By Tania Lombrozo
NPR
Originally published June 2, 2014
Here is an excerpt:
Researchers who engage in p-diligence are those who engage in practices — such as additional analyses or even experiments — designed to evaluate the robustness of their results, whether or not these practices make it into print. They might, for example, analyze their data with different exclusion criteria — not to choose the criterion that makes some effect most dramatic but to make sure that any claims in the paper don't depend on this potentially arbitrary decision. They might analyze the data using two statistical methods — not to choose the single one that yields a significant result but to make sure that they both do. They might build in checks for various types of human errors and analyze uninteresting aspects of the data to make sure there's nothing weird going on, like a bug in their code.
If these additional data or analyses reveal anything problematic, p-diligent researchers will temper their claims appropriately, or pursue further investigation as needed. And they'll engage in these practices with an eye toward avoiding potential pitfalls, such as confirmation bias and the seductions of p-hacking, that could lead to systematic errors. In other words, they'll "do their p-diligence" to make sure that they — and others — should invest in their claims.
P-hacking and p-diligence have something in common: Both involve practices that aren't fully reported in publication. As a consequence, they widen the gap. But let's face it: While the gap can (and sometimes should) be narrowed, it cannot be closed.
The entire article is here.
Thanks to Ed Zuckerman for this lead.
Friday, December 26, 2014
Thursday, December 25, 2014
Effects of biological explanations for mental disorders on clinicians’ empathy
By Matthew S. Lebowitz and Woo-kyoung Ahn
Effects of biological explanations for mental disorders on clinicians’ empathy
PNAS 2014 : 1414058111v1-201414058
Abstract
Mental disorders are increasingly understood in terms of biological mechanisms. We examined how such biological explanations of patients’ symptoms would affect mental health clinicians’ empathy—a crucial component of the relationship between treatment-providers and patients—as well as their clinical judgments and recommendations. In a series of studies, US clinicians read descriptions of potential patients whose symptoms were explained using either biological or psychosocial information. Biological explanations have been thought to make patients appear less accountable for their disorders, which could increase clinicians’ empathy. To the contrary, biological explanations evoked significantly less empathy. These results are consistent with other research and theory that has suggested that biological accounts of psychopathology can exacerbate perceptions of patients as abnormal, distinct from the rest of the population, meriting social exclusion, and even less than fully human. Although the ongoing shift toward biomedical conceptualizations has many benefits, our results reveal unintended negative consequences.
Significance
Mental disorders are increasingly understood biologically. We tested the effects of biological explanations among mental health clinicians, specifically examining their empathy toward patients. Conventional wisdom suggests that biological explanations reduce perceived blameworthiness against those with mental disorders, which could increase empathy. Yet, conceptualizing mental disorders biologically can cast patients as physiologically different from “normal” people and as governed by genetic or neurochemical abnormalities instead of their own human agency, which can engender negative social attitudes and dehumanization. This suggests that biological explanations might actually decrease empathy. Indeed, we find that biological explanations significantly reduce clinicians’ empathy. This is alarming because clinicians’ empathy is important for the therapeutic alliance between mental health providers and patients and significantly predicts positive clinical outcomes.
The entire article is here.
Effects of biological explanations for mental disorders on clinicians’ empathy
PNAS 2014 : 1414058111v1-201414058
Abstract
Mental disorders are increasingly understood in terms of biological mechanisms. We examined how such biological explanations of patients’ symptoms would affect mental health clinicians’ empathy—a crucial component of the relationship between treatment-providers and patients—as well as their clinical judgments and recommendations. In a series of studies, US clinicians read descriptions of potential patients whose symptoms were explained using either biological or psychosocial information. Biological explanations have been thought to make patients appear less accountable for their disorders, which could increase clinicians’ empathy. To the contrary, biological explanations evoked significantly less empathy. These results are consistent with other research and theory that has suggested that biological accounts of psychopathology can exacerbate perceptions of patients as abnormal, distinct from the rest of the population, meriting social exclusion, and even less than fully human. Although the ongoing shift toward biomedical conceptualizations has many benefits, our results reveal unintended negative consequences.
Significance
Mental disorders are increasingly understood biologically. We tested the effects of biological explanations among mental health clinicians, specifically examining their empathy toward patients. Conventional wisdom suggests that biological explanations reduce perceived blameworthiness against those with mental disorders, which could increase empathy. Yet, conceptualizing mental disorders biologically can cast patients as physiologically different from “normal” people and as governed by genetic or neurochemical abnormalities instead of their own human agency, which can engender negative social attitudes and dehumanization. This suggests that biological explanations might actually decrease empathy. Indeed, we find that biological explanations significantly reduce clinicians’ empathy. This is alarming because clinicians’ empathy is important for the therapeutic alliance between mental health providers and patients and significantly predicts positive clinical outcomes.
The entire article is here.
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
What do Philosophers of Mind Actually do: Some Quantitative Data
By Joshua Knobe
The Brains Blog
Originally published December 5, 2014
There seems to be a widely shared sense these days that the philosophical study of mind has been undergoing some pretty dramatic changes. Back in the twentieth century, the field was dominated by a very specific sort of research program, but it seems like less and less work is being done within that traditional program, while there is an ever greater amount of work pursuing issues that have a completely different sort of character.
To get a better sense for precisely how the field has changed, I thought it might be helpful to collect some quantitative data. Specifically, I compared a sample of highly cited papers from the past five years (2009-2013) with a sample of highly cited papers from a period in the twentieth century (1960-1999). You can find all of the nitty gritty details in this forthcoming paper, but the basic results are pretty easy to summarize.
The entire blog post is here.
The Brains Blog
Originally published December 5, 2014
There seems to be a widely shared sense these days that the philosophical study of mind has been undergoing some pretty dramatic changes. Back in the twentieth century, the field was dominated by a very specific sort of research program, but it seems like less and less work is being done within that traditional program, while there is an ever greater amount of work pursuing issues that have a completely different sort of character.
To get a better sense for precisely how the field has changed, I thought it might be helpful to collect some quantitative data. Specifically, I compared a sample of highly cited papers from the past five years (2009-2013) with a sample of highly cited papers from a period in the twentieth century (1960-1999). You can find all of the nitty gritty details in this forthcoming paper, but the basic results are pretty easy to summarize.
The entire blog post is here.
Don't Execute Schizophrenic Killers
By Sally L. Satel
Bloomberg View
Originally posted December 1, 2014
Is someone who was diagnosed with schizophrenia years before committing murder sane enough to be sentenced to death?
The government thinks so in the case of Scott L. Panetti, 56, who will die on Wednesday by lethal injection in Texas unless Governor Rick Perry stays the execution.
(cut)
This is unjust. It is wrong to execute, even to punish, people who are so floridly psychotic when they commit their crimes that they are incapable of correcting the errors by logic or evidence.
Yet Texas, like many other states, considers a defendant sane as long as he knows, factually, that murder is wrong. Indeed, Panetti’s jury, which was instructed to apply this narrow standard, may have been legally correct to reject his insanity defense because he may have known that the murders were technically wrong.
The entire article is here.
Bloomberg View
Originally posted December 1, 2014
Is someone who was diagnosed with schizophrenia years before committing murder sane enough to be sentenced to death?
The government thinks so in the case of Scott L. Panetti, 56, who will die on Wednesday by lethal injection in Texas unless Governor Rick Perry stays the execution.
(cut)
This is unjust. It is wrong to execute, even to punish, people who are so floridly psychotic when they commit their crimes that they are incapable of correcting the errors by logic or evidence.
Yet Texas, like many other states, considers a defendant sane as long as he knows, factually, that murder is wrong. Indeed, Panetti’s jury, which was instructed to apply this narrow standard, may have been legally correct to reject his insanity defense because he may have known that the murders were technically wrong.
The entire article is here.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Self-Driving Cars: Safer, but What of Their Morals
By Justin Pritchard
Associated Press
Originally posted November 19, 2014
Here is an excerpt:
"This is one of the most profoundly serious decisions we can make. Program a machine that can foreseeably lead to someone's death," said Lin. "When we make programming decisions, we expect those to be as right as we can be."
What right looks like may differ from company to company, but according to Lin automakers have a duty to show that they have wrestled with these complex questions and publicly reveal the answers they reach.
The entire article is here.
Associated Press
Originally posted November 19, 2014
Here is an excerpt:
"This is one of the most profoundly serious decisions we can make. Program a machine that can foreseeably lead to someone's death," said Lin. "When we make programming decisions, we expect those to be as right as we can be."
What right looks like may differ from company to company, but according to Lin automakers have a duty to show that they have wrestled with these complex questions and publicly reveal the answers they reach.
The entire article is here.
Harm to others outweighs harm to self in moral decision making
Molly J. Crockett, Zeb Kurth-Nelson, Jenifer Z. Siegel, Peter Dayand, and Raymond J. Dolan
PNAS 2014 ; published ahead of print November 17, 2014, doi:10.1073/pnas.1408988111
Abstract
Concern for the suffering of others is central to moral decision making. How humans evaluate others’ suffering, relative to their own suffering, is unknown. We investigated this question by inviting subjects to trade off profits for themselves against pain experienced either by themselves or an anonymous other person. Subjects made choices between different amounts of money and different numbers of painful electric shocks. We independently varied the recipient of the shocks (self vs. other) and whether the choice involved paying to decrease pain or profiting by increasing pain. We built computational models to quantify the relative values subjects ascribed to pain for themselves and others in this setting. In two studies we show that most people valued others’ pain more than their own pain. This was evident in a willingness to pay more to reduce others’ pain than their own and a requirement for more compensation to increase others’ pain relative to their own. This ‟hyperaltruistic” valuation of others’ pain was linked to slower responding when making decisions that affected others, consistent with an engagement of deliberative processes in moral decision making. Subclinical psychopathic traits correlated negatively with aversion to pain for both self and others, in line with reports of aversive processing deficits in psychopathy. Our results provide evidence for a circumstance in which people care more for others than themselves. Determining the precise boundaries of this surprisingly prosocial disposition has implications for understanding human moral decision making and its disturbance in antisocial behavior.
Significance
Concern for the welfare of others is a key component of moral decision making and is disturbed in antisocial and criminal behavior. However, little is known about how people evaluate the costs of others’ suffering. Past studies have examined people’s judgments in hypothetical scenarios, but there is evidence that hypothetical judgments cannot accurately predict actual behavior. Here we addressed this issue by measuring how much money people will sacrifice to reduce the number of painful electric shocks delivered to either themselves or an anonymous stranger. Surprisingly, most people sacrifice more money to reduce a stranger’s pain than their own pain. This finding may help us better understand how people resolve moral dilemmas that commonly arise in medical, legal, and political decision making.
The entire article is here.
PNAS 2014 ; published ahead of print November 17, 2014, doi:10.1073/pnas.1408988111
Abstract
Concern for the suffering of others is central to moral decision making. How humans evaluate others’ suffering, relative to their own suffering, is unknown. We investigated this question by inviting subjects to trade off profits for themselves against pain experienced either by themselves or an anonymous other person. Subjects made choices between different amounts of money and different numbers of painful electric shocks. We independently varied the recipient of the shocks (self vs. other) and whether the choice involved paying to decrease pain or profiting by increasing pain. We built computational models to quantify the relative values subjects ascribed to pain for themselves and others in this setting. In two studies we show that most people valued others’ pain more than their own pain. This was evident in a willingness to pay more to reduce others’ pain than their own and a requirement for more compensation to increase others’ pain relative to their own. This ‟hyperaltruistic” valuation of others’ pain was linked to slower responding when making decisions that affected others, consistent with an engagement of deliberative processes in moral decision making. Subclinical psychopathic traits correlated negatively with aversion to pain for both self and others, in line with reports of aversive processing deficits in psychopathy. Our results provide evidence for a circumstance in which people care more for others than themselves. Determining the precise boundaries of this surprisingly prosocial disposition has implications for understanding human moral decision making and its disturbance in antisocial behavior.
Significance
Concern for the welfare of others is a key component of moral decision making and is disturbed in antisocial and criminal behavior. However, little is known about how people evaluate the costs of others’ suffering. Past studies have examined people’s judgments in hypothetical scenarios, but there is evidence that hypothetical judgments cannot accurately predict actual behavior. Here we addressed this issue by measuring how much money people will sacrifice to reduce the number of painful electric shocks delivered to either themselves or an anonymous stranger. Surprisingly, most people sacrifice more money to reduce a stranger’s pain than their own pain. This finding may help us better understand how people resolve moral dilemmas that commonly arise in medical, legal, and political decision making.
The entire article is here.
Monday, December 22, 2014
Episode 18: Critical Incidents and Psychologist Safety
If you have missed AM radio, then you will appreciate this episode. John experiments with conference call software with his guests to discuss ethics and safety from a psychologist's point of view. I apologize about the squeaks (Shannon's phone), scratches and other recording imperfections.
John's guests include Dr. Don McAleer, psychologist, gun owner, firearms instructor, firearm collector; Massad Ayoob, an international firearms and self-defense instructor, expert in lethal force encounters and shooting cases, and author; and, Dr. Shannon Clark, psychologist, FBI agent, active shooter and response instructor, and lifelong martial artist.
Massad Ayoob: In the Gravest Extreme: The Role of the Firearm in Personal Protection
Massad Ayoob: Deadly Force: Understanding Your Right to Self Defense
John's guests include Dr. Don McAleer, psychologist, gun owner, firearms instructor, firearm collector; Massad Ayoob, an international firearms and self-defense instructor, expert in lethal force encounters and shooting cases, and author; and, Dr. Shannon Clark, psychologist, FBI agent, active shooter and response instructor, and lifelong martial artist.
We discuss the ethics of nonmaleficence (do no harm) versus personal safety. It is no secret that psychologists are vulnerable to threat, assault, and stalking from patients and family members of patients. The overarching goal is to start a discussion for psychologists and mental health professionals about potential dangers for mental health professionals and some options to help keep them safe.
Click here to earn 1 APA-approved CE credit
Click here to earn 1 APA-approved CE credit
At the end of this podcast, the listener will be able to:
1. Outline your personal values related to safety in your professional life.
2. List the options to enhance personal safety in your office.
3. Describe several responsible steps to take if you decide to carry a firearm or house one in your office.
1. Outline your personal values related to safety in your professional life.
2. List the options to enhance personal safety in your office.
3. Describe several responsible steps to take if you decide to carry a firearm or house one in your office.
Reading Material
Ken Pope: Therapists' Resources for Threats, Stalking, or Assaults by Patients
Robert B. Young: When a Psychiatrist Shoots to Kill
Dave Grossman: On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society
Robert B. Young: When a Psychiatrist Shoots to Kill
Dave Grossman: On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society
Massad Ayoob: In the Gravest Extreme: The Role of the Firearm in Personal Protection
Massad Ayoob: Deadly Force: Understanding Your Right to Self Defense
Massad Ayoob Information
Sunday, December 21, 2014
‘‘End-of-life” biases in moral evaluations of others
By George E. Newman, Kristi L. Lockhart, Frank C. Keil
Cognition, in press
Abstract
When evaluating the moral character of others, people show a strong bias to more heavily weigh behaviors at the end of an individual’s life, even if those behaviors arise in light of an overwhelmingly longer duration of contradictory behavior. Across four experiments, we find that this ‘‘end-of-life” bias uniquely applies to intentional changes in behavior that immediately precede death, and appears to result from the inference that the behavioral change reflects the emergence of the individual’s ‘‘true self”.
The entire article is here.
Cognition, in press
Abstract
When evaluating the moral character of others, people show a strong bias to more heavily weigh behaviors at the end of an individual’s life, even if those behaviors arise in light of an overwhelmingly longer duration of contradictory behavior. Across four experiments, we find that this ‘‘end-of-life” bias uniquely applies to intentional changes in behavior that immediately precede death, and appears to result from the inference that the behavioral change reflects the emergence of the individual’s ‘‘true self”.
The entire article is here.
Saturday, December 20, 2014
Bioethics in 2025: what will be the challenges?
Deborah Bowman, Professor of Bioethics, Clinical Ethics and Medical Law at St. George’s University of London
Sarah Chan, Research Fellow in Bioethics and Law and Deputy Director of the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation at the University of Manchester
Molly Crockett, Associate Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford
Gill Haddow, Senior Research Fellow in Science, Technology and Innovation Studies at the University of Edinburgh
For its 2014 annual public lecture, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics had four speakers from different disciplines present their take on what will be the main challenges in and for bioethics in the near future. Topics touched on included how to make bioethics more open and inclusive as a discipline; what role for bioethicists in meeting future societal challenges; whether we will be able to develop a 'morality pill' in near future; and how it might feel for people to have electronic or other material transplanted into them in the future to help their bodies cope with longer lives.
Sarah Chan, Research Fellow in Bioethics and Law and Deputy Director of the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation at the University of Manchester
Molly Crockett, Associate Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford
Gill Haddow, Senior Research Fellow in Science, Technology and Innovation Studies at the University of Edinburgh
For its 2014 annual public lecture, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics had four speakers from different disciplines present their take on what will be the main challenges in and for bioethics in the near future. Topics touched on included how to make bioethics more open and inclusive as a discipline; what role for bioethicists in meeting future societal challenges; whether we will be able to develop a 'morality pill' in near future; and how it might feel for people to have electronic or other material transplanted into them in the future to help their bodies cope with longer lives.
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