Trump Shatters Ethics Norms By Making Official Acts Part Of GOP Convention

Sam Gringlas
www.npr.org
Originally posted 26 August 20

Here is an excerpt:

As part of Tuesday night's prime-time convention programming, Trump granted a presidential pardon from the White House. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appeared from Jerusalem, where he was on official state business, to make a campaign speech with the Old City as backdrop. First lady Melania Trump delivered a speech from the White House Rose Garden. And acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf performed a naturalization ceremony on television as Trump looked on.

The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from engaging in most political activity inside federal buildings or while on duty. Though the president and vice president are exempt from the civil provisions of the Hatch Act, federal employees like Pompeo, Wolf and any executive branch employees who helped stage the events are not.

Ethics watchdogs harshly criticized Trump's merging of official and campaign acts during the Tuesday night telecast.

"The Hatch Act was the wall standing between the government's might and candidates. Tonight a candidate tore down that wall and wielded power for his own campaign," tweeted Walter Shaub, the former head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. Shaub left the office in 2017 after clashing with the Trump administration over the president's failure to divest from his businesses.

This summer, Pompeo and top State Department officials sent memos to employees reminding them they must be careful to adhere to the Hatch Act. Another memo said, "Senate-confirmed Presidential appointees may not even attend a political party convention or convention-related event." That description also applies to Pompeo.

Richard Haass, the longtime president of the Council on Foreign Relations who has served in several Republican administrations, said it's inappropriate for a secretary of state to appear at a political convention while serving as the nation's top diplomat.

The info is here.

Patients aren’t being told about the AI systems advising their care

Rebecca Robbins and Erin Brodwin
statnews.com
Originally posted 15 July 20

Here is an excerpt:

The decision not to mention these systems to patients is the product of an emerging consensus among doctors, hospital executives, developers, and system architects, who see little value — but plenty of downside — in raising the subject.

They worry that bringing up AI will derail clinicians’ conversations with patients, diverting time and attention away from actionable steps that patients can take to improve their health and quality of life. Doctors also emphasize that they, not the AI, make the decisions about care. An AI system’s recommendation, after all, is just one of many factors that clinicians take into account before making a decision about a patient’s care, and it would be absurd to detail every single guideline, protocol, and data source that gets considered, they say.

Internist Karyn Baum, who’s leading M Health Fairview’s rollout of the tool, said she doesn’t bring up the AI to her patients “in the same way that I wouldn’t say that the X-ray has decided that you’re ready to go home.” She said she would never tell a fellow clinician not to mention the model to a patient, but in practice, her colleagues generally don’t bring it up either.

Four of the health system’s 13 hospitals have now rolled out the hospital discharge planning tool, which was developed by the Silicon Valley AI company Qventus. The model is designed to identify hospitalized patients who are likely to be clinically ready to go home soon and flag steps that might be needed to make that happen, such as scheduling a necessary physical therapy appointment.

Clinicians consult the tool during their daily morning huddle, gathering around a computer to peer at a dashboard of hospitalized patients, estimated discharge dates, and barriers that could prevent that from occurring on schedule.

The info is here.

Morality justifies motivated reasoning in the folk ethics of belief

Cusimano, C., & Lombrozo, T. (2020, July 20).
https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/7r5yb

Abstract

When faced with a dilemma between believing what is supported by an impartial assessment of the evidence (e.g., that one’s friend is guilty of a crime) and believing what would better fulfill a moral obligation (e.g., that the friend is innocent), people often believe in line with the latter. But is this how people think beliefs ought to be formed? We addressed this question across three studies and found that, across a diverse set of everyday situations, people treat moral considerations as legitimate grounds for believing propositions that are unsupported by objective, evidence-based reasoning. We further document two ways in which moral evaluations affect how people prescribe beliefs to others. First, the moral value of a belief affects the evidential threshold required to believe, such that morally good beliefs demand less evidence than morally bad beliefs. Second, people sometimes treat the moral value of a belief as an independent justification for belief, and so sometimes prescribe evidentially poor beliefs to others. Together these results show that, in the folk ethics of belief, morality can justify and demand motivated reasoning.

From the Discussion

Additionally, participants reported that moral concerns affected the standards of evidence that apply to belief, such that morally-desirable beliefs require less evidence than morally-undesirable beliefs. In Study 1, participants reported that, relative to an impartial observer with the same information, someone with a moral reason to be optimistic had a wider range of beliefs that could be considered“consistent with” and “based on” the evidence.  Critically however, the broader range of beliefs that were consistent with the same evidence were only beliefs that were more morally desirable; morally undesirable beliefs were not more consistent with the evidence. In Studies 2 and 3, participants agreed more strongly that someone who had a moral reason to adopt a desirable belief had sufficient evidence to do so compared to someone who lacked a moral reason, even though they formed the same belief on the basis of the same evidence.  Likewise, on average, participants judged that when someone adopted the morally undesirable belief, they were more often judged as having insufficient evidence for doing so relative to someone who lacked a moral reason (again, even though they formed the same belief on the basis of the same evidence).  Finally, in Study 2 (though not in Study 3), these judgments replicated using an indirect measure of evidentiary quality; namely, attributions of knowledge. In sum, these findings document that one reason people may prescribe a motivated belief to someone is because morality changes how much evidence they consider to be required to hold the belief in an evidentially-sound way.

Editor's Note: Huge implications for psychotherapy.

Uncertainty about the impact of social decisions increases prosocial behaviour

Kappes, A., Nussberger, A. M., et al.
Nature human behaviour, 2(8), 573–580.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0372-x

Abstract

Uncertainty about how our choices will affect others infuses social life. Past research suggests uncertainty has a negative effect on prosocial behavior by enabling people to adopt self-serving narratives about their actions. We show that uncertainty does not always promote selfishness. We introduce a distinction between two types of uncertainty that have opposite effects on prosocial behavior. Previous work focused on outcome uncertainty: uncertainty about whether or not a decision will lead to a particular outcome. But as soon as people’s decisions might have negative consequences for others, there is also impact uncertainty: uncertainty about how badly others’ well-being will be impacted by the negative outcome. Consistent with past research, we found decreased prosocial behavior under outcome uncertainty. In contrast, prosocial behavior was increased under impact uncertainty in incentivized economic decisions and hypothetical decisions about infectious disease threats. Perceptions of social norms paralleled the behavioral effects. The effect of impact uncertainty on prosocial behavior did not depend on the individuation of others or the mere mention of harm, and was stronger when impact uncertainty was made more salient. Our findings offer insights into communicating uncertainty, especially in contexts where prosocial behavior is paramount, such as responding to infectious disease threats.

From the Summary

To summarize, we show that uncertainty does not always decrease prosocial behavior; instead, the type of uncertainty matters. Replicating previous findings, we found that outcome uncertainty – uncertainty about the outcomes of decisions – made people behave more selfishly. However, impact uncertainty about how an outcome will impact another person’s well-being increased prosocial behavior, in economic and health domains. Examining closer the effect of impact uncertainty on prosociality, we show that for the increase in prosociality to occur, simply mentioning negative outcomes or inducing uncertainty about aspects of the other person unrelated to the negative outcome is not sufficient to increase prosociality. Rather, it seems that uncertainty relating to the impact of negative outcomes on others is needed to increase prosociality in our studies. Finally, we show that impact uncertainty is only effective when it is salient, thereby potentially overcoming people’s reluctance to contemplating the harm they might cause.

Natural Compatibilism, Indeterminism, and Intrusive Metaphysics

Nadelhoffer, T., Rose, D., Buckwalter, W.,
& Nichols, S. (2019, August 25).
https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/rzbqh

Abstract

The claim that common sense regards free will and moral responsibility as compatible with determinism has played a central role in both analytic and experimental philosophy. In this paper, we show that evidence in favor of this “natural compatibilism” is undermined by the role that indeterministic metaphysical views play in how people construe deterministic scenarios. To demonstrate this, we re-examine two classic studies that have been used to support natural compatibilism. We find that although people give apparently compatibilist responses, this is largely explained by the fact that people import an indeterministic metaphysics into deterministic scenarios when making judgments about freedom and responsibility. We conclude that judgments based on these scenarios are not reliable evidence for natural compatibilism.

Here is an excerpt from the Discussion:

The most obvious rejoinder for natural compatibilists is to deny that our intrusion items are properly construed as measures of creeping indeterminism. On this view, our items beg the question against compatibilism and our findings can be given a compatibilist-friendly interpretation.Here, the natural compatibilist is likely to appeal to the difference between the unconditional and the conditional ability to do otherwise. In an indeterministic universe, agents can have the unconditional ability to do otherwise—that is, they could have done otherwise even if everything leading up to their decision remained exactly the same. In a deterministic universe, on the other hand, agents merely have the conditional ability to do otherwise—that is, agents could have acted differently only insofar as something (either the past or the laws) had been different than it actually was. Compatibilists suggest that this conditional ability to do otherwise (along with other cognitive and volitional capacities) can ground free will and moral responsibility even in a deterministic universe. Incompatibilists disagree, insisting instead that free will requires indeterminism and the unconditional ability to do otherwise.

Suckers or Saviors? Consistent Contributors in Social Dilemmas

Weber JM, Murnighan JK.
J Pers Soc Psychol. 2008;95(6):1340-1353.
doi:10.1037/a0012454

Abstract

Groups and organizations face a fundamental problem: They need cooperation but their members have incentives to free ride. Empirical research on this problem has often been discouraging, and economic models suggest that solutions are unlikely or unstable. In contrast, the authors present a model and 4 studies that show that an unwaveringly consistent contributor can effectively catalyze cooperation in social dilemmas. The studies indicate that consistent contributors occur naturally, and their presence in a group causes others to contribute more and cooperate more often, with no apparent cost to the consistent contributor and often gain. These positive effects seem to result from a consistent contributor's impact on group members' cooperative inferences about group norms.

From the Discussion:

Practical Implications

These findings may also have important practical implications.Should an individual who is joining a new group take the risk and be a CC (Consistent Contributor)? The alternative is to risk being in a group without one.Even though CCs seemed to benefit economically from their actions, they also tended to get relatively little credit for their positive influence, if they got any credit at all. Thus, future research might explore how consistent contributions can be encouraged and appreciated and how people can overcome the fears that are naturally associated with becoming a CC.

These data also provide further support for Kelley and Stahelski’s (1970) observation that people consistently under estimate their roles in creating their own social environments. In particular, in the contexts that we studied here, the common characterization of self-interested choices as “strategic” or “rational” appears to be behaviorally inappropriate. Characterizing CCs as suckers may be both misleading and fallacious (see Moore & Loewenstein, 2004,p. 200).  If “rational” choices maximize personal outcomes, our data suggest that the choice to be a CC can actually be rational. In this research, we examined CCs’ effects, not their motives or strategies. The data suggest that in these kinds of groups, CCs are saviors rather than suckers.

A serious impediment to the emergence of CCs is the fact that like Axelrod’s (1984) tit-for-tat players, CCs can never do better than the other members of their own groups. This means that CCs cannot do better than their exchange partners: Anyone who cooperates less, even if they ultimately move to mutual cooperation, will obtain better short-term outcomes than CCs. The common tendency to make social comparisons (Festinger, 1954) means that these outcome disparities will probably be noticed. Relatively disadvantageous outcomes are particularly noxious (e.g., Loewenstein, Thompson, & Bazerman, 1989), as is feeling exploited (e.g., Kelley & Stahelski, 1970). Thus, in the absence of formal agreements and binding contracts (which have their own problems; Malhotra & Murnighan, 2002), cooperative action can be exploited. The inclination to self-interested action may even be a common default (Moore & Loewenstein, 2004).

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In essence: Economic theories often assume people look out mostly for themselves, cooperating only when punished or cajoled.  But even in anonymous experiments, some people consistently cooperate. These people also (i) perform better and (ii) inspire others to cooperate.

Immunology Is Where Intuition Goes to Die

Ed Yong
The Atlantic
Originally posted 5 August 20

Here is an excerpt:

Immune responses are inherently violent. Cells are destroyed. Harmful chemicals are unleashed. Ideally, that violence is targeted and restrained; as Metcalf puts it, “Half of the immune system is designed to turn the other half off.” But if an infection is allowed to run amok, the immune system might do the same, causing a lot of collateral damage in its prolonged and flailing attempts to control the virus.

This is apparently what happens in severe cases of COVID-19. “If you can’t clear the virus quickly enough, you’re susceptible to damage from the virus and the immune system,” says Donna Farber, a microbiologist at Columbia. Many people in intensive-care units seem to succumb to the ravages of their own immune cells, even if they eventually beat the virus. Others suffer from lasting lung and heart problems, long after they are discharged. Such immune overreactions also happen in extreme cases of influenza, but they wreak greater damage in COVID-19.

There’s a further twist. Normally, the immune system mobilizes different groups of cells and molecules when fighting three broad groups of pathogens: viruses and microbes that invade cells, bacteria and fungi that stay outside cells, and parasitic worms. Only the first of these programs should activate during a viral infection. But Iwasaki’s team recently showed that all three activate in severe COVID-19 cases. “It seems completely random,” she says. In the worst cases, “the immune system almost seems confused as to what it’s supposed to be making.”

No one yet knows why this happens, and only in some people. Eight months into the pandemic, the variety of COVID-19 experiences remains a vexing mystery. It’s still unclear, for example, why so many “long-haulers” have endured months of debilitating symptoms. Many of them have never been hospitalized, and so aren’t represented in existing studies that have measured antibody and T-cell responses. David Putrino of Mount Sinai tells me that he surveyed 700 long-haulers and a third had tested negative for antibodies, despite having symptoms consistent with COVID-19. It’s unclear if their immune systems are doing anything differently when confronted with the coronavirus.

The info is here.

Religious Overclaiming and Support for Religious Aggression

Jones, D. N., Neria, A. L., et al.
Social Psychological and Personality Science.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550620912880

Abstract

Agentic self-enhancement consists of self-protective and self-advancing tendencies that can lead to aggression, especially when challenged. Because self-enhancers often endorse aggression to defend or enhance the self-concept, religious self-enhancement should lead to endorsing aggression to defend or enhance one’s religion. We recruited three samples (N = 969) from Mechanical Turk (n = 409), Iran (n = 351), and the U.S.–Mexico border region (n = 209). We found that religious (but not secular) self-enhancement in the form of religious overclaiming predicted support for, and willingness to engage in, religious aggression. In contrast, accuracy in religious knowledge had mostly negative associations with aggression-relevant outcomes. These results emerged across two separate religions (Christianity and Islam) and across three different cultures (the United States, Iran, and the U.S.–Mexico border region). Thus, religious overclaiming is a promising new direction for studying support for religious aggression and identifying those who may become aggressive in the name of God.

Conclusion

In sum, individuals who overclaimed religious knowledge (i.e., claim to know fictional religious concepts) supported religious aggression and were more willing to engage in religious aggression. This finding did not emerge for secular overclaiming, nor was it explained through other measures of group aggression. Further, accurate religious and secular knowledge mostly correlated with peaceful tendencies. These results emerged across three studies within different cultures (the United States, Iran, and the U.S.–Mexico border region) and religions (Islam and Christianity). In sum, the present findings have promise for future research on identifying and mitigating factors related to supporting religious aggression.

From a PsyPost interview:

“Overconfidence in what you think God supports or what scripture says is toxic. Thus, humility is a critical feature that is needed to bring out the best and most benevolent aspects of religion,” Jones told PsyPost.

Morality justifies motivated reasoning

Corey Cusimano and Tania Lombrozo
Paper found online

Abstract

A great deal of work argues that people demand impartial, evidence-based reasoning from others. However, recent findings show that moral values occupy a cardinal position in people’s evaluation of others, raising the possibility that people sometimes prescribe morally-good but evidentially-poor beliefs. We report two studies investigating how people evaluate beliefs when these two ideals conflict and find that people regularly endorse motivated reasoning when it can be morally justified. Furthermore, we document two ways that moral considerations result in prescribed motivated reasoning. First, morality can provide an alternative justification for belief, leading people to prescribe evidentially unsupported beliefs to others. And, second, morality can affect how people evaluate the way evidence is weighed by lowering or raising the threshold of required evidence for morally good and bad beliefs, respectively. These results illuminate longstanding questions about the nature of motivated reasoning and the social regulation of belief.

From the General Discussion

These results can potentially explain the presence and persistence of certain motivated beliefs. In particular, morally-motivated beliefs could persist in part because people do not demand that they or others reason accurately or acquire equal evidence for their beliefs (Metz, Weisburg, & Weisburg, 2018). These findings also invite a reinterpretation of some classic biases, which are in general interpreted as unintentional errors (Kunda, 1990). We suggest instead that some apparent errors reflect convictions that one ought to be biased or discount evidence. Future work investigating biased belief formation should incorporate the perceived moral value of the belief.

The pdf can be found here.