By Brian D. Earp & David Trafimow
Front. Psychol. | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00621
Abstract
The (latest) “crisis in confidence” in social psychology has generated much heated discussion about the importance of replication, including how such replication should be carried out as well as interpreted by scholars in the field. What does it mean if a replication attempt “fails”—does it mean that the original results, or the theory that predicted them, have been falsified? And how should “failed” replications affect our belief in the validity of the original research? In this paper, we consider the “replication” debate from a historical and philosophical perspective, and provide a conceptual analysis of both replication and falsification as they pertain to this important discussion. Along the way, we introduce a Bayesian framework for assessing “failed” replications in terms of how they should affect our confidence in purported findings.
The entire article is here.
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Cultural Evolution As Dialectic
By John Hartigan
Savage Minds
Originally posted April 21, 2015
Here is an excerpt:
A primary outcome is the recognition that culture “is an evolutionary player,” in the words of Kevin Laland. That is, culture drives and shapes so many aspects of evolution that it can destabilize reductivist assertions about human biology. The dialectic possibilities involve thinking about the key concept of phenotypic plasticity and how that vacillates along a continuum of fixity and fluidity, particularly as influenced by domestication (whether the version practiced by humans or not). And this gets back to a point the Fuentes stressed: “The mutual mutability of form and function in becoming human with other humans and nonhuman others is a central tenet in human evolution and should be recognized as a locus for the anthropological gaze …one where we can influence scientific practice in fields outside our own.” The way to challenge and change the way evolution operates in public discourse as an explanatory frame—see evolutionary psychology and economics—won’t improve until we fashion a more cultural account of how it operates.
The entire article is here.
Savage Minds
Originally posted April 21, 2015
Here is an excerpt:
A primary outcome is the recognition that culture “is an evolutionary player,” in the words of Kevin Laland. That is, culture drives and shapes so many aspects of evolution that it can destabilize reductivist assertions about human biology. The dialectic possibilities involve thinking about the key concept of phenotypic plasticity and how that vacillates along a continuum of fixity and fluidity, particularly as influenced by domestication (whether the version practiced by humans or not). And this gets back to a point the Fuentes stressed: “The mutual mutability of form and function in becoming human with other humans and nonhuman others is a central tenet in human evolution and should be recognized as a locus for the anthropological gaze …one where we can influence scientific practice in fields outside our own.” The way to challenge and change the way evolution operates in public discourse as an explanatory frame—see evolutionary psychology and economics—won’t improve until we fashion a more cultural account of how it operates.
The entire article is here.
Monday, May 18, 2015
Social psychologist relinquishes chair after data manipulation charges
By Frank van Kolfschooten
ScienceInsider
Originally published April 20, 2015
Here are two excerpt:
In the controversial studies, Förster investigated how "priming" by subtle cues—such as a smell or hearing a poem—can change a person's cognitive response. Suspicions against his work were first raised in 2012 by a whistleblower who filed a complaint at UvA. In June 2013, an integrity committee at the university concluded that data patterns in the studies were “practically impossible,” and recommended the publication of “expressions of concern” in the journals involved.
(cut)
"I will leave the materialistic and soulless production approach in science," the text reads, however. "I am going my own way now.” Förster didn’t respond to e-mailed questions from ScienceInsider about his decision.
The entire article is here.
ScienceInsider
Originally published April 20, 2015
Here are two excerpt:
In the controversial studies, Förster investigated how "priming" by subtle cues—such as a smell or hearing a poem—can change a person's cognitive response. Suspicions against his work were first raised in 2012 by a whistleblower who filed a complaint at UvA. In June 2013, an integrity committee at the university concluded that data patterns in the studies were “practically impossible,” and recommended the publication of “expressions of concern” in the journals involved.
(cut)
"I will leave the materialistic and soulless production approach in science," the text reads, however. "I am going my own way now.” Förster didn’t respond to e-mailed questions from ScienceInsider about his decision.
The entire article is here.
Why Many Doctors Don't Follow 'Best Practices'
By Anders Kelto
NPR News - All Things Considered
Originally published April 22, 2015
Here is an excerpt:
Imagine, for example, that a healthy, 40-year-old woman walks into your office and asks about a mammogram.
"If that woman were to develop breast cancer or to have breast cancer, you can imagine what might happen to you if you didn't order the test," Wu says. "Maybe you'd get sued."
Doctors often hear stories like this, he says, and that can affect their judgment.
"Emotion and recent events do influence our decision-making," he says. "We are not absolutely rational, decision-making machines."
The entire article is here.
NPR News - All Things Considered
Originally published April 22, 2015
Here is an excerpt:
Imagine, for example, that a healthy, 40-year-old woman walks into your office and asks about a mammogram.
"If that woman were to develop breast cancer or to have breast cancer, you can imagine what might happen to you if you didn't order the test," Wu says. "Maybe you'd get sued."
Doctors often hear stories like this, he says, and that can affect their judgment.
"Emotion and recent events do influence our decision-making," he says. "We are not absolutely rational, decision-making machines."
The entire article is here.
Sunday, May 17, 2015
Deceased clients and their wills
When a treating psychologist receives a bequest, what ethical considerations come into play?
By Stephen Behnke, JD, PhD, MDiv
The Monitor on Psychology
May 2015, Vol 46, No. 5
Print version: page 72
Here is an excerpt:
Most risk managers — people who work for insurance carriers, for example, whose primary goal is to lower a psychologist's exposure to risk — will advise the psychologist to decline the property. This advice makes good sense. The situation invites a claim that the psychologist exercised undue influence over the client, which is a relevant legal standard for overturning the bequest. The likelihood that a claim of undue influence will be made against the psychologist rises exponentially if the client had heirs, or potential beneficiaries of the estate who are found. If a complaint is made to an ethics committee or licensing board, the psychologist will bear the burden of demonstrating that there has been no exploitation:
The entire article is here.
By Stephen Behnke, JD, PhD, MDiv
The Monitor on Psychology
May 2015, Vol 46, No. 5
Print version: page 72
Here is an excerpt:
Most risk managers — people who work for insurance carriers, for example, whose primary goal is to lower a psychologist's exposure to risk — will advise the psychologist to decline the property. This advice makes good sense. The situation invites a claim that the psychologist exercised undue influence over the client, which is a relevant legal standard for overturning the bequest. The likelihood that a claim of undue influence will be made against the psychologist rises exponentially if the client had heirs, or potential beneficiaries of the estate who are found. If a complaint is made to an ethics committee or licensing board, the psychologist will bear the burden of demonstrating that there has been no exploitation:
The entire article is here.
Saturday, May 16, 2015
Errors in Moral Forecasting
Perceptions of Affect Shape the Gap Between Moral Behaviors and Moral Forecasts
Rimma Teper, Alexa M. Tullett, Elizabeth Page-Gould, and Michael Inzlicht
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 1–14
DOI: 10.1177/0146167215583848
Abstract
Research in moral decision making has shown that there may not be a one-to-one relationship between peoples’ moral forecasts and behaviors. Although past work suggests that physiological arousal may account for part of the behavior forecasting discrepancy, whether or not perceptions of affect play an important determinant remains unclear. Here, we investigate whether this discrepancy may arise because people fail to anticipate how they will feel in morally significant situations. In Study 1, forecasters predicted cheating significantly more on a test than participants in a behavior condition actually cheated. Importantly, forecasters who received false somatic feedback, indicative of high arousal, produced forecasts that aligned more closely with behaviors. In Study 2, forecasters who misattributed their arousal to an extraneous source forecasted cheating significantly more. In Study 3, higher dispositional emotional awareness was related to less forecasted cheating. These findings suggest that perceptions of affect play a key role in the behavior-forecasting dissociation.
The entire article is here.
Rimma Teper, Alexa M. Tullett, Elizabeth Page-Gould, and Michael Inzlicht
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 1–14
DOI: 10.1177/0146167215583848
Abstract
Research in moral decision making has shown that there may not be a one-to-one relationship between peoples’ moral forecasts and behaviors. Although past work suggests that physiological arousal may account for part of the behavior forecasting discrepancy, whether or not perceptions of affect play an important determinant remains unclear. Here, we investigate whether this discrepancy may arise because people fail to anticipate how they will feel in morally significant situations. In Study 1, forecasters predicted cheating significantly more on a test than participants in a behavior condition actually cheated. Importantly, forecasters who received false somatic feedback, indicative of high arousal, produced forecasts that aligned more closely with behaviors. In Study 2, forecasters who misattributed their arousal to an extraneous source forecasted cheating significantly more. In Study 3, higher dispositional emotional awareness was related to less forecasted cheating. These findings suggest that perceptions of affect play a key role in the behavior-forecasting dissociation.
The entire article is here.
Friday, May 15, 2015
Navigating the Google Blind Spot
An Emerging Need for Professional Guidelines to Address Patient-Targeted Googling
By Maria J. Baker, Daniel R. George and Gordon L. Kauffman
Journal of General Internal Medicine
Originally published September 17, 2014
Many physicians would agree that seeking information about their patients via Google seems to be an invasion of privacy, violating trust between patients and their healthcare providers. However, it may be viewed as ethically valid, and even warranted under certain circumstances. Although guidelines developed by the American Medical Association and the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) provide general guidance on the appropriate use of the Internet, they do not specifically address the crucial issue of whether physicians should ‘google’ their patients, and, if so, under what circumstances. As a result, physicians are left to navigate this “google blind spot” independently, and to decipher on a case-by-case basis where the boundary of professionalism lies with regard to patient-targeted googling.
Two case scenarios illustrate the moral ambiguity present within this “blind spot.”
The entire article is here.
By Maria J. Baker, Daniel R. George and Gordon L. Kauffman
Journal of General Internal Medicine
Originally published September 17, 2014
Many physicians would agree that seeking information about their patients via Google seems to be an invasion of privacy, violating trust between patients and their healthcare providers. However, it may be viewed as ethically valid, and even warranted under certain circumstances. Although guidelines developed by the American Medical Association and the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) provide general guidance on the appropriate use of the Internet, they do not specifically address the crucial issue of whether physicians should ‘google’ their patients, and, if so, under what circumstances. As a result, physicians are left to navigate this “google blind spot” independently, and to decipher on a case-by-case basis where the boundary of professionalism lies with regard to patient-targeted googling.
Two case scenarios illustrate the moral ambiguity present within this “blind spot.”
The entire article is here.
Why Be Good? Well, Why Not?
By Jay L. Garfield
Big Ideas at Slate.com
Here is an excerpt:
The central problem of ethics is to provide reasons to override rational self-interest—acting for the sake of others, perhaps, or for the sake of duty, or in accordance with divine commandment, or for the sake of some other transcendent value. Sometimes the argument for doing so involves showing that it is really in our own self-interest to do so (everlasting life in heaven, for instance). Sometimes it involves arguing that there are more important things than our own rational interest (duty, for instance). In any case, the burden of proof is taken to rest squarely on the moralist to convince the immoralist to do what is, at least at first glance, irrational.
But why take acting in one’s own narrow self-interest to be rational in the first place? It is not self-evident that it is. And why take our own interests to be either independent of those of others or in competition with them? That is not self-evident, either. If we can offer a more compelling account of rational choice than that offered by the economists and decision theorists, we might find that care for others is the default rational basis for action, not a value in competition with it.
The entire article is here.
Big Ideas at Slate.com
Here is an excerpt:
The central problem of ethics is to provide reasons to override rational self-interest—acting for the sake of others, perhaps, or for the sake of duty, or in accordance with divine commandment, or for the sake of some other transcendent value. Sometimes the argument for doing so involves showing that it is really in our own self-interest to do so (everlasting life in heaven, for instance). Sometimes it involves arguing that there are more important things than our own rational interest (duty, for instance). In any case, the burden of proof is taken to rest squarely on the moralist to convince the immoralist to do what is, at least at first glance, irrational.
But why take acting in one’s own narrow self-interest to be rational in the first place? It is not self-evident that it is. And why take our own interests to be either independent of those of others or in competition with them? That is not self-evident, either. If we can offer a more compelling account of rational choice than that offered by the economists and decision theorists, we might find that care for others is the default rational basis for action, not a value in competition with it.
The entire article is here.
Thursday, May 14, 2015
Do Killer Robots Violate Human Rights?
When machines are anthropomorphized, we risk applying a human standard that should not apply to mere tools.
By Patrick Lin
The Atlantic
Originally published April 20, 2015
Here is an excerpt:
What’s objectionable to many about lethal autonomous weapons systems is that, even if the weapons aim only at lawful targets, they seem to violate a basic right to life. This claim is puzzling at first, since killing is so commonplace and permitted in war. If you’re a combatant, you are legally liable to be killed at any time; so it’s unclear that there’s a right to life at all.
But what we mean is that, in armed conflicts, a right to life means a right not to be killed arbitrarily, unaccountably, or otherwise inhumanely. To better understand the claim, a right to life can be thought of as a right to human dignity. Human dignity is arguably more basic than a right to life, which can be more easily forfeited or trumped. For instance, even lawful executions should be humane in civilized society.
The entire article is here.
By Patrick Lin
The Atlantic
Originally published April 20, 2015
Here is an excerpt:
What’s objectionable to many about lethal autonomous weapons systems is that, even if the weapons aim only at lawful targets, they seem to violate a basic right to life. This claim is puzzling at first, since killing is so commonplace and permitted in war. If you’re a combatant, you are legally liable to be killed at any time; so it’s unclear that there’s a right to life at all.
But what we mean is that, in armed conflicts, a right to life means a right not to be killed arbitrarily, unaccountably, or otherwise inhumanely. To better understand the claim, a right to life can be thought of as a right to human dignity. Human dignity is arguably more basic than a right to life, which can be more easily forfeited or trumped. For instance, even lawful executions should be humane in civilized society.
The entire article is here.
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