Computers,information and ethics: A review of issues and literature

Editorial note:The following bibliographic survey of computer ethics is intended as a general introduction useful to guide both preliminary research and course development. It is the first of a series that Carl Mitcham will be doing on a number of specific discussions of ethics in science and technology. Future installments are projected on nuclear ethics, engineering ethics, ethics in scientific research, and biomedical ethics. With this [book] I issue “a call to arms.” The world needs much more discussion and writing on the social and ethical issues surrounding computing. I hope readers .... will take up the challenge.     

The effect of prompting and reinforcement of activity in elderly demented inpatients

On a ward for 24 psychogeriatric patients, 18 were randomly assigned to three groups with different experimental conditions. The first group was prompted and reinforced for different activities; the second was only prompted; and the third served as a control group. Activities, both the trained ones and others, were continuously monitored throughout the five week study. The results showed a clear increase in the trained activities after training. The prompting condition was effective, and the addition of reinforcement did not add any to the effects. There was no generalization to untrained activities, and the effects did not last at the 1 hr or 21 hr assessments, but was clearly visible at 5 min after training. Time seemed to be more important than place, i.e. the effect ceased with elapsed time, not because of changes in the situation.     

Lay perceptions of interrogation techniques: Identifying the role of Belief in a Just World and Right Wing Authoritarianism

False confessions due to overtly coercive interrogation techniques have led to the development of more ethically‐minded alternative techniques. Several studies have surveyed the public about their perceptions of confession‐oriented techniques (e.g., Leo & Liu, 2009 ), although none have examined the use of information gathering and strategic interviewing techniques or individual differences in such perceptions. Thus, the current study assessed public perceptions of a wide variety of techniques by recruiting a total of 332 participants. Results indicated that our participants would rather risk releasing a guilty person than convicting an innocent. Overall, confession‐oriented techniques were rated the least acceptable and effective across participants. However, perceptions of these techniques varied as a function of Belief in a Just World (BJW; Lipkus, 1991 ) and Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA; Zakrisson, 2005 ). Specifically, those higher in these two individual differences found confession‐oriented techniques to be both more acceptable and effective than those scoring lower on these measures. The results speak to the importance of individual differences and the potential for such differences to bias juror decision‐making when interrogation evidence is at stake.     

The Metaverse: A new digital frontier for consumer behavior

This work offers a multidisciplinary perspective on the Metaverse, focusing on its potential implications for consumer behavior. We begin by proposing a conceptualization of the Metaverse as being uniquely defined by the convergence of five key elements—it is digitally mediated, spatial, immersive, shared, and operates in real-time. We then discuss how these components might collectively alter our understanding of consumer behavior in three domains: consumer identity, social influence, and ownership. We conclude by outlining an agenda for future research to help broaden our understanding of the Metaversal marketplace and its impact on consumer behavior. This work serves as a starting point to characterize a shift that is unfolding in the marketplace and to consider, through a consumer behavior lens, the numerous changes it may bring.     

Witness confidence and accuracy: is a positive relationship maintained for recall under interview conditions?

A large positive correlation between eyewitness recall confidence and accuracy (C-A) is found in research when item difficulty is varied to include easy questions. However, these results are based on questionnaire responses. In real interviews, the social nature of the interview may influence C-A relationships, and it is the interviewer's perception of the accuracy of a witness that counts. This study was conducted to investigate the influence of these factors for recall of a video. Three conditions were used; the same questions were used in each. Participants in condition 1 (self-rate questionnaire condition, n = 20) were given a questionnaire that required them to answer questions and rate confidence on a scale. Pairs of participants in condition 2 (self-rate interview condition, n = 40) were given the role of eyewitness or interviewer. Eyewitnesses were asked questions by an interviewer and responded orally with answers and confidence judgements on a Likert scale. Participants in condition three (interviewer-rate interview condition, n = 40) were tested in the same way as condition two but provided confidence judgements in their own words. Interviewers independently rated each confidence judgement on the Likert scale. The experiment showed high C-A relationships, particularly for ‘absolutely sure’ responses. The main effect of the social interview condition was to increase confidence in correct answers but not in incorrect answers. However, the advantage of this effect was tempered by the fact that, although observers can differentiate between confident and less confident answers, less extreme confidence judgements were ascribed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The non-symbolic level of psychical reality

Freud introduced the concept of psychical reality as a consequence of abandoning the theory of seduction, and although this meant a turning point in his theoretical thinking he never defined the concept concisely and systematically. Thus it is possible to delineate at least two meanings of psychical reality that run through Freud´s writings as well as the writings of contemporary analysts. On the one hand psychical reality encompasses the whole field of subjective experiences. On the other, it is understood more narrowly as a transformation of experiences in the unconscious.

Substituting the idea of different meanings ascribed to Freud´s concept this article proposes to differentiate between levels in the psyche with the main focus on the unconscious level of the dream and of phantasy and the real unconscious. Starting from the most superficial level of subjective reality the text moves to that of fantasy formation illustrated by primarily Freud´s text on `A child is being beaten´. Adding Laplanche´s translational model the article ends up at the deepest level represented by the late Lacan and his concept of the real Unconscious.

The paper concludes that the term real points to something exceeding symbolization and the imaginary—thus escaping comprehension—and yet is absolutely indispensable to the organization of unconscious processes.     

Effects of a Motivational Interviewing–Based Counseling Program on Classroom Behavior of Children in a Disciplinary Alternative Education Program

A multiple single‐case research design was used to explore changes in teacher‐reported behaviors of 15 children who completed a motivational interviewing–based counseling program in a disciplinary alternative education school. Findings indicated that 7 children made a moderate to large improvement in their classroom behaviors while participating in the program. Students’ self‐motivational statements and self‐reported readiness to change were related to actual teacher‐rated behavioral changes. Implications for future research and counseling practice were discussed.     

Further developments of the concept of fantasy

After the Isaacs' seminal work on the nature and function of unconscious phantasy (1948), several authors (mostly in the British Society) have reflected on the topic and tried to extend the concept of fantasy. In this paper I shall examine the contributions of Winnicott, Gaddini, Joseph and Anne Marie Sandler that aim at broadening this psychoanalytic concept. The authors that I have considered share a focus mostly on the early stages of child development. Both Winnicott and Gaddini belong to a line of thinking that explores the vicissitudes of the primary emotional development of the infantile self (in the mother‐infant relationship) involving the earliest processes of holding and bodily and kinaesthetic fantasy that form the bodily integrity of the person. The Sandlers focused mostly on the concept of the past unconscious understood as a place of primitive vicissitudes with a deficit in figuration where the process of repression is missing. The present unconscious phantasy (that is located in the here and now) has the function of rendering the past unconscious phantasy partly accessible; otherwise it would remain unknowable.     

Calendar interviewing: a mixed methods device for a biographical approach to migration

Biographical interviews are used in life stories research to elicit narratives on retrospective views of the self and the social world. Life calendars are used in life course research to collect standardized data in various domains of individual lives. Both instruments deal with autobiographical memory, which is a critical aspect for data quality and accuracy. This article presents a mixed methods use of life calendars and life stories for researching on migration called the Calendar Interviewing Device (CID). The CID consists of a life calendar for characterizing trajectories and collecting life stories through open-ended interviews. An analysis of 12 interviews examines the features of this particular research device, namely its flexibility on adapting to different interviewees, the strategies they used for recalling events and locating them in time, and the richness of the data obtained with the CID.     

Tele‐analysis: the use of media technology in psychotherapy and its impact on the therapeutic relationship

A growing number of approaches in psychotherapy make use of internet‐ and other media‐based interactions. This paper discusses the impact on the therapist‐client relationship of using media technology and gives an overview of the current state of the debate. It is suggested that the technical conditions of internet‐based interactions produce new forms of social relationships that differ significantly from face‐to‐face‐interactions and that unconscious, nonverbal cues get lost. Research on the therapeutic interaction making use of ‘discourse linguistic’ methods is presented. The loss of nonverbal cues has implications for psychotherapy in general and especially for the treatment of patients who have difficulties relying on a secure therapeutic relationship. Emotional security in interactional relationships is transmitted to a much greater extent by nonverbal cues than by verbal content; psychoanalytic methods are specialized to refer to this level of interaction. Two alternative scenarios are discussed based on the psychoanalytic theories of Winnicott and Lacan: the risk of an illusionary, idealized image of the other and the possibility that cyberspace can be used for psychological development as a transitional space.