Politics and the Life Sciences最新文献

The endorsement of conspiracy theories may be increased by subjectively perceived stress. Yet, it is not known whether this correlation is caused by the effects of the acute stress reaction on the brain or other psychological, social, or methodological factors. The effect of an experimentally induced acute stress reaction on conspiracy thinking was tested on a sample (n = 115) of students of medicine. Although the stress procedure caused a substantial increase in salivary cortisol, there was no significant effect on endorsing conspiracy theories or adopting conspiracy interpretations of novel information. The results confirmed no effect of the acute stress reaction on conspiracy thinking, suggesting it may be absent or weaker than expected. The study demonstrated the viability of psychophysiological experimental design in conspiracy research and may inspire further examination of the physiological mechanisms underlying susceptibility to conspiracy theories.

Emerging societal expectations from biomedical research and intensifying international scientific competition are becoming existential matters. Based on a review of pertinent evidence, this article analyzes challenges and formulates public policy recommendations for improving productivity and impact of life sciences. Critical risks include widespread quality defects of research, particularly non-reproducible results, and narrow access to scientifically sound information giving advantage to health misinformation. In funding life sciences, the simultaneous shift to nondemocratic societies is an added challenge. Simply spending more on research will not be enough in the global competition. Considering the pacesetter role of the federal government, five national policy recommendations are put forward: (i) funding projects with comprehensive expectations of reproducibility; (ii) public-private partnerships for contemporaneous quality support in laboratories; (iii) making research institutions accountable for quality control; (iv) supporting new quality filtering standards for scientific journals and repositories, and (v) establishing a new network of centers for scientific health communications.

In the absence of a treaty protocol or verification regime, the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) instituted confidence-building measures (CBMs) as a mechanism to increase confidence in compliance by enhancing transparency and mitigating ambiguities regarding states parties' biological activities. While a promising tool to support treaty compliance, low participation, concerns regarding the completeness and accuracy of CBM submissions, a dearth of analysis, and restricted access to many submissions have limited CBMs' value. Through interviews with 53 international experts-38 from BWC delegations and 15 independent experts-we identified concrete opportunities to increase CBMs' value while mitigating the burden on states parties. This study supports states parties' efforts in the BWC Working Group on the Strengthening of the Convention, as part of a series of research on BWC assurance that aims to characterize challenges around BWC verification and increase certainty in BWC compliance.

There is growing concern about the impact of declining political trust on democracies. Psychological research has introduced the concept of epistemic (mis)trust as a stable disposition acquired through development, which may influence our sociopolitical engagement. Given trust's prominence in current politics, we examined the relationship between epistemic trust and people's choices of (un)trustworthy political leaders. In two representative samples in the UK and US (N = 1096), we tested whether epistemic trust predicts political leader choices through three political dimensions: dogmatism, political trust, and ideology. Although epistemic trust did not directly predict choices of political leaders, it predicted dogmatism and political ideology, which in turn predicted choices of political leaders. A network analysis revealed that epistemic trust and political dimensions only interact through their common connection with dogmatism. These findings suggest that cognitive and affective development may underlie an individual's political ideology and associated beliefs.

In this paper, I question the argument from human dignity found in the Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights (UDHGHR) and in the recent views of the International Bioethics Committee (IBC). I focus on what this argument says about the permissibility of two broad categories of reprogenetic choices that may be available to prospective parents in the genomic era. The argument from human dignity holds that non-medical genetic selection and somatic enhancements ought to be prohibited because they violate the principle of human dignity. I argue that human dignity need not be violated by the enterprise of human genetic selection/somatic enhancement if reasonable social safeguards are established. In particular, I argue that respecting the reprogenetic choices of the decision-maker is paramount within the boundaries of (i) prohibiting the infliction of a shortened lifespan or pain upon the child; (ii) prohibiting the actualization of demeaning beliefs or intentions such as viewing certain groups as inferior; (iii) prohibiting the choice resulting from an expression of unwillingness to love and care for the child; and, with respect to somatic gene enhancements in particular, (iv) the potentially unjustified effects of the enhancement on others, if any, are reasonably addressable (and addressed) via social modifications so as to ensure the enhancement no longer risks adversely affecting them. With these limits, reprogenetic autonomy cannot be said to undermine the dignity of humans by creating unjustified harms or expressing demeaning ideas.

The field of misinformation studies has experienced a boom of scholarship in recent years. Buoyed by the emergence of information operations surrounding the 2016 election and the rise of so-called "fake news," researchers hailing from fields ranging from philosophy to computer science have taken up the challenge of detecting, analyzing, and theorizing false and misleading information online. In an attempt to understand the spread of misinformation online, researchers have adapted concepts from different disciplines. Concepts from epidemiology, for example, have opened doors to thinking about spread, contagion, and resistance. The life sciences offer concepts and theories to further extend what we know about how misinformation adapts; by viewing information as an organism within a complex ecosystem, we can better understand why some narratives succeed and others fail. Collaborations between misinformation researchers and life scientists to develop responsible adaptations of fitness models can bolster misinformation research.

Research in social psychology has long argued that exposure to objectifying portrayals of women can lead to increasingly misogynist attitudes and behavior. We argue that such images can also impact on gendered policy attitudes. We suggest that objectifying images prime sexist attitudes and reduce perceptions of women's agency, warmth, and competence. We argue that this may translate into decreased support for reproductive rights and other gender-salient policies. Furthermore, these effects may vary by the gender of those exposed to these images. In two survey experiments with brief exposures to objectifying images, we find mixed support for these predictions. Although we find some negative effects as predicted, we also find positive effects of objectification among women in the sample that are suggestive of a backlash effect. We discuss potential explanations for this heterogeneity. Overall, our results suggest interesting avenues to further explore the effects of objectification on political outcomes.

This preregistered study replicates and extends studies concerning emotional response to wartime rally speeches and applies it to U.S. President Donald Trump's first national address regarding the COVID-19 pandemic on March 11, 2020. We experimentally test the effect of a micro-expression (ME) by Trump associated with appraised threat on change in participant self-reported distress, sadness, anger, affinity, and reassurance while controlling for followership. We find that polarization is perpetuated in emotional response to the address which focused on portraying the COVID-19 threat as being of Chinese provenance. We also find a significant, albeit slight, effect by Trump's ME on self-reported sadness, suggesting that this facial behavior served did not diminish his speech, instead serving as a form of nonverbal punctuation. Further exploration of participant response using the Linguistic Inventory and Word Count software reinforces and extends these findings.

As the scientific community becomes aware of low replicability rates in the extant literature, peer-reviewed journals have begun implementing initiatives with the goal of improving replicability. Such initiatives center around various rules to which authors must adhere to demonstrate their engagement in best practices. Preliminary evidence in the psychological science literature demonstrates a degree of efficacy in these initiatives. With such efficacy in place, it would be advantageous for other fields of behavioral sciences to adopt similar measures. This letter provides a discussion on lessons learned from psychological science while similarly addressing the unique challenges of other sciences to adopt measures that would be most appropriate for their field. We offer broad considerations for peer-reviewed journals in their implementation of specific policies and recommend that governing bodies of science prioritize the funding of research that addresses these measures.

Recently, there has been growing interest in the concept of political anxiety. One important question that remains unanswered is whether political anxiety is just a symptom of general anxiety-that those reporting anxiety tied to politics are the same individuals who would already score highly on measures of general anxiety. Using survey data collected in 2023 (N = 436), we find that measures of political and generalized anxiety do not appear to be tapping into a single underlying construct. In addition, the systematic correlates of these measures identified by previous literature are not equivalent predictors of the different types of anxiety. Politics seems to be a source of apprehensiveness and worry that affects individuals who are not necessarily suffering from general anxiety.