Distributing Blame Among Multiple Entities When Autonomous Technologies Cause Harm.

As autonomous technology emerges, new variations in old questions arise. When autonomous technologies cause harm, who is to blame? The current studies compare reactions toward harms caused by human-controlled vehicles (HCVs) or human soldiers (HSs) to identical harms by autonomous vehicles (AVs) or autonomous robot soldiers. Drivers of HCVs, or HSs, were blamed more than mere users of AVs or HSs who outsourced their duties to ARSs. However, as human drivers/soldiers became less involved in (or were unaware of the preprogramming that led to) the harm, blame was redirected toward other entities (i.e., manufacturers and the tech company's executives), showing the opposite pattern as human drivers/soldiers. Results were robust to how blame was measured (i.e., degrees of blame versus apportionment of total blame). Overall, this research furthers the blame literature, raising questions about why, how (much), and to whom blame is assigned when multiple agents are potentially culpable.

The effects of explicit reasoning on moral judgements.

We report four experiments that investigate explicit reasoning and moral judgements. In each experiment, some subjects responded to the "footbridge" version of the trolley problem (which elicits stronger moral intuitions), whereas others responded to the "switch" version (which elicits weaker moral intuitions). Experiments 1-2 crossed the type of trolley problem with four reasoning conditions: control, counter-attitudinal, pro-attitudinal, and mixed reasoning (both types of reasoning). Experiments 3-4 examine whether moral judgements vary based on (a) when reasoners engage in counter-attitudinal reasoning, (b) when they make the moral judgement, and (c) by the type of moral dilemma. These two experiments comprised five conditions: control (judgement only), delay-only (2-minute wait then judgement), reasoning-only (reasoning then judgement), reasoning-delay (reasoning, then 2-minute delay, then judgement), and delayed-reasoning (2-minute delay, then reasoning, then judgement). These conditions were crossed with the type of trolley problem. We find that engaging in some form of counter-attitudinal reasoning led to less typical judgements (regardless of when it occurs), but this effect was mostly restricted to the switch version of the dilemma (and was strongest in the reasoning-delay conditions). Furthermore, neither pro-attitudinal reasoning nor delayed judgements on their own impacted subjects' judgements. Reasoners therefore seem open to modifying their moral judgements when they consider opposing perspectives but might be less likely to do so for dilemmas that elicit relatively strong moral intuitions.

Personality and misinformation.

Misinformation poses a significant concern, promoting false beliefs and eroding trust in media. People differ in their susceptibility to believe and to share misinformation. In this article, we reviewed recent research on relationships between personality traits and belief in and sharing of misinformation. Findings show that more extroverted and less conscientious and agreeable people tend to be more susceptible to believing in and sharing misinformation. Additionally, the Dark Triad personality traits of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism tend to be positively associated with sharing of misinformation, and narcissism and psychopathy are associated with greater belief in misinformation. Understanding these individual differences can inform interventions to reduce the effects of misinformation.

Individual Differences in Belief in Fake News about Election Fraud after the 2020 U.S. Election.

Fake news is a serious problem because it misinforms people about important issues. The present study examined belief in false headlines about election fraud after the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Belief in election fraud had dangerous consequences, including the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in January 2021. In the present study, participants rated the truthfulness of true and false headlines about the election, and then completed individual difference measures eight days after the election. Participants with more conservative ideology, greater presidential approval of the outgoing president, greater endorsement of general conspiracy narratives and poorer cognitive reflection demonstrated greater belief in false headlines about election fraud. Additionally, consuming more politically conservative election news was associated with greater belief in false headlines. Identifying the factors related to susceptibility to false claims of election fraud offers a path toward countering the influence of these claims by tailoring interventions aimed at decreasing belief in misinformation and decreasing conspiracy beliefs to those most susceptible.

Does the "surprisingly popular" method yield accurate crowdsourced predictions?

The "surprisingly popular" method (SP) of aggregating individual judgments has shown promise in overcoming a weakness of other crowdsourcing methods-situations in which the majority is incorrect. This method relies on participants' estimates of other participants' judgments; when an option is chosen more often than the average metacognitive judgments of that option, it is "surprisingly popular" and is selected by the method. Although SP has been shown to improve group decision making about factual propositions (e.g., state capitals), its application to future outcomes has been limited. In three preregistered studies, we compared SP to other methods of aggregating individual predictions about future events. Study 1 examined predictions of football games, Study 2 examined predictions of the 2018 US midterm elections, and Study 3 examined predictions of basketball games. When applied to judgments made by objectively assessed experts, SP performed slightly better than other aggregation methods. Although there is still more to learn about the conditions under which SP is effective, it shows promise as a means of crowdsourcing predictions of future outcomes.

The effects of early schema acquisition on mathematical problem solving.

The current paper explores the effects of providing people with schema training at the outset of learning (compared to at later stages) on mathematical word problems modeled after problems from the Graduate Record Examination. Additionally, the ratio of worked examples to problem-solving practice was manipulated. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions and were tested on near and far transfer problems. Participants provided schema training at the outset of learning outperformed those provided schema training after problem-solving practice, particularly on far transfer problems. Likewise, participants provided with a higher ratio of worked examples to problem-solving practice demonstrated better performance during testing than those provided with more problem-solving practice and fewer worked examples. These findings extend the worked example effect to far transfer problems and suggest that providing schema training prior to learning solution strategies may be effective in improving mathematical problem solving.

Future self-continuity is associated with improved health and increases exercise behavior.

To the extent that people feel more continuity between their present and future selves, they are more likely to make decisions with the future self in mind. The current studies examined future self-continuity in the context of health. In Study 1, people reported the extent to which they felt similar and connected to their future self; people with more present-future continuity reported having better subjective health across a variety of measures. In Study 2, people were randomly assigned to write a letter to themselves either three months or 20 years into the future; people for whom continuity with the distant future self was enhanced exercised more in the days following the writing task. These findings suggest that future self-continuity promotes adaptive long-term health behavior, suggesting the promise of interventions enhancing future self-continuity. (PsycINFO Database Record

Handling Ibuprofen increases pain tolerance and decreases perceived pain intensity in a cold pressor test.

Pain contributes to health care costs, missed work and school, and lower quality of life. Extant research on psychological interventions for pain has focused primarily on developing skills that individuals can apply to manage their pain. Rather than examining internal factors that influence pain tolerance (e.g., pain management skills), the current work examines factors external to an individual that can increase pain tolerance. Specifically, the current study examined the nonconscious influence of exposure to meaningful objects on the perception of pain. Participants (N = 54) completed a cold pressor test, examined either ibuprofen or a control object, then completed another cold pressor test. In the second test, participants who previously examined ibuprofen reported experiencing less intense pain and tolerated immersion longer (relative to baseline) than those who examined the control object. Theoretical and applied implications of these findings are discussed.

Shedding light on insight: Priming bright ideas.

Previous research has characterized insight as the product of internal processes, and has thus investigated the cognitive and motivational processes that immediately precede it. In this research, however, we investigate whether insight can be catalyzed by a cultural artifact, an external object imbued with learned meaning. Specifically, we exposed participants to an illuminating lightbulb - an iconic image of insight - prior to or during insight problem-solving. Across four studies, exposing participants to an illuminating lightbulb primed concepts associated with achieving an insight, and enhanced insight problem-solving in three different domains (spatial, verbal, and mathematical), but did not enhance general (non-insight) problem-solving.

Do healthy people worry? Modern health worries, subjective health complaints, perceived health, and health care utilization.

BACKGROUND: Modern health worries (MHW) are concerns related to modern or technological features of daily life (e.g., air pollution, x-rays, food additives, etc.), and have been associated with subjective health complaints (SHC) and health care use. PURPOSE: The MHW scale was expected to predict aspects of health status in healthy individuals (e.g., health care visits, health perceptions, and medication use). SHC was thought to mediate the relationship between MHW and health care use. Likewise, negative affect was considered to mediate the relationship between MHW and SHC. METHOD: University students (n = 432) completed assessments for MHW, SHC, perceptions of health, medication use, and health care visits. RESULTS: MHW were positively related to the number of subjective health complaints with negative affect partially driving this relationship. MHW were negatively related to reports of present health and medication use. MHW were marginally related, whereas SHC were significantly associated with health care utilization. CONCLUSION: Concerns over modern technology appear to influence symptom reporting, perceptions of current health, medication use, and, to a degree, visits to health care providers even in young healthy samples.