Democrats push for Supreme Court ethics code following Ginni Thomas revelations

Lauren Fedor 

The Financial Times

Originally published 29 MAR 22

Senior Democratic lawmakers are increasing calls to create a code of ethical conduct for the US Supreme Court amid mounting scrutiny of associate justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas.

Chris Murphy and Amy Klobuchar, Democratic senators from Connecticut and Minnesota, respectively, and Hank Johnson, a Democratic representative from Georgia, have made a renewed push for the Supreme Court Ethics Act, a piece of legislation first introduced last summer to create a code of ethical conduct for America’s highest court.

Unlike other federal judges, Supreme Court justices are not required to follow the existing code of conduct.

The lawmakers said in a joint statement on Tuesday: “Recent revelations regarding the political activities of Supreme Court justices and their spouses have increased scrutiny of the court and eroded public confidence in the institution.”

The Washington Post first reported last week the existence of almost 30 text messages exchanged between Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist, and Mark Meadows, the former Republican congressman who served as Donald Trump’s final chief of staff, in late 2020 and early 2021.

The texts showed Ginni Thomas repeatedly espousing conspiracy theories and pushing Meadows to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The publication of the messages has raised fresh questions about the independence of the federal judiciary and led several Democratic lawmakers to call for Thomas to recuse himself from cases relating to the 2020 election and the January 6 2021 attack on the US Capitol. Earlier this month, Ginni Thomas revealed in an interview that she had attended the “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6.

The info is here.

Editor's Note: As a professional organization and highest court in the land, why does the Supreme Court not have a code of ethics?  More than slightly disturbing.

When Good People Break Bad: Moral Impression Violations in Everyday Life

Guan, K. W., & Heine, S. J. (2022).

Social Psychological and Personality Science. 

https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506221076685

Abstract

The present research investigated the emotional, interpersonal, and impression-updating consequences of witnessing events that violate the moral character impressions people hold of others. Across three studies, moral character-violations predicted broad disruptions to participants’ sense of meaning, confidence judging moral character, and expectations of others’ moral characters. Participants who were in real life closer to perpetrators, directly victimized, and higher in preferences for closure and behavioral stability reported more negative outcomes. Moreover, experimental manipulations showed that character-violations lead to worse outcomes than the comparable experience of encountering consistently immoral others. The authors discuss implications for research on moral perception and meaning, as well as on understanding responses to everyday revelations about people’s characters.

From the General Discussion

Moral character-violations appear frequently in the media and occasionally in everyday life. The present research provides an explanation of how these experiences affect perceivers, grounded in the meaning maintenance model (Heine et al., 2006) and social perception literature (Goodwin et al., 2014). Across all three studies, good-to-bad character-violations were associated with disruptions in perceivers’ sense that they understand the world, their confidence judging character, and their impressions of people’s morality in general. In other words, the psychological impact is not restricted to people’s views of specific character-violated targets, but spills over to color how people view other people more generally. Studies 1 and 2 also illuminated the types of moral character-violations people tend to encounter in everyday life, exploring additional situational and dispositional factors that predict stronger feelings of loss of meaning. Study 3 found causal evidence for these effects.

Our findings speak to general experiences, but a few key variables powerfully predict recalled outcomes. Directly victimized targets, and those with higher preferences for closure and personality stability reported greater disruptions in meaning. These findings line up with past evidence that being directly betrayed or transgressed upon leads to strong negative emotions (Adams & Inesi, 2016; Hutcherson & Gross, 2011), and having higher dispositional needs for stability and closure predicts more negative reactions to meaning-violations (e.g., Doherty, 1998).

A pdf of the research is here.

Gene editing gets safer thanks to redesigned Cas9 protein

Science Daily

Originally posted 2 MAR 22

Summary:

Scientists have redesigned a key component of a widely used CRISPR-based gene-editing tool, called Cas9, to be thousands of times less likely to target the wrong stretch of DNA while remaining just as efficient as the original version, making it potentially much safer.

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Scientists have redesigned a key component of a widely used CRISPR-based gene-editing tool, called Cas9, to be thousands of times less likely to target the wrong stretch of DNA while remaining just as efficient as the original version, making it potentially much safer.

One of the grand challenges with using CRISPR-based gene editing on humans is that the molecular machinery sometimes makes changes to the wrong section of a host's genome, creating the possibility that an attempt to repair a genetic mutation in one spot in the genome could accidentally create a dangerous new mutation in another.

But now, scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have redesigned a key component of a widely used CRISPR-based gene-editing tool, called Cas9, to be thousands of times less likely to target the wrong stretch of DNA while remaining just as efficient as the original version, making it potentially much safer. The work is described in a paper published today in the journal Nature.

"This really could be a game changer in terms of a wider application of the CRISPR Cas systems in gene editing," said Kenneth Johnson, a professor of molecular biosciences and co-senior author of the study with David Taylor, an assistant professor of molecular biosciences. The paper's co-first authors are postdoctoral fellows Jack Bravo and Mu-Sen Liu.

The info is here.

Journal Reference:

Jack P. K. Bravo, Mu-Sen Liu, et al. Structural basis for mismatch surveillance by CRISPR–Cas9. Nature, 2022; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04470-1

Do people understand determinism? The tracking problem for measuring free will beliefs

Murray, S., Dykhuis, E., & Nadelhoffer, T.

(2022, February 8). 

https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/kyza7

Abstract

Experimental work on free will typically relies on using deterministic stimuli to elicit judgments of free will. We call this the Vignette-Judgment model. In this paper, we outline a problem with research based on this model. It seems that people either fail to respond to the deterministic aspects of vignettes when making judgments or that their understanding of determinism differs from researcher expectations. We provide some empirical evidence for a key assumption of the problem. In the end, we argue that people seem to lack facility with the concept of determinism, which calls into question the validity of experimental work operating under the Vignette-Judgment model. We also argue that alternative experimental paradigms are unlikely to elicit judgments that are philosophically relevant to questions about the metaphysics of free will.

Error and judgment

Our results show that people make several errors about deterministic stimuli used to elicit judgments about free will and responsibility. Many participants seem to conflate determinism with different  constructs  (bypassing  or  fatalism) or mistakenly interpret the implications of deterministic constraints on agents (intrusion).

Measures of item invariance suggest that participants were not responding differently to error measures across different vignettes. Hence, responses to error measures cannot be explained exclusively in terms of differences in vignettes, but rather seem to reflect participants’ mistaken judgments about determinism. Further, these mistakes are associated with significant differences in judgments about free will. Some of the patterns are predictable: participants who conflate determinism with bypassing attribute less free will to individuals in deterministic scenarios, while participants who import intrusion into deterministic scenarios attribute greater free will. This makes sense. As participants perceive mental states to be less causally efficacious or individuals as less ultimately in control of their decisions, free will is diminished. However, as people perceive more indeterminism, free will is amplified.

Additionally, we found that errors of intrusion are stronger than errors of bypassing or fatalism. Because bypassing errors are associated with diminished judgments of free will and intrusion errors are associated with amplified judgments, then, if all three errors were equal in strength, we would expect a linear relationship between different errors: individuals who make bypassing errors would have the lowest average judgments, individuals who make intrusion errors would have the highest average judgments, and people who make both errors would be in the middle (as both errors would cancel each other out). We did not observe this relationship. Instead, participants who make intrusion errors are statistically indistinguishable from each other, no matter what other kinds of errors they make.

Thus, errors of intrusion seem to trump others in the process of forming judgments of free will.  Thus, the errors people make are not incidentally related to their judgments. Instead, there are significant associations between people’s inferential errors about determinism and how they attribute free will and responsibility. This evidence supports our claim that people make several errors about the nature and implications of determinism.

The research is here.

Observers penalize decision makers whose risk preferences are unaffected by loss–gain framing

Dorison, C. A., & Heller, B. H. (2022). 

Journal of Experimental Psychology: 

General. Advance online publication.

Abstract

A large interdisciplinary body of research on human judgment and decision making documents systematic deviations between prescriptive decision models (i.e., how individuals should behave) and descriptive decision models (i.e., how individuals actually behave). One canonical example is the loss–gain framing effect on risk preferences: the robust tendency for risk preferences to shift depending on whether outcomes are described as losses or gains. Traditionally, researchers argue that decision makers should always be immune to loss–gain framing effects. We present three preregistered experiments (N = 1,954) that qualify this prescription. We predict and find that while third-party observers penalize decision makers who make risk-averse (vs. risk-seeking) choices when choice outcomes are framed as losses, this result reverses when outcomes are framed as gains. This reversal holds across five social perceptions, three decision contexts, two sample populations of United States adults, and with financial stakes. This pattern is driven by the fact that observers themselves fall victim to framing effects and socially derogate (and financially punish) decision makers who disagree. Given that individuals often care deeply about their reputation, our results challenge the long-standing prescription that they should always be immune to framing effects. The results extend understanding not only for decision making under risk, but also for a range of behavioral tendencies long considered irrational biases. Such understanding may ultimately reveal not only why such biases are so persistent but also novel interventions: our results suggest a necessary focus on social and organizational norms.

From the General Discussion

But what makes an optimal belief or choice? Here, we argue that an expanded focus on the goals decision makers themselves hold (i.e., reputation management) questions whether such deviations from rational-agent models should always be considered suboptimal. We test this broader theorizing in the context of loss-gain framing effects on risk preferences not because we think the psychological dynamics at play are

unique to this context, but rather because such framing effects have been uniquely influential for both academic discourse and applied interventions in policy and organizations. In fact, the results hold preliminary implications not only for decision making under risk, but also for extending understanding of a range of other behavioral tendencies long considered irrational biases in the research literature on judgment and decision making (e.g., sunk cost bias; see Dorison, Umphres, & Lerner, 2021).

An important clarification of our claims merits note. We are not claiming that it is always rational to be biased just because others are. For example, it would be quite odd to claim that someone is rational for believing that eating sand provides enough nutrients to survive, simply because others may like them for holding this belief or because others in their immediate social circle hold this belief. In this admittedly bizarre case, it would still be clearly irrational to attempt to subsist on sand, even if there are reputational advantages to doing so—that is, the costs substantially outweigh the reputational benefits. In fact, the vast majority of framing effect studies in the lab do not have an explicit reputational/strategic component at all. 

A pdf is here.

Anticipation of future cooperation eliminates minimal ingroup bias in children and adults

Misch, A., Paulus, M., & Dunham, Y. (2021). 

Journal of Experimental Psychology: 

General, 150(10), 2036–2056.

Abstract

From early in development, humans show a strong preference for members of their own groups, even in so-called minimal (i.e., arbitrary and unfamiliar) groups, leading to tremendous negative consequences such as outgroup discrimination and derogation. A better understanding of the underlying processes driving humans’ group mindedness is an important first step toward fighting discrimination and inequality on a bigger level. Based on the assumption that minimal group allocation elicits the anticipation of future within-group cooperation, which in turn elicits ingroup preference, we investigate whether changing participants’ anticipation from within-group cooperation to between-group cooperation reduces their ingroup bias. In the present set of five studies (overall N = 465) we test this claim in two different populations (children and adults), in two different countries (United States and Germany), and in two kinds of groups (minimal and social group based on gender). Results confirm that changing participants’ anticipation of who they will cooperate with from ingroup to outgroup members significantly reduces their ingroup bias in minimal groups, though not for gender, a non-coalitional group. In summary, these experiments provide robust evidence for the hypothesis that children and adults encode minimal group membership as a marker for future collaboration. They show that experimentally manipulating this expectation can eliminate their minimal ingroup bias. This study sheds light on the underlying cognitive processes in intergroup behavior throughout development and opens up new avenues for research on reducing ingroup bias and discrimination.

From the General Discussion

The present set of studies advances the field in several important ways. First, it summarizes and tests a plausible theoretical framework for the formation of ingroup bias in the minimal group paradigm, thereby building on accounts that explain the origins of categorization based on allegiances and coalitions (e.g., Kurzban et al., 2001). Drawing on both evolutionary assumptions (Smith, 2003; West, Griffin, & Gardner, 2007; West, El Mouden, & Gardner, 2011) and social learning accounts (e.g., Bigler & Liben, 2006; 2007), our explanation focuses on interdependence and cooperation(Balliet et al., 2014; Pietraszewski, 2013; 2020; Yamagishi & Kiyonari, 2000).It extends these onto the formation of intergroup bias in attitudes: Results of our studies support the hypotheses that the allocation in a minimal group paradigm elicits the anticipation of cooperation, and that the anticipation of cooperation is one of the key factors in the formation of ingroup bias, as evident in the robust results across 4 experiments and several different measures. We therefore concur with the claim that the minimal group paradigm is not so minimal at all (Karp et al.,1993), as it (at least) elicits the expectation to collaborate.

Furthermore, our results show that the anticipation of cooperation alone is already sufficient to induce (and reduce) ingroup bias (Experiment 2). This extends previous research emphasizing the importance of the cooperative activity (e.g., Gaertner et al., 1990; Sherif et al., 1961),and highlights the role of the cognitive processes involved in cooperative behavior.  In our experiment, the cooperative activity in itself had no additional effect on the formation of ingroup bias. However, it is important to note the cooperation was operationalized here in a minimal way, and it is possible that a more direct operationalization and a more interactive experience of cooperation with the other children might have a stronger effect on children's attitudes, a subject for further research.

A pdf is here.

How development and culture shape intuitions about prosocial obligations

Marshall, J., Gollwitzer, A., et al. (2022).

Journal of experimental psychology. 

General, 10.1037/xge0001136. 

Advance online publication.

Abstract

Do children, like most adults, believe that only kin and close others are obligated to help one another? In two studies (total N = 1140), we examined whether children (∼5- to ∼10-yos) and adults across five different societies consider social relationship when ascribing prosocial obligations. Contrary to the view that such discriminations are a natural default in human reasoning, younger children in the United States (Studies 1 and 2) and across cultures (Study 2) generally judged everyone-parents, friends, and strangers-as obligated to help someone in need. Older children and adults, on the other hand, tended to exhibit more discriminant judgments. They considered parents more obligated to help than friends followed by strangers-although this effect was stronger in some cultures than others. Our findings suggest that children's initial sense of prosocial obligation in social-relational contexts starts out broad and generally becomes more selective over the course of development.

From the General Discussion

Other than urban versus rural, our cross-cultural samples varied on a variety of dimensions, including (but not limited to) Westernization, collectivism versus individualism, and SES. Again, because of our samples do not vary systematically on any of these dimensions, we cannot directly examine the role of certain cultural factors in the development of prosocial obligation judgments. But we do suspect that variation in societal values related to collectivism and individualism may shape children’s emerging sense of prosocial obligation. This proposal is motivated by the finding that participants in more collectivistic societies(Japan, India, Uganda) exhibited broader senses of obligation than  those  in  more  individualistic societies (Germany,  United  States) (see Hofstede, 2011; Rarick et al., 2013).

How would collectivism and individualism shape the development of our sense of obligation?After all, collectivism in a theoretical sense tends to emphasize obligations to the group—not  necessarily to  strangers  (e.g.,  Brewer  &  Chen,  2007). It is possible, however,  that participants across societies view strangers in our stimuli as part of the cultural in-group. After all, the  characters in the stimuli are all the  same  ethnicity and also presumably live in the  same community. The variance in responses we find, then, might be variance in the degree to which they consider individuals obligated to help in-group strangers—and this in turn, may depend on cultural values, such as collectivism. Future research is best suited to address this question by examining how  group  membership  and  social relationship  independently  impact the development of obligation judgments across societies.

Regardless of which societal values ultimately impact children’s sense of obligation, the findings raise the question of how this process occurs during childhood.Adults and trusted others may explicitly or implicitly teach children about societal values either via testimony or observation(e.g., Maccoby, 2007; Pratty & Hardy, 2014; see Dahl, 2019 for a useful review). Through this process, children may then absorb this information, which ultimately alters children’s obligation judgments. Alternatively, and in line with more of a Piagetian constructivist view(Piaget, 1932), children may update  their  beliefs  about  obligation through  exploring how  individuals  in  their community act toward one another and eliciting information about obligation from others (Dahl et al., 2018; Turiel, 2015, 1983).We hope future research will investigate these questions in greater detail. 

A pdf is here.

Proposal for Revising the Uniform Determination of Death Act

Hastings Bioethics Center

Originally posted 18 FEB 22

Organ transplantation has saved many lives in the past half-century, and the majority of postmortem organ donations have occurred after a declaration of death by neurological criteria, or brain death. However, inconsistencies between the biological concept of death and the diagnostic protocols used to determine brain death–as well as questions about the underlying assumptions of brain death–have led to a justified reassessment of the legal standard of death. We believe that the concept of brain death, though flawed in its present application, can be preserved and promoted as a pathway to organ donation, but only after particular changes are made in the medical criteria for its diagnosis. These changes should precede changes in the Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA).

The UDDA, approved in 1981, provides a legal definition of death, which has been adopted in some form by all 50 states. It says that death can be defined as the irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions or of brain functions. The act defines brain death as “irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brainstem.” This description is based on a widely held assumption at the time that the brain is the master integrator of the body, such that when it ceases to function, the body would no longer be able to maintain integrated functions. It was presumed that this would result in both cardiac and pulmonary arrest and the death of the body as a whole. Now that assumption has been called into question by exceptional cases of individuals on ventilators who were declared brain dead but who continued to have function in the hypothalamus. 

(cut)

Revision of the UDDA should first defer to a revision of the guidelines. Clinical criteria for the diagnosis of “cessation of all functions of the entire brain” must include all pertinent functions, including hypothalamic functions such as hormone release and regulation of temperature and blood pressure, to avoid the specter of neurologic recovery in those who fulfill the current clinical criteria for the diagnosis of brain death.

It is likely that the failure to account for a full set of pertinent brain functions has led to inconsistent diagnoses and conflicting results. Such inconsistencies, although well-documented in a number of cases, may have been even more frequent but unrecognized because declaration of brain death is often a self-fulfilling prophecy: rarely do any life-sustaining interventions continue after the diagnosis is made.

To be consistent, transparent, and accurate, the cessation of function in both the cardiopulmonary and the neurological standard of the UDDA should be described as permanent (i.e., no reversal will be attempted) rather than irreversible (i.e., no reversal is possible). We recognize additional challenges in complying with the UDDA requirements that these cessation criteria for brain death include “all functions” of the “entire brain.” In the absence of universally accepted and easily implemented testing criteria, there may be real problems with being in perfect compliance with these legal criteria in spite of being in perfect compliance with the currently published medical guidelines. If the concept of brain death is philosophically valid, as we think is defensible, then the diagnostic guidelines should be corrected before any attempt is made to correct the UDDA. They must then “say what they mean and mean what they say” to eliminate any possibility of patients with persistent evidence of brain function, including hypothalamic function, being erroneously declared brain dead.

The info is here.

Moral Injury, Traumatic Stress, and Threats to Core Human Needs in Health-Care Workers: The COVID-19 Pandemic as a Dehumanizing Experience

Hagerty, S. L., & Williams, L. M. (2022)

Clinical Psychological Science. 

https://doi.org/10.1177/21677026211057554

Abstract

The pandemic has threatened core human needs. The pandemic provides a context to study psychological injury as it relates to unmet basic human needs and traumatic stressors, including moral incongruence. We surveyed 1,122 health-care workers from across the United States between May 2020 and August 2020. Using a mixed-methods design, we examined moral injury and unmet basic human needs in relation to traumatic stress and suicidality. Nearly one third of respondents reported elevated symptoms of psychological trauma, and the prevalence of suicidal ideation among health-care workers in our sample was roughly 3 times higher than in the general population. Moral injury and loneliness predict greater symptoms of traumatic stress and suicidality. We conclude that dehumanization is a driving force behind the psychological injury resulting from moral incongruence in the context of the pandemic. The pandemic most frequently threatened basic human motivations at the foundational level of safety and security relative to other higher order needs.

From the General Discussion

A subset of respondents added context to their experiences of moral injury in the form of narrative responses. These powerful accounts of the lived experiences of health-care workers provided us with a richer understanding of the construct of moral injury, especially as it relates to the novel context of the pandemic. Although betrayal is a known facet of moral injury from prior work (Bryan et al., 2016), our qualitative analysis suggests that dehumanization may also be a key phenomenon that underlies pandemic-related moral injury. Given our findings, we suggest that it may be important to attend to both betrayal and dehumanization when researching or intervening on the psychological sequelae of the pandemic. Our results support this because experiences of dehumanization in our sample were associated with greater symptoms of traumatic stress.

Another lens through which to view the experiences of health-care workers in the pandemic is through unsatisfied basic human motivations. Given the obvious barriers the pandemic presents to human connection (Hagerty & Williams, 2020), we had an a priori interest in studying loneliness. Our results indeed suggest that need of social connection appears relevant to the mental-health experiences of health-care workers during the pandemic such that loneliness was associated with greater traumatic stress, moral injury, and suicidal ideation. Echoing the importance of this social factor are findings from prior research suggesting that social connectedness buffers the association between moral injury and suicidality (Kelley et al., 2019) and buffers the impact of PTSD symptoms on suicidal behavior (Panagioti et al., 2014). Thus, our work further highlights lack of social connection as possible risk factor among individuals who face moral injury and traumatic stress and demonstrates its relevance to the mental health of health-care workers during the pandemic.

The research is here.