A Quantitative Perspective on Ethics in Large Team Science

The gradual crowding out of singleton and small team science by large team endeavors is challenging key features of research culture. It is therefore important for the future of scientific practice to reflect upon the individual scientist’s ethical responsibilities within teams. To facilitate this reflection we show labor force trends in the US revealing a skewed growth in academic ranks and increased levels of competition for promotion within the system; we analyze teaming trends across disciplines and national borders demonstrating why it is becoming difficult to distribute credit and to avoid conflicts of interest; and we use more than a century of Nobel prize data to show how science is outgrowing its old institutions of singleton awards. Of particular concern within the large team environment is the weakening of the mentor–mentee relation, which undermines the cultivation of virtue ethics across scientific generations. These trends and emerging organizational complexities call for a universal set of behavioral norms that transcend team heterogeneity and hierarchy. To this end, our expository analysis provides a survey of ethical issues in team settings to inform science ethics education and science policy.     

Testing attention: Comparing the ANT with TVA-based assessment

Posner’s attention network model and Bundesen’s theory of visual attention (TVA) are two influential accounts of attention. Each model has led to the development of a test method: the attention network test (ANT) and TVA-based assessment, respectively. Both tests have been widely used to investigate attentional function in normal and clinical populations. Here we report on the first direct comparison of the ANT to TVA-based assessment. A group of 68 young healthy participants were tested in three consecutive sessions that each contained standard versions of the two tests. The parameters derived from TVA-based assessment had better internal reliability and retest reliability than did those of the standard version of the ANT, where only the executive network score reached comparable levels. However, when corrected for differences in test length, the retest reliability of the orienting network score equaled the least reliable TVA parameters. Both tests were susceptible to practice effects, which improved performance for some parameters while leaving others constant. All pairwise correlations between the eight attention parameters measured by the two tests were small and nonsignificant, with one exception: A strong correlation (r?=?0.72) was found between two parameters of TVA-based assessment, visual processing speed and the capacity of visual short-term memory. We conclude that TVA-based assessment and the ANT measure complementary aspects of attention, but the scores derived from TVA-based assessment are more reliable.     

Social Welfare and the Psychology of Food Sharing: Short‐Term Hunger Increases Support for Social Welfare

Do politically irrelevant events influence important policy opinions? Previous research on social welfare attitudes has emphasized the role of political factors such as economic self‐interest and ideology. Here, we demonstrate that attitudes to social welfare are also influenced by short‐term fluctuations in hunger. Using theories in evolutionary psychology, we predict that hungry individuals will be greedier and take more resources from others while also attempting to induce others to share by signaling cooperative intentions and expressing support for sharing, including evolutionarily novel forms of sharing such as social welfare. We test these predictions using self‐reported hunger data as well as comparisons of subjects who participated in relevant online studies before and after eating lunch. Across four studies collected in two different welfare regimes—the United Kingdom and Denmark—we consistently find that hungry individuals act in a greedier manner but describe themselves as more cooperative and express greater support for social welfare.     

Illness perceptions account for variation in positive outlook as well as psychological distress in rheumatoid arthritis

Psychological distress in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is associated with adverse clinical outcomes, and appears highly related to patients' illness perceptions. This study aimed to investigate the association between illness perceptions, psychological distress, positive outlook and physical outcomes in RA. Two hundred and thirty patients aged >18 years and prescribed at least one disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug (DMARD) were recruited from outpatient clinics across Hertfordshire (England). Patients completed a questionnaire that assessed psychological distress and positive outlook (depression, anxiety and positive outlook scale), illness perceptions (IPQ-R) and functional disability (health assessment questionnaire). Information regarding prescribed medication and disease activity [disease activity score (DAS28)] was collected from medical notes. Psychological distress, but not positive outlook, was associated with functional disability and DAS28. After controlling for sex, age and DAS28, perceptions of greater symptomatology (identity) and lesser understanding of RA (coherence) were significantly associated with increased psychological distress. Perceptions of greater treatment control were associated with greater positive outlook, but only for those with low DAS28. Coherence was also associated with positive outlook. These findings indicate that illness perceptions may influence psychological distress and positive outlook in RA patients, and may therefore be a useful basis for future psychological interventions.     

Do expansive or contractive body postures affect feelings of self-worth? High power poses impact state self-esteem

Current Psychology - The aim of the present studies was to investigate how high and low power posing influence self-esteem. High power posing is understood as the nonverbal expression of power...