Moral psychology of nursing robots: Exploring the role of robots in dilemmas of patient autonomy

Artificial intelligences (AIs) are widely used in tasks ranging from transportation to healthcare and military, but it is not yet known how people prefer them to act in ethically difficult situations. In five studies (an anthropological field study, n = 30, and four experiments, total n = 2150), we presented people with vignettes where a human or an advanced robot nurse is ordered by a doctor to forcefully medicate an unwilling patient. Participants were more accepting of a human nurse's than a robot nurse's forceful medication of the patient, and more accepting of (human or robot) nurses who respected patient autonomy rather than those that followed the orders to forcefully medicate (Study 2). The findings were robust against the perceived competence of the robot (Study 3), moral luck (whether the patient lived or died afterwards; Study 4), and command chain effects (Study 5; fully automated supervision or not). Thus, people prefer robots capable of disobeying orders in favour of abstract moral principles like valuing personal autonomy. Our studies fit in a new era in research, where moral psychological phenomena no longer reflect only interactions between people, but between people and autonomous AIs.     

Emotional Reactions to People With AIDS

Using survey data of a Dutch national sample, the present paper examines how people's willingness to engage in personal contact with persons with AIDS (PWAs) is influenced by different emotional reactions to PWAs. Results indicate that each of the three measured emotional reactions to PWAs (fear, irritation, and pity) independently predicts subjects' readiness to have personal contact with PWAs. Disconfirming the often assumed relationship between "homophobia" and fear of PWAs, it was found that attitudes toward homosexuals are unrelated to fear of PWAs. Instead, these attitudes are associated with emotions of a more aggressive nature (irritation). Risk perception seems to be related to the emotions of fear and irritation, whereas responsibility attribution seems to be negatively associated with pity.     

The origin of conditional logic: does a cheater detection module exist?

The domain-specific hypothesis of L. Cosmides (1989) and L. Cosmides and J. Tooby (1989, 1992) positing that conditional logic has its origin in the evolution of social exchange and in the detection of potential cheaters was tested against a more domain-general hypothesis positing that adult reasoning is logical and that errors in conditional reasoning arise from misunderstandings, not from a lack of logicality. The results of 5 experiments with undergraduate students (n = 682 for Experiments 1-4; n = 188 for Experiment 5), which involved a series of selection tasks that yielded specific predictions about participant performance, were not consistent with the cheater detection hypothesis. Findings supported the misunderstandings hypothesis and imply that adults possess general-purpose logical competence versus domain-specific modules.     

Working memory deficits in transgenic rats overexpressing human adenosine A2A receptors in the brain

Adenosine receptors in the central nervous system have been implicated in the modulation of different behavioural patterns and cognitive functions although the specific role of A(2A) receptor (A(2A)R) subtype in learning and memory is still unclear. In the present work we establish a novel transgenic rat strain, TGR(NSEhA2A), overexpressing adenosine A(2A)Rs mainly in the cerebral cortex, the hippocampal formation, and the cerebellum. Thereafter, we explore the relevance of this A(2A)Rs overexpression for learning and memory function. Animals were behaviourally assessed in several learning and memory tasks (6-arms radial tunnel maze, T-maze, object recognition, and several Morris water maze paradigms) and other tests for spontaneous motor activity (open field, hexagonal tunnel maze) and anxiety (plus maze) as modification of these behaviours may interfere with the assessment of cognitive function. Neither motor performance and emotional/anxious-like behaviours were altered by overexpression of A(2A)Rs. TGR(NSEhA2A) showed normal hippocampal-dependent learning of spatial reference memory. However, they presented working memory deficits as detected by performance of constant errors in the blind arms of the 6 arm radial tunnel maze, reduced recognition of a novel object and a lack of learning improvement over four trials on the same day which was not observed over consecutive days in a repeated acquisition paradigm in the Morris water maze. Given the interdependence between adenosinic and dopaminergic function, the present results render the novel TGR(NSEhA2A) as a putative animal model for the working memory deficits and cognitive disruptions related to overstimulation of cortical A(2A)Rs or to dopaminergic prefrontal dysfunction as seen in schizophrenic or Parkinson's disease patients.     

How to administer the Initial Preference Task

Individuals like their name letters more than non‐name letters. This effect has been termed the Name Letter Effect (NLE) and is widely exploited to measure implicit (i.e. automatic, unconscious) self‐esteem, predominantly by means of the Initial Preference Task (IPT). Methodological research on how to best administer the IPT is, however, scarce. In order to bridge this gap, the present paper assessed the advantages and disadvantages of different types of IPT administrations with two meta‐analyses (k = 49; N = 11,514) and a follow‐up experiment (N = 449). As a result, a new type of administration is recommended which (1) treats the effects of the first and the last name initials separately, (2) uses a duplicate administration for reliability reasons, (3) uses the likability as well as the attractiveness item wording and (4) exploits not only letters but also numbers (i.e. birthday number effect) to measure implicit self‐esteem. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Response expectancy versus response hope in predicting birth‐related emotional distress and pain

Response expectancies and response hopes have been shown to be two distinct constructs with important implications for nonvolitional outcomes. More specifically, studies show that response expectancies: (1) are sufficient to cause nonvolitional outcomes, (2) are not mediated by other psychological variables, and (3) are self‐confirming while seemingly automatic. A new programmatic research line has differentiated between people's response expectancies and their response hopes regarding nonvolitional outcomes and showed that even if response hope and response expectancy are separate constructs, they are not unrelated. These concepts have not yet been studied in pregnant women. Moreover, determining the causal factors that best explain the variance of emotional distress and pain in pregnancy is of great importance. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the interrelations between response expectancy and response hope in pregnant women with respect to (1) emotional distress prior to giving birth and (2) pain during giving birth. Additionally, self‐reported labor hours were analyzed as a secondary outcome. Results show that response expectancy for pain directly predicts pain, and that the discrepancy between response hopes and response expectancies is a strong predictor of investigated outcomes. Thus, our results support the idea that preventive psychological interventions for pregnant women should emphasize adjusting response expectancies and response hopes regarding the pain and emotional distress associated with giving birth. We believe that the results have both theoretical and practical implications and the topic deserves further investigation.     

Exploring Latent Profiles of Psychopathology in a Sample of Lonely People Seeking Treatment

Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment - Loneliness is a common experience in populations experiencing mental health problems. Associations with symptoms of psychopathology are...