, even if it is a belief in the scientific method as opposed to divine revelation, the underlying mechanism may be similar.

The entire article is here.

Friday, November 14, 2014

Empathy: A motivated account

Jamil Zaki
Department of Psychology, Stanford University
IN PRESS at Psychological Bulletin

ABSTRACT

Empathy features a tension between automaticity and context dependency. On the one hand, people often take on each other’s states reflexively and outside of awareness. On the other hand, empathy exhibits deep context dependence, shifting with characteristics of empathizers and situations. These two characteristics of empathy can be reconciled by acknowledging the key role of motivation in driving people to avoid or approach engagement with others’ emotions. In particular, at least three motives—suffering, material costs, and interference with competition—drive people to avoid empathy, and at least three motives—positive affect, affiliation, and social desirability—drive them to approach empathy. Would-be empathizers carry out these motives through regulatory strategies including situation selection, attentional modulation, and appraisal, which alter the course of empathic episodes. Interdisciplinary evidence highlights the motivated nature of empathy, and a motivated model holds wide-ranging implications for basic theory, models of psychiatric illness, and intervention efforts to maximize empathy.

The entire article is here.