Ethical decision-making in public health rarely involves simply avoiding a bad choice in favor of a good choice. Instead, it requires policymakers to strike a balance among conflicting goals that are all good—goals such as the health of populations and individuals, knowledge gained through scientific research, autonomy, social justice, and the efficient use of limited resources. This balance can be elusive, and perfect examples are the legal instruments governing dual-use research, a term describing scientific endeavors meant to produce beneficial knowledge (...) or technology, but that could also be misapplied. Dual-use research of concern policies were implemented... (shrink)

(1997). An inside‐out story: Verbal image and pictorial image in the french prose lancelot. The European Legacy: Vol. 2, Fourth International Conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas, pp. 191-198.

: This response to the preceding article by Gastmans, Dierckx de Casterle, and Schotsmans challenges the notion of "good care" as the ultimate goal of nursing practice, explores further the possible goals of nursing and how they may be identified, and presents six elements of professional caring along with their related virtues and moral obligations.

Focusing on clothing and adornment (dress), this worldwide cross-cultural comparison asks why people in some societies appear to dress in uniform or standardized ways, whereas in other societies individuals display considerable variability in dress. The broader research question is why some societies have more within-group variation than others. Hypotheses are tested on 80 societies drawn from the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS). The central hypotheses consider the impact of general societal tightness or looseness, degree of egalitarianism as well as other aspects (...) of societal complexity, and the role of resource stress on dress standardization. Exploratory methods identify four latent constructs of dress from newly coded variables, one latent construct for tightness/looseness, and one latent construct for resource stress. As expected, (1) increased societal tightness was positively related to increased standardization and rules regarding dress and (2) increased resource stress is generally related to more standardization of dress and rules regarding adornment. However, contrary to theoretical expectations, the predictors of tightness–looseness differ from the predictors of dress. Most importantly, resource stress negatively predicts tightness but positively predicts three of the latent dress constructs. The relationship between dress standardization and societal complexity may be curvilinear, with mid-range societies having more standardization. Although some of the theorized relationships are supported (including that standardization of dress is predicted by societal tightness and more resource stress), at the end of paper we discuss some puzzling findings, speculate about possible explanations, and suggest further lines of research. (shrink)

Previous research on warfare in a worldwide sample of societies by Ember and Ember (Journal of Conflict Resolution, 36, 242–262, 1992a) found a strong relationship between resource unpredictability (particularly food scarcity caused by natural disasters) in nonstate, nonpacified societies and overall warfare frequency. Focusing on eastern Africa, a region frequently plagued with subsistence uncertainty as well as violence, this paper explores the relationships between resource problems, including resource unpredictability, chronic scarcity, and warfare frequencies. It also examines whether resource scarcity predicts (...) more resource-taking in land, movable property, and people, as well as the commission of atrocities. Results support previous worldwide results regarding the relationship between resource unpredictability and warfare frequency. Results regarding resource-taking and atrocities are more nuanced and complex. In almost all findings, relationships are generally in opposite directions in nonstate and state societies. In post-hoc analyses, atrocities are significantly more likely to be committed in states than in nonstates. (shrink)

Development and targeting efforts by academic organizations to effectively promote research integrity can be enhanced if they are able to collect reliable data to benchmark baseline conditions, to assess areas needing improvement, and to subsequently assess the impact of specific initiatives. To date, no standardized and validated tool has existed to serve this need. A web- and mail-based survey was administered in the second half of 2009 to 2,837 randomly selected biomedical and social science faculty and postdoctoral fellows at 40 (...) academic health centers in top-tier research universities in the United States. Measures included the Survey of Organizational Research Climate (SORC) as well as measures of perceptions of organizational justice. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses yielded seven subscales of organizational research climate, all of which demonstrated acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach’s α ranging from 0.81 to 0.87) and adequate test–retest reliability (Pearson r ranging from 0.72 to 0.83). A broad range of correlations between the seven subscales and five measures of organizational justice (unadjusted regression coefficients ranging from 0.13 to 0.95) document both construct and discriminant validity of the instrument. The SORC demonstrates good internal (alpha) and external reliability (test–retest) as well as both construct and discriminant validity. (shrink)

This essay argues that scientific progress in STEM areas and US national biosecurity are best achieved when US scientists self-regulate, work to influence the lawmaking process at every stage of their career, and welcome or even initiate interactions with the public. Events that draw negative public attention drive laws because laws are proposed by elected representatives of the public. Laws are therefore reactive in nature, as are regulations promulgated by agencies that implement these laws. Laws and regulations are difficult and (...) time-consuming to change.While scientists provide testimony and serve on expert panels that produce reports to Congress, only a very few... (shrink)

We examine and test alternative models for explaining the relationships between resource stress, beliefs that gods and spirits influence weather, and customary beyond-household sharing behavior. Our model, the resource stress model, suggests that resource stress affects both sharing as well as conceptions of gods’ involvement with weather, but these supernatural beliefs play no role in explaining sharing. An alternative model, the moralizing high god model, suggests that the relationship between resource stress and sharing is at least partially mediated by religious (...) beliefs in moralizing high gods. We compared the models using a worldwide sample of 96 cultures from the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample, newly coded data on supernatural involvement with weather, and previously coded data on food and labor sharing. We conducted three types of analysis: multilevel and society-level regressions, and mediational path modeling using Monte Carlo simulations. Resource stress shows a robust effect on beliefs that high gods are associated with weather, that superior gods help the food supply through weather, and that minor spirits hurt the food supply through weather. Resource stress also predicts greater belief in moralizing high gods. However, no form of high god belief that we test significantly predicts more sharing. Mediational models suggest the religious beliefs do not significantly explain why resource stress is associated with food and labor sharing. Our findings generally accord with the view that resource stress changes religious belief and has a direct effect on sharing behavior, unmediated by high god beliefs. (shrink)

The federal government is funding a sea change in health care by investing in interventions targeting social determinants of health, which are significant contributors to illness and health inequity. This funding power has encouraged states, professional and accreditation organizations, health care entities, and providers to focus heavily on social determinants. We examine how this shift in focus affects clinical practice in the fields of oncology and emergency medicine, and highlight potential areas of reform.

The papers in this special issue of Human Nature collectively consider societal and individual responses to a wide variety of environmental and social risks. The first paper considers societal level effects of pathogen risk on collectivism and conformity, avoidance of outsiders, and in-group loyalty in a worldwide cross-cultural sample. The second deals with societal-level effects of resource unpredictability on the nature and conduct of warfare in eastern Africa. The third deals with effects of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes and mediating factors (...) on individual perceptions of risk in Mexico and Ecuador. The final paper deals with effects of various types of father absence on women’s reproductive life histories in Bangladesh. (shrink)

The HRAF databases, eHRAF World Cultures and eHRAF Archaeology, each containing large corpora of curated text subject-indexed at the paragraph-level by anthropologists, were designed to facilitate rapid retrieval of information. The texts describe social and cultural life in past and present societies around the world. As of the spring of 2018, eHRAF contains almost three million indexed “paragraph” units from over 8000 documents describing over 400 societies and archaeological traditions. This chapter first discusses concrete problems of scale resulting from large (...) numbers of complex elements retrieved by any given search. Second, we discuss potential and partial solutions that resolve these problems to advance research, whether based on specific hypotheses, classification or identifying and evaluating embedded patterns of relationships. Third, we discuss new kinds of research possibilities that can be further advanced, have not yet been successfully attempted, or have not even been considered using anthropological data because of scale and complexity of achieving a result. (shrink)

Background: The factors influencing parents’ willingness to enroll their children in biobanks are poorly understood. This study sought to assess parents’ willingness to enroll their children, and their perceived benefits, concerns, and information needs under different consent and data-sharing scenarios, and to identify factors associated with willingness. Methods: This large, experimental survey of patients at the 11 eMERGE Network sites used a disproportionate stratified sampling scheme to enrich the sample with historically underrepresented groups. Participants were randomized to receive one of (...) three consent and data-sharing scenarios. Results: In total, 90,000 surveys were mailed and 13,000 individuals responded (15.8% response rate). 5737 respondents were parents of minor children. Overall, 55% (95% confidence interval 50–59%) of parents were willing to enroll their youngest minor child in a hypothetical biobank; willingness did not differ between consent and data-sharing scenarios. Lower educational attainment, higher religiosity, lower trust, worries about privacy, and attitudes about benefits, concerns, and information needs were independently associated with less willingness to allow their child to participate. Of parents who were willing to participate themselves, 25% were not willing to allow their child to participate. Being willing to participate but not willing to allow one’s child to participate was independently associated with multiple factors, including race, lower educational attainment, lower annual household income, public health care insurance, and higher religiosity. Conclusions: Fifty-five percent of parents were willing to allow their youngest minor child to participate in a hypothetical biobank. Building trust, protecting privacy, and addressing attitudes may increase enrollment and diversity in pediatric biobanks. (shrink)

The Survey of Organizational Research Climate (SORC) is a validated tool to facilitate promotion of research integrity and research best practices. This work uses the SORC to assess shared and individual perceptions of the research climate in universities and academic departments and relate these perceptions to desirable and undesirable research practices. An anonymous web- and mail-based survey was administered to randomly selected biomedical and social science faculty and postdoctoral fellows in the United States. Respondents reported their perceptions of the research (...) climates at their universities and primary departments, and the frequency with which they engaged in desirable and undesirable research practices. More positive individual perceptions of the research climate in one’s university or department were associated with higher likelihoods of desirable, and lower likelihoods of undesirable, research practices. Shared perceptions of the research climate tended to be similarly predictive of both desirable and undesirable research practices as individuals’ deviations from these shared perceptions. Study results supported the central prediction that more positive SORC-measured perceptions of the research climate were associated with more positive reports of research practices. There were differences with respect to whether shared or individual climate perceptions were related to desirable or undesirable practices but the general pattern of results provide empirical evidence that the SORC is predictive of self-reported research behavior. (shrink)

Recent reports of the discovery of a “God module” in the human brain derive from the fact that epileptic seizures in the left temporal lobe are associated with ecstatic feelings sometimes described as an experience of the presence of God. The brain area involved has been described as either (a) the seat of an innate human faculty for experiencing the divine or (b) the seat of religious delusions.In fact, religious experience is extremely various and involves many parts of the brain, (...) including some that are prehuman in their evolutionary history and some that are characteristically human. In the continuing integration of such experiences, spiritual formation takes place. Thus the entire human brain might be described as a “God module.”Such a process is only possible because of the brain's complexity. The human brain is the most complex entity for its size that we know of. As used here, complexity is a specialized term denoting the presence of a web of interlinked and significant connections—the more intricate the web, the more complex the entity. Complex systems develop only in a milieu that provides both lawfulness and freedom, and they tend to be self‐organizing, becoming more complex and more effective as a result of both inward and outward experience. The evidence suggests that both personal growth and spiritual growth are processes of complexification of character, and of the brain itself. This thesis is tested in light of the work of William James and James W. Fowler. (shrink)

In the contemporary flurry of hostile corporate takeover activity, the ethics of the practice of greenmail have been called into question. The authors provide an account of greenmail in parallel with Daniel Ellsberg's conception of blackmail, as consisting of two conditions: a threat condition and a compliance condition.The analysis then proceeds to consider two questions: Is all greenmail morally wrong? Are all hostile takeovers morally wrong? The authors conclude that there is no basis for answering either question in the affirmative. (...) While there is no cause for moral concern per se, the practices of both greenmail and hostile takeovers yield deeper and more interesting questions for the theory of corporate governance. (shrink)

Research on bias in peer review examines scholarly communication and funding processes to assess the epistemic and social legitimacy of the mechanisms by which knowledge communities vet and self-regulate their work. Despite vocal concerns, a closer look at the empirical and methodological limitations of research on bias raises questions about the existence and extent of many hypothesized forms of bias. In addition, the notion of bias is predicated on an implicit ideal that, once articulated, raises questions about the normative implications (...) of research on bias in peer review. This review provides a brief description of the function, history, and scope of peer review; articulates and critiques the conception of bias unifying research on bias in peer review; characterizes and examines the empirical, methodological, and normative claims of bias in peer review research; and assesses possible alternatives to the status quo. We close by identifying ways to expand conceptions and studies of bias to countenance the complexity of social interactions among actors involved directly and indirectly in peer review. (shrink)

The field of behavioral ethics has seen considerable growth over the last few decades. One of the most significant concerns facing this interdisciplinary field of research is the moral judgment-action gap. The moral judgment-action gap is the inconsistency people display when they know what is right but do what they know is wrong. Much of the research in the field of behavioral ethics is based on early work in moral psychology and American psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg’s foundational cognitive model of moral (...) development. However, Kohlberg’s model of moral development lacks a compelling explanation for the judgment-action gap. Yet, it continues to influence theory, research, teaching, and practice in business ethics today. As such, this paper presents a critical review and analysis of the pertinent literature. This paper also reviews modern theories of ethical decision making in business ethics. Gaps in our current understanding and directions for future research in behavioral business ethics are presented. By providing this important theoretical background information, targeted critical analysis, and directions for future research, this paper assists management scholars as they begin to seek a more unified approach, develop newer models of ethical decision making, and conduct business ethics research that examines the moral judgment-action gap. (shrink)