Ethical ways for psychologists to counteract negative reviews online

Pauline Wallin
The National Psychologist
Originally published March 9, 2016

If you Google your name, the first page of search results may show ratings from Healthgrades, Yelp and similar sites. Sometimes these ratings are less than kind. And sometimes they’re not even posted by real clients.

Upon seeing a negative review, your first thought might be, “How do I get this removed?” Check the website’s Terms of Service. Many rating sites stipulate that reviews must be based on facts and must not include inflammatory, racist, sexist or other prejudicial content.

Thus, if someone posts a scathing review, calling you “scum of the earth,” that would likely violate the rating site’s terms of service and your request for removal of that review will be granted.

If the review is obviously factually inaccurate and does not reflect your mode of practice – e.g., a complaint that you didn’t clean your stethoscope – you can probably get it removed.

The article is here.

Social Media & Ethics: Psychologists self-reflect when engaging through technology

John Gavazzi
The National Psychologist
Originally published March 9,, 2016

Many times, psychologists experience fear, dread and anxiety when the concept of ethics is introduced. Simultaneously, many psychologists use social media for both professional and personal reasons. Since social media comes in various forms, psychologists may think they are not sufficiently learned or practiced in social media, which may add to feelings of apprehension.

Finally, social media is expanding quickly, so practicing psychologists may feel overwhelmed with the diversity of options. The purpose of this article is to help psychologists engage in meaningful reflection prior to engaging in social media. Thoughtful contemplation may prevent ethical breaches when engaging with social media.

The article is here.

The momentous advance in artificial intelligence demands a new set of ethics

Jason Millar
The Guardian
March 12, 2016

Here is an excerpt:

AI is also increasingly able to manage complex, data intensive tasks, such as monitoring credit card systems for fraudulent behaviour, high-frequency stock trading and detecting cyber security threats. Embodied as robots, deep-learning AI is poised to begin to move and work among us – in the form of service, transportation, medical and military robots.

Deep learning represents a paradigm shift in the relationship humans have with their technological creations. It results in AI that displays genuinely surprising and unpredictable behaviour. Commenting after his first loss, Lee described being stunned by an unconventional move he claimed no human would ever have made. Demis Hassabis, one of DeepMind’s founders, echoed the sentiment: “We’re very pleased that AlphaGo played some quite surprising and beautiful moves.”

Alan Turing, the visionary computer scientist, predicted we would someday speak of machines that think. He never predicted this.

The article is here.

Can we trust robots to make moral decisions?

By Olivia Goldhill
Quartz
Originally published April 3, 2016

Last week, Microsoft inadvertently revealed the difficulty of creating moral robots. Chatbot Tay, designed to speak like a teenage girl, turned into a Nazi-loving racist after less than 24 hours on Twitter. “Repeat after me, Hitler did nothing wrong,” she said, after interacting with various trolls. “Bush did 9/11 and Hitler would have done a better job than the monkey we have got now.”

Of course, Tay wasn’t designed to be explicitly moral. But plenty of other machines are involved in work that has clear ethical implications.

The article is here.

Are volunteer study patients making a free choice?

Michael Kirsch
KevinMD.org
Originally published March 13, 2016

There was a tragedy in France recently: Innocent French citizens were taken down by a profession whose mission is to heal and comfort.  A medical clinical trial careened off the rails and crashed.  Were these volunteer study patients properly informed?  Are medical study patients here in the U.S. truly making a free choice?

From time to time, friends, patients, and relatives ask my advice if they should participate in a medical experiment.  While I am a doctor, I usually say no.  And, once I explain to them the realities of medical research, they usually say no also.

The article is here.

When Self-Report Trumps Science: Confessions, DNA, & Prosecutorial Theories on Perceptions of Guilt

Sara Appleby and Saul Kassin
Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, Mar 10 , 2016

Abstract

For many wrongfully convicted individuals, DNA testing presents a new and invaluable
means of exoneration. In several recently documented cases, however, innocent confessors were
tried and convicted despite DNA evidence that excluded them. In each of these cases, the
prosecutor proposed a speculative theory to explain away the mismatched confession and
exculpatory DNA. Three studies were conducted that pitted confessions against DNA test
results. Study 1 showed that people in general trust DNA evidence far more than self-report,
including a defendant’s confession. Using student and adult community samples, Studies 2 and 3
showed that in cases in which the defendant had confessed to police but was later exculpated by
DNA, prosecutorial theories spun to reconcile the contradiction attenuated the power of
exculpatory DNA, significantly increasing perceptions of the defendant's culpability, the rate of
conviction, and the self-reported influence of the confession. Implications and suggestions for
reform are discussed.

The cited article is here.

Access to the article is here.

Why so many scientists are so ignorant

By Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
The Week
Originally published March 8, 2016

Here is an excerpt:

Nye fell into the same trap that Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Stephen Hawking have been caught up in. Philosophy, these men of science opine, is largely useless, because it can't give us the sort of certain answers that science can, and amounts to little more than speculation.

There's obviously a grain of truth in this. Philosophy does not give us the certainty that math or experimental science can (but even then — as many philosophers would point out — these fields do not give us as much certainty as is sometimes claimed). But that doesn't mean that philosophy is worthless, or that it doesn't have rigor. Indeed, in a sense, philosophy is inescapable. To argue that philosophy is useless is to do philosophy. Moreover, some existential questions simply can't be escaped, and philosophy is one of the best, or at least least bad, ways we've come up with to address those questions.

The article is here.

Restrict the Recruitment of Involuntarily Committed Patients for Psychiatric Research

Carl Elliott and Matt Lamkin
JAMA Psychiatry
Published online February 10, 2016. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2015.3117

Can an involuntarily committed psychiatric patient give truly voluntary consent for medical research? This question has been fiercely debated in Minnesota since 2008, when the St Paul Pioneer Press reported the death of Dan Markingson, a mentally ill young man who had been recruited into an antipsychotic study at the University of Minnesota while under a civil commitment order. Along with many others, we have argued that the circumstances of Markingson’s commitment order compromised the voluntariness of his consent to the study. Although federal guidelines are silent on the issue, we believe the Markingson case serves as a powerful argument for serious restrictions on the recruitment of involuntarily committed patients into psychiatric research studies.

The article is here.

Assisted Outpatient Treatment: APA’s Position Statement

Renée Binder
Psychiatric News
Originally posted February 29, 2016

Here is an excerpt:

• Is AOT ethical? Some opponents of AOT feel that it is unethical to force patients into treatment except for emergency treatment, that is, when a patient is a danger to self, a danger to others, or unable to care for basic needs. They argue that AOT goes against the principles of autonomy and right to self-determination.

Opponents contend that even if someone has a chronic mental illness and has a history of hospitalization or incarceration, they still have the right to decide if they want to comply with treatment, barring an emergency. AOT supporters argue that AOT is consistent with the principle of beneficence and tries to intervene before someone meets the criteria for involuntary hospitalization to prevent deterioration based on past history. After reviewing the arguments on both sides, the APA position statement supports the use of AOT and opines that it is ethical when used appropriately.

The article is here.