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

Friday, June 5, 2015

The thought father: Psychologist Daniel Kahneman on luck

By Richard Godwin
The London Evening Standard
Originally published March 18, 2014

Here are two excerpt:

Through a series of zany experiments involving roulette wheels and loaded dice, Tversky and Kahneman showed just how easily we can be led into making irrational decisions — even judges sentencing criminals were influenced by being shown completely random numbers. They also showed the sinister effects of priming (how, when people are “primed” with images of money, they behave in a more selfish way). Many such mental illusions still have an effect when subjects are explicitly warned to look out for them. “If it feels right, we go along with it,” as Kahneman says. It is usually afterwards that we engage our System 2s if at all, to provide reasons for acting as we did after the fact.

(cut)

Do teach yourself to think long-term. The “focusing illusion” makes the here and now appear the most pressing concern but that can lead to skewed results.

Do be fair. Research shows that employers who are unjust are punished by reduced productivity, and unfair prices lead to a loss in sales.

Do co-operate. What Kahneman calls “bias blindness” means it’s easier to recognise the errors of others than our own so ask for constructive criticism and be prepared to call out others on what they could improve.

The entire article is here.


Ethical issues in researching daily life

Researchers who conduct ambulatory assessment should be aware of the pitfalls that may come with new technology that captures participant data.

By Timothy J. Trull, PhD
The Monitor on Psychology
April 2015, Vol 46, No. 4
Print version: page 70

Here is an excerpt:

With this increased utility comes a parallel increase in both ethical issues and assessment challenges. They include:

Informed consent. As with all forms of assessment, it is necessary to ensure that ambulatory assessment participants are informed about the procedures or protocol of the study, the exact nature of the data to be collected, and potential risks and burdens related to the study. Several unique features of ambulatory assessment should be considered. First, especially because ambulatory assessment may involve passive data collection, it is vital to make the participant aware of all of the data that are being collected, as well as how these data might be used. It is also important to recognize that ambulatory assessment may unintentionally capture data on nonconsenting people who interact with the participant via audio recordings, videos or photos. Investigators must decide ahead of time how this should be handled. Should people be encouraged to discuss their participation in the ambulatory assessment study with others with whom they have contact? Some U.S. states may forbid the recording of third parties without their permission. Participants should be given the option to stop recording at any point and to review their data if recording has occurred in sensitive situations.

The entire article is here.

Thursday, June 4, 2015

The neural pathways, development and functions of empathy

Jean Decety
Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences
Volume 3, June 2015, Pages 1–6

Empathy reflects an innate ability to perceive and be sensitive to the emotional states of others coupled with a motivation to care for their wellbeing. It has evolved in the context of parental care for offspring as well as within kinship. Current work demonstrates that empathy is underpinned by circuits connecting the brainstem, amygdala, basal ganglia, anterior cingulate cortex, insula and orbitofrontal cortex, which are conserved across many species. Empirical studies document that empathetic reactions emerge early in life, and that they are not automatic. Rather they are heavily influenced and modulated by interpersonal and contextual factors, which impact behavior and cognitions. However, the mechanisms supporting empathy are also flexible and amenable to behavioral interventions that can promote caring beyond kin and kith.

The entire article is here.

Understanding Bias — The Case for Careful Study

Lisa Rosenbaum
N Engl J Med 2015; 372:1959-1963
May 14, 2015

Here is an excerpt:

Whether our judgments are motivated by fatigue, hunger, institutional norms, the diagnosis of the last patient we saw, or a memory of a patient who died, we are all biased in countless subtle ways. Teasing out the relative effects of any of these other biases is nearly impossible. You can’t exactly randomly assign some physicians to being motivated by the pursuit of tenure, others by ideology, others by the possibility of future stock returns, and others by just wanting to be really good doctors. The difficulty of measuring these other motivations, however, creates the problem that plagues many quality-improvement efforts: we go after only what we can count. It is easy to count the dollars industry pays doctors, but this ease of measurement obscures two key questions: Does the money introduce a bias that undermines scientific integrity? And by focusing on these pecuniary biases, are we overlooking others that are equally powerful?

The entire article is here.

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Act 31 Mandated Child Abuse Reporting Training (Parts 1 & 2) as Podcast

In this two-part continuing education program, John and Sam Knapp discuss the critical elements of the new Child Protective Service law.  Act 31 of 2014 requires all mandated reporters who hold licenses to receive at least two hours of approved continuing education in the signs of child abuse and the reporting requirements for child abuse in Pennsylvania.

Episode 19 is the first hour of that training.  In hour one, Drs. Gavazzi and Knapp discuss the definitions of a child and perpetrator as these pertain to the new mandated reporting law.  John and Sam highlight the legal definitions of physical abuse, emotional abuse, and begin to discuss the definition of sexual abuse in the new Pennsylvania law.

In Episode 20, Drs. Gavazzi and Knapp review sexual abuse as sex crimes, abuse of newborn children, who mandated reporters are, and why supervises and employees of licensed professionals need to know the mandated reporter requirements.  Sam gives John a pop quiz to help listeners with the Child Protective Services law.  Psychology students, interns, and other mental health workers are subject to the new Child Protective Services Law.  Finally, they review the requirements of reporting, how to report, and mandated reporter rights and protections.

At the end of Episodes 19 and 20, the listener should be able to:
  1. Describe the child welfare system in Pennsylvania;
  2. Define child, child abuse, perpetrators, and other relevant terms;
  3. Paraphrase the responsibilities of mandated reporters;
  4. Recognize the signs of child abuse and situations where child abuse must be reported; and,
  5. Understand how to fulfill their responsibilities as mandated reporters of child abuse.

Episode 19 - Part 1 of the Act 31 Mandated Child Abuse Reporting Training

Episode 20 - Part 2 of the Act 31 Mandated Child Abuse Reporting Training




This podcast is designed for health professionals and has been approved by the Department of Human Services and the Pennsylvania Department of State to meet the Act 31 requirements. 

Additionally, these credits will also count towards the 30 hours required for licensing renewal for psychologists. 

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Thousands of Toddlers Are Medicated for A.D.H.D., Report Finds, Raising Worries

By Alan Schwarz
The New York Times
Originally published May 16, 2014

More than 10,000 American toddlers 2 or 3 years old are being medicated for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder outside established pediatric guidelines, according to data presented on Friday by an official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The report, which found that toddlers covered by Medicaid are particularly prone to be put on medication such as Ritalin and Adderall, is among the first efforts to gauge the diagnosis of A.D.H.D. in children below age 4. Doctors at the Georgia Mental Health Forum at the Carter Center in Atlanta, where the data was presented, as well as several outside experts strongly criticized the use of medication in so many children that young.

The entire article is here.

Twitter’s Great Porn Purge of 2015

By Aurora Snow
The Daily Beast
Originally posted May 16, 2015

Say it ain’t so! Don’t censor us Twitter, like all those other wildly profitable social media platforms.

According to SunTrust Robinson Humphrey tech analyst Robert Peck, Twitter is preparing to purge an estimated 10 million porn-posting users. Ditching such a large chunk of users sounds drastic until you do the math: Twitter claims to have 302 million monthly users, so getting rid of the explicit posters will only account for about 3 percent of its total—although that’s just counting the users and not their followers. Twitter is a one-stop shop for all your media needs, whether you want to catch up on news, message a celeb in real time, or browse explicit images posted by adult stars. Purging the porn will surely upset millions of users, and would certainly put a dent in Twitter’s hip freedom of speech reputation.

The entire article is here.

Monday, June 1, 2015

Awe, the small self, and prosocial behavior.

P. Piff, P. Dietze, M. Feinberg, D. Stancato, and D. Keltner
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 108(6), Jun 2015, 883-899.

Awe is an emotional response to perceptually vast stimuli that transcend current frames of reference. Guided by conceptual analyses of awe as a collective emotion, across 5 studies (N = 2,078) we tested the hypothesis that awe can result in a diminishment of the individual self and its concerns, and increase prosocial behavior. In a representative national sample (Study 1), dispositional tendencies to experience awe predicted greater generosity in an economic game above and beyond other prosocial emotions (e.g., compassion). In follow-up experiments, inductions of awe (relative to various control states) increased ethical decision-making (Study 2), generosity (Study 3), and prosocial values (Study 4). Finally, a naturalistic induction of awe in which participants stood in a grove of towering trees enhanced prosocial helping behavior and decreased entitlement compared to participants in a control condition (Study 5). Mediational data demonstrate that the effects of awe on prosociality are explained, in part, by feelings of a small self. These findings indicate that awe may help situate individuals within broader social contexts and enhance collective concern.

The entire article is here.

Video about Tea and Consent, as it applies to sex



Do you like tea? Do you want tea forced on you? Do you want tea when you're unconscious?

A new video campaign uses stick figures and tea -- yes, tea -- to make the simple but essential point that consent is not a complicated concept.

The video is a collaboration between Blue Seat Studios and blogger Rockstar Dinosaur Pirate Princess, who wrote about the topic in a March post called "Consent: Not actually that complicated."