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

Thursday, January 13, 2022

Beyond Populism: The Psychology of Status-Seeking and Extreme Political Discontent

Petersen, M., Osmundsen, M., & Bor, A. 
(2020, July 8).
https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/puqzs

Abstract

Modern democracies are currently experiencing destabilizing events including the emergence of demagogic leaders, the onset of street riots, circulation of misinformation and extremely hostile political engagements on social media. Some of the forms of discontent are commonly argued to be related to populism. In this chapter, however, we argue that the evolved psychology of status-seeking lies at the core of this syndrome of extreme political discontent. Thus, social status constitutes one of the key adaptive resources for any human, as it induces deference from others in conflicts of interest. Prior research has identified two routes to status: Privilege acquired through service and dominance acquired through coercion. We argue that extreme political discontent involves behaviors aimed at dominance through engagement in either individual aggression or in mobilization processes that facilitate coalitional aggression. Consistent with this, we empirically demonstrate that measures of status-seeking via dominance correlate with indices of a large number of extreme forms of political discontent and do so more strongly than a measure of populism. Finally, we argue that the reason why dominance strategies become activated in the context of modern democratic politics is that increased inequality activates heightened needs for status and, under such conditions, dominance for some groups constitutes a more attainable route to status than prestige.

Towards depolarized societies 

Understanding the psychological and structural roots of extreme discontent is key if we are to move  towards more peaceful societies.  An exclusive focus on populism might lead to the expectation that the  roots of discontent are value-based. For example, the rise of right-wing populism may suggest that  frustrations are rooted in a decreasing respect for authorities and traditional forms of life. If that was indeed the case, a depolarized society might be reached only if non-populists were willing to compromise on important political values and to a larger extent embrace tradition and authority.

In contrast, the present arguments and results suggest that the true roots of the most extreme forms of discontent are less based on a conflict of abstract political values and more on a lack of social status and recognition. If so, the path towards depolarization lies in more inclusion and more equality, for example, based on an affirmation of the classical liberal doctrine of the importance of  open,  non-dominant  exchange  of  arguments  (Popper,  1945).  Unfortunately,  this  is  not something  that can be fixed quickly, as would be  the case  if discontent was rooted  in transient factors such as the behavior of social media algorithms.  Rather, depolarization requires difficult structural changes that alleviates the onset of dominance motivations.

Wednesday, January 12, 2022

Hidden wisdom or pseudo-profound bullshit? The effect of speaker admirability

Kara-Yakoubian, et al.
(2021, October 28).
https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/tpnkw

Abstract

How do people reason in response to ambiguous messages shared by admirable individuals? Using behavioral markers and self-report questionnaires, in two experiments (N = 571) we examined the influence of speakers’ admirability on meaning-seeking and wise reasoning in response to pseudo-profound bullshit. In both studies, statements that sounded superficially impressive but lacked intent to communicate meaning generated meaning-seeking, but only when delivered by high admirability speakers (e.g., the Dalai Lama) as compared to low admirability speakers (e.g., Kim Kardashian). The effect of speakers’ admirability on meaning-seeking was unique to pseudo-profound bullshit statements and was absent for mundane (Study 1) and motivational (Study 2) statements. In Study 2, participants also engaged in wiser reasoning for pseudo-profound bullshit (vs. motivational) statements and did more so when speakers were high in admirability. These effects occurred independently of the amount of time spent on statements or the complexity of participants’ reflections. It appears that pseudo-profound bullshit can promote epistemic reflection and certain aspects of wisdom, when associated with an admirable speaker.

From the General Discussion

Pseudo-profound language represents a type of misinformation (Čavojová et al., 2019b; Littrell et al., 2021; Pennycook & Rand, 2019a) where ambiguity reigns. Our findings suggest that source admirability could play an important role in the cognitive processing of ambiguous misinformation, including fake news (Pennycook & Rand, 2020) and euphemistic language (Walker et al., 2021). For instance, in the case of fake news, people may be more inclined to engage in epistemic reflection if the source of an article is highly admirable. However, we also observed that statements from high (vs. low) admirability sources were judged as more profound and were better liked. Extended to misinformation, a combination of greater perceived profundity, liking, and acquired meaning could potentially facilitate the sharing of ambiguous fake news content throughout social networks. Increased reflective thinking (as measured by the CRT) has also been linked to greater discernment on social media, with individuals who score higher on the CRT being less likely to believe fake news stories and share this type of content (Mosleh et al., 2021; Pennycook & Rand, 2019a). Perhaps, people might engage in more epistemic reflection if the source of an article is highly admirable, which may in turn predict a decrease in the sharing behaviour of fake news. Similarly, people may be more inclined to engage in epistemic reflection for euphemistic language, such as the term “enhanced interrogation” used in replacement of “torture,” and conclude that this type of language means something other than what it refers to, if used by a more admirable (compared to a less admirable) individual.

Tuesday, January 11, 2022

Are some cultures more mind-minded in their moral judgements than others?

Barrett HC, Saxe RR. (2021)
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 376: 20200288.

Abstract

Cross-cultural research on moral reasoning has brought to the fore the question of whether moral judgements always turn on inferences about the mental states of others. Formal legal systems for assigning blame and punishment typically make fine-grained distinctions about mental states, as illustrated by the concept of mens rea, and experimental studies in the USA and elsewhere suggest everyday moral judgements also make use of such distinctions. On the other hand, anthropologists have suggested that some societies have a morality that is disregarding of mental states, and have marshalled ethnographic and experimental evidence in support of this claim. Here, we argue against the claim that some societies are simply less ‘mind-minded’ than others about morality. In place of this cultural main effects hypothesis about the role of mindreading in morality, we propose a contextual variability view in which the role of mental states in moral judgement depends on the context and the reasons for judgement. On this view, which mental states are or are not relevant for a judgement is context-specific, and what appear to be cultural main effects are better explained by culture-by-context interactions.

From the Summing Up section

Our critique of CME theories, we think, is likely to apply to many domains, not just moral judgement. Dimensions of cultural difference such as the ‘collectivist/individualist’ dimension may capture some small main effects of cultural difference, but we suspect that collectivism/individualism is a parameter that can be flipped contextually within societies to a much greater degree than it varies as a main effect across societies. We may be collectivists within families, for example, but individualists at work. Similarly, we suggest that everywhere there are contexts in which one’s mental states may be deemed morally irrelevant and others where they are not. Such judgements vary not just across contexts, but across individuals and time.

What we argue against, then, is thinking of mindreading as a resource that is scarce in some places and plentiful in others. Instead, we should think about it as a resource that is available everywhere, and whose use in moral judgement depends on a multiplicity of factors, including social norms but also, importantly, the reasons for which people are making judgements.

Monday, January 10, 2022

Sequential decision-making impacts moral judgment: How iterative dilemmas can expand our perspective on sacrificial harm

D.H. Bostyn and A.Roets
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Volume 98, January 2022, 104244

Abstract

When are sacrificial harms morally appropriate? Traditionally, research within moral psychology has investigated this issue by asking participants to render moral judgments on batteries of single-shot, sacrificial dilemmas. Each of these dilemmas has its own set of targets and describes a situation independent from those described in the other dilemmas. Every decision that participants are asked to make thus takes place within its own, separate moral universe. As a result, people's moral judgments can only be influenced by what happens within that specific dilemma situation. This research methodology ignores that moral judgments are interdependent and that people might try to balance multiple moral concerns across multiple decisions. In the present series of studies we present participants with iterative versions of sacrificial dilemmas that involve the same set of targets across multiple iterations. Using this novel approach, and across five preregistered studies (total n = 1890), we provide clear evidence that a) responding to dilemmas in a sequential, iterative manner impacts the type of moral judgments that participants favor and b) that participants' moral judgments are not only motivated by the desire to refrain from harming others (usually labelled as deontological judgment), or a desire to minimize harms (utilitarian judgment), but also by a desire to spread out harm across all possible targets.

Highlights

• Research on sacrificial harm usually asks participants to judge single-shot dilemmas.

• We investigate sacrificial moral dilemma judgment in an iterative context.

• Sequential decision making impacts moral preferences.

• Many participants express a non-utilitarian concern for the overall spread of harm.


Moral deliberation in iterative contexts

The iterative lens we have adopted prompts some intriguing questions about the nature of moral deliberation in the context of sacrificial harm. Existing theoretical models on sacrificial harm can be described as ‘competition models’ (for instance, Conway & Gawronski, 2013; Gawronski et al., 2017; Greene et al., 2001, 2004; Hennig & Hütter, 2020). These models argue that opposing psychological processes compete to deliver a specific moral judgment and that the process that wins out, will determine the nature of that moral judgment. As such, these models presume that the goal of moral deliberation is about deciding whether to refrain from harm or minimize harm in a mutually exclusive manner. Even if participants are tempted by both options, eventually, their judgment settles wholly on one or the other. This is sensible in the context of non-iterative dilemmas in which outcomes hinge on a single decision but is it equally sensible in iterative contexts?

Consider the results of Study 4. In this study, we asked (a subset of) participants how many shocks they would divert out of a total six shocks. Interestingly, 32% of these participants decided to divert a single shock out of the six (See Fig. 6), thus shocking the individual once, and the group five times. How should such a decision be interpreted? These participants did not fully refrain from harming others, nor did they fully minimize harm, nor did they spread harm in the most balanced of ways.  Responses like this seem to straddle different moral concerns. While future research will need to corroborate these findings, we suggest that responses like this, i.e. responses that seem to straddle multiple moral concerns, cannot be explained by competition models but necessitate theoretical models that explicitly take into account that participants might strive to strike a (idiosyncratic) pluralistic balance between multiple moral concerns. 

Sunday, January 9, 2022

Through the Looking Glass: A Lens-Based Account of Intersectional Stereotyping

Petsko, C.D., Rosette, A.S. &
Bodenhausen, C.V. (2022)
Preprint
Journal of Personality & Social Psychology

Abstract

A growing body of scholarship documents the intersectional nature of social stereotyping, with stereotype content being shaped by a target person’s multiple social identities. However, conflicting findings in this literature highlight the need for a broader theoretical integration. For example, although there are contexts in which perceivers stereotype gay Black men and heterosexual Black men in very different ways, so too are there contexts in which perceivers stereotype these men in very similar ways. We develop and test an explanation for contradictory findings of this sort. In particular, we argue that perceivers have a repertoire of lenses in their minds—identity-specific schemas for categorizing others—and that characteristics of the perceiver and the social context determine which one of these lenses will be used to organize social perception. Perceivers who are using the lens of race, for example, are expected to attend to targets’ racial identities so strongly that they barely attend, in these moments, to targets’ other identities (e.g., their sexual orientations). Across six experiments, we show (1) that perceivers tend to use just one lens at a time when thinking about others, (2) that the lenses perceivers use can be singular and simplistic (e.g., the lens of gender by itself) or intersectional and complex (e.g., a race-by-gender lens, specifically), and (3) that different lenses can prescribe categorically distinct sets of stereotypes that perceivers use as frameworks for thinking about others. This lens-based account can resolve apparent contradictions in the literature on intersectional stereotyping, and it can likewise be used to generate novel hypotheses.

Lens Socialization and Acquisition

We have argued that perceivers use lenses primarily for epistemic purposes. Without lenses, the social world is perceptually ambiguous. With lenses, the social world is made perceptually clear. But how do people acquire lenses in the first place? And why are some lenses more frequently employed within a given culture than others? Reasonable answers to these questions come from developmental intergroup theory (Bigler & Liben, 2006, 2007). According to this perspective, children are motivated to understand their social worlds, and as a result, they actively seek to determine which bases for classifying people are important. One way in which children learn which bases of classification—or in our parlance, which lenses—are important is through their socialization experiences (Bigler et al., 2001; Gelman & Heyman, 1999). For example, educators in the U.S. often use language that explicitly references students’ gender groups (e.g., as when teachers say “good morning, boys and girls”), which reinforces children’s belief that the lens of gender is relevant toward the end of understanding who’s who (Bem, 1983). Another way in which people acquire lenses is through interaction with norms, laws, and institutions that, even if not explicitly referencing group divisions, nevertheless suggest that certain group divisions matter more than others (Allport, 1954; Bigler & Liben, 2007). For example, most neighborhoods in the United States are heavily segregated according to race and social class (e.g., Lichter et al., 2015; 2017). Such de facto segregation sends the message to children (and adults) that race and social class—and perhaps even their intersection—are relevant lenses for the purposes of understanding and making predictions about other people (e.g., Bonam et al., 2017). These processes, a broad mixture of socialization experiences and inductive reasoning about which group distinctions matter, are thought to give rise to lens acquisition.

Saturday, January 8, 2022

The Conflict Between People’s Urge to Punish AI and Legal Systems

Lima G, Cha M, Jeon C and Park KS
(2021) Front. Robot. AI 8:756242. 
doi: 10.3389/frobt.2021.756242

Abstract

Regulating artificial intelligence (AI) has become necessary in light of its deployment in high-risk scenarios. This paper explores the proposal to extend legal personhood to AI and robots, which had not yet been examined through the lens of the general public. We present two studies (N = 3,559) to obtain people’s views of electronic legal personhood vis-à-vis existing liability models. Our study reveals people’s desire to punish automated agents even though these entities are not recognized any mental state. Furthermore, people did not believe automated agents’ punishment would fulfill deterrence nor retribution and were unwilling to grant them legal punishment preconditions, namely physical independence and assets. Collectively, these findings suggest a conflict between the desire to punish automated agents and its perceived impracticability. We conclude by discussing how future design and legal decisions may influence how the public reacts to automated agents’ wrongdoings.

From Concluding Remarks

By no means this research proposes that robots and AI should be the sole entities to hold liability for their actions. In contrast, responsibility, awareness, and punishment were assigned to all associates. We thus posit that distributing liability among all entities involved in deploying these systems would follow the public perception of the issue. Such a model could take joint and several liability models as a starting point by enforcing the proposal that various entities should be held jointly liable for damages.

Our work also raises the question of whether people wish to punish AI and robots for reasons other than retribution, deterrence, and reform. For instance, the public may punish electronic agents for general or indirect deterrence (Twardawski et al., 2020). Punishing an AI could educate humans that a specific action is wrong without the negative consequences of human punishment. Recent literature in moral psychology also proposes that humans might strive for a morally coherent world, where seemingly contradictory judgments arise so that the public perception of agents’ moral qualities match the moral qualities of their actions’ outcomes (Clark et al., 2015). We highlight that legal punishment is not only directed at the wrongdoer but also fulfills other functions in society that future work should inquire about when dealing with automated agents. Finally, our work poses the question of whether proactive actions towards holding existing legal persons liable for harms caused by automated agents would compensate for people’s desire to punish them. For instance, future work might examine whether punishing a system’s manufacturer may decrease the extent to which people punish AI and robots. Even if the responsibility gap can be easily solved, conflicts between the public and legal institutions might continue to pose challenges to the successful governance of these new technologies.

We selected scenarios from active areas of AI and robotics (i.e., medicine and war; see SI). People’s moral judgments might change depending on the scenario or background. The proposed scenarios did not introduce, for the sake of feasibility and brevity, much of the background usually considered when judging someone’s actions legally. We did not control for any previous attitudes towards AI and robots or knowledge of related areas, such as law and computer science, which could result in different judgments among the participants.

Friday, January 7, 2022

Moral Appraisals Guide Intuitive Legal Determinations

B. Flanagan, G.F.C.F. de Almeida, et al.
researchgate.net

Abstract 

Socialization demands the capacity to observe a plethora of private, legal, and institutional rules.  To accomplish this,  individuals must grasp rules’ meaning and infer the class of conduct each proscribes.  Yet this basic account neglects important nuance in the way we reason about complex cases in which a rule’s literal or textualist interpretation conflicts with deeper values.  In six studies (total N = 2541), we examined legal determinations through the lens of these cases.  We found that moral appraisals—of the  rule’s value (Study  1) and the agent’s character (Studies 2-3)—shaped people’s application of rules, driving counter-literal legal determinations. These effects were stronger under time pressure and were weakened by the opportunity to reflect (Study  4). Our final studies explored the role of theory of mind: Textualist judgments arose when agents were described as cognizant of the rule’s text yet ignorant of its deeper purpose (Study 5). Meanwhile, the intuitive tendency toward counter-literal determinations was strongest when the rule’s purpose could be inferred from its text—pointing  toward an influence  of  spontaneous mental state ascriptions (Studies  6a-6b). Together, our results elucidate the cognitive basis  of  legal reasoning: Intuitive legal determinations build on core competencies in moral cognition, including mental state and character inferences.  In turn, cognitive control dampens these effects, promoting a broadly textualist response pattern.

General Discussion 

Our present studies suggest that moral appraisals shape people’s determinations of whether various rules  have  been  violated.  Counter-literal  judgments emerge when agents violate a rule’s morally laudable purpose, but not when they violate a rule’s evil purpose (Study 1). An impact of moral appraisals  is observed even  when manipulating the transgressor’s broader moral character—such that blameworthy  agents are deemed to violate rules to a greater extent than praiseworthy agents, even when both behaviors fall within the literal scope of the rule (Study 2).  These effects persist when applying two further  robustness checks: (i) when encouraging participants to concurrently and independently  evaluate the  morality as well as the legality of the  target behaviors,  and  (ii)  when  explicitly  denying  any  constitutional constraints on the moral propriety of legal or private rules (Study 3). Turning our attention to the  underlying cognitive mechanisms,  we found that applying time pressure promoted counter-literal judgments (Study 4), suggesting that such decisions are  driven by automatic cognitive  processes.  We  then examined how representations of the agent’s knowledge impacted rule application: Stipulating the agent’s ignorance of the rule’s underlying purpose helped to explain the default tendency toward textualist determinations (Study 5). Finally, we uncovered an effect of spontaneous mental state inferences on  judgments of whether rules had been violated: Participants appeared to automatically represent the likelihood of inferring the rule’s true purpose from its text, and the inferability of a rule’s purpose yielded  greater counter-literal tendencies (Studies 6a-6b)—regardless of the agent’s actual knowledge status. 


In essence, an individual's moral judgments affect their interpretation of laws, and biases the decision-making process.

Thursday, January 6, 2022

Lizard people, deadly orgies and JFK: How QAnon hijacked Hollywood to spread conspiracies

Anita Chabria
The Los Angeles Times
Originally posted 7 DEC 21

Here is an excerpt:

Bloom, the extremist researcher, said the familiarity of recycled Hollywood plots may be part of what eases followers into QAnon’s depths: Although the claims are outlandish, they tickle at recollections, whether from fiction or reality.

That sense of recognition gives them a level of believability, said Bloom — an “I’ve heard that before” effect. Part of the QAnon logic, she said, is that films and television shows that contain the conspiratorial story lines are viewed by believers as kernels of truth dropped by the elites — a sort of taunting acknowledgment of their misdeeds.

“Part of the idea is that Hollywood has been doing this for ages and ages, and they have been hiding in plain sight by putting it in film,” Bloom said.

That idea of using art to hide life is sometimes reinforced by actual events, she said. She uses the example of the 1999 Stanley Kubrick film “Eyes Wide Shut,” about a New York doctor, played by Tom Cruise, who stumbles into a deadly orgy attended by society’s power players. Some QAnon adherents believe that there is a cabal of influential pedophiles who murder children during ritualistic events to harvest a hormone that provides eternal youth and that the film was a nod to that activity.

She points to the Jeffrey Epstein case, and the current trial of his confidante, Ghislaine Maxwell, as factual instances of high-profile sex-trafficking allegations that seem pulled from those story lines, and have now been folded into the QAnon narratives.

“That’s one of the reasons some of the more outlandish things resonate, is because it sort of seems plausible,” Bloom said.

She also points out that the fear of sacrifices fits with the antisemitic trajectory of QAnon — it ties into centuries-old conspiracies about “blood libel” — the false belief of Jewish people killing Christians for their blood — which in turn can be tied to myths of European vampires.

Wednesday, January 5, 2022

Outrage Fatigue? Cognitive Costs and Decisions to Blame

Bambrah, V., Cameron, D., & Inzlicht, M.
(2021, November 30).

Abstract

Across nine studies (N=1,672), we assessed the link between cognitive costs and the choice to express outrage by blaming. We developed the Blame Selection Task, a binary free-choice paradigm that examines the propensity to blame transgressors (versus an alternative choice)—either before or after reading vignettes and viewing images of moral transgressions. We hypothesized that participants’ choice to blame wrongdoers would negatively relate to how cognitively inefficacious, effortful, and aversive blaming feels (compared to the alternative choice). With vignettes, participants approached blaming and reported that blaming felt more efficacious. With images, participants avoided blaming and reported that blaming felt more inefficacious, effortful, and aversive. Blame choice was greater for vignette-based transgressions than image-based transgressions. Blame choice was positively related to moral personality constructs, blame-related social-norms, and perceived efficacy of blaming, and inversely related to perceived effort and aversiveness of blaming. The BST is a valid behavioral index of blame propensity, and choosing to blame is linked to its cognitive costs.

Discussion

Moral norm violations cause people to experience moral outrage and to express it in various ways (Crockett, 2017), such as shaming/dehumanizing, punishing, or blaming. These forms of expressing outrage are less than moderately related to one another (r’s < .30; see Bastian et al., 2013 for more information), which suggests that a considerable amount of variance between shaming/dehumanizing, punishing, and blaming remains unexplained and that these are distinct enough demonstrations of outragein response to norm violations. Yet, despite its moralistic implications (see Crockett, 2017), there is still little empirical work not only on the phenomenon of outrage fatigue but also on the role of motivated cognition on expressing outrage via blame. Social costs alter blame judgments, even when people’s cognitive resources are depleted (Monroe & Malle, 2019). But how do the inherent cognitive costs of blaming relate to people’s decisions towards moral outrage and blame? Here, we examined how felt cognitive costs associate with the choice to express outrage through blame.