Cognitive Enhancement and Motivation Enhancement: An Empirical Comparison of Intuitive Judgments

Faber, Nadira S.; Douglas, Thomas; Heise, Felix; Hewstone, Miles

doi:10.1080/21507740.2014.991847

Cited by 13 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…We tested our research questions by re-analyzing parts of a larger data set we had collected and reported on previously (for details, see Faber et al, 2015a ). For 94 participants, this data set contains information on the PCE-related judgments of interest, that is answers on Undeservingness , Unfairness , Hollowness , and Unacceptability .…”

Section: Psychological Explanationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(The other participants in the complete data set did not answer questions in relation to cognitive enhancement but on motivation enhancement, so their judgments are not relevant for the present study. Please see Faber et al (2015a) for further details on this data set.) Hence, our present sample contained 94 U.S. American participants (48% female, mean age 36.9 years 4 ), who indicated that they had not previously used PCE.…”

Section: Psychological Explanationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, we assessed participants’ global judgment about Unacceptability (“Taking medical substances that improve smartness is acceptable”; reversely coded). (For further questions asked that are not relevant for this re-analysis and, hence, not reported below, see Faber et al, 2015a .)…”

Section: Psychological Explanationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Why is Cognitive Enhancement Deemed Unacceptable? The Role of Fairness, Deservingness, and Hollow Achievements

2016

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We ask why pharmacological cognitive enhancement (PCE) is generally deemed morally unacceptable by lay people. Our approach to this question has two core elements. First, we employ an interdisciplinary perspective, using philosophical rationales as base for generating psychological models. Second, by testing these models we investigate how different normative judgments on PCE are related to each other. Based on an analysis of the relevant philosophical literature, we derive two psychological models that can potentially explain the judgment that PCE is unacceptable: the “Unfairness-Undeservingness Model” and the “Hollowness-Undeservingness Model.” The Unfairness-Undeservingness Model holds that people judge PCE to be unacceptable because they take it to produce unfairness and to undermine the degree to which PCE-users deserve reward. The Hollowness-Undeservingness Model assumes that people judge PCE to be unacceptable because they find achievements realized while using PCE hollow and undeserved. We empirically test both models against each other using a regression-based approach. When trying to predict judgments regarding the unacceptability of PCE using judgments regarding unfairness, hollowness, and undeservingness, we found that unfairness judgments were the only significant predictor of the perceived unacceptability of PCE, explaining about 36% of variance. As neither hollowness nor undeservingness had explanatory power above and beyond unfairness, the Unfairness-Undeservingness Model proved superior to the Hollowness-Undeservingness Model. This finding also has implications for the Unfairness-Undeservingness Model itself: either a more parsimonious single-factor “Fairness Model” should replace the Unfairness-Undeservingness-Model or fairness fully mediates the relationship between undeservingness and unacceptability. Both explanations imply that participants deemed PCE unacceptable because they judged it to be unfair. We conclude that concerns about unfairness play a crucial role in the subjective unacceptability of PCE and discuss the implications of our approach for the further investigation of the psychology of PCE.

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Section: Psychological Explanationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Psychological Explanationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Why is Cognitive Enhancement Deemed Unacceptable? The Role of Fairness, Deservingness, and Hollow Achievements

2016

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“…Unfairness is a particularly relevant concern in competitive settings (Faber et al, under review; also cf. Santoni de Sio et al, in press ), at least when the explicit goal of PCE use is to improve cognition (Faber et al, 2015a ). Such worries are unheard of in the case of NPCE, and they might in many cases be primarily rooted in the novelty or “unnaturalness” of PCE (Caviola et al, 2014 ), rather than justified threats to values like fairness posed by PCE.…”

Section: Public Perception Of Pharmacological and Non-pharmacologicalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pills or Push-Ups? Effectiveness and Public Perception of Pharmacological and Non-Pharmacological Cognitive Enhancement

Caviola

Faber

2015

Front. Psychol.

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We review work on the effectiveness of different forms of cognitive enhancement, both pharmacological and non-pharmacological. We consider caffeine, methylphenidate, and modafinil for pharmacological cognitive enhancement (PCE) and computer training, physical exercise, and sleep for non-pharmacological cognitive enhancement (NPCE). We find that all of the techniques described can produce significant beneficial effects on cognitive performance. However, effect sizes are moderate, and consistently dependent on individual and situational factors as well as the cognitive domain in question. Although meta-analyses allowing a quantitative comparison of effectiveness across techniques are lacking to date, we can conclude that PCE is not more effective than NPCE. We discuss the physiological reasons for this limited effectiveness. We then propose that even though their actual effectiveness seems similar, in the general public PCE is perceived as fundamentally different from NPCE, in terms of effectiveness, but also in terms of acceptability. We illustrate the potential consequences such a misperception of PCE can have.

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“…To address the possibility of changing attitudes and values, the ongoing psychological research has to take account of factors that have been shown to determine how acceptable people find the use of cognitive enhancers (e.g. negative side-effects or fairness; Faber et al 2015;Scheske and Schnall 2012), and to investigate whether attributions of responsibility change when participants are asked to envisage changes to these factors (e.g. availability of cognitive enhancers without considerable side-effects).…”

Section: Preliminary Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Cognitive Enhancement and Motivation Enhancement: An Empirical Comparison of Intuitive Judgments

Cited by 13 publications

References 7 publications

Why is Cognitive Enhancement Deemed Unacceptable? The Role of Fairness, Deservingness, and Hollow Achievements

Why is Cognitive Enhancement Deemed Unacceptable? The Role of Fairness, Deservingness, and Hollow Achievements

Pills or Push-Ups? Effectiveness and Public Perception of Pharmacological and Non-Pharmacological Cognitive Enhancement

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