Elizabeth Mullen

Dispositions, scripts, or motivated correction? Understanding ideological differences in explanations for social problems.

attributional judgments under varying levels of cognitive load) explored whether these differences could be explained by (a) underlying dispositional differences in the tendency to see the causes of behavior as personally or situationally located, (b) ideological scripts, or (c) differences in the motivation to correct personal attributions. Results were most consistent with the motivated correction explanation. The findings shed further light on the cognitive strategies and motivational priorities of liberals and conservatives.

Political Tolerance and Coming to Psychological Closure Following the September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attacks: An Integrative Approach

This study tested hypotheses generated from an integrative model of political tolerance that derived hypotheses from a number of different social psychological theories (e.g., appraisal tendency theory, intergroup emotion theory, and value protection models) to explain political tolerance following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. A national field study (N = 550) found that immediate post attack anger and fear had different implications for political tolerance 4 months later. The effects of anger on political tolerance were mediated through moral outrage and outgroup derogation, whereas the effects of fear on political tolerance were mediated through personal threat, ingroup enhancement, and value affirmation. Value affirmation led to increased political tolerance, whereas moral outrage, outgroup derogation, ingroup enhancement, and personal threat led to decreased political tolerance. Value affirmation, moral outrage, and outgroup derogation also facilitated post-9/11 psychological closure and increased psychological closure led to greater political tolerance.

Striving for the Moral Self: The Effects of Recalling Past Moral Actions on Future Moral Behavior

People’s desires to see themselves as moral actors can contribute to their striving for and achievement of a sense of self-completeness. The authors use self-completion theory to predict (and show) that recalling one’s own (im)moral behavior leads to compensatory rather than consistent moral action as a way of completing the moral self. In three studies, people who recalled their immoral behavior reported greater participation in moral activities (Study 1), reported stronger prosocial intentions (Study 2), and showed less cheating (Study 3) than people who recalled their moral behavior. These compensatory effects were related to the moral magnitude of the recalled event, but they did not emerge when people recalled their own positive or negative nonmoral behavior (Study 2) or others’ (im)moral behavior (Study 3). Thus, the authors extend self-completion theory to the moral domain and use it to integrate the research on moral cleansing (remunerative moral strivings) and moral licensing (relaxed moral strivings).

Exploring the Psychological Underpinnings of the Moral Mandate Effect: Motivated Reasoning, Group Differentiation, or Anger?

When people have strong moral convictions about outcomes, their judgments of both outcome and procedural fairness become driven more by whether outcomes support or oppose their moral mandates than by whether procedures are proper or improper (the moral mandate effect). Two studies tested 3 explanations for the moral mandate effect. In particular, people with moral mandates may (a) have a greater motivation to seek out procedural flaws when outcomes fail to support their moral point of view (the motivated reasoning hypothesis), (b) be influenced by in-group distributive biases as a result of identifying with parties that share rather than oppose their moral point of view (the group differentiation hypothesis), or (c) react with anger when outcomes are inconsistent with their moral point of view, which, in turn, colors perceptions of both outcomes and procedures (the anger hypothesis). Results support the anger hypothesis.

Understanding Judgments of Fairness in a Real-World Political Context: A Test of the Value Protection Model of Justice Reasoning

Current theories of justice emphasize social identity reasons for why people care about justice to the relative neglect of personal identity concerns, that is, people’s need to express, defend, and live up to personal moral standards. The authors present a value protection model that predicts that self-expressive moral positions or stands (“moral mandates”) are important determinants of how people reason about fairness. Hypotheses were tested and supported in the context of a natural experiment: reactions of a national random sample of adults to the Elián González case pre-raid, post-raid, and then post-resolution of the case. Models that included strength of moral mandates, but not pre-raid judgments of procedural fairness, best predicted reactions to the raid and post-resolution judgments of both procedural and outcome fairness and were associated with expressions of moral outrage and attempts to morally cleanse.

DICER1 mutations in childhood cystic nephroma and its relationship to DICER1-renal sarcoma.

The pathogenesis of cystic nephroma of the kidney has interested pathologists for over 50 years. Emerging from its initial designation as a type of unilateral multilocular cyst, cystic nephroma has been considered as either a developmental abnormality or a neoplasm or both. Many have viewed cystic nephroma as the benign end of the pathologic spectrum with cystic partially differentiated nephroblastoma and Wilms tumor, whereas others have considered it a mixed epithelial and stromal tumor. We hypothesize that cystic nephroma, like the pleuropulmonary blastoma in the lung, represents a spectrum of abnormal renal organogenesis with risk for malignant transformation. Here we studied DICER1 mutations in a cohort of 20 cystic nephromas and 6 cystic partially differentiated nephroblastomas, selected independently of a familial association with pleuropulmonary blastoma and describe four cases of sarcoma arising in cystic nephroma, which have a similarity to the solid areas of type II or III pleuropulmonary blastoma. The genetic analyses presented here confirm that DICER1 mutations are the major genetic event in the development of cystic nephroma. Further, cystic nephroma and pleuropulmonary blastoma have similar DICER1 loss of function and ‘hotspot’ missense mutation rates, which involve specific amino acids in the RNase IIIb domain. We propose an alternative pathway with the genetic pathogenesis of cystic nephroma and DICER1-renal sarcoma paralleling that of type I to type II/III malignant progression of pleuropulmonary blastoma.

Advances in Wilms Tumor Treatment and Biology: Progress Through International Collaboration

Clinical trials in Wilms tumor (WT) have resulted in overall survival rates of greater than 90%. This achievement is especially remarkable because improvements in disease-specific survival have occurred concurrently with a reduction of therapy for large patient subgroups. However, the outcomes for certain patient subgroups, including those with unfavorable histologic and molecular features, bilateral disease, and recurrent disease, remain well below the benchmark survival rate of 90%. Therapy for WT has been advanced in part by an increasingly complex risk-stratification system based on patient age; tumor stage, histology, and volume; response to chemotherapy; and loss of heterozygosity at chromosomes 1p and 16q. A consequence of this system has been the apportionment of patients into such small subgroups that only collaboration between large international WT study groups will support clinical trials that are sufficiently powered to answer challenging questions that move the field forward. This article gives an overview of the Childrens Oncology Group and International Society of Pediatric Oncology approaches to WT and focuses on four subgroups (stage IV, initially inoperable, bilateral, and relapsed WT) for which international collaboration is pressing. In addition, biologic insights resulting from collaborative laboratory research are discussed. A coordinated expansion of international collaboration in both clinical trials and laboratory science will provide real opportunity to improve the treatment and outcomes for children with renal tumors on a global level.

When Values and Attributions Collide: Liberals' and Conservatives' Values Motivate Attributions for Alleged Misdeeds

Conservatives tend to make dispositional whereas liberals make situational attributions for social problems and alleged misconduct (the “ideo-attribution effect”). Three studies demonstrated a reversal of the ideo-attribution effect. Conservatives made stronger situational attributions than liberals for the behavior of Marines accused of killing Iraqi civilians (Studies 1 and 2) and police officers accused of wrongly killing a cougar running loose in a Chicago neighborhood (Study 3). Reversals of the ideo-attribution effect occurred because conservative values were more consistent with excusing the Marines’ and police officers’ behavior, whereas liberal values were more consistent with blaming the Marines and police officers. These results suggest that the ideo-attribution effect—and attributions more generally—are shaped by whether people’s attributional conclusions are consistent or inconsistent with their salient values.

Children's Oncology Group's 2013 blueprint for research: renal tumors.

Renal malignancies are among the most prevalent pediatric cancers. The most common is favorable histology Wilms tumor (FHWT), which has 5‐year overall survival exceeding 90%. Other pediatric renal malignancies, including anaplastic Wilms tumor, clear cell sarcoma, malignant rhabdoid tumor, and renal cell carcinoma, have less favorable outcomes. Recent clinical trials have identified gain of chromosome 1q as a prognostic marker for FHWT. Upcoming studies will evaluate therapy adjustments based on this and other novel biomarkers. For high‐risk renal tumors, new treatment regimens will incorporate biological therapies. A research blueprint, viewed from the perspective of the Childrens Oncology Group, is presented. Pediatr Blood Cancer 2013; 60: 994–1000.

Morality and justice: An expanded theoretical perspective and empirical review

Two metaphors of human motivation have dominated justice theory and research: homo economicus (people as rational utility maximizers) and homo socialis (people as status and social value maximizers). This chapter reviews theory and research inspired by a recent third perspective: homo moralis, that is, people as innately concerned about morality. When people have strong moral convictions at stake, their perceptions of outcome fairness and decision acceptance are shaped more by whether outcomes are consistent with perceivers’ moral priorities than by whether authorities act in procedurally fair ways; moreover, whether authorities yield morally correct outcomes shapes subsequent perceptions of the legitimacy of these authorities or authority systems. Emotion plays an important role in both of these effects.