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, September 15, 2022

The psychology of hate: Moral concerns differentiate hate from dislike

Pretus, C., Ray, J. L., et al. (2018, June 25). 
https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/x9y2p

Abstract

We investigated whether any differences in the psychological conceptualization of hate and dislike were simply a matter of degree of negativity (i.e., hate falls on the end of the continuum of dislike) or also morality (i.e., hate is imbued with distinct moral components that distinguish it from dislike). In three lab studies in Canada and the US, participants reported disliked and hated attitude objects and rated each on dimensions including valence, attitude strength, morality, and emotional content. Quantitative and qualitative measures revealed that hated attitude objects were more negative than disliked attitude objects and associated with moral beliefs and emotions, even after adjusting for differences in negativity. In study four, we analyzed the rhetoric on real hate sites and complaint forums and found that the language used on prominent hate websites contained more words related to morality, but not negativity, relative to complaint forums.

Discussion

In our first study, we examined whether the conceptual differences between hate and dislike are simply a matter of degree of negativity or also a matter of morality. We found support for the intensity hypothesis—hated objects were viewed as more negative than disliked objects—suggesting that the difference between hate and dislike is indeed a matter of intensity. However, we also found support for the morality hypothesis—hated attitude objects were rated as more connected to participants’ core moral beliefs and were associated with higher levels of moral emotions (contempt, anger, and disgust) than disliked attitude objects—suggesting that the difference between hate and dislike may also be a matter of morality. We found convergent evidence for this latter hypothesis across quantitative and qualitative analyses, with self-reports, expressions of moral emotions, and spontaneous descriptions.

We note that differences in morality were attenuated when participants were asked about disliked attitudinal objects first. We discuss possible explanations of this order effect below. Importantly, the results supporting the morality hypothesis remained significant even when adjusting for negativity. Above and beyond the effect of negativity, both moral concerns and moral emotions explained the variance in ratings of hated versus disliked attitude objects. Likewise, participants spontaneously reported that hated objects were more closely tied to morality than disliked objects in their qualitative responses. These findings provide preliminary evidence that the conceptualization of hate may differ from dislike, and that morality may play a key role in explaining this difference.

Wednesday, September 14, 2022

The psychology of asymmetric zero-sum beliefs

Roberts, R., & Davidai, S. (2022).
Journal of Personality and 
Social Psychology, 123(3), 559–575.
https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000378

Abstract

Zero-sum beliefs reflect the perception that one party’s gains are necessarily offset by another party’s losses. Although zero-sum relationships are, from a strictly theoretical perspective, symmetrical, we find evidence for asymmetrical zero-sum beliefs: The belief that others gain at one’s own expense, but not vice versa. Across various contexts (international relations, interpersonal negotiations, political partisanship, organizational hierarchies) and research designs (within- and between-participant), we find that people are more prone to believe that others’ success comes at their own expense than they are to believe that their own success comes at others’ expense. Moreover, we find that people exhibit asymmetric zero-sum beliefs only when thinking about how their own party relates to other parties but not when thinking about how other parties relate to each other. Finally, we find that this effect is moderated by how threatened people feel by others’ success and that reassuring people about their party’s strengths eliminates asymmetric zero-sum beliefs. We discuss the theoretical contributions of our findings to research on interpersonal and intergroup zero-sum beliefs and their implications for understanding when and why people view life as zero-sum.

General Discussion

Why do Americans believe that when China gains the U.S. loses but that when the U.S. gains, the whole world—including China— gains as well? Why do both Republicans and Democrats believe that the opposing party only benefits its own voters but that their own party’s success benefits all voters regardless of political affiliation?  And, why do negotiators so commonly believe that the other side is “out to get them” but that they themselves are merely trying to get the best possible deal that benefits all parties involved? In seven studies, we found robust and consistent evidence for asymmetric zero-sum beliefs.  Although situations involving two or more parties are either zero-sum or not, we found that people are ready to view them as both zero-sum and non-zero-sum, believing that other parties succeed at their expense, but that their own party does not succeed at others’ expense. Moreover, we found that people exhibit asymmetric zero-sum beliefs when considering how their party relates to other parties but not when considering how other parties relate to each other. Finally, both correlational and causal evidence found that feeling threatened led to asymmetric zero-sum beliefs. The more participants felt threatened by an opposing country, political party, or work colleague, the more they viewed the other party’s gains as coming at their expense. In contrast, feeling threatened did not affect beliefs regarding how much one’s
own gains come at others’ expense.

Tuesday, September 13, 2022

First synthetic embryos: the scientific breakthrough raises serious ethical questions

Savulescu, J., Gyngell, C., & Sawai, T.
The Conversation
Originally posted 11 AUG 22

Here is an excerpt:

Artificial wombs

In the latest study, the scientists started with collections of stem cells. The conditions created by the external uterus triggered the developmental process that makes a fetus. Although the scientists said we are a long way off synthetic human embryos, the experiment brings us closer to a future where some humans gestate their babies artificially.

Each year over 300,000 women worldwide die in childbirth or as a result of pregnancy complications, many because they lack basic care. Even in wealthy countries, pregnancy and childbirth is risky and healthcare providers are criticised for failing mothers.

There is an urgent need to make healthcare more accessible across the planet, provide better mental health support for mothers and make pregnancy and childbirth safer. In an ideal world every parent should expect excellent care in all aspects of motherhood. This technology could help treat premature babies and give at least some women a different option: a choice of whether to carry their child or use an external uterus.

Some philosophers say there is a moral imperative to develop artificial wombs to help remedy the unfairness of parenting roles. But other researchers say artificial wombs would threaten a women’s legal right to terminate a pregnancy.

Synthetic embryos and organs

In the last few years, scientists have learned more about how to coax stem cells to develop into increasingly sophisticated structures, including ones that mimic the structure and function of human organs (organoids). Artificial human kidneys, brains, hearts and more have all been created in a lab, though they are still too rudimentary for medical use.

The issue of whether there are moral differences between using stem cells to produce models of human organs for research and using stem cells to create a synthetic embryo are already playing out in law courts.

One of the key differences between organoids and synthetic embryos is their potential. If a synthetic embryo can develop into a living creature, it should have more protection than those which don’t.

Synthetic embryos do not currently have potential to actually create a living mouse. If scientists did make human synthetic embryos, but without the potential to form a living being, they should arguably be treated similarly to organoids.

Monday, September 12, 2022

A longitudinal study of functional connectome uniqueness and its association with psychological distress in adolescence

Shan, Z.Y, Mohamed, A. Z. et al.
NeuroImage, Volume 258, 
September 2022, 119358

Abstract

Each human brain has a unique functional synchronisation pattern (functional connectome) analogous to a fingerprint that underpins brain functions and related behaviours. Here we examine functional connectome (whole-brain and 13 networks) maturation by measuring its uniqueness in adolescents who underwent brain scans longitudinally from 12 years of age every four months. The uniqueness of a functional connectome is defined as its ratio of self-similarity (from the same subject at a different time point) to the maximal similarity-to-others (from a given subject and any others at a different time point). We found that the unique whole brain connectome exists in 12 years old adolescents, with 92% individuals having a whole brain uniqueness value greater than one. The cingulo-opercular network (CON; a long-acting ‘brain control network’ configuring information processing) demonstrated marginal uniqueness in early adolescence with 56% of individuals showing uniqueness greater than one (i.e., more similar to her/his own CON four months later than those from any other subjects) and this increased longitudinally. Notably, the low uniqueness of the CON correlates (β = -18.6, FDR-Q < < 0.001) with K10 levels at the subsequent time point. This association suggests that the individualisation of CON network is related to psychological distress levels. Our findings highlight the potential of longitudinal neuroimaging to capture mental health problems in young people who are undergoing profound neuroplasticity and environment sensitivity period.

Highlights

• Functional connectome uniqueness in adolescents was examined using a temporally rich (up to 9 time points) and a well-controlled (fixed 4 months interval) longitudinal study.

• A unique functional connectome exists at 12 years old.

• The cingulo-opercular network (a long-acting ‘brain control network’ configuring information processing) demonstrated marginal uniqueness.

• Uniqueness indices of the cingulo-opercular network were significantly and negatively associated with the subsequent psychological distress.

Conclusions

In sum, this study confirmed that a unique whole-brain functional connectome exists and is stable over 16 months in early adolescents. For the first time, this study characterised the development of ‘brain control networks’ in adolescents. An individually unique frontoparietal network for immediate information processing exists in early adolescence. Meanwhile, a unique CON for long-acting brain configuration is marginal. We posit that the maturation of CON provides a biological explanation of increased vulnerability in adolescents, which is further confirmed by the finding that CON uniqueness indices are associated with psychological distress measures. Our findings provide support for the notion that a ‘brain signature’ may be utilised in monitoring psychological distress in young people.

Sunday, September 11, 2022

Mental control and attributions of blame for negligent wrongdoing

Murray, S., Krasich, K., et al. (2022).
Journal of Experimental Psychology: 
General. Advance online publication.
https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001262

Abstract

Third-personal judgments of blame are typically sensitive to what an agent knows and desires. However, when people act negligently, they do not know what they are doing and do not desire the outcomes of their negligence. How, then, do people attribute blame for negligent wrongdoing? We propose that people attribute blame for negligent wrongdoing based on perceived mental control, or the degree to which an agent guides their thoughts and attention over time. To acquire information about others’ mental control, people self-project their own perceived mental control to anchor third-personal judgments about mental control and concomitant responsibility for negligent wrongdoing. In four experiments (N = 841), we tested whether perceptions of mental control drive third-personal judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing. Study 1 showed that the ease with which people can counterfactually imagine an individual being non-negligent mediated the relationship between judgments of control and blame. Studies 2a and 2b indicated that perceived mental control has a strong effect on judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing and that first-personal judgments of mental control are moderately correlated with third-personal judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing. Finally, we used an autobiographical memory manipulation in Study 3 to make personal episodes of forgetfulness salient. Participants for whom past personal episodes of forgetfulness were made salient judged negligent wrongdoers less harshly compared with a control group for whom past episodes of negligence were not salient. Collectively, these findings suggest that first-personal judgments of mental control drive third-personal judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing and indicate a novel role for counterfactual thinking in the attribution of responsibility.

Conclusion

Models  of  blame  attribution  predict  that  judgments  of  blame  for  negligent  wrongdoing  are sensitive to the perceived  capacity of the individual  to  avoid being negligent. In  this paper, we explored two extensions of these models. The first is that people use perceived degree of mental control to inform judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing. Information about mental control is acquired through self-projection. These results suggest a novel role for counterfactual thinking in attributing blame, namely that counterfactual thinking is the process whereby people self-project to acquire information that is used to inform judgments of blame.

Saturday, September 10, 2022

Social norms and dishonesty across societies

Aycinena, D., et al.
PNAS, 119 (31), 2022.

Abstract

Social norms have long been recognized as an important factor in curtailing antisocial behavior, and stricter prosocial norms are commonly associated with increased prosocial behavior. In this study, we provide evidence that very strict prosocial norms can have a perverse negative relationship with prosocial behavior. In laboratory experiments conducted in 10 countries across 5 continents, we measured the level of honest behavior and elicited injunctive norms of honesty. We find that individuals who hold very strict norms (i.e., those who perceive a small lie to be as socially unacceptable as a large lie) are more likely to lie to the maximal extent possible. This finding is consistent with a simple behavioral rationale. If the perceived norm does not differentiate between the severity of a lie, lying to the full extent is optimal for a norm violator since it maximizes the financial gain, while the perceived costs of the norm violation are unchanged. We show that the relation between very strict prosocial norms and high levels of rule violations generalizes to civic norms related to common moral dilemmas, such as tax evasion, cheating on government benefits, and fare dodging on public transportation. Those with very strict attitudes toward civic norms are more likely to lie to the maximal extent possible. A similar relation holds across countries. Countries with a larger fraction of people with very strict attitudes toward civic norms have a higher society-level prevalence of rule violations.

Significance

Much of the research in the experimental and behavioral sciences finds that stronger prosocial norms lead to higher levels of prosocial behavior. Here, we show that very strict prosocial norms are negatively correlated with prosocial behavior. Using laboratory experiments on honesty, we demonstrate that individuals who hold very strict norms of honesty are more likely to lie to the maximal extent. Further, countries with a larger fraction of people with very strict civic norms have proportionally more societal-level rule violations. We show that our findings are consistent with a simple behavioral rationale. If perceived norms are so strict that they do not differentiate between small and large violations, then, conditional on a violation occurring, a large violation is individually optimal.


In essence, very strict social norms can backfire.  People can lie to the fullest extent with similar costs to minimal lying.

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.

(cut)

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.