Motivation

Carol Gilligan writes that “boys in their games are more concerned with rules while girls are more concerned with relationships, often at the expense of the game itself.” (p. 16). Does this gender difference explain in part why traditional rational choice models have proven so poor in predicting behavior in multi-player cooperation games? The idea is that rational choice models are developed by men in male-dominated ivy towers – thus they capture the male values of rules and independent preferences but ignore more female values like relationships, community, and cooperation.

Similarly, Gilligan seeks to reframe gendered cultural perceptions of “success” by asking “not why women have conflicts about competitive success, but why men show such readiness to adopt and celebrate a rather narrow vision of success.” (p. 16). Do the studies we have read for this class help move us to toward this broader understanding of success? The idea is that, by revealing that relational and communal values are intrinsic to some degree in most players regardless of gender, we become more consciously aware of these values and can better acknowledge and respect them.

This week was a first for me on studying feminism and gender, and I’m glad to say I found the experience to be very enlightening. Coming from a science and engineering background, however, I could not help but constantly think to myself how the empirical findings recounted by the readings play into the debate of nature vs. nurture.

I wholeheartedly agree with the empirical observations made by many of the authors — whether it is the sexual objectification of women (MacKinnon), one-up one-down behavior and the hierarchical social order (Tannen), or the gender differences regarding intimacy and independence (Gilligan). These observations hold true whether they are:
1. the product of men creating the world in their own point of view, as MacKinnon suggests (nurture only),
2. the product of differences in the genetic makeup of males and females (nature only), OR
3. a combination of nature and nurture.

None of the articles from this week address whether innate differences have an effect, if at all, on the unfair discrimination and treatment of women over the last few thousand of years. From one end, this doesn’t matter; the origins of gender inequalities do not change the fact that these inequalities exist. The origins, however, are relevant to how one should best remedy these inequalities. For example, are there chemicals, akin to oxytocin and its effect on truth, that help explain the differences in behavior between boys and girls during recess?

Several of the studies from this week suggest that in some circumstances men are more independent and less reliant on their partners than are women. These differences and others probably contribute much in developing Alison Jaggar’s suggestion that “[w]omen should not make the world a better place for everyone in general; rather, their primary aim should be to make the world a better place for women in particular — and perhaps also for other vulnerable people like children, the elderly, the infirm, the disabled, minorities, etc.” As a male, statements like these make me feel that I am somehow personally complicit and therefore should pay for the problems we face in gender inequality.

I am certainly no expert in the field of behavioral genetics, but I am aware of some evidence that may explain things like the differences in independence between males and females in some studies. Steven Pinker, in his book The Blank Slate, suggests that males of most animal species tend to be “independent” of their sexual partners because this behavior improves their reproductive success. Females, on the other hand, do not improve their reproductive success through multiple matings. Does this have anything to do with the fact that adult males don’t want their friends to think that they are being controlled by their wives? I have no idea. But until more work is done like that of the readings from last week, where scientists explore the role of biology and biochemistry in human behavior, current approaches to solving gender equality, at least to me, will seem incomplete.

Gintis Reflections

First – to those who went to the Gintis talk yesterday (I had to leave early, so perhaps you have some insight into this), was anybody troubled by his appeal to civic virtue that as of an hour into his talk went unfulfilled?

He began his talk by appealing to Aristotelian notions of civic virtue, but the most he seemed to be saying about it is that political institutions need to assume that people have it – in some as yet to be defined form. Was this virtue tied in at the end to his studies on social reciprocity? Did he go any further than suggesting, as he seemed to be at the beginning, that “liberal” political institutions should expect more of their citizens? I would like to see what mechanisms he proposes for drawing out these virtues.

This sort of model fits in nicely with the current presidential campaign with Obama camp working to style him as the new JFK, as someone who will motivate others to participation through “ask what you can do for your country”-esque rhetoric. But policy-wise, what does this mean for the practice of government, and can we cultivate “civic virtue” (or some subset of virtues) that are generally applicable to all without being stereotypically deterministic by group? Aristotle had the virtues of slaves, women, non-citizens, and citizens as separate things all working toward a common good life. I doubt that would fly with American ideals in 2008.

Money
I enjoyed the explanation Knutson gives for why they used money as an incentive; it’s compelling, scalable, and reversible. That may have been self-evident in the other studies we have read, but I like that they took the time to explain the assumption.

I am puzzled by the questions Lyons asked participants to determine their criminal behavior as adults. (Lyons, 63) Several violent crimes that in my mind would be indicative of antisocial behavior were not mentioned during the interview such as murder, rape and battery. There may be good reasons for this. Those questions could be excluded from the Diagnostic Interview Schedule or be considered too sensitive to be solicited over the phone. However, even though Lyons asks whether the respondent had ever had sex with someone else for money or been a pimp, he does not ask whether the person has himself solicited sex for money. Soliciting sex for money is a crime but perhaps its exclusion from the list suggests it is not antisocial behavior either in the estimation of those who designed the studies, those who diagnose antisocial personality orders, or society as a whole. Rutter acknowledges that simply equating a crime with a disorder is problematic (Rutter, 1). Therefore, smoking cannabis may not be anti-social behavior. However, deciding what acts are antisocial, just like defining what acts are criminal, seem to be defined largely by social and cultural norms. For example, at least 30 or so years ago, spousal abuse would not have qualified as being criminal let alone antisocial behavior. Given the fact that Lyons study consists exclusively of male participants, this would have been an interesting area to investigate.

I found Michael Rutter’s article to be quite nicely written and very well balanced, and I thought that his cautious approach to genetic studies of propensity for criminal behavior might also be helpfully applied to the other neurological works.
Particularly, it seems like it might be useful to think of the fMRI studies and the oxytocin study as just making probabilistic arguments about physiological brain states and human behavior. For example, it seems that the Sanfey, Rilling et al. study might suggest that activation of the ACC probably is greater when there are unfair offers in an ultimatum game from human partners than when there are fair offers (or when there are either fair or unfair offers from computers), even if it does not suggest that, all things considered, fair offers necessarily cause greater activation of the ACC. Perhaps this is just because of my methodological ignorance about fMRI studies, but it seems to me that this is a particularly relevant limitation to keep in mind given the rather small number of subjects included in each of the fMRI studies.

When reading the article by Sanfey et. at., I was struck by the significance attached to the fact that the anterior insula is recruited in both physical and moral disgust—the suggestion that the two types of disgust might be conceptually-similar (p 1756). What interests me about this type of claim is the underlying assumption that we can learn a deep truth about a set of human experiences by discovering that they all involve the activation of the same neural structure. It would usually be seen as odd if someone made a similar claim about another part of the body. For example: the fact that our right hand is recruited in the performance of a set of activities would rarely be seen as indicative of any interesting similarity in the set. With the brain, however, there seems to be a temptation to find anatomical boundaries for the concepts we use in self-description. And I wonder whether there is something circular in this type of analysis: beginning with a set of descriptions of human experience that seem similar to us (emotions); determining that some of these experiences involve the same neural structure; discovering that another experience also involves this neural structure; and taking this fact as indicative of an essential similarity between them. Insofar this approach circularly treats emotions as natural kinds, I worry that the work being done in the framing of the analysis is being lost in its results.

2/18/08, 5pm, Pound 201.. notes follow….

Adam Smith et al traditionally conceptualize civil society as the pursuit of individual self-interest, with individual preferences aggregated by market & electoral forces. But see Aristotlean & Tocquevillean counter-tradition where morality is what reigns in civil society and renders it operable. Gintis operates more in this latter ‘virtue ethics‘ tradition.

Gintis: so how can these civic virtues complement economic & political institutions in fostering freedom, justice, & efficiency? How can we work at a grassroots level in transforming culture, particularly given the core conflict between (a) the patriarchal/feudal/tribal emphasis on local familial ties and (b) the broader civic emphasis on universalistic non-ascriptive ties?? We should work more on cultural battles than on institutional battles. [See Youtube, OLPC, etc.] Note that the main problem of monarchs was in creating a common culture.

For several weeks we have discussed various aspects of the Ultimatum and Investors game. This week’s readings expand on these studies.

I think that studies such as those by Sanfey (2003) and Kosfeld and Fehr (2005) do not answer one of the most important questions: how does absolute wealth in a one-off game change empathic responses or one’s perception of trustworthiness? From an evolutionary standpoint, the marginal utility that the responder gets from each additional dollar varies depending on whether the responder is Bill Gates or a person below the poverty line. Increases in activity in areas associated with emotion and cognition should be able to be explained on the basis of Darwin’s concepts of fitness and/or survival.

We might thus expect one who is less in need of the money from the ultimatum game to elicit not as elevated activity levels in the anterior insula and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex after an unfair offer. In comparison, a responder who is starving, and needs at least a 30% offer to buy his next meal will likely experience increased activity levels, at least in the anterior insula (emotion).

Kosfeld can similarly expand his studies. Would you expect the effect of oxytocin to be less powerful depending on whether the investor were handing over 1% of his net worth as opposed to 99% of his net worth? I certainly would.

A couple things:

(1) I wonder whether Knutson and Peterson’s findings assuage Professor Fisher’s concern that many experimental games don’t last long enough for an endowment effect to kick in, which might skew the results as players more readily part with their money in the games than they would in the real world. Knutson and Peterson observe that, immediately upon receiving cues, anticipated gains anticipated losses are coded differently in the brain. Moreover, experiencing gains immediately produces an increased valence. It is not a far step to assume that some endowment effect is also immediate. Nonetheless, Knutson and Peterson recognize several limitations of their findings. Particularly, they are not sure whether “same or different neural mechanisms drive anticipation of losses.” (p. 313).

(2) A couple real world questions about Singer et al’s findings. Singer found that we emphasize with fair players when they are punished but that we derive pleasure from watching unfair players receive punishments. First, does this have anything to say about strategies by groups seeking to end the death penalty? I remember when Timothy McVeigh was scheduled for execution, some anti-death penalty groups actually thought it would be good if his execution were televised because people would see how terrible execution is. But do Singer’s findings suggest that, if people thought of McVeigh as an uncooperative citizen, the viewing experience would be pleasurable – meaning that anti-death penalty groups are better off winning converts through cold, dispassionate reasoning? Second, I wondered whether Singer’s findings had anything to say about Abu Ghraib. If the American public classified the prisoners there as “unfair,” then they should have received some pleasure from seeing the photos of their treatment. Assuming that many Americans did not receive pleasure from seeing the photos, was it because they hadn’t experienced the prisoners as unfair or uncooperative actors in anyway or did outside moral constraints overcome the instinctive pleasure response?

For those who were interested in the thread on fMRI and ethics, here is the info about STS circle event I mentioned:

“Evolving a Moral Grammar: Domain-specificity, Origins, Universality and Moral Organs”
Mark Hauser, Department of Psychology, Harvard University)
February 13 (Wednesday), 2008, 12:15-2:00 pm at Room 469, Science Center, 1 Oxford Street

Abstract:
How do you decide what is morally right and wrong? Historically, there have been two answers to this question. On the one hand, we deliver moral judgments on the basis of a rational, conscious, and deliberate process of accessing principles to justify our actions. On the other hand, our judgments are the result of intuitions mediated by emotions. Though these two processes certainly play some role in our moral deliberations, each suffers from a set of critical problems. I offer a solution: by appealing to an analogy to language, I argue that humans are endowed with a universal moral grammar that generates intuitive judgments of right and wrong based on an inaccessible code of action. I present evidence from a large scale study of the internet with over 200,000 subjects, together with work on small scale societies, to justify a dissociation between judgments and justifications, and to reveal a set of core principles that appear immune to cultural influences, including religious background. I also present results from studies of brain damaged patients, neuroimaging, and brain stimulation to reveal the architecture of our moral organ.

 http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/sts/events/we…