Neurodualism... People Assume that the Brain Affects the Mind more than the Mind Affects the Brain, & distort claims about the brain from the wider culture to fit their dualist belief that minds and brains are distinct, interacting entities

Neurodualism: People Assume that the Brain Affects the Mind more than the Mind Affects the Brain. Jussi Valtonen, Woo-kyoung Ahn, Andrei Cimpian. Cognitive Science ,September 7 2021. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13034

Abstract: People commonly think of the mind and the brain as distinct entities that interact, a view known as dualism. At the same time, the public widely acknowledges that science attributes all mental phenomena to the workings of a material brain, a view at odds with dualism. How do people reconcile these conflicting perspectives? We propose that people distort claims about the brain from the wider culture to fit their dualist belief that minds and brains are distinct, interacting entities: Exposure to cultural discourse about the brain as the physical basis for the mind prompts people to posit that mind–brain interactions are asymmetric, such that the brain is able to affect the mind more than vice versa. We term this hybrid intuitive theory neurodualism. Five studies involving both thought experiments and naturalistic scenarios provided evidence of neurodualism among laypeople and, to some extent, even practicing psychotherapists. For example, lay participants reported that “a change in a person's brain” is accompanied by “a change in the person's mind” more often than vice versa. Similarly, when asked to imagine that “future scientists were able to alter exactly 25% of a person's brain,” participants reported larger corresponding changes in the person's mind than in the opposite direction. Participants also showed a similarly asymmetric pattern favoring the brain over the mind in naturalistic scenarios. By uncovering people's intuitive theories of the mind–brain relation, the results provide insights into societal phenomena such as the allure of neuroscience and common misperceptions of mental health treatments.

7 General discussion

We investigated intuitive theories of minds and brains in five studies with both lay participants and professional psychotherapists. We hypothesized that when reasoning about minds and brains, people rely on neurodualism—a hybrid intuitive theory that assimilates aspects of physicalist beliefs into pre-existing dualist intuitions, attributing more causal power to the brain over the mind than vice versa.

In all experiments and across several different tasks involving both thought experiments and naturalistic scenarios, untrained participants believed that interventions acting on the brain would affect the mind more than interventions acting on the mind would affect the brain, supporting our proposal. This causal asymmetry was strong and replicated reliably with untrained participants. Moreover, the extent to which participants endorsed popular dualism was only weakly correlated with their endorsement of neurodualism, supporting our proposal that a more complex set of beliefs is involved. In the last study, professional psychotherapists also showed evidence of endorsing neurodualism—albeit to a weaker degree—despite their scientific training and stronger reluctance, relative to lay participants, to believe that psychiatric medications affect the mind.

Our results both corroborate and extend prior findings regarding intuitive reasoning about minds and brains. Our results corroborate prior findings by showing, once again, that both laypeople and trained mental health professionals commonly hold dualistic beliefs. If their reasoning had been based on (folk versions of) a physicalist model, such as identity theory or supervenience, participants should not have expected mental events to occur in the absence of neural events. However, both lay participants and professional psychotherapists did consistently report that mental changes can occur (at least sometimes) even in situations in which no neural changes occur.

Our findings also extend prior findings by demonstrating that intuitive theories of minds and brains are considerably more complex than has previously been acknowledged. While it is widely agreed that dualistic beliefs are common (Ahn et al., 2017; Bloom, 2004; Forstmann & Burgmer, 2015; Miresco & Kirmayer, 2006; Mudrik & Maoz, 2014; Stanovich, 1989), how exactly people reason about the mind and brain in relation to each other has remained unclear. Our findings show that the fuller picture of intuitive theories is more nuanced than a mere belief that the mind and the brain are separate interacting entities. That intuitive theories can contain aspects of both popular-dualist and physicalist beliefs helps to explain why people's beliefs often seem internally inconsistent: While people often agree with the statement that the mind is not separable from the brain, they also endorse the view that the mind is not fundamentally physical (Demertzi et al., 2009). Similarly, even professional neuroscientists—who presumably endorse physicalist views—commonly discuss the brain in terms that conflict with physicalism (Greene, 2011; Mudrik & Maoz, 2014). Inconsistencies such as these are to be expected if people intuitively think of the mind as neither purely physical nor entirely independent of the brain, but rather embrace aspects of both of those views simultaneously. In fact, it is not uncommon for intuitive theories to take the form of hybrids that incorporate novel beliefs into existing theories whose original core is not lost even as the theories become increasingly complex (e.g., Hussak & Cimpian, 2019; Shtulman & Lombrozo, 2016).

Moreover, the current study sheds light on what this hybrid theory looks like. The results suggest that even if (and when) people are dualists, they perceive the brain neither as causally irrelevant for the mind nor as unresponsive to mental changes, but rather see the brain as a more commanding and robust causal agent than the mind. Future research will hopefully be able to capture further subtleties in intuitive theories of minds and brains. It seems likely that if researchers search for more fine-grained options than dichotomous dualist/antidualist positions in lay intuitions, increasingly fine-grained aspects may become visible.

7.1 Broader implications for theory and practice

7.1.1 Relation to the popular allure of neuroscience

Our findings may help to explain the intense fascination that the general public and mass media show for neuroscience research (Beck, 2010; O'Connor, Rees, & Joffe, 2012). If the general public is reluctant to believe that changes in the mind always correspond to changes in the brain, neuroscience findings showing that what happens in our minds happens in our brains as well contradict this belief and may thereby be particularly intriguing. Neurodualism may also help explain why people find brain-related statements informative in the context of psychological explanations even when the statements are irrelevant (Weisberg, Keil, Goodstein, Rawson, & Gray, 2008; Fernandez-Duque, Evans, Christian, & Hodges, 2015). Conceivably, the intuitive tendency to privilege causal patterns in the brain-to-mind direction (i.e., neurodualism) may bias people to perceive causal brain-to-mind connections even when none exist, which may in turn make the addition of neuroscience evidence to a psychological explanation seem informative. Also consistent with this argument, Fernandez-Duque et al. (2015) found that (popular) dualistic beliefs alone did not predict their participants’ reasoning in these contexts. In future research, it would be useful to test whether endorsement of neurodualism does predict the tendency to view information about the brain as particularly explanatory even in cases where it is not.

On a different note, some authors have suggested that the allure of neuroscience explanations is not specific to beliefs about minds and brains but related to a more general preference for reductive information. Hopkins, Weisberg, and Taylor (2016) found that across different scientific disciplines, people generally preferred explanations that referred to processes perceived as more fundamental, even when these processes were logically irrelevant to the explanation. According to this view, information about the brain may be seen as particularly informative because it is perceived as operating at the next level of analysis below psychological phenomena (Fernandez-Duque, 2017). It seems likely, however, that the neurodualist intuitive theory identified in the present research and this general preference for reductive information are independent inputs into the public's fascination with neuroscience explanations. Importantly, neurodualism itself is not a reductionist theory: For instance, people report that changes in mental states are only sometimes accompanied by changes in brain states (see Studies 3–5). Beliefs such as these are not easily interpreted as evidence that people are treating the terms “mind” and “brain” as referring to the same phenomenon at different levels of analysis. A more plausible account is that a neurodualist intuitive theory and the preference for reductive explanations are two independent factors contributing to the public appeal of neuroscience.

7.1.2 Implications for reasoning about mental illness and health

The current results may help to make sense of common beliefs regarding treatment efficacy in mental health. When people think that the source of a mental health issue such as depression is in the brain, they perceive psychological interventions as less likely to be helpful (Ahn et al., 2017; Deacon & Baird, 2009; Kemp et al., 2014). The belief that a psychological treatment cannot be effective if the problem is reflected in brain processes is at odds with both a physicalist view of the mind and the empirical evidence (e.g., Linden, 2006; Lozano, 2011; Deacon, 2013). These beliefs are unfortunate from a practical viewpoint as well because prognostic beliefs often predict treatment outcomes (Rutherford, Wager, & Roose, 2010). That is, pessimistic expectancies can become self-fulfilling prophecies: Neurobiological causal attributions are associated with both lower treatment expectations and poorer psychosocial treatment outcomes in depression (Schroder et al., 2020). Our findings suggest that part of the reason for these effects may lie in the intuitive theories people use for reasoning about the mind and brain. Biological causal explanations may foster pessimism about the efficacy of psychotherapy partly because of an underlying intuitive theory ascribing relatively little power to the mind over the brain.

Fortunately, targeted education about the malleability of neurobiological factors in depression can help reduce prognostic pessimism and strengthen patients’ beliefs about their own ability to regulate their moods in depression (Lebowitz & Ahn, 2015), suggesting that these intuitions are not fixed or immutable. In future work, it would be worthwhile to investigate whether interventions that target people's intuitive theories of the relation between the mind and brain could also help mitigate the negative consequences of biological attributions for disorders such as depression.

While participants in our studies were reluctant to believe that acting on the mind can result in changes in the brain, they were more willing to endorse that acting on the brain can result in changes in the mind. This may help, in part, to explain why Western societies have so enthusiastically come to favor neurobiologically centered approaches to mental illness despite people's dualistic intuitions. Pharmacological treatments have become the predominant societal response to mental health conditions over the past decades. Although it is widely agreed that an adequate response to mental distress needs to address several nonreducible levels, Western cultures have allowed “the biopsychosocial model to become the bio-bio-bio model,” in the words of a previous president of the American Psychiatric Association (Sharfstein, 2005). Arguably, neither the enthusiasm nor the scale at which this approach has been implemented is easy to explain from a purely evidence-based perspective (Deacon, 2013; Whitaker & Cosgrove, 2015; UN Human Rights Council, 2017; Lacasse & Leo, 2005; Healy, 2015; Moncrieff & Cohen, 2006), and its success has been controversial at best (Danborg & Gøtzsche, 2019; Gøtzsche, Young, & Crace, 2015; Haslam & Kvaale, 2015; Hengartner, 2020; Ioannidis, 2019; Jakobsen et al., 2017; Munkholm, Paludan-Müller, & Boesen, 2019; Sohler et al., 2015). Why, then, do we continue to operate based “on faith that neuroscience will eventually revolutionize mental health practice,” if “[d]ecades of extraordinary investment in biomedical research have not been rewarded with improved clinical tools or outcomes” (Deacon, 2013, p. 858)? While numerous societal and institutional factors undoubtedly affect the situation in all its complexity (e.g., Moncrieff, 2006; Whitaker & Cosgrove, 2015), from a strictly cognitive perspective, it is conceivable that our intuitive theories—in particular, our willingness to believe in the brain as an asymmetrically powerful causal agent that can influence the mind—may have contributed and made the public prone to believe overstated neuroscientific claims. In a self-reinforcing cycle, the widescale implementation of any neurobiologically centered practices likely also loops back and shapes people's intuitive theories in ways that further increase the appeal of these practices.

7.1.3 Relation to the broader historical context

The intuitive theories documented here are undoubtedly a product of the current historical context: Several authors have suggested that many cultures are undergoing a transition toward understanding mind–brain relations in more materialistic terms (e.g., Mudrik & Maoz, 2014). As scientific inquiry has progressed, we as a culture have increasingly come to believe that it is the brain which controls faculties formerly associated with the soul, such as memory, language, and emotion. If the suggestion is correct that we are in the process of intuitively giving up the mind's and/or soul's functions to material brains (Greene, 2011), it is interesting to consider what are “the soul's last stands”—the most immaterial of our nonphysical capacities, the ones not yet outsourced to the brain.

7.2 Conclusion

It is important to keep in mind that, philosophically, the mind–body problem remains an unresolved paradox. Although materialist and physicalist views have been the working assumption of contemporary psychologists and neuroscientists and also the prevailing position in philosophy over the past decades, this does not mean that the original mind–body problem itself was resolved. It remains, to this day, extremely difficult to see how, if the mind is a nonphysical thing and the body is a physical thing, one could simply just be the other (or how they could interact, if we are dualists). It is helpful to remember that not only the general public but also (at least some) contemporary philosophers find the claim inherently implausible that the mind simply is a physical thing (e.g., Westphal, 2016). What people think the mind is, however, and how exactly they think it is related to the brain seems worth investigating further, both for theoretical and practical reasons.

Pandemics Initially Spread Among People of Higher (Not Lower) Social Status: Evidence From COVID-19 and the Spanish Flu

Pandemics Initially Spread Among People of Higher (Not Lower) Social Status: Evidence From COVID-19 and the Spanish Flu. Jana B. Berkessel et al. Social Psychological and Personality Science, September 7, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506211039990

Abstract: According to a staple in the social sciences, pandemics particularly spread among people of lower social status. Challenging this staple, we hypothesize that it holds true in later phases of pandemics only. In the initial phases, by contrast, people of higher social status should be at the center of the spread. We tested our phase-sensitive hypothesis in two studies. In Study 1, we analyzed region-level COVID-19 infection data from 3,132 U.S. regions, 299 English regions, and 400 German regions. In Study 2, we analyzed historical data from 1,159,920 U.S. residents who witnessed the 1918/1919 Spanish Flu pandemic. For both pandemics, we found that the virus initially spread more rapidly among people of higher social status. In later phases, that effect reversed; people of lower social status were most exposed. Our results provide novel insights into the center of the spread during the critical initial phases of pandemics.

Keywords: social status, pandemic spread, COVID-19, Spanish flu

Discussion

According to a staple in the social sciences, people of lower social status are particularly exposed to pandemics (O’Sullivan & Bourgoin, 2010; von Braun et al., 2020). Acknowledging that pandemics evolve in phases (World Health Organization, 2017; Zhang et al., 2020), we provided a more nuanced account. Specifically, we proposed that during the critical initial phases of pandemics, people of higher (not lower) social status are at the center of the spread. Our research builds on established social status theory in social psychology: People of higher social status exhibit more independent behavior, are more mobile, and possess more diverse social networks; people of lower social status exhibit more interdependent behavior, are less mobile, and possess more homogenous social networks (Carey & Markus, 2017; Kraus et al., 2012; Thomson et al., 2018). Further, our research helps reconcile findings from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that appeared contradictory (Drefahl et al., 2020; Mogi et al., 2020). Finally, our research makes much-needed progress toward a distinctively psychological theory of pandemics (Betsch, 2020; Van Bavel et al., 2020).

Across three nations, two pandemics, two levels of analysis, and different data sources, we found full support for our hypothesis. Study 1 used region-level infection data and showed that in the initial phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, the virus spread primarily in higher income regions. In the later phases of the pandemic, however, the virus spread primarily in lower income regions. Study 2 showed that the 1918/1919 Spanish Flu pandemic in the United States initially spread more strongly among people of higher social status. Later on, by contrast, the pandemic spread most strongly among people of lower social status. Study 2 relied on a unique historic data set of millions of memorials, which we web-harvested using the latest social data science techniques. As such, the study highlights the potential of adding a historical perspective to derive insights into pandemic processes (Hatchett et al., 2007) and showcases the potential of social data science to scrutinize such historical data at large scale (Adjerid & Kelley, 2018; Kosinski & Behrend, 2017). By combining large-scale contemporary data and historical data, our work is one of the few psychological studies that examines historic events (Arnett, 2008; Muthukrishna et al., 2021). A limitation of our work is its focus on three Western, developed nations (Henrich et al., 2010a, 2010b). Accordingly, it will be an important task for future research to probe whether our findings extend to non-Western, less developed nations.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit the world underprepared (Remuzzi & Remuzzi, 2020; Walker et al., 2020). Hence, far-reaching societal decisions had (and still have) to be made under great uncertainty. Our study aims at reducing these uncertainties and ultimately at improving allocation of resources. We provide a more nuanced understanding of the initially most exposed societal strata during pandemics, informing both, scientific theory and real-world decision making. In fact, our findings have actable implications for containment efforts: First, people of higher social status are at the center of the initial spread. As such, higher income regions should probably be a focus of outbreak monitoring whenever a new pandemic seems to rise. Second, the longer pandemics last, the more they will spread among people of lower social status. Importantly, our results suggest that previous research might even have underestimated the risk people of lower social status face at later pandemic phases. This is so because previous estimates did not differentiate between earlier and later phases and, thus, lumped together their opposed effects.

As we write this article, we are amid a second COVID-19 wave. It, therefore, remains an important task for future research to examine whether our results generalize to later waves. Recall that our theoretical reasoning rests on the preconditions that (a) the virus is not yet widespread and that (b) social behaviors are unrestricted. These preconditions are necessarily fulfilled during the initial phases of a pandemic’s first wave. Regarding later pandemic waves, however, it is less clear whether those preconditions are fulfilled. On the one hand, in many nations, the virus was almost entirely contained, and life has largely gone back to normal in-between COVID-19 waves (e.g., reopened restaurants, hotels, and shopping centers). From this perspective, first and later waves might show similar spreading patterns (i.e., initial spread among higher social status people in both waves). On the other hand, social behaviors were never entirely reset to their prepandemic state (e.g., mask-wearing, avoidance of large gatherings, and restricted flying). Furthermore, the virus survived at low levels in-between the waves in all societal strata. If anything, it probably survived better among people of lower social status. From this perspective, first and later waves might show different spreading patterns (i.e., initial spread among higher social status people in the first wave, but initial spread among lower social status people in later waves). Considering these competing perspectives, there might be no universal answer to the question of whether first and later waves initially spread similarly across societal strata. Rather, the spreading patterns of later waves more likely depend on a nation’s specific pandemic trajectory (e.g., consider the United States that never contained the virus vs. Germany that almost entirely contained the virus in-between waves).

Taken together, our findings hint at a most relevant (and tragic) dynamic: While people of higher social status may import novel viruses and cause their initial spread, people of lower social status carry the major burden once the pandemic unfolds. Importantly, this spread among people of lower social status during later pandemic phases is particularly consequential. Specifically, people of lower social status not only suffer from reduced access to health resources (which leads to a higher death toll) but will also need longer to economically recover from a pandemic crisis (which perpetuates existing social inequalities; Walker et al., 2020). Importantly, our findings highlight that these adverse effects for people of lower social status may be preventable. Specifically, if containment measures are implemented early and rigorously, it might be possible to stop pandemics before they reach the most vulnerable societal strata.

Negative plastic surgery effect: Women seeking plastic surgery were perceived less favorably than those planning to complete control activities across all outcome variables (warmth, competence, morality, & humanness)

Bonell S, Murphy SC, Griffiths S (2021) Under the knife: Unfavorable perceptions of women who seek plastic surgery. PLoS ONE 16(9): e0257145, Sep 7 2021. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257145

Abstract: Plastic surgery is growing in popularity. Despite this, there has been little exploration to date regarding the psychosocial consequences of seeking plastic surgery. Our study investigated how women seeking plastic surgery are perceived by others. We presented a random sample of 985 adults (men = 54%, Mage = 35.84 years, SDage = 10.59) recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk with a series of experimental stimuli consisting of a photographed woman (attractive versus unattractive) and a vignette describing an activity she plans to engage in (plastic surgery versus control activity). Participants rated stimuli on perceived warmth, competence, morality, and humanness. We ran linear mixed-effect models to assess all study hypotheses. There was a negative plastic surgery effect; that is, women seeking plastic surgery were perceived less favorably than those planning to complete control activities across all outcome variables (warmth, competence, morality, and humanness). These relationships were moderated by physical attractiveness; while attractive women planning to undergo plastic surgery were perceived less favorably than attractive women planning to engage in control activities, perceptions of unattractive individuals remained unchanged by plastic surgery status. We theorized that empathy toward unattractive women seeking plastic surgery mitigated the negative plastic surgery effect for these women. In sum, our results suggest that perceptions of attractive women are worsened when these women decide to seek cosmetic surgery. Perceptions of warmth and competence have implications for an individual’s self-esteem and interpersonal relationships, while perceptions of morality and humanness can impact an individual’s ability to fulfil their psychological needs. As such, we concluded that attractive women seeking plastic surgery are potentially subject to experience negative psychosocial outcomes. Future research ought to examine whether perceptions and outcomes differ for women seeking reconstructive plastic surgery (versus cosmetic plastic surgery) and whether they differ across different types of surgeries (i.e. face versus body).

Discussion

Hypothesis 1 (primary hypothesis): The negative plastic surgery effect

The present study built on existing literature by examining whether women seeking plastic surgery are systematically perceived differently to other women. We hypothesized that there would be a negative plastic surgery effect; that is, women planning to have plastic surgery would be considered less warm, competent, moral, and human than those planning to complete control activities. Results largely supported this hypothesis. Importantly, this study was the first of its kind in which perceptions of women planning to undergo plastic surgery were explored (where focus has previously been on perceptions of women who had already undergone plastic surgery). As such, the present study demonstrates that negative attitudes toward plastic surgery extend specifically to plastic surgery itself, and not just to its associated outcomes; that is, negative attitudes toward plastic surgery are not dependent on how women look or feel after surgery, but rather pertain simply to the decision to undergo plastic surgery in the first place. Implications for women seeking plastic surgery are discussed below.

Low warmth and competence: A recipe for contempt.

The Stereotype Content Model proposes that we form impressions of others by assessing them across two fundamental dimensions: warmth and competence [38, 54]. In this model, individuals are perceived as belonging to one of four quadrants: High Warmth-Low Competence, High Warmth-High Competence, Low Warmth-High Competence, or Low Warmth-Low Competence. Correlational and experimental evidence has demonstrated that the way in which people relate to members of each quadrant is unique [54]. For instance, the Low Warmth-Low Competence quadrant is said to house ‘free-loaders’ who induce contempt [37, 38]. In line with our hypothesis, plastic surgery stimuli were considered both less warm and less competent than non-plastic surgery stimuli in the present study. As such, we infer that by choosing to undergo plastic surgery, women might be subject to contempt. In work contexts, receiving contemptuous feedback has been associated with decreased self-esteem and increased interpersonal aggressiveness toward colleagues [55]. Likewise, feelings of contempt are one of the primary predictors of marital breakdown [56, 57]. As such, women seeking plastic surgery (and, by extension, inducing contempt) may face implications both interpersonally and professionally.

Immorality, dehumanization, and psychological needs.

Results indicated that plastic surgery stimuli were rated lower on morality and humanness traits than non-plastic surgery stimuli, supporting our hypothesis. Literature has suggested that ‘feeling moral’ ought to be categorized as a basic psychological need. Specifically, Prentice and colleagues [58] found that having a positive perception of one’s own morality was uniquely predictive of wellbeing over and above the effect of fulfilling traditional psychological needs (i.e. autonomy, relatedness, and competence). In line with socialization theory (whereby the beliefs of those around us heavily inform our own), we induce that women considering plastic surgery may struggle to ‘feel moral’ if others perceive them to be morally questionable [59]. In turn, they may experience worsened wellbeing relative to if they were not seeking plastic surgery. Similarly, our results suggest that plastic surgery is dehumanizing. While existing literature has extensively explored the motivations preceding dehumanization, relatively less attention has been paid to the consequences of dehumanization for victims. That said, there is some evidence to suggest that being dehumanized negatively impacts one’s ability to meet four psychological needs: perceived control, meaningful existence, sense of belonging, and self-esteem [45]. Further, dehumanized people may experience less empathy from others and be targets for aggression [46]. Therefore, we conclude that dehumanized plastic surgery recipients may face negative psychosocial outcomes.

Hypothesis 2: Justice sensitivity and disgust sensitivity as moderators for the negative plastic surgery effect

Beyond simply establishing the existence of a negative plastic surgery effect, the present study also sought to explain for whom this effect was strongest. Specifically, we hypothesized that the negative plastic surgery effect would be greater for participants higher in justice sensitivity and disgust sensitivity; that is, those more sensitive to injustice and disgust would perceive women intending to have plastic surgery less favorably. This hypothesis was not supported by results. Firstly, contrary to existing literature, these findings do not support the theory that the negative plastic surgery effect is driven by concerns pertaining to recipients reaping ‘unearned’ rewards from plastic surgery (i.e. the concern that plastic surgery is ’cheating’) [11]. Further, also in contrast with existing literature, these findings do not support the theory that the negative plastic surgery effect is driven by stigmatization toward individuals with non-normative bodies [31, 33, 60, 61]. We note, however, that in the present study, stimuli described as having had plastic surgery did not necessarily look non-normative (i.e. they did not look different to control stimuli). As such, we cannot definitively conclude that perceptions of disgust do not drive the negative plastic surgery effect in cases where women have visibly undergone surgery (e.g., they look ‘artificial’); rather, only in cases where plastic surgery status becomes known via vignette.

Hypothesis 3: ‘What is beautiful is good’

Existing literature demonstrates that the social consequences of being attractive are overwhelmingly positive [22–26]. As such, we hypothesized unattractive stimuli would be perceived as less warm, competent, moral, and human than attractive stimuli. This hypothesis was supported by results. These findings contributes to an extensive and growing body of literature that demonstrates that ‘what is beautiful is good’.

Hypothesis 4: Exploratory hypotheses

Hypothesis 4a.

Next, we assessed the exploratory hypothesis that the negative plastic surgery effect would be moderated by patient attractiveness; that is, we examined whether attractive and unattractive women planning to have plastic surgery were both subject to similar negative plastic surgery effects. Results indicated that the negative plastic surgery effect applied exclusively to attractive plastic surgery recipients. To elaborate, person perception for unattractive individuals remained unchanged by plastic surgery status (e.g., an unattractive woman planning to have a conversation and an unattractive woman planning to have plastic surgery were perceived similarly), while attractive plastic surgery stimuli were perceived as less warm, competent, moral, and human than attractive non-plastic surgery stimuli.

Because empathy plays a crucial role in reducing stigmatization, we theorize that empathy might explain the revealed interaction between plastic surgery status and stimuli attractiveness [62–67]. Intuitively, individuals may feel that it is more ‘understandable’ that unattractive women might seek plastic surgery. Given that both the present study’s results and existing literature suggest that unattractive women are perceived to be less warm, competent, moral, and human than attractive women, it may seem reasonable for these women to want to undergo plastic surgery to reduce their experiences of appearance-based stigmatization [9, 22]. Conversely, participants may have less empathy for attractive women who do not stand to face the same stigmatization with or without surgery. In line with this theory, existing literature has demonstrated that people feel more empathy toward unattractive individuals (versus attractive individuals) across a variety of situations because they are more easily able to believe that unattractive individuals are suffering or in need of help [66, 67]. As such, we propose that there unattractive stimuli in the present study were not subject to the negative plastic surgery effect because participants were more easily able to empathize with them.

Hypothesis 4b.

Given that our hypothesis 4a was supported, we subsequently examined whether participant justice sensitivity and/or disgust sensitivity would influence the interaction between plastic surgery status and attractiveness. This exploratory hypothesis, however, was not supported by results. As such, we concluded that neither justice sensitivity nor disgust sensitivity influenced the phenomenon whereby solely attractive individuals were subject to the negative plastic surgery effect.

Limitations

There were some limitations for the present study. Firstly, we note that the plastic surgery vignette used in our study (“this woman is planning to have plastic surgery”) neither specified the nature of the plastic surgery the woman was planning to have, nor the specific surgery performed. We assumed (but did not ensure) that participants would respond to our measures with regard to cosmetic plastic surgery as opposed to reconstructive plastic surgery, given that the faces presented in our stimuli did not look disfigured in any way. We also did not specify whether the plastic surgery in question was for the face (e.g., rhinoplasty) or body (e.g., abdominoplasty), nor provide any other information pertaining to the surgery (e.g., whether she was planning to have one surgery or multiple). As such, the biggest limitation for the present study is that we cannot say with certainty whether the perceptions measured are in relation to cosmetic plastic surgery or reconstructive plastic surgery (or both), and/or whether different specific surgeries would elicit different attitudes from participants (e.g., face vs body).

We also note limitations in the generalizability of our conclusions. The means on all outcome measure scales used in the present study were consistently above the mid-point, regardless of plastic surgery condition, and our effect sizes were consistently small. In other words, while there were statistically significant differences between perceptions of women who seek surgery and women who do not across all outcome measures, the absolute difference in perceptions of these women were minimal. As such, negative outcomes faced by women seeking plastic surgery may ultimately be small, though still significant and important. Speaking further to the generalizability of the study, we note that only White plastic surgery stimuli were used. These findings therefore cannot be generalized to people of color; specifically, we are unable to establish whether plastic surgery recipients who are people of color are subject to the negative plastic surgery effect. Given that plastic surgery has historically attempted to produce more stereotypically White features (e.g., surgeries for the ‘Jewish nose’ or ‘Black nose’), it is especially important that we acknowledge the limited applicability of our findings [32, 68].

Implications, conclusions, and future directions

The present study demonstrates the existence of a negative plastic surgery effect, specifically for attractive women. In planning to undergo plastic surgery, these women are perceived as less warm, moral, competent, and human. As such, we contend that attractive women seeking plastic surgery may find themselves experiencing negative psychosocial outcomes (e.g., being subject to contempt). However, we note that at present these outcomes are purely speculative, and that future research is needed to test these associations. As per our limitations section, future research also ought to examine the negative plastic surgery for cosmetic plastic surgeries and reconstructive plastic surgeries separately, and for different types of surgeries (e.g., face vs body). Future research might also explore additional consequences that women subject to the negative plastic surgery effect are likely to face. For example, might this worsened person perception result in social exclusion or prejudicial treatment? Finally, future research need address whether these results are generalizable to non-White plastic surgery recipients. Overall, our study was the first to examine the negative plastic surgery effect experimentally. We provide a fundamental starting point from which future literature can further investigate negative plastic surgery attitudes in order to inform both women seeking plastic surgery and plastic surgeons themselves.

People considered hypocrites (as opposed to non-hypocrites) as less moral persons, & appraised their identical transgressive behavior more negatively, when they were high rather than low on competence

Calculating Hypocrites Effect: Moral judgments of word-deed contradictory transgressions depend on targets' competence. Mengchen Dong, Jan-Willem van Prooijen, Paul A. M. van Lange. Journal of Theoretical Social Psychology, September 6 2021. https://doi.org/10.1002/jts5.113

Abstract: People often say one thing while doing another, and are therefore criticized as hypocrites. Despite the widespread criticism of hypocrites, relatively less is known about factors that influence moral judgment of hypocrisy. In particular, why are some word-deed inconsistencies condemned more harshly than others? The current research focuses on word-deed inconsistency as a common manifestation of hypocrisy, and examines targets' competence as one important factor that influences moral judgment of hypocrisy. We propose and test a Calculating Hypocrites Effect that people perceive hypocrites as less moral than non-hypocrites (i.e., who transgress with vs. without inconsistent claims), particularly when the targets are high rather than low on competence. Across four studies where competence was either measured (Study 1) or manipulated as expertise (Study 2), occupational status (Study 3) and skills (Study 4), we found support for the presumed Calculating Hypocrites Effect. When the targets were high (vs. low) on competence, people interpreted their misaligned words with deeds as more intentional (Study 2) and self-interested (Study 4), which in turn accounted for their severity of moral judgment. Moreover, the Calculating Hypocrites Effect applied even when the targets were competent in domains unrelated to their hypocritical deeds (Study 3). We conclude that perception of competence is an important factor that determines when, and for whom, hypocrisy incurs moral outrage.

7 GENERAL DISCUSSION

Accusations of hypocrisy abound in daily gossip, social platforms, and news coverage; however, scientific evidence on how people understand hypocrisy is still limited. A basic consensus of previous studies is that word-deed inconsistency can be a strong signal that induces the perception of hypocrisy (Barden et al., 2005; Dong et al., 2021; Effron et al., 2018; Jordan et al., 2017; Laurent et al., 2014). Based on this conceptualization, the current research aims to add more insights into the question why people condemn manifestations of hypocrisy for some but not others. Four studies supported a Calculating Hypocrites Effect that higher competence intensified people's negative moral evaluations of hypocrites. With both perceptions (Study 1) and various manipulations (expertise in Study 2, occupational status in Study 3, and skills in Study 4) of competence, people considered hypocrites (as opposed to non-hypocrites) as less moral persons (Studies 1, 3, and 4), appraised their identical transgressive behavior more negatively (Study 2), and recommended harsher punishment for them (Study 4) when they were high rather than low on competence. People's negative moral judgments of hypocrites applied even when the targets were competent in domains irrelevant to their hypocritical deeds (Study 3), and were especially true when they were competent and intended to promote own rather than others' interest (Study 4).

7.1 Theoretical and practical implications

By examining the Calculating Hypocrites Effect, the present contribution shows (1) how judgments of misdeeds are contingent on previous moral claims and (2) how competence information serves as a cue to infer intentionality and ulterior motives of word-deed inconsistency. Below we elaborate on these two main theoretical contributions, in relation to previous theorizing.

First, the Calculating Hypocrites Effect expands the observer licensing theory (Effron & Monin, 2010; Kakkar et al., 2020; Polman et al., 2013), by illuminating when and why pre-existing good deeds do not excuse subsequent misdeeds, and instead induce more severe moral judgments. People do not judge moral transgressions in a vacuum; an important contextual factor is the transgressors' previous deeds. Observer licensing theory suggests that a preceding good deed can license a following transgression as if there is a “moral credit account” (Effron & Monin, 2010). This theory, however, does not elucidate judgment mechanisms where previous good and subsequent bad deeds take place in an identical behavioral domain. More specifically, people may evaluate good and bad deeds in an identical domain as a whole (e.g., hypocrisy), instead of respectively as addition or deduction to a “moral credit account”. And people may not evaluate combinations of good and bad deeds only by their face value, but also by inferred ulterior motives. Put differently, moral judgments are determined by how people interpret the relation between good and bad deeds (e.g., as happening in independent or related domains), and how people construe the intentions and motives of such combined behaviors (e.g., to conceal own bad deed and gain undeserved credit, or to prevent others from committing the same transgressions; Dong et al., 2021; Effron & Miller, 2015; Effron et al., 2018).

Moreover, the Calculating Hypocrites Effect illuminates the role of competence and its implications on intentionality and motive inferences in moral judgments. While previous studies on competence and morality suggest that people form more negative impressions of immoral (vs. moral) others and resent them more strongly in social interactions when they are competent rather than incompetent (Goodwin et al., 2014; Landy et al., 2016), the underlying mechanisms are still not clear. Our work suggests that when the targets are high (vs. low) on competence, self-claimed morals or ethics prompt a stronger perception of intentionality and self-interest in followed transgressions, and induce harsher moral judgments than open transgressions without conflicting claims. Considering word-deed inconsistency as a unique but prevalent moral phenomenon, competence can be one important criterion for its normative judgments. More broadly, perceived competence may explain why people judge identical (im)moral deeds differently, depending on, for example, the targets' skill level (Guglielmo & Malle, 2010), leadership position (Karelaia & Keck, 2013;), social prestige (Dong et al., 2021; Polman et al., 2013), and socioeconomic status (Yuan et al., 2018).

The Calculating Hypocrites Effect has practical implications on various social contexts where moral judgments play a central role. For example, in first social encounters, competence impression may influence moral impressions of inconsistent actors (Studies 1, 3, and 4), and further affect interaction dynamics like decisions of recruitment or cooperation (Goodwin et al., 2014; Landy et al., 2016). In legal contexts, identical transgressions can induce different juror judgments depending on the availability of evidence suggesting expertise and previous commitment in the behavioral domain (Study 2). The “right” legal decisions may be better made by fully communicating these influential factors in juror deliberations. Also, in organizational settings, it may not be enough to establish punitive mechanisms based on the severity of unethical behavior. To maintain a just system, employees may deem that higher-status transgressors of organizational values deserve more penalties, especially when they transgress the very norms that they are trying to enforce on others (Study 4).

7.2 Limitations and future directions

The current research examined and replicated the Calculating Hypocrites Effect with various manipulations of competence and diverse manifestations of moral hypocrisy. However, some limitations should be noted, which merit future research.

First, although the current research examined moral hypocrisy in various behavioral domains, it did not cover the whole spectrum of morally relevant behaviors, especially the extremely severe or criminal ones (e.g., crimes against a person). Preaching against crimes (e.g., “we should not harm others physically”) is usually widely acknowledged and may not help actors gain much approval. People's harsher moral judgments of hypocrites and especially competent hypocrites may be more salient for proscriptive (characterizing what is good to do) than prescriptive (characterizing what should not be done) moral violations (Janoff-Bulman et al., 2009). These ideas are speculative, however, and deserve future empirical tests.

Second, despite a consistent pattern across some key societal domains, the evidence in support of the Calculating Hypocrites Effect was small in magnitude (see the internal meta-analysis). Though the present research conceptualized hypocrisy as objective word-deed inconsistency and examined hypocrisy as a discrete variable (i.e., hypocritical as compared to open transgressions), people's subjective understanding can vary on a spectrum depending on, for example, what kind of inconsistency (e.g., between saying and doing; between organizational value and individual behavior) in what domains (e.g., environmentalism, organizational values) they deem as hypocritical. For instance, liberals rather than conservatives may condemn environmental word-deed inconsistency of competent targets more harshly, given that liberals are more likely to moralize environmental topics (Feinberg & Willer, 2013) and deem environmental inconsistency as hypocritical (Kreps et al., 2017). This subjective perspective on hypocrisy can also help synthesize discrepant findings in our studies. The presumed Calculating Hypocrites Effect did not emerge when high- (vs. low-) status targets transgressed their affiliated organization's ethical values (Study 3). In this case, people may have attributed strong hypocrisy regardless of the transgressors' status or personal claims (Effron et al., 2015). Likewise, people condemned identical word-deed inconsistency more harshly when such inconsistency was introduced as self-oriented rather than other-oriented (Study 4). This finding may also relate to the fact that people perceived self- (vs. other-) oriented word-deed inconsistency as more hypocritical. Future research may integrate this subjective perspective on hypocrisy and investigate the influence of competence attributes on moral judgments through perceived hypocrisy.