Evergreening

The Incidental Economist (a blog) alerted me to an article by medical student Nicholas Downing and three colleagues exposing the outrageous shenanigans of Abbott Laboratories, maker of fenofibrate, a lipid-modifying drug that claims to reduce the risk of heart disease.

In the U. S., patent protection on a new drug expires after 20 years. Since the clock starts ticking before clinical trials can begin, by the time a drug gets Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, it typically has seven to twelve years of patent protection. After that, other companies are free to sell generic equivalents, which usually cost less than half the price of the original. The goal of pharmaceutical houses is to extend that patent protection as long as possible by whatever means necessary.

Abbott did not do the research and development that led to fenofibrate. They bought it from another company. They marketed it as Tricor-1 in 1998. However, their patent was about to expire, and in 2000, another company, Novapharm, announced its intention to produce a generic version. Abbott then filed suit for patent infringement. This was a frivolous lawsuit, but such suits are routine because when they are filed, they automatically result in an injunction against the generic company which prevents them from marketing the generic for 30 months. Drug companies almost always lose these infringement cases, but they file them anyway because the amount of money they make during the 30 month waiting period is far greater than the cost of the lawsuit.

The 30 months also gave Abbott time to get a patent for Tricor-2 and introduce it to the market. Tricor-2 was identical to Tricor-1 except for the dosage. Because it was the same, no new clinical trials were required. By the time the 30 month period had expired, Tricor-1 was no longer available and Tricor-2 had cornered 97% of the fenofibrate market. It was useless to produce the generic version of Tricor-1 because Tricor-2 had different dosage levels, and pharmacists can only substitute generics when the dosage levels are the same.

So the generic company announced its intention to produce a generic Tricor-2. At this point, the story begins to resemble the plot of the film Groundhog Day. New lawsuit by Abbott. Another 30 month wait. Abbott announces Tricor-3. It captures 96% of the market. Generic company intends to produce generic Tricor-3. New lawsuit. Another 30 month wait. Abbott announces Filibrix. Filibrix is fenofibric acid rather than fenofibrate, which requires new clinical trials, but gets them an additional three years of patent protection extending it to 2012.

By this time, the generic companies had noticed the futility of their strategy, so they filed suit against Abbott for violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Abbott eventually settled that suit for $300 million, which was about 4% of what they made selling various versions of fenofibrate. The authors estimate that the cost to the public of using Abbott's versions of fenofibrate rather than their generic equivalents is $700 million a year.

This is not an isolated incident. Several other drug companies have done the same thing.  When the patent is about to expire on one of their lucrative drugs, they make a trivial change and market it under a new name in order to extend their period of exclusivity. This common practice is called “evergreening.” (Get it?) It succeeds in part because doctors don't pay attention to what's going on. However, even if they had known about Abbott's psychopathic behavior, there was nothing doctors or pharmacists could do because no generic equivalent of fenofibrate has yet made it to the market.

To add insult to injury, a large outcome study published in 2005 showed that fenofibrate was ineffective in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease. But apparently the doctors weren't paying attention to that either, because as of 2010, fenofibrate sales were still increasing.

There is a serious problem with the FDA's system of granting patents. They only require clinical trials that compare the new drug with a placebo—an inactive pill that supposedly controls for patient expectations. This allows different drug companies to market nearly identical drugs, none of which are more effective than the others. It also allows companies like Abbott to “evergreen” by relabeling old drugs under new names. A more sensible standard would be to compare the proposed new drug to the best existing treatment and only grant a patent if the new drug produces a significant improvement in patient outcomes.

In our capitalist wonderland, it's useless to urge “corporate persons” such as Abbott to behave more responsibly. They will pursue profit however they can. It's probably also unrealistic to expect doctors to read medical journals or prescribe available generics. They get their pharmaceutical information from drug salespersons bearing gifts—everything from ballpoint pens to free trips to Las Vegas (to attend a medical “seminar,” of course). It would be nice if Congress would make this legalized bribery illegal, but since they're doing the same thing, that's not likely to happen.

Downing and his colleagues only suggest one governmental remedy—elimination of the 30 month hold on the generic during a lawsuit. Otherwise, they just recommend consciousness raising among patients, doctors, and pharmacists. Good luck with that.

Don't Drink and Vote

Occasionally research brings what seemed to be separate topics together in an interesting way. I've previously noted that one purpose of this blog is to encourage thinking slowly—deliberate, effortful processing of information—in the hope of responding rationally to difficult social and political problems. A recent article by Scott Eidelman and three colleagues suggests that the opposite of slow thought—rapid, low effort processing of information—encourages political conservatism. They present four studies to support this claim.

As most of us know, alcohol consumption interferes with deliberative thought while leaving automatic responding largely intact. The first study was done as people were leaving a bar. Participants were asked to answer some questions and exhale into a breathalyzer, which measured their blood alcohol level. The questions included a ten item measure of liberalism-conservatism, as well as whether they considered themselves a liberal or a conservative. Statistically controlling for gender, education and political ideology, the authors found that the higher the participants' blood alcohol level, the more they scored toward the conservative end of the scale. Both self-identified liberals and conservatives were more conservative when they were more intoxicated. (In case you're wondering, liberals and conservatives were equally likely to get drunk.)

The other three studies were laboratory experiments. In the second, students responded to another opinion scale which measured liberalism and conservatism independently of one another. Cognitive load was manipulated by requiring some participants to perform a secondary task (counting tones of different pitches) while filling out the questionnaire. The others merely filled out the scale. Distraction was expected to interfere with their ability to think about the opinion items. As predicted, the participants with the higher cognitive load scored higher in conservatism and lower in liberalism.

In a third study, participants rated the favorability of liberal and conservative concepts such as “civil rights” and “law and order.” Opportunity to think was manipulated by giving some participants only 1.5 seconds to respond to each item, while the others could take as long as they wanted. The high time pressure subjects rated the conservative terms more favorably. They also rated the liberal terms less favorably, but the difference was not statistically significant.

Finally, in the last study, participants rated the liberal and conservative concepts under instructions to think quickly or slowly. In the low effort condition, they were told to “give your first, immediate response to the terms” and to not “think too hard.” In the high effort condition, the instructions were to “think hard about each term,” to “take your time and give a careful and thoughtful response.” The task was followed by a pop quiz—a recognition memory test. Participants were shown many concepts and asked to identify the ones they had previously rated. The low effort participants rated the conservative terms more favorably than the high effort participants. (As before, the effect on liberal terms was not significant.) The recognition memory task served as a measure of depth of thought and, as predicted, it partially accounted for the relationship between low effort thinking and conservatism. (That is, if you statistically eliminate the effect of recognition memory scores, the relationship between low effort and conservatism is reduced, but still statistically significant.)

How do the authors explain these results? First of all, they are not saying that conservatives are less intelligent than liberals (although there is some evidence that this is the case). Both liberals and conservatives were affected by these manipulations. They are also not saying that conservative ideology is cognitively simpler than liberalism (althought there is quite a bit of evidence that this is true). In these studies, independent samples rated the complexity of the liberal and conservative statements and concepts to ensure that they were equally difficult to understand.

Here's their argument: There are three aspects of the content of conservative ideology, all of which we are more likely to believe when processing information automatically, but which we question when we engage in deliberate, effortful thought. They are:

• a tendency to see people as personally responsible for their outcomes, rather than acknowledging that their behavior could be situationally caused.
• an acceptance of heirarchy—inequality between people and groups (such as the rich and the poor).
• a preference for the status quo rather than social change.

Since there is evidence that these three bulwarks of conservative thought are more likely to occur when we are operating on automatic pilot, distracting people, forcing them to respond in a hurry, asking them not to think too hard, or getting them drunk all will make them more conservative. It appears that conservative thinking comes more easily to us. To avoid being reflexive right wingers, we have to put down the beer, turn off the TV, and think about it. That could be a sobering message.

The Media Select Their Candidate

Mitt Romney has charged that the news media are biased in favor of Barack Obama and against him. As usual, the facts are otherwise. (See my previous posts on media bias here and here.) It's not clear whether the Elephants actually believe the liberal bias claim, or are “working the refs.”

This week, the nonpartisan Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism released is first survey of 2012 campaign coverage in over 11,000 news outlets. The survey analyzed two aspects of news coverage: (1) the frames used to cover campaign news between November 1, 2011 and April 15, 2012, and (2) the tone (positive, negative, or neutral) of the coverage received by each candidate, which was analyzed only from January 1 to April 15. Framing refers to the media's tendency to select certain aspects of the campaign and make them more salient, as if to suggest what is important about presidential elections. Frames were determined by human coders. Tone was analyzed with a computerized content analysis program which recognizes positive, negative and neutral words and phrases. (When the tone of a sample of stories is coded by researchers, the computer and the human coders agree 97% of the time.)

As in previous elections, the media are framing the campaign as a horserace. Pew calls this the strategy frame, and it includes reports on momentum, polling, advertising and fundraising. This frame accounted for 64% of campaign stories. Critics charge that the strategy frame does not give voters the information they need to determine the candidates' positions on issues. That information is included in the categories of domestic issues, foreign issues and the candidate's public record, which collectively account for 16% of the coverage. (Of course, in Romney's case, his past public record is all but meaningless for determining his current position on issues.)

The tone of the news stories about Obama and Romney is summarized below:

	Romney	Obama
Positive	39%	18%
Neutral	29%	34%
Negative	32%	34%

Contrary to Romney's claims, he has received much more favorable coverage than President Obama. In fact, I find it hard to imagine that a sentient being could read, listen to or watch the corporate media and actually believe they favor the President.

As shown above, the tone of stories about Romney has changed over time. They became much more favorable after the Michigan primary on February 28, when it became clear that Romney would be the Elephant nominee. The coverage of President Obama, as you can see, has been unrelentingly negative throughout all 15 weeks of the survey.

My interpretation of these data is fairly straightforward. The owners of the corporate media in this country are overwhelmingly wealthy and politically conservative, and their preferences exert a compelling influence over the behavior of reporters and editors. Previous research has shown that the media traditionally favor candidates from the Elephant Party. This accounts for the negative tone of stories about Obama. Prior to February 28, the media owners were probably split over which Elephant candidate they preferred. As long as Gingrich and Santorum were in the race, they ran quite a few negative stories about Romney. However, once Romney's nomination was inevitable, media ownership closed ranks behind the nominee of their party.

I find it particularly interesting that the media frequently report charges of liberal bias made by Elephant candidates, but almost never report studies such as this one which exonerate them of the charge.

There is no reason to think that either the predominant use of the strategy frame or the tone of the coverage of the candidates will change for the remainder of the campaign. It is also likely that the media will continue to report whatever the candidates say without evaluating whether their statements are true or false, and that they will not investigate and report whether the candidates' current statements are consistent with their past public record. All of these policies will translate into a significant advantage for Romney.

Class Acts

The number of Americans living below the official poverty line is at its highest level in decades. On the other hand, our political leaders are drawn from those Americans who are highest in socioeconomic status. The average wealth of members of Congress is $13.2 million in the Senate and $5.9 million in the House. Eleven percent of Congress are in the top 1% of the income distribution. These Congresspeople are considering taking serious steps to dismantle the social safety net that is critical to the survival of an increasingly large number of poor Americans. What can social psychology tell us about differences in the attitudes of rich and poor Americans toward personal responsibility, and about differences in their willingness to help those in need or to deliberately hurt other people?

A recent series of experiments by social psychologists led by Dacher Keltner at the University of California at Berkeley have studied the psychology of social class. First, a word on how social class was measured. In some studies, it was measured objectively by asking participants to state their own (or their parents') income and educational attainment. Subjective social class was measured by asking participants to place an “X” on one of ten rungs of a ladder representing their status compared to others. Finally, in some studies, social class was manipulated by having participants to write an essay comparing their own life to that of either a rich or a poor American. Comparing yourself to the poor makes you feel richer, while comparing yourself to the rich makes you feel poorer. These different approaches produced generally consistent results.

Explanations of human behavior can be divided into personal causes (some characteristic of the behaving individual) or situational causes (some aspect of the social environment). How do the rich and the poor explain economic inequality? The Berkeley group hypothesized that since poor people have fewer resources, they exert less personal control over their own outcomes, and they see inequality as more a product of situational forces than the rich. Keltner and his colleagues called their participants' attention to inequality in this country by presenting statistical data. Participants were then asked to rate the importance of twelve explanations of inequality. Some of them were personal (talent, hard work) while others were situational (inheritance, discrimination). These studies also included a measure of personal control over one's own life.

As expected, upper class participants gave more personal explanations for wealth and poverty, and the relationship between social class and social explanation was mediated by feelings of personal control over one's own life. (See my earlier post on I. Q. and prejudice for an explanation of how mediational hypotheses are tested.) Subsequent studies showed that these tendencies to explain behavior as personally or situationally caused apply to other outcomes in addition to economic inequality. If members of economic and political elites believe they have earned their favorable position, and that poor people fail because they lack positive traits, will they be more willing to eliminate social programs that to help the poor?

Do upper and lower classes differ in helpfulness? The Berkeley group proposed that, because the poor depend more on other members of their community for help in times of crisis, they would be more sensitive to the needs of others, more compassionate, and more helpful. An alternative possibility is that because the poor have less, they will be more reluctant to give it away and will be less helpful. In one of their studies (called the “dictator game”), participants were given ten points (later to be exchanged for money) and allowed to split them however they chose between themselves and an anonymous partner. Lower class participants were more generous to their partners. In another study, people were asked how much of one's income a person ought to donate to charity. In this study, social class was both measured objectively and manipulated (by having them compare themselves to the rich or the poor). The results are shown in this chart.

The lines labeled lower and upper class rank refer to the manipulations of thinking about the rich or the poor respectively. High and low social class refer to their objective status (family income and education). Using both measures, the poor were more generous. This finding corresponds to real world studies which consistently show that poor people donate a higher percentage of their income to charity than rich people.

One study tested the hypothesis that the helpfulness of the poor is mediated by compassion. Compassion was manipulated by showing a short film about child poverty or a neutral film. Participants were later given an opportunity to help a fellow student in distress. When shown the neutral film, lower class participants were more helpful than upper class participants. When the compassion-inducing film was shown, there was no difference. The rich were capable of being helpful when reminded of the need to be compassionate. However, the poor appeared to be spontaneously helpful.

Might the upper class's lack of helpfulness also mean that they are more likely to behave unethically for selfish reasons? The Berkeley group did seven studies of social class differences in unethical behavior. When most Americans think about criminal behavior, they think of lower class street criminals whose behavior is heavily publicized by the media. However, the researchers expected the rich to endorse greed as a legitimate motive and behave more unethically than the poor. Two of the studies were observations of drivers. Wealth was measured by the monetary value of their car. Drivers of expensive cars were more likely to cut off other drivers at a four-way stop and to fail to yield the right of way to pedestrians—both illegal under California law.

In other studies, upper class participants took more candy which, if they hadn't taken it, would have been given to children; cheated more on a laboratory task in order to win a monetary prize; and reported greater willingness to lie, steal and behave unethically in hypothetical scenarios. Finally, the authors demonstrated that the unethical behavior of the rich was mediated by greed. Greed was manipulated by asking some participants to list three reasons why greed might be a good thing. Others completed a different list. They then filled out a measure of willingness to endorse unethical behaviors on the job, such as borrowing money from the cash register overnight. When greed was primed, lower class participants endorsed as much unethical behavior as wealthier participants. Without the greed prime, the usual social class differences were obtained.

These studies are impressive both in number and consistency. Obviously, none of these behaviors rise to the level of the recent financial crimes that have cost middle class Americans billions of dollars. But at the very least, they suggest that mass media stereotypes of the rich and the poor need adjustment. In my last post, I reported studies showing that the decisions made by our political leaders correspond most closely to the preferences of the rich. When the wealthiest Americans decide the future of the country during a long recession, they seem almost certain to increase inequality--a problem that has already gotten far out of hand.

Whose Opinion Matters?

On Monday, the Senate voted 51-45 (nine votes short of the supermajority needed) to block debate on the Buffett Rule that would have required millionaires to pay an income tax rate of at least 30%. A CNN poll showed that 72% of Americans favored the rule. This is just one of many policies—from ending the war in Afghanistan to providing a public option for health insurance—that were favored by a majority of Americans, but not by corporations or wealthy Americans, that have been defeated. How responsive is our political system to public opinion? And to whose opinions does it respond?

These questions are difficult to answer. Prevailing research can only tell us how well legislation corresponds to public opinion, and whose opinions it matches. In other words, we can look at the correlations between the attitudes of the population—or population subgroups—and political decisions. But if a positive correlation is found, that doesn't necessarily mean that the people are influencing their legislators' votes. The politicians could have persuaded the public to accept their policies. Or both the public and their legislators could be reponding to a variety of third variables, such as their shared background, real world events, or media coverage of political issues. Therefore, instead of talking about the public's “influence” on politicians, I will refer to the “consistency” between their opinions.

Early studies of consistency used the box-score method, comparing the majority preference on a particular issue, as indicated by public opinon polls, to subsequent legislative decisions. Chance alone would ensure that legislators would agree with the majority half the time even if they completely disregarded public opinion. Political scientist Alan Monroe found that in over 500 Congressional decisions between 1980 and 1993, the outcomes corresponded with public opinion 55% of the time. This was better than chance agreement (50%), but not much better. If our legislators follow the wishes of the majority 55% of the time, does this mean that we have a responsive government? Monroe reports that between 1960 and 1979, agreement was 63%, so whatever it means, it's going down.

Larry Bartels studied differences in the consistency of U. S. Senators' votes with the attitudes of their constituents of different social classes. He measured the relationship between participants' self-ratings on a 7-point liberalism-conservatism scale and all the decisions made by their Senators between 1988 and 1992. The respondents were divided into approximately equal thirds by income. (For convenience, I'll call them the “rich,” the “middle class” and the “poor.”) Through a complex (but not controversial) mathematical procedure, Bartels estimated the “weight” that should be given to upper, middle and lower class opinion in order to produce the best match with the Senators' decisions.

The opinions of both the middle class and the rich corresponded with the choices of their Senators, but the weight associated with the opinions of the rich was about 50% greater than the weight of the middle class. The opinions of the poor, however, were given no weight at all. (Their opinions were actually slightly negatively related to their Senators' votes.) These class differences were not as great on social issues, such as abortion, as on economic issues, but in all categories, rich people's views were most consistent with the outcome, and the views of the poor were unrelated to the outcome. Of the specific bills Bartels studied, the greatest inequality occurred on a proposal to increase the minimum wage. Here, neither the wishes of the poor nor the middle class had any weight at all, and the decision corresponded exclusively to the opinions of the rich. (I don't need to tell you what the Senators decided.)

Bartels divided the Senators by party affiliation. He found that the Elephants' votes were about twice as consistent with the views of the rich as the Jackasses' votes. Both parties were equally responsive to middle class opinion and equally unresponsive to the poor.

Martin Gilens compared the results of surveys (conducted between 1981 and 2002) asking people whether they favored 1781 proposed policy changes to subsequent votes on those policies. This allowed him to locate the best-fitting curve relating public opinion to Congressional decisions. He found a strong status quo bias. That is, as the percentage of people favoring a policy change increased, its probability of being enacted also went up, but even when a policy had 90% support, its probability of passing was only 46%.

He then divided the country into ten deciles according to income, and compared the opinions of people who were richer than 90% of Americans to the opinions of eight other groups, all the way down to the 10^th percentile of the income distribution. He found that the votes were consistent with the preferences of all ten economic subgroups, but as wealth increased, the correpondence between their preference and the decision increased. However, this analysis may have overestimated the consistency of the attitudes of the poor with politicians' votes, since in most cases they agreed with the rich. Gilens then did an analysis of the 887 cases in which there was significant diagreement on the policy among people at different income levels. Here are two charts showing these results.

The top chart compares the consistency of legislators' votes with people at the 90^th and 10^th percentiles of the income distribution. The positive slope of the 90^th percentile line indicates that as more rich people favor the policy, its probability of passage goes up. On the other hand, the 10^th percentile line is flat, indicating that the opinions of the poor are unrelated to the outcome. The bottom chart compares the rich with the middle class (the 50^th percentile). Unlike the poor, the middle class appear to have some influence, but of course not as much as the rich.

Why do the views of the rich carry more weight? Maybe they're more likely to vote, more likely to contact their Senators, or more knowledgable about current events. The surveys Bartels used asked participants to state whether they had voted or contacted their Senators. It also included a measure of political knowledge. Since all three of these measures were positively related to income, they were all associated with greater consistency between the respondent's views and those of the Senators. However, statistically controlling for turnout, contact and political knowledge reduced the difference between the apparent influence of the rich and poor by only 24%.

Unfortunately, the survey did not ask participants whether they had made political contributions. Looking at other data on campaign contributions by income level collected at that time, Bartels estimated that if the Senators had based their decision only on contributions, they would have given six times (600%) more weight to the views of the rich than the middle class and almost no weight to the poor. The actual disparity in weight between the rich and the middle class (50%) was not as great as the differences in contributions would have predicted.

I'm bothered by the fact that in these studies the "rich" are defined as either the top third of the income distribution (Bartels) or the 90^th percentile (Gilens). These subgroups include some people who might be considered upper middle class. It would be interesting to know how consistent the opinions of the top 1% are with those of the politicians. Gilens data seem to imply that as wealth increases, agreement also increases. Is there any upper limit to this effect?

Of course, these data are mostly from the 1980s and 1990s.  Over time, both the absolute amounts and percentages of campaign contributions coming from the rich have increased. This is probably especially true since the 2010 Citizens United decision, which allows unlimited contributions by corporations and the rich. But since the decision also allows these contributions to be anonymous, their impact will be difficult to measure.

Those who believe the U. S. political system is a plutocracy rather than a democracy will find these data to be at least consistent with their theories, particularly on economic issues, although the middle class's opinions are given almost as much weight as those of the rich when the issue is of little economic importance. The poor, however, have been effectively disenfranchised when their opinions differ from those of the rich. Given the secrecy with which political decisions are made, it will be difficult to find conclusive proof of quid pro quo corruption.

The Elephants' Playground

One of the more baffling phrases in American pop culture is “the liberal media.” In fact, study after study has found that the news media and their employees are conservative in an absolute sense, and more conservative than the American public. This not surprising if you simply assume that the giant corporations that control our supply of news and entertainment are rationally pursuing the self-interest of their owners.

For many years, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) has been studying news media bias by doing content analyses. The latest issue of their magazine, Extra, contains an analysis by Peter Hart of the guest list of the four most popular Sunday morning talk shows—Meet the Press (CBS), Face the Nation (NBC), This Week (ABC) and Fox News Sunday—from June 2011 through February 2012 (eight months). These are the people who get the opportunity to sit down at the table and present their political views to the public on network TV. (Unfortunately, this study is not available online.)

The guests on these programs fall into two categories: one-on-one interviews and roundtable discussions (segments with more than one guest). Guests were coded by profession, gender and race. Overall, 47% of the appearances were by politicians, and most of the rest (43%) were by journalists. Politicians were coded by party. Non-politicians who have clear ideological leanings were coded as liberal, i.e., Paul Krugman, or conservative, i.e., George Will.

Conservatives rule. Of the 264 people who were interviewed one-on-one, 236 were affiliated with American political parties. 166 (70%) were Elephants and 70 (30%) were Jackasses. (The remaining 28 unaffiliated people were considered too small a sample to analyze.) Of the 647 roundtable guests, 289 were politicians—180 (62%) Elephants and 109 (38%) Jackasses. Of the remaining 358 nonpoliticians, 102 (28%) were conservatives, 55 (15%) were liberals, and 201 (56%) were centrist or unclassifiable. To summarize, of the 393 roundtable guests presumed to have ideological leanings, 268 (68%) were either Elephants or conservatives, and 125 (32%) were Jackasses or liberals. (I realize it makes little sense to call many of these Jackasses “liberals” and perfect sense to label all of the Elephants “conservatives,” but that's a story for another day.)

The experience of actually watching these programs is one in which primarily conservative guests are interviewed by mostly centrist journalists. Progressives need not apply. Largely absent from the discussion were representatives of nonprofit or public interest groups—civil rights, labor, environmental, etc.—whose views are obviously of little interest.

White men also rule. The one-on-one interviewees were 92% white and 86% male. (Seven of the 15 African-American interviewees were Herman Cain. The media love black conservatives, since they give the visual appearance of balance without the reality.) The roundtable guests were 85% white and 71% male. During part of the study period, This Week was hosted by Christiane Amanpour. She took a different approach, featuring more international news, and having more women and people of color as guests. After less than a year, she was quietly dumped.

Since FAIR is a liberal organization, we might question whether the study itself is biased. However, most of the data collection leaves little room for error. The only subjective judgment is the classification of the nonpolitician guests as liberals, conservatives or centrists. But the results of this analysis are so consistent with the other findings of this and previous studies that I see no obvious reason to question their validity.

These results are similar to many previous analyses which find conservative dominance of political talk on all networks, including PBS. When Elephants are in the White House, this is usually justified by a need to focus on what people in power are doing. When the Jackasses are in power, the rationale changes. In this case, it could be argued that several Elephants were competing for the presidential nomination and therefore making news. However, Hart notes that a survey conducted during the most relevant comparison period, 2003-2004, when several Jackasses were hoping to run against George W. Bush, found the usual Elephant/conservative dominance.

The reality is that no matter who is in power and what is going on in the world at the time, conservatives dominate the television guest list. Some of them will no doubt be heard complaining about the “liberal” media.

Protesting Too Much

It's always good for a laugh. Some prominent homophobe, usually from the fields of government or religion, is caught soliciting or having sex with another man. Homophobia is serious, however, sometimes leading to murder and other hate crimes. A new series of four studies by Netta Weistein and five colleagues, conducted in the U. S. and Germany, appears to confirm what gay rights advocates have long suspected—that homophobes and anti-gay activists are secretly attracted to the same sex. This study is gated, but you can get a lot of information about it here.

To present this study, I need to talk about subliminal priming. First of all, priming refers to the process by which a recent experience increases the availability of a concept. For example, if you had recently seen or heard the word “eat” and I asked you to fill in the blank in “S O _ P,” you'd be likely to say the word “soup.” But if you had recently seen the word “wash,” you'd fill in “soap.” Subliminal means below the level of conscious awareness. Priming can occur subliminally as well as consciously. For example, if I showed you a picture on a computer screen for 4/1000 of a second, you'd see a flash of light and be unable to identify the object in the photo. But it might influence your behavior. In one study, researchers subliminally primed photos of smiling or angry faces, followed by a picture of a Chinese ideograph (or letter). Participants were asked how much they liked each ideograph. Those ideographs primed with happy faces were liked more than those with no prime, and those primed with angry faces were liked less.

Priming can have socially important consequences. Priming the concept of money causes people to work harder on difficult tasks, but to be less helpful to other people and donate less to charity. In 2008, when white students from Florida were shown a subliminal prime of a confederate flag, they indicated they were less likely to vote for Barack Obama (but not any other candidates).

The studies by Weinstein and her colleagues attempted to measure whether people experienced conflict between their implicit and explicit sexual orientation. The measure of implicit sexual orientation—the tricky part—involved subliminal priming. Subjects were shown slides of four words (“gay,” “straight,” “homosexual” and “heterosexual”) and of same-sexed or opposite-sexed couples. They were asked to classify each word or image as either gay or straight as quickly as possible. Before each trial, they were subliminally primed with either the word “me” or “others.” Those participants who showed more rapid identification of gay stimuli when they were preceded by the word “me” than by “others” (and a slower identification of straight stimuli when preceded by “me” than by “others”) were assumed to have an implicit attraction to the same sex. Participants were also asked their sexual orientation, and the measure of interest was the discrepancy between their implicit and explicit sexual orientation.

If you're troubled by this measure of implicit sexual orientation, one of the studies used a more face valid measure of implicit attraction and obtained the same results. In this measure, subjects were left alone and free to browse same-sex and opposite-sex photos. It was assumed that differences in exposure time would indicate their implicit sexual orientation.

The study looked at both the causes and effects of a conflict between one's implicit and explicit sexual orientation. The effect was predicted to be homophobia. Overt homophobia was measured by questionnaires that looked at such things as participants' self-reported attitudes toward gays, their attitudes toward social policies affecting gay people, and the discriminatory bias of assigning harsher punishments to gay people than straight people for the same offense. Their measure of implicit hostility toward gays also involved subliminal priming. Participants were either primed with the word “gay” or not, and were asked to complete blanks such as “K I _ _.” Filling in more aggressive words such as “kick” after the gay prime was taken as an indicator of covert hostility to gays. Both the overt and covert measures showed greater homophobia among the sexually conflicted participants.

This finding supports one of Sigmund Freud's unconscious defense mechanisms against anxiety, reaction formation. In reaction formation, people experience anxiety caused by an unconscious desire to engage in some behavior that is unacceptable to them, such as having gay sex. They defend against this anxiety by engaging in exaggerated behaviors that imply just the opposite of their unconscious feelings, such as becoming an anti-gay crusader.

These researchers were interested in the child rearing practicies that produced conflicts between implicit and explicit sexual orientation. The studies tested a proposition from Deci and Ryan's self-determination theory which asserts that controlling parents will produce children who are less in touch with their feelings than than parents who encourage autonomy. This is similar to the distinction between authoritarian vs. democratic child-rearing. Participants were asked questions about their family such as “I felt controlled and pressured in certain ways,” or “I felt free to be who I am.” Those participants who reported coming from authoritarian families were more likely to experience conflict in their sexual orientation.

The researchers also asked participants about their parents' homophobia. Homophobic fathers (but not mothers) were most likely to produce young adults with this discrepancy in their sexual orientation. Here's a video explaining the studies by one of the authors, Richard Ryan.

What are we to make of these studies? They are heavily dependent on questionnaire measures, which are subject to distortion when dealing with sensitive subjects. I'm particularly skeptical of college students' reports of their parents' child-rearing practices. I'm more impressed with the subliminal priming measures, both of implicit same-sex attraction and covert hostility to gay people. If subsequent studies find a consistent association between these two measures, we may have to acknowledge that Freud got something right.

There is another study by Henry Adams and others that supports the association of male same-sex attraction with homophobia. The participants were college men who were previously classified as high or low in homophobia by their answers to questions such as “I would feel nervous being in a group of homosexuals.” Subjects then watched three types of hard core pornography: heterosexual, gay male and gay female. Sexual arousal was measured using a plethysmograph, a rubber strain guage which fits tightly around the penis and measures its circumference. (Isn't research fun?) Both the groups high and low in homophobia showed increases in arousal to the heterosexual and lesbian videos, but only the homophobes were also aroused by the gay male videos.

Maybe these folks are on to something.

Bending the Curve

The United States is number one among industrialized countries in income inequality. Right now, our wealth distribution is more unequal than at any time since the 1920s.

I believe that inequality is one of the most important dimensions that separates societies that work well from those that don't. One way societies break down is when people cheat. In an unequal society, the stakes are higher. The differences between the lives of rich and poor people are greater, and the social safety net protecting the poor is, well, porous. In this competitive environment, some people may decide the end justifies the means and behave dishonestly. Two recent studies support this reasoning. Unfortunately, American white collar criminals don't usually volunteer to be studied by social scientists, so we'll have to settle for college students (some of whom will no doubt “grow up” to be white collar criminals).

A new study by Lukas Neville examines a ubiquitous form of academic dishonesty, plagiarism—specifically, purchasing research papers over the internet. Google Correlate publishes anonymous summaries of the frequencies with which various search terms are used, aggregated by state. Neville measured six queries such as “buy term papers,” used between 2003 and 2011. States were ranked for inequality using the standard economic measure, the Gini coefficient. The analysis factored out common sense control variables such as the number of college students in the state. The result was a significant positive correlation between state level inequality and dishonesty—the greater the inequality, the greater the attempted plagiarism. Income inequality accounted for about 10% of the variance in this form of cheating.

Neville's study also measured generalized trust using questions such as whether “most people can be trusted,” taken from six state-level surveys. Trust was negatively related to both inequality and dishonesty. A mediational analysis suggested that trust mediates the relationship between inequality and cheating. (See my earlier post on IQ and racism for an explanation of how mediational hypotheses are tested.) Although correlation does not imply causation, the data are consistent with this interpretation: In an unequal society, people don't trust their peers to behave honestly. Therefore, they themselves decide to cheat, either in conformity to what they perceive to be a norm of dishonest behavior (“everybody does it”), or to protect themselves from other cheaters (“if I don't plagiarize, my grades will suffer”).

A recent experiment by Gino and Pierce also found a relationship between inequality and cheating. In this study, the authors created inequality before the experiment began by conducting a lottery in which half the participants were randomly given $20. For purposes of this study, those who got $20 were called "rich" and those who did not were "poor." The students then performed a task in which one of them attempted to solve anagrams for monetary prizes, while another graded the solver's performance. Graders could cheat by incorrectly reporting their partner's score. The researchers were able to detect any dishonesty. Since each student was randomly assigned a partner, there were four types of pairs: rich solver-rich grader, rich solver-poor grader, poor solver-rich grader, and poor solver-poor grader.

Most of the cheating occurred in the two conditions of unequal wealth. In the rich solver-poor grader condition, the graders attempted to hurt the solvers by understating their performance. In the poor solver-rich grader, helpful cheating occurred. The graders overstated the solvers' scores. The authors (correctly, I believe) interpreted these results as a confirmation of equity theory. The initial lottery violated an implicit norm that all experimental participants should be paid equally. Equity was restored by taking money away from the “rich” or giving more money to the “poor.”

This study is less relevant to the consequences of income inequality than the plagiarism study, since the inequity resulted from a specific event (the lottery) and the cheating was intended to hurt or help a specific person (the beneficiary or the victim). While it is important that specific inequities be corrected, I believe income inequality results in a more general dishonesty in which the beneficiary is oneself, there is no specific intended victim, and the victims are always hurt. Examples would include cheating on your income tax, burying hidden charges in contracts (“gotcha!”), or lying in political advertisements. After 40 years as a college teacher, I'm well aware of how internet plagiarism has eroded the quality of campus life. Would there be less of it if college students graduated with less debt and were more confident they could get a good job after graduation?

Loose-Fitting Genes

In the last few weeks, there has been a flurry of research on autism, a nervous system disorder that impairs social interaction in children and adults. First, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) released new data from their Autism and Developmental Disability Monitoring Network showing that the incidence of autism has increased 25% since 2006 and has doubled since 2002. Boys now have a 1 in 54 chance of being diagnosed as autistic. For girls, it is 1 in 252.

As with previous reported increases in autism, there is controvery over whether the change is real or illusory, and if it is real, what is causing it. Historically, scientists have assumed that autism is genetically determined and most current research makes that assumption. However, the genetic makeup of the human population changes very slowly on a time scale of centuries. A doubling in ten years is almost an epidemic, and is more consistent with an environmental explanation. The roughly 100,000 new chemicals have been added to our environment since World War II would seem to be the most likely suspects. They may combine and interact to influence the nervous system in an almost infinite number of ways.

However, many researchers have suggested a third possibility—that the apparent increase in autism is due to an increase in diagnosis that does not reflect a real change in the presence of the disease. Two reasons are typically given for this measurement error explanation:

• More children are being tested, due to increased public awareness of autism and greater availability of treatment. The more people you test, the more autism you find.
• Scientists have gradually relaxed their criteria for labeling someone autistic. In this regard, the new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) of the American Psychiatric Association has tightened those criteria making it almost certain that fewer people will qualify as autistic in the future. It is not clear what role criticism of alleged errors in diagnosis played in the decision to set the bar for autism higher, but I suspect it had some effect.

One possible reason for the popularity of the measurement error explanation is that it allows researchers to maintain their belief in the genetic theory of autism. There is strong resistance by both corporations and government to any claim that illness is environmentally caused. The greatest resistance comes from the most likely suspects—the fossil fuel, chemical (especially agricultural chemical), and pharmaceutical industries. One result of this is an unwillingness to fund research on environmental causes of illness.

A parallel situation exists in cancer research.  It is also difficult to obtain funding to study environmental causes of cancer.  However, cancer research is more complex, since different types of cancer clearly have different causal paths.  An additional complication is that there is a longstanding tradition of blaming the victim for his or her cancer.

Secondly, a recent twin study by Joachim Hallmayer and colleagues at Stanford University has directly challenged traditional theories of autism. It was once common to hear researchers claim, on the basis of fairly weak evidence, that autism was 90% genetic and 10% environmental. The Stanford study is the largest study yet done, involving 192 pairs of twins. All the participants were tested for autism by the research team using a common set of criteria.

Basically, twin studies compare the common incidence of a condition among pairs of identical twins, who share all their genes, fraternal twins, who share half their genes, and unrelated individuals. The researchers used a complex mathematical model, but to simplify their results, they found that:

• Identical twins are more likely to both be autistic than fraternal twins, which supports the genetic theory.
• Fraternal twins are much more likely to both be autistic than would be predicted by comparing them to two people randomly chosen from the general population, suggesting that there is something in their common environments that plays a role.

The researchers best estimate based on their data is that autism is 62% environmentally caused and 38% genetically caused.

Thirdly, three studies simultaneously published in the journal Nature report that prenatal mutations of three specific genes are associated with autism. These defective genes occurred more frequently among older parents, and were four times more likely to originate with the father than the mother. This research was made possible by improvements in the ability to scan genes for mutations. This technology may lead to the identification of other defective genes that predict autism.

The article about this study referred to a blog post by Dr. Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, which funded one of the studies. Dr. Insel has a lot of power to determine what types of research get funded. He said that in light of the figures reported by the CDC, people often ask:

Why is anyone looking for genetic causes when there is such a rapid increase in prevalence? Shouldn't every research dollar be invested in finding the environmental culprit rather than searching for rare gene variants?

Yes, that's what I was wondering too. He gives a two part answer:

• Some autism is caused only by genes.
• Autism may be caused by a complex interaction between genetic and environmental causes. This is not only plausible but extremely likely. For example, a genetic weakness may not cause autism by itself, but exposure to a particular environment may cause a mutation of that gene and trigger the disease. However, it is also possible that environmental conditions may be direct causes of autism without any mediation by genes. This is the case with other diseases. Dr. Insel's theory allows for the possibility of direct genetic causation of autism but not direct environmental causation.  

Dr. Stephan Sanders of Yale, the lead researcher in one of the Nature studies, offers a third reason for doing genetic research. Because there are only 20,000 genes but “millions” (sic) of environmental toxins, looking for genetic “culprits” may be a faster way of identifying genetic-environmental interactions than searching for an environmental “villain.”

Dr. Sanders also assumes that autism can be caused by a genetic-environmental interaction but not by directly the environment. His research strategy reminds me of the story about the drunk who searches under a street lamp for his lost keys, not because he dropped them there, but because the light is better. It also seems disingenuous to suggest that all substances in the environment are equally likely to be responsible.  An epidemiologist might start by looking at geographical variation in the incidence of autism.

It may be time for researchers to take a fresh look at the causes of autism.

Note: The Pittsburgh Post Gazette publishes only abridged versions of some of their articles on their website. Some of the details of the Nature studies come from the newspaper article.

Bend Over

We have two definitely connected phenomena, often treated as separate and unconnected: a growing lawlessness in the financial sector, and an expanding, repressive, increasingly lunatic police apparatus trained at the poor, and especially the nonwhite poor.

Matt Taibbi

The Occupy Movement is expected to resume its protests of economic inequality this Summer, especially during the Elephant and Jackass political gatherings. But protesters, beware. The Supremes may have an unpleasant surprise for you.

The depressingly predictable 5-4 conservative majority has ruled that the police may strip search anyone they arrest for any offense, no matter how minor. They don't need a reason to suspect that the person is carrying drugs or weapons. As lead singer Justice Anthony Kennedy put it: “Every detainee who will be admitted to the general population may be required to undergo a close visual inspection while undressed.” About 13 million Americans are arrested each year.

Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the dissenters, said that strip searches are “a serious affront to human dignity and to individual privacy,” and should only be used when police have a reasonable suspicion that the person is carrying contraband.

The case, Florence v. County of Burlington, involved a black man, Albert W. Florence, a passenger in BMW driven by his wife, who was pulled over for speeding. He was arrested when the police checked their computer and discovered he had an unpaid parking ticket. In fact, he had paid the ticket; he was the victim of a data input error. He was kept in jail for eight days until the police acknowledged their error. During that time he was strip searched twice.

Are blanket strip searches necessary to detect contraband? There was an interesting difference in the approach to evidence taken by the Court's majority and minority spokesmen. Justice Breyer cited a study of 23,000 people arrested in Orange County, New York, in which only five people were found to have forbidden materials concealed in their underwear or body cavities. In four of these cases, police had reasonable suspicion to conduct the search, resulting in a “hit rate” of one in 23,000. Justice Kennedy, on the other hand, cited an anecdote about a man arrested in Washington who “managed to hide a lighter, tobacco, tattoo needles and other prohibited items in his rectal cavity.” (Even if this story is true—and I have doubts—a strip search might not have been necessary. The police could simply have ordered the man to sit down on a hard chair.)

Social psychologists have discovered that vivid anecdotes are more memorable than statistical data, so you'll probably remember Justice Kennedy's story long after you have forgotten the results of Justice Breyer's study.

One detail that was overlooked in some news reports is that the Obama administration filed a amicus brief with the court in favor of the unlimited strip search policy. The Solicitor General wrote that corrections officials should have “appropriate latitude to implement those policies and practices they deem necessary to preserve institutional security.”

In reality, strip searches of prisoners have little to do with detecting contraband. Degrading and humiliating searches are a part of the process of exercising control over newly arrested prisoners. This technique was widely used against Occupy protesters last Fall.

We are facing a indefinite period of increasing social inequality, accompanied by elimination of the social safety net which keeps many people alive. This is one of several converging decisions that will make it more difficult for people who hope to exercise their right to protest these conditions. It follows recent decisions by the Supremes that police officers who serve invalid warrants cannot be sued and that police do not have to give Miranda warnings pefore interrogating suspects. Meanwhile, the police are being given high tech weapons to threaten and punish crowds. The Department of Homeland Security has greatly increased its warrantless surveillance of citizens, a power that has been used to infiltrate the Occupy movement, deliberately blurring the distinction between domestic terrorists and peaceful protesters. The Justice Department has announced that they can detain U. S. citizens accused of terrorism indefinitely without any due process protection. Finally, Attorney General Eric Holder has announced that the President claims the right to order the assassination of American citizens alleged to be terrorists without any judicial oversight.

In this instance, the message seems to be particularly directed at young women: “Peaceful protesters can be arrested at any time. If you are arrested, this is what will happen to you. Maybe you'd better stay home.”

In Hot Water

This post doesn't have a social science connection. It involves a legal case that, to the best of my knowledge, is only being covered in Pittsburgh. I believe it deserves to be more widely known because of what it says about the attitudes of the Army and major defense contractors toward American soldiers.

In 2008, Staff Sergeant Ryan Maseth, a Green Beret from Shaler, PA (a Pittsburgh suburb), serving in Iraq, was electrocuted while taking a shower on an Army base in Baghdad. He was one of 18 soldiers in Iraq to be electrocuted by faulty wiring. In Sgt. Maseth's case, a water pump shorted out, electrifying the water in which he was showering. The building's electrical system was ungrounded.

The installation and maintenance of the electrical system was the responsibility of Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), formerly a division of Halliburton. Both Halliburton and KBR made a millions of dollars contracting various services to the Defense Department in Iraq. Many of these were no-bid contracts, obtained no doubt with the help of Vice President Dick Cheney, former CEO of Halliburton.

Sgt. Maseth's family is suing KBR on the grounds that their negligence was responsible for the soldier's death. On March 30, KBR asked Judge Nora Barry Fischer to dismiss the suit. KBR's contract says it is “responsible for quality” in its work. KBR's lawyer, Lawrence Ebner, says this is just “biolerplate language” and doesn't mean what it says. He says the U. S. Army is responsible for Sgt. Maseth's death.

Mr. Ebner said that the Army decided use old Iraqi buildings to house soldiers rather than build new structures for three reasons:

• The old buildings provided good protection against gunfire.
• New construction would have created the impression the U. S. was preparing for a permanent occupation.
• Using old buildings was less expensive.

Then, even though they knew these old buildings were unsafe, the Army decided they were “good enough” and required only that they be maintained rather than refurbished. However, Patrick Cavanaugh, lawyer for Sgt. Maseth's parents, said the Army had given KBR about a dozen work orders to fix the building. An electrical expert estimated that it would have taken $100 and a half-hour's work to prevent Sgt. Maseth's death, he said.

The significance of this argument is that under U. S. law, soldiers and their families cannot sue the Army for injuries incurred during a war regardless of the amount of negligence involved. If the Court accepts KBR's motion, no one is legally accountable for Sgt. Maseth's death.

Not content just to blame the Army, KBR also attempted to blame the victim. Mr. Ebner said that Sgt. Maseth knew the showers were unsafe and chose to take the risk of showering there. (Maybe he should have taken his shower in one of downtown Baghdad's luxury health spas.) Mr. Cavanaugh replied that although Sgt. Maseth knew the showers were dangerous, he had reason to believe they had been repaired.

The Army declined to comment. Judge Fischer will decide whether to dismiss the suit. Stay tuned.

Blaming the Victim

My two previous posts about the killing of Trayvon Martin focused on social influences on the perpetrator—the tendency of whites to assume that black people are a threat and the tendency to perceive others as threatening when you are carrying a gun. This one focuses on the attitudes of third parties. You have no doubt heard news reports suggesting Mr. Martin was a less-than-perfect person. When faced with inexplicable tragedy, there is a tendency to blame the victim—to hold the victim responsible for his own victimization.

Blaming the victim is supported by many studies. For example, Janoff-Bulman and her colleagues had participants read a detailed narrative about a young woman spending an evening out on the town. At the end of the night, a man escorts her home. In one version, he rapes her. In the other, nothing happens. Her behavior and personality are the same. In fact, the two stories were completely identical with the exception of the final sentence. The woman was blamed more by participants who read the rape outcome than those who read the neutral outcome. Behaviors that took on no particular significance in the neutral condition, such as mild flirting or wearing a short skirt, were seized on in hindsight by participants in the rape condition as evidence that she brought the rape on herself. Studies using this and other similar paradigms have found evidence of both behavioral blame (she engaged in risky actions) and characterological blame (she is a bad person). Needless to say, the most common strategy used by defense attorneys at trial is to attempt to persuade the jury to blame the victim.

In the Martin case, victim blaming is merged with our stereotypes of young black men. Instead of a short skirt, we are encouraged to think it's significant that Trayvon was wearing a hoodie. To associate him with drugs, it is leaked that marijuana residue was found among his possessions. And since young black men are supposed to be hostile, some news organizations were deceived by a photograph of a young man flipping the bird at the camera—which turned out a photo of someone else.

Blaming the victim is one of several examples of our belief in a just world. Fritz Heider, the founder of modern attribution theory, wrote that in order for our attitudes toward other people to be in balance, happiness and goodness ought to go together. In a just world, good behavior is rewarded and bad behavior is punished. Seeing one, we assume the other. It follows that if all we know about a person is that he has suffered some accident, illness or other misfortune, we assume that he is a bad person who deserved the negative outcome he received.

Why do we believe in a just world despite so much obvious evidence to the contrary? It is functional for the individual, since it facilitates the illusion that we can control our own fate. The alternative belief, that there is no relationship between our behavior and our outcomes, is known as learned helplessness, and people who believe that tend to be chronically depressed. At the societal level, the just world hypothesis serves as a mechanism of social control. If children can be taught to believe in a just world, they will presumably be encouraged to work hard, obey the law, treat others well, etc., in the expectation of leading a long and happy life.