The Beneficent Nudge Program and Epistemic Injustice

Is implementing the beneficent nudge program morally permissible in worlds like ours? I argue that there is reason for serious doubt. I acknowledge that beneficent nudging is highly various, that nudges are in some circumstances morally permissible and even called for, and that nudges may exhibit respect for genuine autonomy. Nonetheless, given the risk of epistemic injustice that nudges typically pose, neither the moral permissibility of beneficent nudging in the abstract, nor its case-by-case vindication, appears sufficient to justify implementing a nudge program in worlds like ours. Drawing on Miranda Fricker’s account of epistemic injustice, I argue that the cogent defense of any nudge program, relative to worlds like ours, stands in need of serious attention to its potential for fostering or sustaining epistemic injustice. A more specific point hinges on recognizing a form of epistemic injustice not enough attended to in the literature to date, which I call reflective incapacitational injustice. This includes relative disadvantages in the attaining of (or opportunity to exercise) the capacity to engage in critical reason, such as the capacity to go in for potentially critical reasoned deliberation and discursive exchange concerning ends. Since Cass Sunstein’s First Law of behaviorally informed regulation would be taken, in worlds like ours, to justify indeterminately many nudges leading to such epistemic injustice we have general grounds for doubting the moral permissibility of this nudge program. We should hence oppose the implementation of any such program until it is shown not to violate the demands of epistemic justice.     

Outside the Classroom Walls: Perceptions of Professor Inappropriate Out-of-Class Conduct and Student Classroom Incivility among American Business Students

Under higher education’s contemporary consumer model, students are treated as customers and professors are encouraged to increase student engagement through more personal out-of-class interactions, often in social settings. In the course of this more personal student-faculty involvement, students inevitably encounter or learn of their professors’ occasional inappropriate or unethical behavior. In the present study, we investigated the impact of 145 American undergraduate Business students’ perceptions of their professors’ inappropriate out-of-class behavior on student beliefs and in-class behavior. Results indicate that student perceptions of professors engaging in inappropriate out-of-class behavior were associated with students viewing these professors as lower in ethical character and reporting a stronger likelihood of attending these professors’ classes under the influence of alcohol and illicit drugs, swearing and using vulgarity in these professors’ class discussions, and showing disregard for these professors’ rules, time, and effort. These relationships held even when student grade satisfaction and professor in-class behavior were accounted for. Our results suggest professors’ behavior outside the classroom may impact students’ behavior inside the classroom, re-igniting dialogue regarding the professorial role and the boundaries on oversight of that role. We offer suggestions as to how higher education may address these concerns without infringing upon professors’ personal freedoms.     

Religious Identity,Expression, and Civility in Social Media: Results of Data Mining Latter‐Day Saint Twitter Accounts

This study explores religious self‐identification, religious expression, and civility among projected Latter‐Day Saint Twitter accounts (201,107 accounts and 1,542,229 tweets). Novel methods of data collection and analysis were utilized to test hypotheses related to religious identity and civility against social media data at a large scale. Results indicated that (1) projected LDS Twitter accounts tended to represent authentic (rather than anonymous or pseudonymous) identities; (2) local minority versus majority status did not influence users’ willingness to religiously self‐identify; (3) isolation stigma did not occur when users religiously self‐identified; (4) participants exhibited much lower degrees of incivility than was anticipated from previous studies; and (5) religious self‐identification was connected to improved civility. Results should be of interest to scholars of religion for better understanding participation patterns and religious identity among Latter‐Day Saints and for exploring how these results may transfer to other groups of religious people.     

Optimism and well-being: a prospective multi-method and multi-dimensional examination of optimism as a resilience factor following the occurrence of stressful life events

Optimism has been conceptualised variously as positive expectations (PE) for the future , optimistic attributions , illusion of control , and self-enhancing biases. Relatively little research has examined these multiple dimensions of optimism in relation to psychological and physical health. The current study assessed the multi-dimensional nature of optimism within a prospective vulnerability-stress framework. Initial principal component analyses revealed the following dimensions: PEs, Inferential Style (IS), Sense of Invulnerability (SI), and Overconfidence (O). Prospective follow-up analyses demonstrated that PE was associated with fewer depressive episodes and moderated the effect of stressful life events on depressive symptoms. SI also moderated the effect of life stress on anxiety symptoms. Generally, our findings indicated that optimism is a multifaceted construct and not all forms of optimism have the same effects on well-being. Specifically, our findings indicted that PE may be the most relevant to depression, whereas SI may be the most relevant to anxiety.     

The role of perceived vulnerability to disease in political polarization on climate change

Climate change presents a serious threat to the planet. Previous research reveals an ingroup–outgroup effect in support for climate policies, with greater support by U.S. participants for policies ostensibly endorsed by their own political party, despite acceptance of climate change among most Republicans and Democrats. We investigated moderation of this effect by the behavioral immune system (BIS), a suite of psychological mechanisms that cause individuals to avoid pathogens. This system has been linked to more negative responses to outgroup members. We extended previous research examining effects on group polarization to political polarization. We predicted that support for climate change policies would show stronger effects of own-versus other-party endorsement among people higher in BIS, as indexed by perceived vulnerability to disease (PVD). We found that the ingroup–outgroup endorsement effect on policy support was moderated by PVD. However, the effect was opposite to prediction. Whereas low PVD participants showed less support for climate policies endorsed by the other party than their own, high PVD participants supported climate policies regardless of endorser. This unexpected result may be construed as consistent with high PVD individuals feeling heightened vulnerability to environmental threats, which fosters support for protective policies, regardless of endorser. We also found less support for climate policies among Republican than Democrat low PVD participants, but no party effect among high PVD participants. This suggests that feeling vulnerable to environmental threats may lead Republicans to deviate from the party norm in their support for climate policies.     

Refraining, metaphors, myths and fairy-tales

Consideration is given to the question as to whether the change produced by refraining is mere sophistry or reflects a more fundamental alteration in the way in which a situation is construed. However, such philosophical questions touching on the nature of reality can be avoided if actions, rather than the problematical situation, are made the subject of interest. The nature of metaphor is briefly explored, exhibiting the manner in which it may be regarded as an example of refraining. Myths and fairytales may be employed as extended metaphors and can then function as vehicles for refraining. As an illustration, a case of anorexia is described where refraining occurs around a fairy-tale.     

Comparing patterning and biconditional discriminations in humans

In two experiments, human participants performed a causal judgment task that simultaneously comprised two reciprocal patterning discriminations and a biconditional discrimination. They learned both patterning discriminations more quickly than the biconditional discrimination. Postdiscrimination tests were used to identify participants who had, or had not, learned to apply the patterning rules, as well as participants who continued to expect summation when presented with two cues that predicted the same outcome. All groups were faster to learn the patterning than the biconditional discriminations. These results are inconsistent with models of stimulus representation that invoke configural representations (e.g., Pearce, 1987, 1994; Rescorla & Wagner, 1972) because these models solve biconditional discriminations more readily than patterning discriminations.     

Negative patterning is easier than a biconditional discrimination

Two groups of rats were trained for 50 days on different discriminations in a magazine approach paradigm. One group was trained with a negative patterning schedule and a positive patterning schedule concurrently: they received intermixed trials of A+, B+, AB-, C-, D-, CD+ (A, B, C, and D are four distinct stimuli; the plus sign denotes reinforcement with food, and the minus sign denotes nonreinforcement). The second group of rats was trained with the same four stimuli arranged as compounds and reinforced according to the biconditional schedule AB+, CD+, AC-, and BD-. The first group learned the positive patterning schedule much more quickly than the negative patterning schedule, but they learned the negative patterning schedule more effectively than the second group learned the biconditional schedule. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for models of stimulus representation.     

Seeing race and seeming racist? Evaluating strategic colorblindness in social interaction

One strategy practiced by many Whites to regulate the appearance of prejudice during social interaction is to avoid talking about race, or even acknowledging racial difference. Four experiments involving a dyadic task investigated antecedents and consequences of this tendency. Observed colorblindness was strategic in nature: Whites' acknowledgment of race was highly susceptible to normative pressure and most evident among individuals concerned with self-presentational aspects of appearing biased (Study 1). However, this tendency was often counterproductive, as avoiding race during interracial interaction predicted negative nonverbal behavior (Study 1), a relationship mediated by decreased capacity to exert inhibitory control (Study 2). Two studies examining White and Black observers' impressions of colorblind behavior revealed divergent assessments of actors' prejudice in situations where race was clearly relevant (Study 3) but convergent assessments when race was less relevant (Study 4). Practical and theoretical implications for interracial interaction are considered.     

Neuroscientific Evidence About the Distinction Between Short- and Long-Term Memory

ABSTRACT— What have neuroscientific techniques contributed to the development of psychological theory about short- and long-term memory? We argue that the contributions have been varied: In some cases, data about brain mechanisms have been vital to the advancement of psychological theory; in other cases, neuroscientific data and behavioral data from normal participants have made equal contributions; and in yet other cases, the data from neuroscientific approaches have actually led psychological theory astray. We illustrate these various contributions by focusing on the relationship of short- to long-term memory.