There’s a human cognitive bias that may be relevant to this whole discussion, but that may not be widely appreciated in EA yet: gender bias in ‘moral typecasting’.
In a 2020 paper, my UNM colleague Tania Reynolds and coauthors found a systematic bias for women to be more easily categorized as victims and men as perpetrators, in situations where harm seems to have been done. The ran six studies in four countries (total N=3,317).
(Ever since a seminal paper by Gray & Wegner (2009), there’s been a fast-growing literature on moral typecasting. Beyond this Nonlinear dispute, it’s something that EAs might find useful in thinking about human moral psychology.)
If this dispute over Nonlinear is framed as male Emerson Spartz (at Nonlinear) vs. the females ‘Alice’ and ‘Chloe’, people may tend to see Nonlinear as the harm perpetrator. If it’s framed as male Ben Pace (at LessWrong) vs. female Kat Woods (at Nonlinear), people may tend to see Ben as the harm-perpetrator.
This is just one of the many human cognitive biases that’s worth bearing in mind when trying to evaluate conflicting evidence in complex situations.
Maybe it’s relevant here, maybe it’s not. But the psychological evidence suggests it may be relevant more often than we realize.
I don’t think it’s productive to name just one or two of the very many biases one could bring up. I would need some reason to think this bias is more worth mentioning than other biases (such as Ben’s payment to Alice and Chloe, or commenters’ friendships, etc.).
David—I mention the gender bias in moral typecasting in this context because (1) moral typecasting seems especially relevant in these kinds of organizational disputes, (2) I’ve noticed some moral typecasting in this specific discussion on EA Forum, and (3) many EAs are already familiar with the classical cognitive biases, many of which have been studied since the early 1970s, but may not be familiar with this newly researched bias.
Where is the evidence people are seeing this as primarily E vs A&C rather than K vs A&C? The post is written by Kat, and the comments on this and other recent posts are from Kat…
There’s a human cognitive bias that may be relevant to this whole discussion, but that may not be widely appreciated in EA yet: gender bias in ‘moral typecasting’.
In a 2020 paper, my UNM colleague Tania Reynolds and coauthors found a systematic bias for women to be more easily categorized as victims and men as perpetrators, in situations where harm seems to have been done. The ran six studies in four countries (total N=3,317).
(Ever since a seminal paper by Gray & Wegner (2009), there’s been a fast-growing literature on moral typecasting. Beyond this Nonlinear dispute, it’s something that EAs might find useful in thinking about human moral psychology.)
If this dispute over Nonlinear is framed as male Emerson Spartz (at Nonlinear) vs. the females ‘Alice’ and ‘Chloe’, people may tend to see Nonlinear as the harm perpetrator. If it’s framed as male Ben Pace (at LessWrong) vs. female Kat Woods (at Nonlinear), people may tend to see Ben as the harm-perpetrator.
This is just one of the many human cognitive biases that’s worth bearing in mind when trying to evaluate conflicting evidence in complex situations.
Maybe it’s relevant here, maybe it’s not. But the psychological evidence suggests it may be relevant more often than we realize.
I don’t think it’s productive to name just one or two of the very many biases one could bring up. I would need some reason to think this bias is more worth mentioning than other biases (such as Ben’s payment to Alice and Chloe, or commenters’ friendships, etc.).
David—I mention the gender bias in moral typecasting in this context because (1) moral typecasting seems especially relevant in these kinds of organizational disputes, (2) I’ve noticed some moral typecasting in this specific discussion on EA Forum, and (3) many EAs are already familiar with the classical cognitive biases, many of which have been studied since the early 1970s, but may not be familiar with this newly researched bias.
Where is the evidence people are seeing this as primarily E vs A&C rather than K vs A&C? The post is written by Kat, and the comments on this and other recent posts are from Kat…