Negative acknowledgement is an impression management technique that uses the admission of an unfavourable quality to mitigate a negative response. Although the technique has been clearly demonstrated, the underlying process is not well understood. The current research identifies a key mediator and moderator while also demonstrating that the effect extends beyond the specific acknowledged domain to the overall evaluation of a target object. The results of study 1 indicate that negative acknowledgement works through mitigating negatively valenced cognitive responses. People who (...) are presented with a negative acknowledgement are less likely to counterargue when forming an evaluation. The results of study 2 reveal that individual differences in need for structure impact the effectiveness of the technique. People who are high in need for structure are more susceptible to the effect presumably because of their desire for easy-to-use information that aids the formation and maintenance of simple knowledge structures. (shrink)

The authors of this article are previous or current members of the Clinical Ethics Consultation Affairs (CECA) Committee, a standing committee of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH). The committee is composed of seasoned healthcare ethics consultants (HCECs), and it is charged with developing and disseminating education materials for HCECs and ethics committees. The purpose of this article is to describe the educational research and development processes behind our teaching materials, which culminated in a case studies book called (...) A Case-Based Study Guide for Addressing Patient-Centered Ethical Issues in Health Care (hereafter, the Study Guide). In this article, we also enumerate how the Study Guide could be used in teaching and learning, and we identify areas that are ripe for future work. (shrink)

This introduction to the Common Knowledge symposium titled “Comparative Relativism” outlines a variety of intellectual contexts where placing the unlikely companion terms comparison and relativism in conjunction offers analytical purchase. If comparison, in the most general sense, involves the investigation of discrete contexts in order to elucidate their similarities and differences, then relativism, as a tendency, stance, or working method, usually involves the assumption that contexts exhibit, or may exhibit, radically different, incomparable, or incommensurable traits. Comparative studies are required to (...) treat their objects as alike, at least in some crucial respects; relativism indicates the limits of this practice. Jensen argues that this seeming paradox is productive, as he moves across contexts, from Lévi-Strauss's analysis of comparison as an anthropological method to Peter Galison's history of physics, and on to the anthropological, philosophical, and historical examples offered in symposium contributions by Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Marilyn Strathern, and Isabelle Stengers. Comparative relativism is understood by some to imply that relativism comes in various kinds and that these have multiple uses, functions, and effects, varying widely in different personal, historical, and institutional contexts that can be compared and contrasted. Comparative relativism is taken by others to encourage a “comparison of comparisons,” in order to relativize what different peoples—say, Western academics and Amerindian shamans—compare things “for.” Jensen concludes that what is compared and relativized in this symposium are the methods of comparison and relativization themselves. He ventures that the contributors all hope that treating these terms in juxtaposition may allow for new configurations of inquiry. (shrink)

Despite the interpersonal nature of family meetings and the frequency in which they occur, the clinical ethics literature is devoid of any rich descriptions of what clinical ethicists should actually be doing during family meetings. Here, we propose a framework for describing and understanding “transitioning” facilitation skills based on a retrospective review of our internal documentation of 100 consecutive cases wherein a clinical ethicist facilitated at least one family meeting. The internal documents were analyzed using qualitative methodologies, i.e., “codes”, to (...) identify emergent themes. We identified four different transitioning strategies clinical ethicists use to reach a meaningful resolution. These transitioning strategies serve as a jumping-off point for additional analyses, future research, evaluating clinical ethics consultation, and overall performance improvement of a consultation service. (shrink)

The idea that there are three types of argumentation, deduction, induction, and a third type variously called hypothesis, abduction, or retroduction, first appeared in an 1867 paper by Charles S. Peirce, “On the Natural Classification of Arguments”. According to Peirce’s tripartite division of argumentation, induction is not merely any form of argument that fails to be deductive, but argumentation that generalizes from a sample. In later writings Peirce broadened his notion to mean any testing of hypotheses through observation—as Peirce said, (...) “trying how things will act”. If we understand an observation to be a sample of experience, as Peirce did in 1901 (R L 409:3... (shrink)

Plagiarism strikes at the heart of academe, eroding the fundamental value of academic research. Recent evidence suggests that acts of plagiarism and awareness of these acts are on the rise in academia. To address this issue, a vein of research has emerged in recent years exploring plagiarism as an area of academic inquiry. In this new academic subject, case studies and analysis have been one of the most influential methodologies employed. Case studies provide a venue where acts of plagiarism can (...) be discussed and analyzed in a constructive manner, and that is the primary purpose of this article. Unlike previous studies, however, we focus on the role of the publisher, a key player in dealing with acts of plagiarism, but one who has received little attention in the academic literature. Specifically, we examine how an academic publisher addressed allegations of plagiarism and how the publisher’s decision-making affected the outcome. We analyze the case by applying the guidelines from different frameworks and ethical theory and develop recommendations from the lessons evidenced, the second main objective of our article. This analysis advances the dialog on academic plagiarism by exploring the role of the publisher from a deontological perspective of ethical absolutism. (shrink)

We report specific heat and μSR measurements on Th and/or B substituted UBe13. The specific heat data show that either Th or B substitution reduces the Kondo temperature TK and increases the entropy at the superconducting transition by almost 20%, indicating an enhanced density of states. However, whereas μSR shows clear evidence for magnetic correlations for Th substitutions, no magnetism is observed for B substitutions. The enhanced specific heat jump in the B-substituted material is associated with a change in the (...) superconducting properties as TK is reduced. (shrink)

An important application of cognitive architectures is to provide human performance models that capture psychological mechanisms in a form that can be “programmed” to predict task performance of human–machine system designs. Although many aspects of human performance have been successfully modeled in this approach, accounting for multitalker speech task performance is a novel problem. This article presents a model for performance in a two-talker task that incorporates concepts from psychoacoustics, in particular, masking effects and stream formation.

The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) has caused shortages of life-sustaining medical resources, and future waves of the virus may cause further scarcity. The Yale New Haven Health System developed a triage protocol to allocate scarce medical resources during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the primary goal of saving the most lives possible, and a secondary goal of making triage assessments and decisions consistent, transparent, and fair. We outline the process of developing the protocol, summarize the protocol, and discuss the major ethical challenges (...) encountered, along with our answers to the challenges. These challenges include (1) the role of age and chronic comorbidities; (2) evaluating children and pregnant patients; (3) racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in health; (4) prioritization of healthcare workers; and (5) balancing clinical judgment versus protocolized assessments.We conclude with a review of the limitations of our protocol and the lessons learned. We hope that a robust public discussion of such protocols and the ethical challenges they raise will result in the fairest possible processes, less need for triage, and more lives saved during future waves of the pandemic and similar public health emergencies. (shrink)

Electrical resistivity and ac-calorimetric measurements reveal a complex magnetic phase diagram for single crystals of the ferromagnetic Kondo-lattice compound CeAgSb2 at high pressures up to 80 kbar. The ferromagnetic order at TC = 9.6 K at ambient pressure is completely suppressed at a critical pressure PC = 35 kbar. Another magnetic transition, possibly antiferromagnetic, found above 27 kbar, attains a maximum value TN 6 K at 44 kbar and then appears to be completely suppressed by 50 kbar. Thermodynamic and transport (...) measurements in the ferromagnetic state indicate an energy gap Δ 30 K in the spin-wave excitation spectrum at ambient pressure which decreases to Δ 10 K at P = 30 kbar. No superconductivity is observed at ambient pressure above T 0.1 K, under applied pressure in the ferromagnetic state (P = 28.5 kbar), nor in the antiferromagnetic state (P = 33 − 46 kbar) above 0.3 K. © 2003 The American Physical Society. (shrink)

The empirical literature exploring lawyers and their moral decision making is limited despite the “crisis” of unethical and unprofessional behavior in the bar that has been well documented for over a decade. In particular we are unaware of any empirical studies that investigate the moral landscape of the health lawyer’s practice. In an effort to address this gap in the literature, an interdisciplinary team of researchers at Vanderbilt University designed an empirical study to gather preliminary evidence regarding the moral reasoning (...) of health care attorneys. The primary research question was how health lawyers respond when they encounter ethical or moral dilemmas in their practice for which the law fails to offer a bright-line solution. In exploring this question, we sought to understand better what motivations or influences guide action when health lawyers confront ethical quandaries, and whether there are specific differences, e.g., gender, experience, or religiosity, that are associated with specific responses to situations testing ethical or moral boundaries. (shrink)

Writing in 1999, legal ethics scholar Brad Wendel noted that “[v]ery little empirical work has been done on the moral decision making of lawyers.” Indeed, since the mid-1990s, few empirical studies have attempted to explore how attorneys deliberate about ethical dilemmas they encounter in their practice. Moreover, while past research has explored some of the ethical issues confronting lawyers practicing in certain specific areas of practice, no published data exists probing the moral mind of health care lawyers. As signaled by (...) the creation of a regular column “devoted to ethical issues arising in the practice of health law” in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, the time to address the empirical gap in the professional ethics literature is now. Accordingly, this article presents data collected from 120 health care lawyers. Presenting this population with a number of hypothetical scenarios relating to how they would respond when confronting an ethical dilemma without an obvious solution or when facing a situation in which their personal values were in tension with their professional obligations, this article represents a first step toward better understanding how lawyers who practice in health care settings understand and resolve the moral discomfort they encounter in their professional lives. (shrink)

Machine learning algorithms may radically improve our ability to diagnose and treat disease. For moral, legal, and scientific reasons, it is essential that doctors and patients be able to understand and explain the predictions of these models. Scalable, customisable, and ethical solutions can be achieved by working together with relevant stakeholders, including patients, data scientists, and policy makers.

First I employ Bayes's Theorem to give some precision to the atheologian's thesis that it is improbable that God exists given the amount of evil in the world (E). Two arguments result from this: (1) E disconfirms God's existence, and (2) E tends to disconfirm God's existence. Secondly, I evaluate these inductive arguments, suggesting against (1) that the atheologian has abstracted from and hence failed to consider the total evidence, and against (2) that the atheologian's evidence adduced to support his (...) thesis regarding the relevant probabilities is inadequate. (shrink)

An analysis of the use of "necessary" in the cosmological argument reveals that the criticism of it, i.e., that its conclusion is self-contradictory because no existential proposition can be logically necessary, is due to the mistaken contention that the necessity involved is logical rather than conditional necessity.

Local food systems can have economic and social benefits by providing income for producers and improving community connections. Ongoing global climate change and the acute COVID-19 pandemic crisis have shown the importance of building equity and resilience in local food systems. We interviewed ten stakeholders from organizations and institutions in a U.S. midwestern city exploring views on past, current, and future conditions to address the following two objectives: 1) Assess how local food system equity and resilience were impacted by the (...) COVID-19 pandemic, and 2) Examine how policy and behavior changes could support greater equity and resilience within urban local food systems. We used the Community Capitals Framework to organize interviewees’ responses for qualitative analyses of equity and resilience. Four types of community capital were emphasized by stakeholders: cultural and social, natural, and political capital. Participants stated that the local food system in this city is small; more weaknesses in food access, land access, and governance were described than were strengths in both pre- and post-pandemic conditions. Stakeholder responses also reflected lack of equity and resilience in the local food system, which was most pronounced for cultural and social, natural and political capitals. However, local producers’ resilience during the pandemic, which we categorized as human capital, was a notable strength. An improved future food system could incorporate changes in infrastructure (e.g., food processing), markets (e.g., values-based markets) and cultural values (e.g., valuing local food through connections between local producers and consumers). These insights could inform policy and enhance community initiatives and behavior changes to build more equitable and resilient local food systems in urban areas throughout the U.S. Midwest. (shrink)

BackgroundIn the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Minds (CAHHM) cohort, participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain, heart, and abdomen, that generated incidental findings (IFs). The approach to managing these unexpected results remain a complex issue. Our objectives were to describe the CAHHM policy for the management of IFs, to understand the impact of disclosing IFs to healthy research participants, and to reflect on the ethical obligations of researchers in future MRI studies.MethodsBetween 2013 and 2019, 8252 participants (...) (mean age 58 ± 9 years, 54% women) were recruited with a follow-up questionnaire administered to 909 participants (40% response rate) at 1-year. The CAHHM policy followed a restricted approach, whereby routine feedback on IFs was not provided. Only IFs of severe structural abnormalities were reported.ResultsSevere structural abnormalities occurred in 8.3% (95% confidence interval 7.7–8.9%) of participants, with the highest proportions found in the brain (4.2%) and abdomen (3.1%). The majority of participants (97%) informed of an IF reported no change in quality of life, with 3% of participants reporting that the knowledge of an IF negatively impacted their quality of life. Furthermore, 50% reported increased stress in learning about an IF, and in 95%, the discovery of an IF did not adversely impact his/her life insurance policy. Most participants (90%) would enrol in the study again and perceived the MRI scan to be beneficial, regardless of whether they were informed of IFs. While the implications of a restricted approach to IF management was perceived to be mostly positive, a degree of diagnostic misconception was present amongst participants, indicating the importance of a more thorough consent process to support participant autonomy.ConclusionThe management of IFs from research MRI scans remain a challenging issue, as participants may experience stress and a reduced quality of life when IFs are disclosed. The restricted approach to IF management in CAHHM demonstrated a fair fulfillment of the overarching ethical principles of respect for autonomy, concern for wellbeing, and justice. The approach outlined in the CAHHM policy may serve as a framework for future research studies.Clinical trial registrationhttps://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/nct02220582. (shrink)

Studies of the conceptual abilities of nonhuman primates demonstrate the substantial range of these abilities as well as their limitations. Such abilities range from categorization on the basis of shared physical attributes, associative relations and functions to abstract concepts as reflected in analogical reasoning about relations between relations. The pattern of results from these studies point to a fundamental distinction between monkeys and apes in both their implicit and explicit conceptual capacities. Monkeys, but not apes, might be best regarded as (...) “paleo‐logicans” in the sense that they form common class concepts of identity on the basis of identical predicates (i.e., shared features). The discrimination of presumably more abstract relations commonly involves relatively simple procedural strategies mediated by associative processes likely shared by all mammals. There is no evidence that monkeys can perceive, let alone judge, relations‐between‐relations. This analogical conceptual capacity is found only in chimpanzees and humans. Interestingly, the “analogical ape,” like the child, can make its analogical knowledge explicit only if it is first provided with a symbol system by which propositional representations can be encoded and manipulated. (shrink)