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Introduction: Palliative care (PC) utilization remains low among pancreatic cancer patients. This study explores the association of PC with mental health service and pharmacotherapy utilization among pancreatic cancer patients.Methods: Retrospective analysis was conducted on a sample of patients in the United States with newly diagnosed pancreatic cancer using Electronic Health Record data from Optum's Integrated Claims-Clinical data set. Subsequent diagnoses of anxiety and depression and PC consultation encounters were determined using ICD-9/10 codes. Adjusted associations of mental health treatments with PC and patient characteristics were quantified using multiple logistic regression. Results: Among newly diagnosed pancreatic cancer patients (n = 4029), those with PC consultations exhibited a higher prevalence of anxiety (33.9% vs. 22.8%) and depression (36.2% vs. 23.2%). Mental health service use and pharmacotherapy varied, with the highest utilization among patients having both anxiety and depression. Treatment pattern was also influenced by age (aOR 1.832 for age <55 vs. 65–70 years). Notably, PC consultations showed no significant effect on the likelihood of documented treatment. Discussion: Our study emphasizes underutilization of PC and MH treatment for pancreatic cancer patients. These findings imply a crucial need for further investigation into palliative care's role in addressing mental health concerns among pancreatic cancer patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anti-Black racism remains a pervasive crisis in the United States. Racist social systems reinforce racial inequalities and perpetuate prejudicial beliefs. These beliefs emerge in childhood, are difficult to change once entrenched in adolescence and adulthood, and lead people to support policies that further reinforce racist systems. Therefore, it is important to identify what leads children to form prejudicial beliefs and biases and what steps can be taken to preempt their development. This study examined how children’s exposure to and beliefs about racial inequalities predicted anti-Black biases in a sample of 646 White children (4 to 8 years) living across the United States. We found that for children with more exposure to racial inequality in their daily lives, those who believed that racial inequalities were caused by intrinsic differences between people were more likely to hold racial biases, whereas those who recognized the extrinsic factors underlying racial inequalities held more egalitarian attitudes. Grounded in constructivist theories in developmental science, these results are consistent with the possibility that racial biases emerge in part from the explanatory beliefs that children construct to understand the racial inequalities they see in the world around them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Scholars have reached conflicting results as to the relative importance of cultural and economic threats to majority group receptivity to immigrants and refugees. This study seeks to test whether cultural or economic threat has a stronger influence on white Americans' receptivity to Syrian refugees. Method: We designed a 2 × 2 priming experiment fielded among white Americans in 2015 that varies both the religion of Syrian refugees to be admitted to the United States (Christian vs. Muslim) and the material costs of refugee admission (economic burden vs. no economic burden). Results: The results show that cultural threat (Muslim religion) is not by itself sufficient to induce a decline in receptivity among white Americans. Instead, it is the combination of cultural and economic threats that leads to lower levels of refugee acceptance. Conclusion: Cultural threat, especially when it comes to religious "others," may not operate alone but in conjunction with material fears. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critiques philosophical efforts to biologize race as racial projects (Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States). The paper argues that the deeply social phenomenon of race defies the analytic schema employed by biologizing philosophers. The very (social) act of theorizing race is already in an involuted relationship with its target concept: analyzing race must be seen as a racial project, in that it simultaneously helps to manage how race is represented in society and helps organize society's resources along particular racial lines. Such biologizing projects are rife with moral and political dimensions and have a depoliticizing effect that has the potential to camouflage, defuse, or explain away the social‐structural reproduction of white power/privilege. The paper begins by considering two recent philosophic‐scientific biologizations of race, showing how they conform to the analytic schema, reviewing received critical points, and offering several novel ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Common law judges were worried that if jurors learned of the accused's past acts or character traits, they would punish him not for being proved guilty of this crime, but for the kind of person that he is. Unfortunately, our attempt to correct this powerful tendency has only made things worse. When jurors cannot hear how someone has behaved in the past, they will instead rely on immutable facial features--rooted in racist, sexist, and classist stereotypes--to draw character inferences that are even more inaccurate and unfair. Undisputed findings from social psychology demonstrate that we rely on features like the distance between the eyes, the width of the nose, the angles of the jawline, and the color of skin to spontaneously infer whether someone is threatening, intelligent, or kind. This in turn predicts election outcomes, hiring decisions, teaching evaluations, and even jury verdicts. Because this split-second process is subconscious and pervasive, it is not susceptible to mitigation through jury instructions. Witnesses will be considered untrustworthy based only on their face, and in some cases, justice may require admitting bolstering evidence before their character is technically attacked. I thus propose reversing the ban on character evidence, in favor of a presumption of inadmissibility for immoral traits only. My proposal has a number of benefits, including retethering the rule to its moral, normative roots and acknowledging that not all past act evidence will be unfairly prejudicial. Finally, delivering the greatest balm to judges and attorneys, admissibility would no longer hinge on the gossamer-thin distinction between propensity and non-propensity uses. This is because jurors will automatically use whatever information is available, including evidence of mental states, to infer character traits, predict behavior, and assess blame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A problematic way to think about social categories is to essentialize them—to treat particular differences between people as marking fundamentally distinct social kinds. From where do these beliefs arise? Language that expresses generic claims about categories elicits some aspects of essentialism, but the scope of these effects remains unclear. This study (N = 204, ages 4.5–8 years, 73% White; recruited predominantly from the United States and the United Kingdom to participate online in 2019) found that generic language increases two critical aspects of essentialist thought: Beliefs that (a) category‐related properties arise from intrinsic causal mechanisms and (b) category boundaries are inflexible. These findings have implications for understanding the spread of essentialist beliefs across communities and the development of intergroup behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People intuitively view some social groups (such as Black people, Muslims, and women) as having biological underpinnings and discrete boundaries. Essentialist beliefs about social groups shape how people view themselves and others, leading to a number of negative social consequences. Whereas previous research has demonstrated variations in social essentialism within some Western societies, less is known about how social essentialism manifests in East Asian cultures that have well-documented differences in social values and cognitive styles from Western cultures. The current research investigated cultural variations in social essentialist thinking in the United States and China to reveal how cultural ideologies and social belief systems shape people's basic representations of the social world. Analyses revealed several cultural and social correlates of social essentialism both between and within the cultures and demonstrated the mediating role of collectivistic values in predicting cultural differences in essentialist beliefs about group coherence., (© 2022. The Psychonomic Society, Inc.)

This qualitative study explored the experiences of transracial Chinese adoptees who were born in China, separated from their biological families, raised in the United States by White families, and given an Anglicized name at the time of their adoption. This study focused on participant experiences as they navigated being raised in the United States as transracial Chinese adoptees, their feelings related to their Chinese names, thoughts about China and birth family search, and experiences of ethnic and racial socialization within their adoptive families. Data were collected from in-depth, semi-structured interviews via Skype that integrated a constructivist–interpretivist and critical epistemological paradigm and coded using grounded-theory methods. Participants (N = 8) were transracial Chinese adoptees with ages ranging from 18 to 25 years (M = 21.5 years) who were between 6 and 17 months (M = 10.6 months) at the time of adoption. Results from the interviews revealed eight axial categories and three overarching selective categories related to their experience as transracial Chinese adoptees: (a) experiences of race and adoption, (b) factors influencing racial–ethnic socialization, and (c) recommendations for adoptive parents. Limitations of the study, future areas of research, and clinical and practice implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neuroscience proffers evidence that self‐described conservatives have stronger fear responses and aversion to risk than self‐described liberals. Combined with studies showing that judicial ideology drives the content of Supreme Court majority opinions, I argue that conservatism is linked to risk focus in Supreme Court majority opinions. I use the Language Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software on a sample of Supreme Court majority opinions, and find that conservative opinions score higher on the LIWC dimension called Risk Focus than liberal opinions. This effect is enhanced in criminal procedural cases. If conservative judges' perceptions of risk are inflated, and if such perceptions are reflected in the binding opinions that they author, then such opinions' heightened sense of risk may influence the perceptions of risk of lower‐court judges, which may in turn affect their decision‐making in such important areas as sentencing and convictions. Such a pattern raises important questions for the thousands of lower‐court decisions which impact the basic liberties of American citizens. Objective: To determine whether judicial ideology affects the focus on risk of Supreme Court opinions. Methods: Original, random sampling of 1200‐1300 Court opinions; use of LIWC software to analyze risk focus of each opinion; regression analysis of ideology on risk focus. Results: As ideology becomes more conservative, the Court's opinions demonstrate increased evidence of focus on risk. This effect is pronounced in criminal procedure cases. Conclusion: The theory is supported. Increasingly conservative Court opinions demonstrate an increased focus on risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public debate and scholarly research has largely concentrated on the vast array of disparities between blacks and whites in their treatment by and experiences with the criminal justice system. Nevertheless, a growing body of research shows that African Americans' life chances are internally stratified by gradational differences in their skin tone. This study brings together research on race, color, and the criminal justice system by using nationally-representative data to examine whether (and to what extent) skin tone is associated with policing and punishment among African Americans. I find that skin tone is significantly associated with the probability of having been arrested and/or incarcerated, net of relevant controls. Further analyses, using a sub-sample of whites drawn from the same nationally-representative survey, show that disparities in policing and punishment within the black population along the colour continuum are often comparable to or even exceed disparities between blacks and whites as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines whether female political candidates are disfavored in terms of persuasiveness potential based on their expertise and trustworthiness. Using a Bayesian argumentation paradigm in which candidates endorse policies, this study shows that male voters regard female candidates as less persuasive than male candidates. A controlled between-subjects experiment among 202 potential voters in the United States suggests that female election candidates are subject to sex biases in two central ways. First, despite agreeing on their trustworthiness and expertise, male voters find highly credible female candidates less persuasive than identical male candidates. Second, female candidates are affected more adversely if they are perceived as lacking in trustworthiness. Male candidates, on the other hand, are affected more negatively if they are perceived as lacking in expertise. Whereas perceived lack of expertise is relatively easy to repair, trustworthiness may be difficult to regain once it is lost. In a political environment in which attack ads are prevalent, this may carry a greater negative impact for female candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the author's views about the psychological conflict known as cognitive dissonance in relation to religious liberty discourse in America, and it mentions the legal rights of LGBTQ women and children, as well as information about U.S. Supreme Court litigation involving religious liberties. The sexual abuse of children within religious organizations is examined, along with the U.S. Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.

Background: Identification of genes or fundamental biological pathways that regulate aging phenotypes and longevity could lead to possible interventions to increase healthy longevity.Methods: Using data from the Long Life Family Study, we performed genomewide association analyses on an endophenotype construct, LF1, comprising a linear combination of traits across health domains. LF1 primarily reflected traits from the pulmonary and physical activity domains.Results: We detected a significant association between LF1 and a locus on chromosome 10p15 (p-value = 4.65 × 10-8) and suggestive evidence (p-value < 5 × 10-6) for association on chromosomes 1, 2, 8, 12, 15, 18, and 22. Using data from the Health, Aging and Body Composition Study, we subsequently replicated the association for the 1p13 region near the NBPF6 locus (p-value = 3.65 × 10-4).Conclusions: Our analyses indicate that loci influencing a healthy aging endophenotype construct predominantly comprised of pulmonary and physical function domains may be located on chromosome 1p13 near the NBPF6 locus. Further investigation of this possible locus and other suggestive loci may reveal novel biological pathways that influence healthy aging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many of the Supreme Court's important holdings concerning campaign finance law are not pure matters of constitutional interpretation. Rather, they are "contingent" constitutional determinations: the Court's conclusions rest in substantial part on legislative facts about the world that the Court finds, intuits, or assumes to be true. While earlier commentators have recognized the need to improve legislative factfinding by the Supreme Court, other aspects of its treatment of legislative facts--particularly in the realm of campaign finance-- require reform as well. Stare decisis purportedly insulates the Court's purely legal holdings and interpretations from future challenge. Factually contingent constitutional rulings should, in contrast, be more susceptible to future revision. The facts underlying contingent holdings may change, litigants in a later case may present different evidence concerning those facts, social or technological developments may occur, new discoveries may be made, or a later court's assessments or assumptions concerning those facts may differ. The Court's campaign finance jurisprudence exhibits the opposite tendency of what theory would predict, however. The Court has proven much more willing to revisit its purely legal interpretations of the First Amendment than its constitutionally contingent holdings. Many of the Court's campaign finance rulings pay insufficient attention to the importance of legislative facts. They reiterate holdings of prior cases as if they were pure declarations of law, without recognizing the underlying legislative facts upon which those holdings depend. This can lead future courts to overestimate these holdings' binding force, overlooking their dependence on certain facts. Several cases also make critical assertions concerning legislative facts without citing support either in the record or from extrinsic sources. Perhaps the biggest impediment to the effective use of legislative facts in campaign finance cases is the vagueness of the decision rules the Court has crafted to implement the First Amendment in this field. Many of the Court's doctrines turn on standards--for example, whether an act poses a risk of apparent corruption--that are vague, underdefined, and fail to provide litigants and future courts with sufficient guidance concerning the nature and extent of evidence necessary to satisfy them. Such indeterminacy allows courts to resolve campaign finance cases based primarily on subjective, ad hoc intuitions and preferences rather than provable legislative facts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examine the use of implicit bias to advance anti-discrimination law in the U.S. Topics discussed include unintentional discrimination to legal scholars with transformative consequences; role of race and criminal record on employment discrimination; and non-purposeful discrimination for an extraordinary variety of legal topics including employment discrimination, affirmative action and civil procedure.

An essay is presented on civil obedience, government officials, and the political aspects of defining law in America as of November 2013. Morality and the demands of positive law are addressed, along with legal theorists such as Ronald Dworkin. Then-U.S. President George W. Bush's Administration is mentioned in relation to domestic warrantless wiretapping and alleged violations of the nation's Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). American constitutional law and illegality are examined.

Several studies show media messages activate or exacerbate racial stereotypes. This analysis, however, may be the first to examine which types of information--those that directly contradict media messages (i.e., crime-related) or general news (i.e., non-crime-related)--are most effective in abating stereotypes. Its findings suggest fear of crime is becoming more a human fear, not just a racial one. Furthermore, it suggests that for younger Americans, the concomitant dyad of the black criminal stereotype---race and crime--is fueled more by crime than by race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined implicit race biases in the decision to shoot potentially hostile targets in a multiethnic context. Results of two studies showed that college-aged participants and police officers showed anti-Black racial bias in their response times: they were quicker to correctly shoot armed Black targets and to indicate 'don't shoot' for unarmed Latino, Asian, and White targets. In addition, police officers showed racial biases in response times toward Latinos versus Asians or Whites, and surprisingly, toward Whites versus Asians. Results also showed that the accuracy of decisions to shoot was higher for Black and Latino targets than for White and Asian targets. Finally, the degree of bias shown by police officers toward Blacks was related to contact, attitudes, and stereotypes. Overestimation of community violent crime correlated with greater bias toward Latinos but less toward Whites. Implications for police training to ameliorate biases are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on psychology of judging in race discrimination cases in the U.S. with reference to social psychological research on contemporary racial biasness. It first forms hypotheses from social psychology findings and then conducts an empirical legal study that examines how federal courts in the U.S. have adjudicated motions to dismiss African American plaintiffs' claims of race discrimination. It refers to several court cases including Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and then Ashcroft V. Iqbal.

Presents the abstracts of papers presented at the 40th annual meeting of the Society for Psychophysiological research slated in San Diego, California. Speakers; Symposia abstracts; Authors and topics.