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, September 9, 2022

Online Moral Conformity: How Powerful is a Group of Online Strangers When Influencing an Individual’s Moral Judgments?

Paruzel-Czachura, M., Wojciechowska, D., 
& Bostyn, D. H. (2022, May 21). 
https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/4g2bn

Abstract

People make moral decisions every day, and when making them, they may be influenced by their companions (the so-called moral conformity effect). Nowadays, people make many decisions in online environments like video meetings. In the current preregistered experiment, we studied the online moral conformity effect. We applied an Asch conformity paradigm in an online context by asking participants (N = 120) to reply to sacrificial moral dilemmas through the online video communication tool Zoom when sitting in the “virtual” room with strangers (confederates instructed on how to answer; experimental condition) or when sitting alone (control condition). We found an effect of online moral conformity on half of the dilemmas included in our study as well as in the aggregate.

Discussion       

Social conformity is a well-known phenomenon (Asch, 1951, 1952, 1955, 1956; Sunstein, 2019).  Moreover, past research has demonstrated that conformity effects occur for moral issues as well (Aramovich et al., 2012; Bostyn & Roets, 2017; Crutchfield, 1955; Kelly et al., 2017; Kundu & Cummins, 2013; Lisciandra et al., 2013). However, to what extent does moral conformity occur when people interact in digital spaces, such as video conferencing software, has not yet been investigated.

We conducted a well-powered experimental study to determine if the effect of online moral conformity exists. Two study conditions were used: an experimental one in which study participants were answering along with a group of confederates and a control condition in which study participants were answering individually. In both conditions, participants were invited to a video meeting and asked to orally respond to a set of moral dilemmas with their cameras turned on. All questions and study conditions were the same, apart from the presence of other people in the experimental condition. In the experimental condition, importantly, the experimenter pretended that all people were study participants, but in fact, only the last person was an actual study participant, and all four other participants were confederates who were trained to answer in a specific manner. Confederates answered contrary to what most people had decided in past studies (Gawronski et al., 2017; Greene et al., 2008; Körner et al., 2020). We found an effect of online moral conformity on half of the dilemmas included in our study as well as in aggregate.

Thursday, September 8, 2022

Knowledge overconfidence is associated with anti-consensus views on controversial scientific issues

Light, N. et al. 
Science Advances, 20 Jul 2022
Vol 8, Issue 29
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abo0038

Abstract

Public attitudes that are in opposition to scientific consensus can be disastrous and include rejection of vaccines and opposition to climate change mitigation policies. Five studies examine the interrelationships between opposition to expert consensus on controversial scientific issues, how much people actually know about these issues, and how much they think they know. Across seven critical issues that enjoy substantial scientific consensus, as well as attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines and mitigation measures like mask wearing and social distancing, results indicate that those with the highest levels of opposition have the lowest levels of objective knowledge but the highest levels of subjective knowledge. Implications for scientists, policymakers, and science communicators are discussed.

Discussion

Results from five studies show that the people who disagree most with the scientific consensus know less about the relevant issues, but they think they know more. These results suggest that this phenomenon is fairly general, although the relationships were weaker for some more polarized issues, particularly climate change. It is important to note that we document larger mismatches between subjective and objective knowledge among participants who are more opposed to the scientific consensus. Thus, although broadly consistent with the Dunning-Kruger effect and other research on knowledge miscalibration, our findings represent a pattern of relationships that goes beyond overconfidence among the least knowledgeable. However, the data are correlational, and the normal caveats apply.

A strength of these studies is the consistency of the main result across the overall models in studies 1 to 3 and specific (but different) instantiations of anti-consensus attitudes about COVID-19 in studies 4 and 5. Additional strengths are that study 5 is a conceptual replication of study 4 (and studies 1 to 3 more generally) using different measures and operationalizations of the main constructs, conducted by an initially independent group of researchers (with each group unaware of the research of the other during study development and data collection). The final two studies were also collected approximately 2 months apart, in July and September 2020, respectively. These two collection periods reflect the dynamic nature of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, with cases in July trending upward and cases in September flat or trending downward. The consistency of our effects across these 2 months suggests that the pattern of results is fairly robust.

One possible interpretation of these relationships is that the people who appear to be overconfident in their knowledge and extreme in their opposition to the consensus are actually reporting their sense of understanding for a set of incorrect alternative facts not those of the scientific community. After all, nonscientific explanations and theories tend to be much simpler and less mechanistic than scientific ones.  As a result, participants could be reporting higher levels of understanding for what are, in fact, simpler interpretations. However, we believe that several elements of this research speak against this interpretation fully explaining the results. First, the battery of objective knowledge questions is sufficiently broad, simple, and removed (at first glance) from the corresponding scientific issues. For example, not knowing that “the skin is the largest organ in the human body” does not suggest that participants hold alternative views about how the human body works; it suggests the lack of real knowledge about the body. We also believe that it does not cue participants to the fact that the question is related to vaccination. 

Wednesday, September 7, 2022

The moralization of effort

Celniker, J. B., et al. (2022).
Journal of Experimental Psychology:
General. Advance online publication.
https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001259

Abstract

People believe that effort is valuable, but what kind of value does it confer? We find that displays of effort signal moral character. Eight studies (N = 5,502) demonstrate the nature of these effects in the domains of paid employment, personal fitness, and charitable fundraising. The exertion of effort is deemed morally admirable (Studies 1–6) and is monetarily rewarded (Studies 2–6), even in situations where effort does not directly generate additional product, quality, or economic value. Convergent patterns of results emerged in South Korean and French cross-cultural replications (Studies 2b and 2c). We contend that the seeming irrationality of valuing effort for its own sake, such as in situations where one’s efforts do not directly increase economic output (Studies 3–6), reveals a “deeply rational” social heuristic for evaluating potential cooperation partners. Specifically, effort cues engender broad moral trait ascriptions, and this moralization of effort influences donation behaviors (Study 5) and cooperative partner choice decision-making (Studies 4 and 6). In situating our account of effort moralization into past research and theorizing, we also consider the implications of these effects for social welfare policy and the future of work.

General Discussion

Is effort deemed socially valuable, even in situations where one’s efforts have no direct economic utility? Eight studies using multiple methodologies and cross-cultural samples indicate that it is. We provided evidence of effort moralization—displays of effort increased the moral qualities ascribed to individuals (we did not, we should note, provide evidence of the specific process by which effort cues shift from having a nonmoral to moral status, a more limited definition of moralization; Rhee et al., 2019). Moreover, the moralization of effort guided participants’ allocations of monetary resources and selections of cooperation partners. These data support our argument that effort moralization is a “deeply rational” social heuristic for navigating cooperation markets (Barclay, 2013; Kenrick et al., 2009). Even in circumstances where effort was economically unnecessary, people believed such efforts reflected others’ inner virtues.

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This evolutionary perspective may provide a more parsimonious framework for integrating research on effort evaluations: the “effort heuristic” (Kruger et al., 2004) may be more functionally dynamic than previously recognized, with effort moralization constituting one of its social functions. Thus, rather than directly causing people to moralize effort, cultural beliefs like the PWE may be scaffolded on evolved psychological mechanisms such as shared intuitions about the value of effort. The PWE (and similar work ethics among other populations) may have emerged, then, because it benefited from a combination of being well fit to our psychology (in appealing to an underlying tendency for effort moralization) and culturally useful (in promoting cooperation and industriousness; Henrich, 2020; Henrich & Boyd, 2016).


Note: Hardworking people are often seen as more moral than those perceived or believed as lazy. Yet people who work harder are not always more economically productive.  Capitalist fantasies play into these moral stereotypes.  Effort moralization plays right into misconceptions about poor people being lazy and rich people as hard workers.  Neither stereotype is accurate.

Tuesday, September 6, 2022

Confronting Health Worker Burnout and Well-Being

V. Murthy
NEJM, July 13, 2022
DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp2207252

Here is an excerpt:

Burnout manifests in individuals, but it’s fundamentally rooted in systems. And health worker burnout was a crisis long before Covid-19 arrived. Causes include inadequate support, escalating workloads and administrative burdens, chronic underinvestment in public health infrastructure, and moral injury from being unable to provide the care patients need. Burnout is not only about long hours. It’s about the fundamental disconnect between health workers and the mission to serve that motivates them.

These systemic shortfalls have pushed millions of health workers to the brink. Some 52% of nurses (according to the American Nurses Foundation) and 20% of doctors (Mayo Clinic Proceedings) say they are planning to leave their clinical practice. Shortages of more than 1 million nurses are projected by the end of the year (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics); a gap of 3 million low-wage health workers is anticipated over the next 3 years (Mercer). And we face a significant shortage of public health workers precisely when we need to strengthen our defenses against future public health threats. Health worker burnout is a serious threat to the nation’s health and economic security.

The time for incremental change has passed. We need bold, fundamental change that gets at the roots of the burnout crisis. We need to take care of our health workers and the rising generation of trainees.

On May 23, 2022, I issued a Surgeon General’s Advisory on health worker burnout and well-being, declaring this crisis a national priority and calling the nation to action with specific directives for health systems, insurers, government, training institutions, and other stakeholders. The advisory is also intended to broaden awareness of the threat that health worker burnout poses to the nation’s health. Public awareness and support will be essential to ensuring sustained action.

Addressing health worker well-being requires first valuing and protecting health workers. That means ensuring that they receive a living wage, access to health insurance, and adequate sick leave. It also means health workers should never again go without adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) as they have during the pandemic. Current Biden administration efforts to enhance domestic manufacturing of PPE and maintain adequate supplies in the Strategic National Stockpile will continue to be essential. Furthermore, we need strict workplace policies to protect staff from violence: according to National Nurses United, 8 in 10 health workers report having been subjected to physical or verbal abuse during the pandemic.

Second, we must reduce administrative burdens that stand between health workers and their patients and communities. One study found that in addition to spending 1 to 2 hours each night doing administrative work, outpatient physicians spend nearly 2 hours on the electronic health record and desk work during the day for every 1 hour spent with patients — a trend widely lamented by clinicians and patients alike. The goal set by the 25×5 initiative of reducing clinicians’ documentation burden by 75% by 2025 is a key target. To help reach this goal, health insurers should reduce requirements for prior authorizations, streamline paperwork requirements, and develop simplified, common billing forms. Our electronic health record systems need human-centered design approaches that optimize usability, workflow, and communication across systems. Health systems should regularly review internal processes to reduce duplicative, inefficient work. One such effort, Hawaii Pacific Health’s “Getting Rid of Stupid Stuff” program, has saved 1700 nursing hours per month across the health system.

Monday, September 5, 2022

Advance directives for mental illness raise deep ethical questions

Tania Gergel
psyche.co
Originally posted 3 AUG 2022

Here is an excerpt:

What about the potential drawbacks? 

Medical ethicists worry that self-binding directives might allow involuntary treatment to be imposed on someone at an early stage of illness, while they are still capable of making an informed decision about treatment. How can we be sure that someone lacks what is known, in medical law, as ‘decision-making capacity’ and that we should be turning to the instructions in a document rather than what they are saying right now? Human rights advocates, such as the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, go so far as to state that all involuntary treatment is a violation of an individual’s fundamental human rights.

The debate over self-binding directives has been working through these issues since the 1980s. However, one voice that was largely missing was the voice of ‘lived experience’. The arguments have gone backwards and forwards without asking the opinions of those who have the most intimate knowledge of what it is like to be unwell, and the likely consequences of illness; the very people who have found themselves hospitalised for mental illness and who may well have received involuntary treatment.

As part of ongoing research into mental health advance directives, our team at King’s College London conducted an internet survey in partnership with the charity Bipolar UK. We asked people who have lived with bipolar lots of questions about their views and any experiences of any forms of advance decision-making in relation to their condition. One of the questions we asked participants was whether they thought self-binding directives were a good idea and why they thought this. We found that 82 per cent of participants endorsed the self-binding directive idea, with the vast majority explaining this endorsement in terms of experiencing a determinate shift to distorted thinking and decision-making when they are unwell.

While ethicists might feel that the risk that someone retains decision-making capacity is a barrier to self-binding directives, many participants were adamant that their decision-making is impaired when they are unwell, and often mentioned ‘capacity’ in their responses, even though it was not alluded to within the questions themselves. A good example was this response:
You are unwell and lack capacity. I [recognise this now] looking back at when I was last sectioned, but my views were very different at the time due to my illness. It is my well views and opinions that should be acted upon.
Some people described this transition in terms of a shift of ‘self’, suggesting that illness makes them an entirely different person from their well self. As a philosopher working on medical ethics and law, I am particularly interested in questions about personal identity and illness, so it was fascinating to see answers such as this:
When psychotic or manic or depressed you can become another person and irrational. It is easy to make bad decisions when ill that may not be in my best interest.
When participants referred to the practical consequences and risks of illness, they were often related to suicide. People talked about how their ill self impelled them towards death in a way that was utterly inconsistent with their wishes when well.

Sunday, September 4, 2022

Reducing Explicit Blatant Dehumanization by Correcting Exaggerated Meta-Perceptions

Landry, A. P., Schooler, J. W., Willer, R., 
& Seli, P. (2022). 
Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Abstract

If explicitly, blatantly dehumanizing a group of people—overtly characterizing them as less than human—facilitates harming them, then reversing this process is paramount. Addressing dehumanization among American political partisans appears especially crucial, given that it has been linked to their anti-democratic hostility. Perhaps because of its overt nature, partisans recognize—and greatly exaggerate—the extent to which out-partisans explicitly, blatantly dehumanize them. Past research has found that when people perceive they are dehumanized by an outgroup (i.e., meta-dehumanization), they respond with reciprocal dehumanization. Therefore, we reasoned that partisans’ dehumanization could be reduced by correcting their exaggerated meta-dehumanization. Indeed, across three preregistered studies (N = 4,154), an intervention correcting American partisans’ exaggerated meta-dehumanization reduced their own dehumanization of out-partisans. This decreased dehumanization persisted at a 1-week follow-up and predicted downstream reductions in partisans’ anti-democratic hostility, suggesting that correcting exaggerated meta-dehumanization can durably mitigate the dark specter of dehumanization.

Discussion

Explicit blatant dehumanization continues to mar contemporary intergroup relations (Kteily & Landry, 2022). For instance, a troubling number of American partisans explicitly, blatantly dehumanize one another, which has been linked to their anti-democratic hostility (e.g., Moore-Berg et al., 2020). We sought to reduce partisan dehumanization by integrating research demonstrating that (a) individuals who think an outgroup dehumanizes their own group (i.e., meta-dehumanization) respond with reciprocal dehumanization (Kteily et al., 2016; Landry, Ihm & Schooler, 2022) and (b) individuals attribute overly-negative attitudes to outgroup members (Lees & Cikara, 2021). We developed an intervention informing American partisans of their tendency to overestimate how much they are dehumanized by out-partisans (Landry, Ihm, Kwit & Schooler, 2021; Moore-Berg et al., 2020). This reduced partisans’ own dehumanization of out-partisans across three studies–an effect that persisted at a 1-week follow-up.

Correcting partisans’ meta-dehumanization also produced modest—yet reliable—reductions in their anti-democratic hostility. This is notable given recent work finding that interventions reducing negative affect do not influence anti-democratic attitudes (Broockman et al., 2020; Voelkel et al., 2021). Perhaps our dehumanization-focused intervention reduced anti-democratic attitudes when affect-focused interventions did not because dehumanization is more strongly linked to anti-democratic attitudes. Indeed, we observed particularly strong indirect effects of the intervention on reduced anti-democratic spite through dehumanization (average βindirect = −.23, compared to an average βindirect = −.03 for negative affect; see also Landry, Ihm & Schooler, 2022). Although experimental tests of mediation are needed to confirm this cross-sectional indirect effect, future work attempting to bolster support for democratic norms should consider the promise of targeting dehumanization.

Saturday, September 3, 2022

‘The entire protein universe’: AI predicts shape of nearly every known protein

Ewen Callaway
Nature (608)
Posted with correction 29 July 22

From today, determining the 3D shape of almost any protein known to science will be as simple as typing in a Google search.

Researchers have used AlphaFold — the revolutionary artificial-intelligence (AI) network — to predict the structures of more than 200 million proteins from some 1 million species, covering almost every known protein on the planet.

The data dump is freely available on a database set up by DeepMind, the London-based AI company, owned by Google, that developed AlphaFold, and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL–EBI), an intergovernmental organization near Cambridge, UK.

“Essentially you can think of it covering the entire protein universe,” DeepMind chief executive Demis Hassabis said at a press briefing. “We’re at the beginning of a new era of digital biology.”

The 3D shape, or structure, of a protein is what determines its function in cells. Most drugs are designed using structural information, and the creation of accurate maps of proteins’ amino-acid arrangement is often the first step to making discoveries about how proteins work.

DeepMind developed the AlphaFold network using an AI technique called deep learning, and the AlphaFold database was launched a year ago with more than 350,000 structure predictions covering nearly every protein made by humans, mice and 19 other widely studied organisms. The catalogue has since swelled to around 1 million entries.

“We’re bracing ourselves for the release of this huge trove,” says Christine Orengo, a computational biologist at University College London, who has used the AlphaFold database to identify new families of proteins. “Having all the data predicted for us is just fantastic.”

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But such entries tend to be skewed toward human, mouse and other mammalian proteins, Porta says. It’s likely that the AlphaFold dump will add significant knowledge, because it includes such a diverse range of organisms. “It’s going to be an awesome resource. And I’m probably going to download it as soon as it comes out,” says Porta.

Friday, September 2, 2022

Disintegrating and Reintegrating the Self – (In)Flexible Self-Models in Depersonalisation and Psychedelic Experiences

Ciaunica, A., & Safron, A. (2022, March 13).
https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/mah78

Abstract

Across times and cultures, humans constantly and intentionally tried to ‘lose’ or to ‘escape’ their familiar, ordinary self, to ‘self-detach’ and to radically change the ways of perceiving oneself and the world. In this paper we explore the contrast between the feeling of ‘losing’ the sense of familiarity with one’s self and body in Depersonalisation experiences (DP) and psychedelics (with some consideration of meditative experiences). We explore these radical changes in self-experiences through the lens of Active Inference Framework (AIF). AIF is a process theory aiming to capture the capacity of biological organisms (e.g. living human bodies) to survive and thrive in volatile and uncertain environments. In line with previous work on depersonalisation and psychedelic mechanisms, we suggest that such experiences can involve a stance with radically altered prior expectations, so providing opportunities for flexibly modulating self- and world models. Specifically, we suggest that controlled acquisition of new self- and world models may enhance the plasticity of one’s perceptual and sensorimotor experiences. This new gained flexibility, we claim, may allow the individual to ‘leave behind’ certain habits, perceptual rigidities that holds him/her ‘stuck’ in certain behavioural patterns. And to open to new ways of perceiving and integrating self- and world-related information. By contrast, depersonalisation experiences point to a uncontrolled phenomenon of non-flexible (rigid) (dis)integration of ordinary/habitual self-models, and a consequent feeling of being ‘stuck’ in one’s mind. While controlled (dis)integration of habitual self-experiences and consequent re-integration may have positive effect, uncontrolled (dis)integration of habitual self-experiences triggered by unpredictable life events may be overwhelming and lead to self-detachment and potentially adverse clinical outcomes. Contrasting these two modes of alteration will allow us to outline the importance of the controlled ability to flexibly integrate, disintegrate and reintegrate multisensory bodily signals, and its impact on the human sense of self and agency.

Conclusion

In these explorations we have considered the experience of ‘losing’ one’s familiar sense of self in Depersonalisation (DP) and psychedelic experiences through the (perhaps often overly opaque) lens of Active Inference. Depersonalisation is characterized by feelings of being detached from one’s self, body, and world.We suggested that acquisition of new self-and world models may enhance the plasticity of one’s perceptual and sensorimotor experiences. This new gained flexibility, we posited, may allow the individual to ‘leave behind’ certain habits, perceptual rigidities that holds him/her ‘stuck’ in certain behavioural patterns, and open to new ways of perceiving and integrating self-and world-related information. This adaptive modelling may be achieved during psychedelic (and potentially meditative) experiences via a flexibly controllable(dis)integration of ordinary/habitual self-models, and a consequent re-integration or re-organisation of the latter via modulatory multisensory information.

By contrast, depersonalisation experiences point to a phenomenon of non-flexible (rigid) (dis)integration of ordinary/habitual self-models, and a consequent feeling of being ‘stuck’ in one’s mind. While controlled (dis)integration of habitual self-experiences and consequent re-integration may have positive effects, uncontrolled (dis)integration of habitual self-experiences triggered by unpredictable life events may be overwhelming and lead to self-detachment and potentially adverse clinical outcomes such as depersonalisation disorder. 

Thursday, September 1, 2022

When does moral engagement risk triggering a hypocrite penalty?

Jordan, J. & Sommers, R.
Current Opinion in Psychology
Volume 47, October 2022, 101404

Abstract

Society suffers when people stay silent on moral issues. Yet people who engage morally may appear hypocritical if they behave imperfectly themselves. Research reveals that hypocrites can—but do not always—trigger a “hypocrisy penalty,” whereby they are evaluated as more immoral than ordinary (non-hypocritical) wrongdoers. This pattern reflects that moral engagement can confer reputational benefits, but can also carry reputational costs when paired with inconsistent moral conduct. We discuss mechanisms underlying these costs and benefits, illuminating when hypocrisy is (and is not) evaluated negatively. Our review highlights the role that dishonesty and other factors play in engendering disdain for hypocrites, and offers suggestions for how, in a world where nobody is perfect, people can engage morally without generating backlash.

Conclusion: how to walk the moral tightrope

To summarize, hypocrites can—but do not always—incur a “hypocrisy penalty,” whereby they are evaluated more negatively than they would have been absent engaging. As this review has suggested, when observers scrutinize hypocritical moral engagement, they seem to ask at least three questions. First, does the actor signal to others, through his engagement, that he behaves more morally than he actually does? Second, does the actor, by virtue of his engagement, see himself as more moral than he really is? And third, is the actor's engagement preventing others from reaping benefits that he has already enjoyed? Evidence suggests that hypocritical moral engagement is more likely to carry reputational costs when the answer to these questions is “yes.” At the same time, observers do not seem to reliably impose a hypocrisy penalty just because the transgressions of hypocrites constitute personal moral failings—even as these failings convey weakness of will, highlight inconsistency with the actor's personal values, and reveal that the actor has knowingly done something that she believes to be wrong.

In a world where nobody is perfect, then, how can one engage morally while limiting the risk of subsequently being judged negatively as a hypocrite? We suggest that the answer comes down to two key factors: maximizing the reputational benefits that flow directly from one's moral engagement, and minimizing the reputational costs that flow from the combination of one's engagement and imperfect track record. While more research is needed, here we draw on the mechanisms we have reviewed to highlight four suggestions for those seeking to walk the moral tightrope.