When psychopathy impairs moral judgments: neural responses during judgments about causing fear.

PubMed

Marsh, Abigail A; Cardinale, Elise M

2014-01-01

Psychopathy is a disorder characterized by reduced empathy, shallow affect and behaviors that cause victims distress, like threats, bullying and violence. Neuroimaging research in both institutionalized and community samples implicates amygdala dysfunction in the etiology of psychopathic traits. Reduced amygdala responsiveness may disrupt processing of fear-relevant stimuli like fearful facial expressions. The present study links amygdala dysfunction in response to fear-relevant stimuli to the willingness of individuals with psychopathic traits to cause fear in other people. Thirty-three healthy adult participants varying in psychopathic traits underwent whole-brain fMRI scanning while they viewed statements that selectively evoke anger, disgust, fear, happiness or sadness. During scanning, participants judged whether it is morally acceptable to make each statement to another person. Psychopathy was associated with reduced activity in right amygdala during judgments of fear-evoking statements and with more lenient moral judgments about causing fear. No group differences in amygdala function or moral judgments emerged for other emotion categories. Psychopathy was also associated with increased activity in middle frontal gyrus (BA 10) during the task. These results implicate amygdala dysfunction in impaired judgments about causing distress in psychopathy and suggest that atypical amygdala responses to fear in psychopathy extend across multiple classes of stimuli.

When psychopathy impairs moral judgments: neural responses during judgments about causing fear

PubMed Central

Marsh, Abigail A.; Cardinale, Elise M.

2014-01-01

Psychopathy is a disorder characterized by reduced empathy, shallow affect and behaviors that cause victims distress, like threats, bullying and violence. Neuroimaging research in both institutionalized and community samples implicates amygdala dysfunction in the etiology of psychopathic traits. Reduced amygdala responsiveness may disrupt processing of fear-relevant stimuli like fearful facial expressions. The present study links amygdala dysfunction in response to fear-relevant stimuli to the willingness of individuals with psychopathic traits to cause fear in other people. Thirty-three healthy adult participants varying in psychopathic traits underwent whole-brain fMRI scanning while they viewed statements that selectively evoke anger, disgust, fear, happiness or sadness. During scanning, participants judged whether it is morally acceptable to make each statement to another person. Psychopathy was associated with reduced activity in right amygdala during judgments of fear-evoking statements and with more lenient moral judgments about causing fear. No group differences in amygdala function or moral judgments emerged for other emotion categories. Psychopathy was also associated with increased activity in middle frontal gyrus (BA 10) during the task. These results implicate amygdala dysfunction in impaired judgments about causing distress in psychopathy and suggest that atypical amygdala responses to fear in psychopathy extend across multiple classes of stimuli. PMID:22956667

Inference of trustworthiness from intuitive moral judgments.

PubMed

Everett, Jim A C; Pizarro, David A; Crockett, M J

2016-06-01

Moral judgments play a critical role in motivating and enforcing human cooperation, and research on the proximate mechanisms of moral judgments highlights the importance of intuitive, automatic processes in forming such judgments. Intuitive moral judgments often share characteristics with deontological theories in normative ethics, which argue that certain acts (such as killing) are absolutely wrong, regardless of their consequences. Why do moral intuitions typically follow deontological prescriptions, as opposed to those of other ethical theories? Here, we test a functional explanation for this phenomenon by investigating whether agents who express deontological moral judgments are more valued as social partners. Across 5 studies, we show that people who make characteristically deontological judgments are preferred as social partners, perceived as more moral and trustworthy, and are trusted more in economic games. These findings provide empirical support for a partner choice account of moral intuitions whereby typically deontological judgments confer an adaptive function by increasing a person's likelihood of being chosen as a cooperation partner. Therefore, deontological moral intuitions may represent an evolutionarily prescribed prior that was selected for through partner choice mechanisms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Cognitive Load Selectively Interferes with Utilitarian Moral Judgment

PubMed Central

Greene, Joshua D.; Morelli, Sylvia A.; Lowenberg, Kelly; Nystrom, Leigh E.; Cohen, Jonathan D.

2008-01-01

Traditional theories of moral development emphasize the role of controlled cognition in mature moral judgment, while a more recent trend emphasizes intuitive and emotional processes. Here we test a dual-process theory synthesizing these perspectives. More specifically, our theory associates utilitarian moral judgment (approving of harmful actions that maximize good consequences) with controlled cognitive processes and associates non-utilitarian moral judgment with automatic emotional responses. Consistent with this theory, we find that a cognitive load manipulation selectively interferes with utilitarian judgment. This interference effect provides direct evidence for the influence of controlled cognitive processes in moral judgment, and utilitarian moral judgment more specifically. PMID:18158145

Reduced amygdala-orbitofrontal connectivity during moral judgments in youths with disruptive behavior disorders and psychopathic traits

PubMed Central

Marsh, Abigail A.; Finger, Elizabeth C.; Fowler, Katherine A.; Jurkowitz, Ilana T.N.; Schechter, Julia C.; Yu, Henry H.; Pine, Daniel S.; Blair, R. J. R.

2011-01-01

We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate dysfunction in the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex in adolescents with disruptive behavior disorders and psychopathic traits during a moral judgment task. Fourteen adolescents with psychopathic traits and 14 healthy controls were assessed using fMRI while they categorized illegal and legal behaviors in a moral judgment implicit association task. fMRI data were then analyzed using random-effects analysis of variance and functional connectivity. Youths with psychopathic traits showed reduced amygdala activity when making judgments about legal actions and reduced functional connectivity between the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex during task performance. These results suggest that psychopathic traits are associated with amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex dysfunction. This dysfunction may relate to previous findings of disrupted moral judgment in this population. PMID:22047730

Intuition and Moral Decision-Making - The Effect of Time Pressure and Cognitive Load on Moral Judgment and Altruistic Behavior.

PubMed

Tinghög, Gustav; Andersson, David; Bonn, Caroline; Johannesson, Magnus; Kirchler, Michael; Koppel, Lina; Västfjäll, Daniel

2016-01-01

Do individuals intuitively favor certain moral actions over others? This study explores the role of intuitive thinking-induced by time pressure and cognitive load-in moral judgment and behavior. We conduct experiments in three different countries (Sweden, Austria, and the United States) involving over 1,400 subjects. All subjects responded to four trolley type dilemmas and four dictator games involving different charitable causes. Decisions were made under time pressure/time delay or while experiencing cognitive load or control. Overall we find converging evidence that intuitive states do not influence moral decisions. Neither time-pressure nor cognitive load had any effect on moral judgments or altruistic behavior. Thus we find no supporting evidence for the claim that intuitive moral judgments and dictator game giving differ from more reflectively taken decisions. Across all samples and decision tasks men were more likely to make utilitarian moral judgments and act selfishly compared to women, providing further evidence that there are robust gender differences in moral decision-making. However, there were no significant interactions between gender and the treatment manipulations of intuitive versus reflective decision-making.

Moral judgment and its relation to second-order theory of mind.

PubMed

Fu, Genyue; Xiao, Wen S; Killen, Melanie; Lee, Kang

2014-08-01

Recent research indicates that moral judgment and 1st-order theory of mind abilities are related. What is not known, however, is how 2nd-order theory of mind is related to moral judgment. In the present study, we extended previous findings by administering a morally relevant theory of mind task (an accidental transgressor) to 4- to 7-year-old Chinese children (N = 79) and analyzing connections with 2nd-order theory of mind understanding. Using hierarchical multiple regression analyses, we found that above and beyond age, children's 1st-order theory of mind and 2nd-order theory of mind each significantly and uniquely contributed to children's moral evaluations of the intention in the accidental transgression. These findings highlight the important roles that 1st- and 2nd-order theory of mind play in leading children to make appropriate moral judgments based on an actor's intention in a social situation. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Moral judgment as information processing: an integrative review.

PubMed

Guglielmo, Steve

2015-01-01

How do humans make moral judgments about others' behavior? This article reviews dominant models of moral judgment, organizing them within an overarching framework of information processing. This framework poses two distinct questions: (1) What input information guides moral judgments? and (2) What psychological processes generate these judgments? Information Models address the first question, identifying critical information elements (including causality, intentionality, and mental states) that shape moral judgments. A subclass of Biased Information Models holds that perceptions of these information elements are themselves driven by prior moral judgments. Processing Models address the second question, and existing models have focused on the relative contribution of intuitive versus deliberative processes. This review organizes existing moral judgment models within this framework and critically evaluates them on empirical and theoretical grounds; it then outlines a general integrative model grounded in information processing, and concludes with conceptual and methodological suggestions for future research. The information-processing framework provides a useful theoretical lens through which to organize extant and future work in the rapidly growing field of moral judgment.

Moral judgment as information processing: an integrative review

PubMed Central

Guglielmo, Steve

2015-01-01

How do humans make moral judgments about others’ behavior? This article reviews dominant models of moral judgment, organizing them within an overarching framework of information processing. This framework poses two distinct questions: (1) What input information guides moral judgments? and (2) What psychological processes generate these judgments? Information Models address the first question, identifying critical information elements (including causality, intentionality, and mental states) that shape moral judgments. A subclass of Biased Information Models holds that perceptions of these information elements are themselves driven by prior moral judgments. Processing Models address the second question, and existing models have focused on the relative contribution of intuitive versus deliberative processes. This review organizes existing moral judgment models within this framework and critically evaluates them on empirical and theoretical grounds; it then outlines a general integrative model grounded in information processing, and concludes with conceptual and methodological suggestions for future research. The information-processing framework provides a useful theoretical lens through which to organize extant and future work in the rapidly growing field of moral judgment. PMID:26579022

Individual differences in moral judgment competence influence neural correlates of socio-normative judgments

PubMed Central

Wartenburger, Isabell; Mériau, Katja; Scheibe, Christina; Goodenough, Oliver R.; Villringer, Arno; van der Meer, Elke; Heekeren, Hauke R.

2008-01-01

To investigate how individual differences in moral judgment competence are reflected in the human brain, we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging, while 23 participants made either socio-normative or grammatical judgments. Participants with lower moral judgment competence recruited the left ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the left posterior superior temporal sulcus more than participants with greater competence in this domain when identifying social norm violations. Moreover, moral judgment competence scores were inversely correlated with activity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during socio-normative relative to grammatical judgments. Greater activity in right DLPFC in participants with lower moral judgment competence indicates increased recruitment of rule-based knowledge and its controlled application during socio-normative judgments. These data support current models of the neurocognition of morality according to which both emotional and cognitive components play an important role. PMID:19015093

Reduced amygdala-orbitofrontal connectivity during moral judgments in youths with disruptive behavior disorders and psychopathic traits.

PubMed

Marsh, Abigail A; Finger, Elizabeth C; Fowler, Katherine A; Jurkowitz, Ilana T N; Schechter, Julia C; Yu, Henry H; Pine, Daniel S; Blair, R J R

2011-12-30

We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate dysfunction in the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex in adolescents with disruptive behavior disorders and psychopathic traits during a moral judgment task. Fourteen adolescents with psychopathic traits and 14 healthy controls were assessed using fMRI while they categorized illegal and legal behaviors in a moral judgment implicit association task. fMRI data were then analyzed using random-effects analysis of variance and functional connectivity. Youths with psychopathic traits showed reduced amygdala activity when making judgments about legal actions and reduced functional connectivity between the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex during task performance. These results suggest that psychopathic traits are associated with amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex dysfunction. This dysfunction may relate to previous findings of disrupted moral judgment in this population. 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Individual Moral Judgment and Cultural Ideologies.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Narvaez, Darcia; Getz, Irene; Rest, James R.; Thoma, Stephen J.

1999-01-01

Two studies examined how moral judgment and cultural ideology combine to predict moral thinking in members of a conservative church and a liberal church, and in a secular sample of university undergraduates. Found that a combination of religious ideology, political identity, and moral judgment predicted the church members' opinions on human-rights…

Intuition and Moral Decision-Making – The Effect of Time Pressure and Cognitive Load on Moral Judgment and Altruistic Behavior

PubMed Central

Bonn, Caroline; Johannesson, Magnus; Kirchler, Michael; Koppel, Lina; Västfjäll, Daniel

2016-01-01

Do individuals intuitively favor certain moral actions over others? This study explores the role of intuitive thinking—induced by time pressure and cognitive load—in moral judgment and behavior. We conduct experiments in three different countries (Sweden, Austria, and the United States) involving over 1,400 subjects. All subjects responded to four trolley type dilemmas and four dictator games involving different charitable causes. Decisions were made under time pressure/time delay or while experiencing cognitive load or control. Overall we find converging evidence that intuitive states do not influence moral decisions. Neither time-pressure nor cognitive load had any effect on moral judgments or altruistic behavior. Thus we find no supporting evidence for the claim that intuitive moral judgments and dictator game giving differ from more reflectively taken decisions. Across all samples and decision tasks men were more likely to make utilitarian moral judgments and act selfishly compared to women, providing further evidence that there are robust gender differences in moral decision-making. However, there were no significant interactions between gender and the treatment manipulations of intuitive versus reflective decision-making. PMID:27783704

The effect of analytic and experiential modes of thought on moral judgment.

PubMed

Kvaran, Trevor; Nichols, Shaun; Sanfey, Alan

2013-01-01

According to dual-process theories, moral judgments are the result of two competing processes: a fast, automatic, affect-driven process and a slow, deliberative, reason-based process. Accordingly, these models make clear and testable predictions about the influence of each system. Although a small number of studies have attempted to examine each process independently in the context of moral judgment, no study has yet tried to experimentally manipulate both processes within a single study. In this chapter, a well-established "mode-of-thought" priming technique was used to place participants in either an experiential/emotional or analytic mode while completing a task in which participants provide judgments about a series of moral dilemmas. We predicted that individuals primed analytically would make more utilitarian responses than control participants, while emotional priming would lead to less utilitarian responses. Support was found for both of these predictions. Implications of these findings for dual-process theories of moral judgment will be discussed. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Integration of Intention and Outcome for Moral Judgment in Frontotemporal Dementia: Brain Structural Signatures.

PubMed

Baez, Sandra; Kanske, Philipp; Matallana, Diana; Montañes, Patricia; Reyes, Pablo; Slachevsky, Andrea; Matus, Cristian; Vigliecca, Nora Silvana; Torralva, Teresa; Manes, Facundo; Ibanez, Agustin

2016-01-01

Moral judgment has been proposed to rely on a distributed brain network. This function is impaired in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), a condition involving damage to some regions of this network. However, no studies have investigated moral judgment in bvFTD via structural neuroimaging. We compared the performance of 21 bvFTD patients and 19 controls on a moral judgment task involving scenarios that discriminate between the contributions of intentions and outcomes. Voxel-based morphometry was used to assess (a) the atrophy pattern in bvFTD patients, (b) associations between gray matter (GM) volume and moral judgments, and (c) structural differences between bvFTD subgroups (patients with relatively preserved moral judgment and patients with severer moral judgment impairments). Patients judged attempted harm as more permissible and accidental harm as less permissible than controls. The groups' performance on accidental harm was associated with GM volume in the precuneus. In controls, it was al- so associated with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC). Also, both groups' performance on attempted harm was associated with GM volume in the temporoparietal junction. Patients exhibiting worse performance displayed smaller GM volumes in the precuneus and temporal pole. Results suggest that moral judgment abnormalities in bvFTD are associated with impaired integration of intentions and outcomes, which depends on an extended brain network. In bvFTD, moral judgment seems to critically depend on areas beyond the VMPFC. © 2016 S. Karger AG, Basel.

The effects of moral judgment and moral identity on moral behavior: an empirical examination of the moral individual.

PubMed

Reynolds, Scott J; Ceranic, Tara L

2007-11-01

Recognizing limitations in classic cognitive moral development theory, several scholars have drawn from theories of identity to suggest that moral behavior results from both moral judgments and moral identity. The authors conducted 2 survey-based studies with more than 500 students and managers to test this argument. Results demonstrated that moral identity and moral judgments both independently influenced moral behavior. In addition, in situations in which social consensus regarding the moral behavior was not high, moral judgments and moral identity interacted to shape moral behavior. This interaction effect indicated that those who viewed themselves as moral individuals pursued the most extreme alternatives (e.g., never cheating, regularly cheating)--a finding that affirms the motivational power of a moral identity. The authors conclude by considering the implications of this research for both theory and practice. (c) 2007 APA

Beyond "utilitarianism": maximizing the clinical impact of moral judgment research.

PubMed

Rosas, Alejandro; Koenigs, Michael

2014-01-01

The use of hypothetical moral dilemmas--which pit utilitarian considerations of welfare maximization against emotionally aversive "personal" harms--has become a widespread approach for studying the neuropsychological correlates of moral judgment in healthy subjects, as well as in clinical populations with social, cognitive, and affective deficits. In this article, we propose that a refinement of the standard stimulus set could provide an opportunity to more precisely identify the psychological factors underlying performance on this task, and thereby enhance the utility of this paradigm for clinical research. To test this proposal, we performed a re-analysis of previously published moral judgment data from two clinical populations: neurological patients with prefrontal brain damage and psychopathic criminals. The results provide intriguing preliminary support for further development of this assessment paradigm.

A person-centered approach to moral judgment.

PubMed

Uhlmann, Eric Luis; Pizarro, David A; Diermeier, Daniel

2015-01-01

Both normative theories of ethics in philosophy and contemporary models of moral judgment in psychology have focused almost exclusively on the permissibility of acts, in particular whether acts should be judged on the basis of their material outcomes (consequentialist ethics) or on the basis of rules, duties, and obligations (deontological ethics). However, a longstanding third perspective on morality, virtue ethics, may offer a richer descriptive account of a wide range of lay moral judgments. Building on this ethical tradition, we offer a person-centered account of moral judgment, which focuses on individuals as the unit of analysis for moral evaluations rather than on acts. Because social perceivers are fundamentally motivated to acquire information about the moral character of others, features of an act that seem most informative of character often hold more weight than either the consequences of the act or whether a moral rule has been broken. This approach, we argue, can account for numerous empirical findings that are either not predicted by current theories of moral psychology or are simply categorized as biases or irrational quirks in the way individuals make moral judgments. © The Author(s) 2014.

Your visual system provides all the information you need to make moral judgments about generic visual events.

PubMed

De Freitas, Julian; Alvarez, George A

2018-05-28

To what extent are people's moral judgments susceptible to subtle factors of which they are unaware? Here we show that we can change people's moral judgments outside of their awareness by subtly biasing perceived causality. Specifically, we used subtle visual manipulations to create visual illusions of causality in morally relevant scenarios, and this systematically changed people's moral judgments. After demonstrating the basic effect using simple displays involving an ambiguous car collision that ends up injuring a person (E1), we show that the effect is sensitive on the millisecond timescale to manipulations of task-irrelevant factors that are known to affect perceived causality, including the duration (E2a) and asynchrony (E2b) of specific task-irrelevant contextual factors in the display. We then conceptually replicate the effect using a different paradigm (E3a), and also show that we can eliminate the effect by interfering with motion processing (E3b). Finally, we show that the effect generalizes across different kinds of moral judgments (E3c). Combined, these studies show that obligatory, abstract inferences made by the visual system influence moral judgments. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The neural basis of intuitive and counterintuitive moral judgment.

PubMed

Kahane, Guy; Wiech, Katja; Shackel, Nicholas; Farias, Miguel; Savulescu, Julian; Tracey, Irene

2012-04-01

Neuroimaging studies on moral decision-making have thus far largely focused on differences between moral judgments with opposing utilitarian (well-being maximizing) and deontological (duty-based) content. However, these studies have investigated moral dilemmas involving extreme situations, and did not control for two distinct dimensions of moral judgment: whether or not it is intuitive (immediately compelling to most people) and whether it is utilitarian or deontological in content. By contrasting dilemmas where utilitarian judgments are counterintuitive with dilemmas in which they are intuitive, we were able to use functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify the neural correlates of intuitive and counterintuitive judgments across a range of moral situations. Irrespective of content (utilitarian/deontological), counterintuitive moral judgments were associated with greater difficulty and with activation in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex, suggesting that such judgments may involve emotional conflict; intuitive judgments were linked to activation in the visual and premotor cortex. In addition, we obtained evidence that neural differences in moral judgment in such dilemmas are largely due to whether they are intuitive and not, as previously assumed, to differences between utilitarian and deontological judgments. Our findings therefore do not support theories that have generally associated utilitarian and deontological judgments with distinct neural systems.

The neural basis of intuitive and counterintuitive moral judgment

PubMed Central

Wiech, Katja; Shackel, Nicholas; Farias, Miguel; Savulescu, Julian; Tracey, Irene

2012-01-01

Neuroimaging studies on moral decision-making have thus far largely focused on differences between moral judgments with opposing utilitarian (well-being maximizing) and deontological (duty-based) content. However, these studies have investigated moral dilemmas involving extreme situations, and did not control for two distinct dimensions of moral judgment: whether or not it is intuitive (immediately compelling to most people) and whether it is utilitarian or deontological in content. By contrasting dilemmas where utilitarian judgments are counterintuitive with dilemmas in which they are intuitive, we were able to use functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify the neural correlates of intuitive and counterintuitive judgments across a range of moral situations. Irrespective of content (utilitarian/deontological), counterintuitive moral judgments were associated with greater difficulty and with activation in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex, suggesting that such judgments may involve emotional conflict; intuitive judgments were linked to activation in the visual and premotor cortex. In addition, we obtained evidence that neural differences in moral judgment in such dilemmas are largely due to whether they are intuitive and not, as previously assumed, to differences between utilitarian and deontological judgments. Our findings therefore do not support theories that have generally associated utilitarian and deontological judgments with distinct neural systems. PMID:21421730

Wrongness in different relationships: Relational context effects on moral judgment.

PubMed

Simpson, Ain; Laham, Simon M; Fiske, Alan Page

2016-01-01

Morality primarily serves social-relational functions. However, little research in moral psychology investigates how relational factors impact moral judgment, and a theoretically grounded approach to such investigations is lacking. We used Relational Models Theory and Moral Foundations Theory to explore how varying actor-victim relationships impacts judgment of different types of moral violations. Across three studies, using a diverse range of moral violations and varying the experimental design, relational context substantially influenced third-party judgment of moral violations, and typically independent of several factors strongly associated with moral judgment. Results lend novel but mixed support to Relationship Regulation Theory and provide some novel implications for Moral Foundations Theory. These studies highlight the importance of relational factors in moral psychology and provide guidelines for exploring how relational factors might shape moral judgment.

The time course of indirect moral judgment in gossip processing modulated by different agents.

PubMed

Peng, Xiaozhe; Jiao, Can; Cui, Fang; Chen, Qingfei; Li, Peng; Li, Hong

2017-10-01

Previous studies have investigated personal moral violations with different references (i.e., the protagonists in moral scenarios are the participants themselves or unknown other individuals). However, the roles of various agents in moral judgments have remained unclear. In the present study, ERPs were used to investigate moral judgments when the participants viewed gossip that described (im)moral behaviors committed by different agents (self, friend, celebrity). The results demonstrate that the P2 and late positive component (LPC) correspond to two successive processes of indirect moral judgment when individuals process gossip. Specifically, the P2 amplitude in the celebrity condition was more sensitive in distinguishing immoral behaviors from moral behaviors than that in the other two conditions, whereas the moral valence effect on the LPC was predominately driven by the self-reference. These findings expand our current understanding of moral judgments in a gossip evaluation task and demonstrate that the early processing of gossip depends on both the entertainment value of the agent and the salience of moral behaviors. Processing in the later stage reflects reactions to intensified affective stimuli, or reflects cognitive effort that was required to resolve the conflict between negative gossip about self and the self-positivity bias. © 2017 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

Comparing moral judgments of patients with frontotemporal dementia and frontal stroke.

PubMed

Baez, Sandra; Couto, Blas; Torralva, Teresa; Sposato, Luciano A; Huepe, David; Montañes, Patricia; Reyes, Pablo; Matallana, Diana; Vigliecca, Nora S; Slachevsky, Andrea; Manes, Facundo; Ibanez, Agustin

2014-09-01

Several clinical reports have stated that patients with prefrontal lesions or patients with the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia share social cognition impairments. Moral reasoning is impaired in both conditions but there have been few investigations that directly compare this domain in the 2 groups. This work compared the moral judgments of these patient groups using a task designed to disentangle the contributions of intentions and outcomes in moral judgment. For both disorders, patients judged scenarios where the protagonists believed that they would cause harm but did not as being more permissible than the control group. Moreover, patients with frontotemporal dementia judged harmful outcomes in the absence of harmful intentions as less permissible than the control participants. There were no differences between the 2 conditions. Both disorders involved impairments in integrating intention and outcome information for moral judgment. This study was the first, to our knowledge, to directly compare a social cognition domain in 2 frontal pathologies with different etiology. Our results highlighted the importance of comparing patients with vascular lesions and patients with neurodegenerative diseases.

The role of emotions for moral judgments depends on the type of emotion and moral scenario.

PubMed

Ugazio, Giuseppe; Lamm, Claus; Singer, Tania

2012-06-01

Emotions seem to play a critical role in moral judgment. However, the way in which emotions exert their influence on moral judgments is still poorly understood. This study proposes a novel theoretical approach suggesting that emotions influence moral judgments based on their motivational dimension. We tested the effects of two types of induced emotions with equal valence but with different motivational implications (anger and disgust), and four types of moral scenarios (disgust-related, impersonal, personal, and beliefs) on moral judgments. We hypothesized and found that approach motivation associated with anger would make moral judgments more permissible, while disgust, associated with withdrawal motivation, would make them less permissible. Moreover, these effects varied as a function of the type of scenario: the induced emotions only affected moral judgments concerning impersonal and personal scenarios, while we observed no effects for the other scenarios. These findings suggest that emotions can play an important role in moral judgment, but that their specific effects depend upon the type of emotion induced. Furthermore, induced emotion effects were more prevalent for moral decisions in personal and impersonal scenarios, possibly because these require the performance of an action rather than making an abstract judgment. We conclude that the effects of induced emotions on moral judgments can be predicted by taking their motivational dimension into account. This finding has important implications for moral psychology, as it points toward a previously overlooked mechanism linking emotions to moral judgments.

Latent Fairness in Adults’ Relationship-Based Moral Judgments

PubMed Central

Hao, Jian; Liu, Yanchun; Li, Jiafeng

2015-01-01

Can adults make fair moral judgments when individuals with whom they have different relationships are involved? The present study explored the fairness of adults’ relationship-based moral judgments in two respects by performing three experiments involving 999 participants. In Experiment 1, 65 adults were asked to decide whether to harm a specific person to save five strangers in the footbridge and trolley dilemmas in a within-subject design. The lone potential victim was a relative, a best friend, a person they disliked, a criminal or a stranger. Adults’ genetic relatedness to, familiarity with and affective relatedness to the lone potential victims varied. The results indicated that adults made different moral judgments involving the lone potential victims with whom they had different relationships. In Experiment 2, 306 adults responded to the footbridge and trolley dilemmas involving five types of lone potential victims in a within-subject design, and the extent to which they were familiar with and affectively related to the lone potential victim was measured. The results generally replicated those of Experiment 1. In addition, for close individuals, adults’ moral judgments were less deontological relative to their familiarity with or positive affect toward these individuals. For individuals they were not close to, adults made deontological choices to a larger extent relative to their unfamiliarity with or negative affect toward these individuals. Moreover, for familiar individuals, the extent to which adults made deontological moral judgments more closely approximated the extent to which they were familiar with the individual. The adults’ deontological moral judgments involving unfamiliar individuals more closely approximated their affective relatedness to the individuals. In Experiment 3, 628 adults were asked to make moral judgments with the type of lone potential victim as the between-subject variable. The results generally replicated those of the

Integrative moral judgment: dissociating the roles of the amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex.

PubMed

Shenhav, Amitai; Greene, Joshua D

2014-03-26

A decade's research highlights a critical dissociation between automatic and controlled influences on moral judgment, which is subserved by distinct neural structures. Specifically, negative automatic emotional responses to prototypically harmful actions (e.g., pushing someone off of a footbridge) compete with controlled responses favoring the best consequences (e.g., saving five lives instead of one). It is unknown how such competitions are resolved to yield "all things considered" judgments. Here, we examine such integrative moral judgments. Drawing on insights from research on self-interested, value-based decision-making in humans and animals, we test a theory concerning the respective contributions of the amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) to moral judgment. Participants undergoing fMRI responded to moral dilemmas, separately evaluating options for their utility (Which does the most good?), emotional aversiveness (Which feels worse?), and overall moral acceptability. Behavioral data indicate that emotional aversiveness and utility jointly predict "all things considered" integrative judgments. Amygdala response tracks the emotional aversiveness of harmful utilitarian actions and overall disapproval of such actions. During such integrative moral judgments, the vmPFC is preferentially engaged relative to utilitarian and emotional assessments. Amygdala-vmPFC connectivity varies with the role played by emotional input in the task, being the lowest for pure utilitarian assessments and the highest for pure emotional assessments. These findings, which parallel those of research on self-interested economic decision-making, support the hypothesis that the amygdala provides an affective assessment of the action in question, whereas the vmPFC integrates that signal with a utilitarian assessment of expected outcomes to yield "all things considered" moral judgments.

Disgust sensitivity is primarily associated with purity-based moral judgments.

PubMed

Wagemans, Fieke M A; Brandt, Mark J; Zeelenberg, Marcel

2018-03-01

Individual differences in disgust sensitivity are associated with a range of judgments and attitudes related to the moral domain. Some perspectives suggest that the association between disgust sensitivity and moral judgments will be equally strong across all moral domains (i.e., purity, authority, loyalty, care, fairness, and liberty). Other perspectives predict that disgust sensitivity is primarily associated with judgments of specific moral domains (e.g., primarily purity). However, no study has systematically tested if disgust sensitivity is associated with moral judgments of the purity domain specifically, more generally to moral judgments of the binding moral domains, or to moral judgments of all of the moral domains equally. Across 5 studies (total N = 1,104), we find consistent evidence for the notion that disgust sensitivity relates more strongly to moral condemnation of purity-based transgressions (meta-analytic r = .40) than to moral condemnation of transgressions of any of the other domains (range meta-analytic rs: .07-.27). Our findings are in line with predictions from Moral Foundations Theory, which predicts that personality characteristics like disgust sensitivity make people more sensitive to a certain set of moral issues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

How clinicians make (or avoid) moral judgments of patients: implications of the evidence for relationships and research

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Physicians, nurses, and other clinicians readily acknowledge being troubled by encounters with patients who trigger moral judgments. For decades social scientists have noted that moral judgment of patients is pervasive, occurring not only in egregious and criminal cases but also in everyday situations in which appraisals of patients' social worth and culpability are routine. There is scant literature, however, on the actual prevalence and dynamics of moral judgment in healthcare. The indirect evidence available suggests that moral appraisals function via a complex calculus that reflects variation in patient characteristics, clinician characteristics, task, and organizational factors. The full impact of moral judgment on healthcare relationships, patient outcomes, and clinicians' own well-being is yet unknown. The paucity of attention to moral judgment, despite its significance for patient-centered care, communication, empathy, professionalism, healthcare education, stereotyping, and outcome disparities, represents a blind spot that merits explanation and repair. New methodologies in social psychology and neuroscience have yielded models for how moral judgment operates in healthcare and how research in this area should proceed. Clinicians, educators, and researchers would do well to recognize both the legitimate and illegitimate moral appraisals that are apt to occur in healthcare settings. PMID:20618947

Does Incidental Disgust Amplify Moral Judgment? A Meta-Analytic Review of Experimental Evidence.

PubMed

Landy, Justin F; Goodwin, Geoffrey P

2015-07-01

The role of emotion in moral judgment is currently a topic of much debate in moral psychology. One specific claim made by many researchers is that irrelevant feelings of disgust can amplify the severity of moral condemnation. Numerous researchers have found this effect, but there have also been several published failures to replicate it. Clarifying this issue would inform important theoretical debates among rival accounts of moral judgment. We meta-analyzed all available studies--published and unpublished--in which incidental disgust was manipulated prior to or concurrent with a moral judgment task (k = 50). We found evidence for a small amplification effect of disgust (d = 0.11), which is strongest for gustatory/olfactory modes of disgust induction. However, there is also some suggestion of publication bias in this literature, and when this is accounted for, the effect disappears entirely (d = -0.01). Moreover, prevalent confounds mean that the effect size that we estimate is best interpreted as an upper bound on the size of the amplification effect. On the basis of the results of this meta-analysis, we argue against strong claims about the causal role of affect in moral judgment and suggest a need for new, more rigorous research on this topic. © The Author(s) 2015.

Cognitive Load Selectively Interferes with Utilitarian Moral Judgment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Greene, Joshua D.; Morelli, Sylvia A.; Lowenberg, Kelly; Nystrom, Leigh E.; Cohen, Jonathan D.

2008-01-01

Traditional theories of moral development emphasize the role of controlled cognition in mature moral judgment, while a more recent trend emphasizes intuitive and emotional processes. Here we test a dual-process theory synthesizing these perspectives. More specifically, our theory associates utilitarian moral judgment (approving of harmful actions…

[Dispositional mindfulness modulates automatic transference of disgust into moral judgment].

PubMed

Sato, Atsushi; Sugiura, Yoshinori

2014-02-01

Previous studies showed that incidental feelings of disgust could make moral judgments more severe. In the present study, we investigated whether individual differences in mindfulness modulated automatic transference of disgust into moral judgment. Undergraduates were divided into high- and low-mindfulness groups based on the mean score on each subscale of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ). Participants were asked to write about a disgusting experience or an emotionally neutral experience, and then to evaluate moral (impersonal vs. high-conflict personal) and non-moral scenarios. The results showed that the disgust induction made moral judgments more severe for the low "acting with awareness" participants, whereas it did not influence the moral judgments of the high "acting with awareness" participants irrespective of type of moral dilemma. The other facets of the FFMQ did not modulate the effect of disgust on moral judgment. These findings suggest that being present prevents automatic transference of disgust into moral judgment even when prepotent emotions elicited by the thought of killing one person to save several others and utilitarian reasoning conflict.

A Mind-Reader Does Not Always Have Deontological Moral Judgments and Prosocial Behavior: A Developmental Perspective.

PubMed

Hao, Jian; Liu, Yanchun

2016-01-01

The rationalistic theories of morality emphasize that reasoning plays an important role in moral judgments and prosocial behavior. Theory of mind as a reasoning ability in the mental domain has been considered a facilitator of moral development. The present study examined whether theory of mind was consistently positively associated with morality from middle childhood to late adulthood. Two hundred and four participants, including 48 elementary school children, 45 adolescents, 62 younger adults, and 49 older adults, completed theory of mind, moral judgment and prosocial behavior tasks. Theory of mind was measured with strange stories that tapped into an understanding of lies, white lies, double bluffs, irony, and persuasion. Moral judgments were measured with variants of the trolley dilemma. Prosocial behavior was measured through participants' performance in an interactive situation in which a helping request was made. The results indicated specific rather than similar developmental trajectories of theory of mind, moral judgments, and prosocial behavior. There was a quadratic trend in theory of mind, a combination of quadratic and cubic trends in deontological moral judgments and a linear decline in helping behavior. It is thus suggested that theory of mind may not be associated with morality in an unchanging way during development. Further results indicated that theory of mind and deontological moral judgments were negatively correlated for children, adolescents, and older adults but positively correlated for younger adults. Theory of mind and helping behavior were positively correlated for children but negatively correlated for adolescents. However, the relationships disappeared in adulthood. In sum, the present study reveals that theory of mind may be a nice tool for its facilitation of deontological moral judgments and prosocial behavior, but it may also be a nasty tool for its blocking of deontological moral judgments and prosocial behavior. Moreover, theory

Reflection and reasoning in moral judgment.

PubMed

Paxton, Joseph M; Ungar, Leo; Greene, Joshua D

2012-01-01

While there is much evidence for the influence of automatic emotional responses on moral judgment, the roles of reflection and reasoning remain uncertain. In Experiment 1, we induced subjects to be more reflective by completing the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) prior to responding to moral dilemmas. This manipulation increased utilitarian responding, as individuals who reflected more on the CRT made more utilitarian judgments. A follow-up study suggested that trait reflectiveness is also associated with increased utilitarian judgment. In Experiment 2, subjects considered a scenario involving incest between consenting adult siblings, a scenario known for eliciting emotionally driven condemnation that resists reasoned persuasion. Here, we manipulated two factors related to moral reasoning: argument strength and deliberation time. These factors interacted in a manner consistent with moral reasoning: A strong argument defending the incestuous behavior was more persuasive than a weak argument, but only when increased deliberation time encouraged subjects to reflect. Copyright © 2011 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Biases in children's and adults' moral judgments.

PubMed

Powell, Nina L; Derbyshire, Stuart W G; Guttentag, Robert E

2012-09-01

Two experiments examined biases in children's (5/6- and 7/8-year-olds) and adults' moral judgments. Participants at all ages judged that it was worse to produce harm when harm occurred (a) through action rather than inaction (omission bias), (b) when physical contact with the victim was involved (physical contact principle), and (c) when the harm was produced as a direct means to an end rather than as an unintended but foreseeable side effect of the action (intention principle). The youngest participants, however, did not incorporate benefit when making judgments about situations in which harm to one individual resulted in benefit to five individuals. Older participants showed some preference for benefit resulting from action (commission) as opposed to inaction (omission). The findings are discussed in the context of the theory that moral judgments result, in part, from the operation of an inherent, intuitive moral faculty compared with the theory that moral judgments require development of necessary cognitive abilities. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Clinical judgment, moral anxiety, and the limits of psychiatry.

PubMed

Murray, Bradley

2017-12-01

It is common for clinicians working in psychiatry and related clinical disciplines to be called on to make diagnostic clinical judgments concerning moral anxiety, which is a kind of anxiety that is closely bound up with decisions individuals face as moral agents. To make such a judgment, it is necessary to make a moral judgment. Although it has been common to acknowledge that there are ways in which moral and clinical judgment interact, this type of interaction has remained unacknowledged. This raises questions as to the nature and limits of psychiatry-particularly concerning the extent to which psychiatric discourse ought to incorporate moral discourse, and the role of the clinician as an expert in identifying problematic anxiety.

Kohlberg's Moral Judgment Scale: Some Methodological Considerations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rubin, Kenneth H.; Trotter, Kristin T.

1977-01-01

Examined 3 methodological issues in the use of Kohlberg's Moral Judgment Scale: (1) test-retest reliability, (2) consistency of moral judgment stages from one dilemma to the next, and (3) influence of subject's verbal facility on the projective test scores. Forty children in grades 3 and 5 participated. (JMB)

Moral Judgment Maturity of Process and Reactive Schizophrenics.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Herron, William G.; And Others

1983-01-01

Premorbid adjustment, paranoid symptomatology, and orientation were examined as major predictors of moral judgment maturity in 40 schizophrenics. Results suggest the importance of cognitive and social skills in the development of schizophrenics' moral judgment maturity. (Author/RH)

At the heart of morality lies neuro-visceral integration: lower cardiac vagal tone predicts utilitarian moral judgment

PubMed Central

Kappes, Andreas; Rho, Yeojin; Van Bavel, Jay J.

2016-01-01

To not harm others is widely considered the most basic element of human morality. The aversion to harm others can be either rooted in the outcomes of an action (utilitarianism) or reactions to the action itself (deontology). We speculated that the human moral judgments rely on the integration of neural computations of harm and visceral reactions. The present research examined whether utilitarian or deontological aspects of moral judgment are associated with cardiac vagal tone, a physiological proxy for neuro-visceral integration. We investigated the relationship between cardiac vagal tone and moral judgment by using a mix of moral dilemmas, mathematical modeling and psychophysiological measures. An index of bipolar deontology-utilitarianism was correlated with resting heart rate variability (HRV)—an index of cardiac vagal tone—such that more utilitarian judgments were associated with lower HRV. Follow-up analyses using process dissociation, which independently quantifies utilitarian and deontological moral inclinations, provided further evidence that utilitarian (but not deontological) judgments were associated with lower HRV. Our results suggest that the functional integration of neural and visceral systems during moral judgments can restrict outcome-based, utilitarian moral preferences. Implications for theories of moral judgment are discussed. PMID:27317926

A Mind-Reader Does Not Always Have Deontological Moral Judgments and Prosocial Behavior: A Developmental Perspective

PubMed Central

Hao, Jian; Liu, Yanchun

2016-01-01

The rationalistic theories of morality emphasize that reasoning plays an important role in moral judgments and prosocial behavior. Theory of mind as a reasoning ability in the mental domain has been considered a facilitator of moral development. The present study examined whether theory of mind was consistently positively associated with morality from middle childhood to late adulthood. Two hundred and four participants, including 48 elementary school children, 45 adolescents, 62 younger adults, and 49 older adults, completed theory of mind, moral judgment and prosocial behavior tasks. Theory of mind was measured with strange stories that tapped into an understanding of lies, white lies, double bluffs, irony, and persuasion. Moral judgments were measured with variants of the trolley dilemma. Prosocial behavior was measured through participants' performance in an interactive situation in which a helping request was made. The results indicated specific rather than similar developmental trajectories of theory of mind, moral judgments, and prosocial behavior. There was a quadratic trend in theory of mind, a combination of quadratic and cubic trends in deontological moral judgments and a linear decline in helping behavior. It is thus suggested that theory of mind may not be associated with morality in an unchanging way during development. Further results indicated that theory of mind and deontological moral judgments were negatively correlated for children, adolescents, and older adults but positively correlated for younger adults. Theory of mind and helping behavior were positively correlated for children but negatively correlated for adolescents. However, the relationships disappeared in adulthood. In sum, the present study reveals that theory of mind may be a nice tool for its facilitation of deontological moral judgments and prosocial behavior, but it may also be a nasty tool for its blocking of deontological moral judgments and prosocial behavior. Moreover, theory

Relativism, Objectivity and Moral Judgment.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Partington, Geoffrey

1979-01-01

Reaction against the naive moral absolutism of past historical writing has frequently led to unconditional moral and cultural relativism which is equally dangerous. A viable solution is contingent relativism in historical judgments, combining explicit and examinable criteria of human values and concern for contexts of time and place. (Author/SJL)

At the heart of morality lies neuro-visceral integration: lower cardiac vagal tone predicts utilitarian moral judgment.

PubMed

Park, Gewnhi; Kappes, Andreas; Rho, Yeojin; Van Bavel, Jay J

2016-10-01

To not harm others is widely considered the most basic element of human morality. The aversion to harm others can be either rooted in the outcomes of an action (utilitarianism) or reactions to the action itself (deontology). We speculated that the human moral judgments rely on the integration of neural computations of harm and visceral reactions. The present research examined whether utilitarian or deontological aspects of moral judgment are associated with cardiac vagal tone, a physiological proxy for neuro-visceral integration. We investigated the relationship between cardiac vagal tone and moral judgment by using a mix of moral dilemmas, mathematical modeling and psychophysiological measures. An index of bipolar deontology-utilitarianism was correlated with resting heart rate variability (HRV)-an index of cardiac vagal tone-such that more utilitarian judgments were associated with lower HRV. Follow-up analyses using process dissociation, which independently quantifies utilitarian and deontological moral inclinations, provided further evidence that utilitarian (but not deontological) judgments were associated with lower HRV. Our results suggest that the functional integration of neural and visceral systems during moral judgments can restrict outcome-based, utilitarian moral preferences. Implications for theories of moral judgment are discussed. © The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Moral Appraisals Affect Doing/Allowing Judgments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cushman, Fiery; Knobe, Joshua; Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter

2008-01-01

An extensive body of research suggests that the distinction between doing and allowing plays a critical role in shaping moral appraisals. Here, we report evidence from a pair of experiments suggesting that the converse is also true: moral appraisals affect doing/allowing judgments. Specifically, morally bad behavior is more likely to be construed…

Experiencing Physical Pain Leads to More Sympathetic Moral Judgments

PubMed Central

Xiao, Qianguo; Zhu, Yi; Luo, Wen-bo

2015-01-01

Previous studies have shown that observing another’s pain can evoke other-oriented emotions, which instigate empathic concern for another’s needs. It is not clear whether experiencing first-hand physical pain may also evoke other-oriented emotion and thus influence people’s moral judgment. Based on the embodied simulation literature and neuroimaging evidence, the present research tested the idea that participants who experienced physical pain would be more sympathetic in their moral judgments. Study 1 showed that ice-induced physical pain facilitated higher self-assessments of empathy, which motivated participants to be more sympathetic in their moral judgments. Study 2 confirmed findings in study 1 and also showed that State Perspective Taking subscale of the State Empathy Scale mediated the effects of physical pain on moral judgment. These results provide support for embodied view of morality and for the view that pain can serve a positive psychosocial function. PMID:26465603

Experiencing Physical Pain Leads to More Sympathetic Moral Judgments.

PubMed

Xiao, Qianguo; Zhu, Yi; Luo, Wen-Bo

2015-01-01

Previous studies have shown that observing another's pain can evoke other-oriented emotions, which instigate empathic concern for another's needs. It is not clear whether experiencing first-hand physical pain may also evoke other-oriented emotion and thus influence people's moral judgment. Based on the embodied simulation literature and neuroimaging evidence, the present research tested the idea that participants who experienced physical pain would be more sympathetic in their moral judgments. Study 1 showed that ice-induced physical pain facilitated higher self-assessments of empathy, which motivated participants to be more sympathetic in their moral judgments. Study 2 confirmed findings in study 1 and also showed that State Perspective Taking subscale of the State Empathy Scale mediated the effects of physical pain on moral judgment. These results provide support for embodied view of morality and for the view that pain can serve a positive psychosocial function.

How Large Is the Role of Emotion in Judgments of Moral Dilemmas?

PubMed

Horne, Zachary; Powell, Derek

2016-01-01

Moral dilemmas often pose dramatic and gut-wrenching emotional choices. It is now widely accepted that emotions are not simply experienced alongside people's judgments about moral dilemmas, but that our affective processes play a central role in determining those judgments. However, much of the evidence purporting to demonstrate the connection between people's emotional responses and their judgments about moral dilemmas has recently been called into question. In the present studies, we reexamined the role of emotion in people's judgments about moral dilemmas using a validated self-report measure of emotion. We measured participants' specific emotional responses to moral dilemmas and, although we found that moral dilemmas evoked strong emotional responses, we found that these responses were only weakly correlated with participants' moral judgments. We argue that the purportedly strong connection between emotion and judgments of moral dilemmas may have been overestimated.

Neural development of mentalizing in moral judgment from adolescence to adulthood.

PubMed

Harenski, Carla L; Harenski, Keith A; Shane, Matthew S; Kiehl, Kent A

2012-01-01

The neural mechanisms underlying moral judgment have been extensively studied in healthy adults. How these mechanisms evolve from adolescence to adulthood has received less attention. Brain regions that have been consistently implicated in moral judgment in adults, including the superior temporal cortex and prefrontal cortex, undergo extensive developmental changes from adolescence to adulthood. Thus, their role in moral judgment may also change over time. In the present study, 51 healthy male participants age 13–53 were scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they viewed pictures that did or did not depict situations considered by most individuals to represent moral violations, and rated their degree of moral violation severity. Consistent with predictions, a regression analysis revealed a positive correlation between age and hemodynamic activity in the temporo-parietal junction when participants made decisions regarding moral severity.This region is known to contribute to mentalizing processes during moral judgment in adults and suggests that adolescents use these types of inferences less during moral judgment than do adults. A positive correlation with age was also present in the posterior cingulate. Overall, the results suggest that the brain regions utilized in moral judgment change over development.

Norm Acquisition, Rational Judgment and Moral Particularism

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Westphal, Kenneth R.

2012-01-01

Moral particularism, defined as the view that moral judgment does not require moral principles, has become prominent both in moral philosophy and in philosophy of education. This article re-examines Nussbaum's case for particularism, based on Sophocles' "Antigone", because her stress on sensitive appreciation of circumstantial specifics is…

Who shalt not kill? Individual differences in working memory capacity, executive control, and moral judgment.

PubMed

Moore, Adam B; Clark, Brian A; Kane, Michael J

2008-06-01

Recent findings suggest that exerting executive control influences responses to moral dilemmas. In our study, subjects judged how morally appropriate it would be for them to kill one person to save others. They made these judgments in 24 dilemmas that systematically varied physical directness of killing, personal risk to the subject, inevitability of the death, and intentionality of the action. All four of these variables demonstrated main effects. Executive control was indexed by scores on working-memory-capacity (WMC) tasks. People with higher WMC found certain types of killing more appropriate than did those with lower WMC and were more consistent in their judgments. We also report interactions between manipulated variables that implicate complex emotion-cognition integration processes not captured by current dual-process views of moral judgment.

Utilitarian Moral Judgment Exclusively Coheres with Inference from Is to Ought

PubMed Central

Elqayam, Shira; Wilkinson, Meredith R.; Thompson, Valerie A.; Over, David E.; Evans, Jonathan St. B. T.

2017-01-01

Faced with moral choice, people either judge according to pre-existing obligations (deontological judgment), or by taking into account the consequences of their actions (utilitarian judgment). We propose that the latter coheres with a more general cognitive mechanism – deontic introduction, the tendency to infer normative (‘deontic’) conclusions from descriptive premises (is-ought inference). Participants were presented with vignettes that allowed either deontological or utilitarian choice, and asked to draw a range of deontic conclusions, as well as judge the overall moral rightness of each choice separately. We predicted and found a selective defeasibility pattern, in which manipulations that suppressed deontic introduction also suppressed utilitarian moral judgment, but had little effect on deontological moral judgment. Thus, deontic introduction coheres with utilitarian moral judgment almost exclusively. We suggest a family of norm-generating informal inferences, in which normative conclusions are drawn from descriptive (although value-laden) premises. This family includes deontic introduction and utilitarian moral judgment as well as other informal inferences. We conclude with a call for greater integration of research in moral judgment and research into deontic reasoning and informal inference. PMID:28690572

How Large Is the Role of Emotion in Judgments of Moral Dilemmas?

PubMed Central

Horne, Zachary; Powell, Derek

2016-01-01

Moral dilemmas often pose dramatic and gut-wrenching emotional choices. It is now widely accepted that emotions are not simply experienced alongside people’s judgments about moral dilemmas, but that our affective processes play a central role in determining those judgments. However, much of the evidence purporting to demonstrate the connection between people’s emotional responses and their judgments about moral dilemmas has recently been called into question. In the present studies, we reexamined the role of emotion in people’s judgments about moral dilemmas using a validated self-report measure of emotion. We measured participants’ specific emotional responses to moral dilemmas and, although we found that moral dilemmas evoked strong emotional responses, we found that these responses were only weakly correlated with participants’ moral judgments. We argue that the purportedly strong connection between emotion and judgments of moral dilemmas may have been overestimated. PMID:27385365

Conflict and Moral Judgment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Peterson, Candida; And Others

1974-01-01

A conflict procedure in which reliance on adult values was opposed to reliance on damage as a measure of blame was found to facilitate second-grade children's use of intention in making moral judgments of story pairs. (ST)

Some problems in use of the moral judgment test.

PubMed

Villegas de Posada, Cristina

2005-06-01

The Moral Judgment Test has been widely used in evaluation of moral development; however, it presents some problems related to the trait measured, reliability, and validity of its summary score (C-index). This index reflects consistency in moral judgment, but this construct is different from moral development as stated by Kohlberg. Therefore, users interested in the latter evaluation should refer to other indexes derived from the test. Some of the analyzed problems could be partially corrected with more theory and research on moral consistency as a component of moral competence.

Divergent roles of autistic and alexithymic traits in utilitarian moral judgments in adults with autism.

PubMed

Patil, Indrajeet; Melsbach, Jens; Hennig-Fast, Kristina; Silani, Giorgia

2016-03-29

This study investigated hypothetical moral choices in adults with high-functioning autism and the role of empathy and alexithymia in such choices. We used a highly emotionally salient moral dilemma task to investigate autistics' hypothetical moral evaluations about personally carrying out harmful utilitarian behaviours aimed at maximizing welfare. Results showed that they exhibited a normal pattern of moral judgments despite the deficits in social cognition and emotional processing. Further analyses revealed that this was due to mutually conflicting biases associated with autistic and alexithymic traits after accounting for shared variance: (a) autistic traits were associated with reduced utilitarian bias due to elevated personal distress of demanding social situations, while (b) alexithymic traits were associated with increased utilitarian bias on account of reduced empathic concern for the victim. Additionally, autistics relied on their non-verbal reasoning skills to rigidly abide by harm-norms. Thus, utilitarian moral judgments in autism were spared due to opposite influences of autistic and alexithymic traits and compensatory intellectual strategies. These findings demonstrate the importance of empathy and alexithymia in autistic moral cognition and have methodological implications for studying moral judgments in several other clinical populations.

Divergent roles of autistic and alexithymic traits in utilitarian moral judgments in adults with autism

PubMed Central

Patil, Indrajeet; Melsbach, Jens; Hennig-Fast, Kristina; Silani, Giorgia

2016-01-01

This study investigated hypothetical moral choices in adults with high-functioning autism and the role of empathy and alexithymia in such choices. We used a highly emotionally salient moral dilemma task to investigate autistics’ hypothetical moral evaluations about personally carrying out harmful utilitarian behaviours aimed at maximizing welfare. Results showed that they exhibited a normal pattern of moral judgments despite the deficits in social cognition and emotional processing. Further analyses revealed that this was due to mutually conflicting biases associated with autistic and alexithymic traits after accounting for shared variance: (a) autistic traits were associated with reduced utilitarian bias due to elevated personal distress of demanding social situations, while (b) alexithymic traits were associated with increased utilitarian bias on account of reduced empathic concern for the victim. Additionally, autistics relied on their non-verbal reasoning skills to rigidly abide by harm-norms. Thus, utilitarian moral judgments in autism were spared due to opposite influences of autistic and alexithymic traits and compensatory intellectual strategies. These findings demonstrate the importance of empathy and alexithymia in autistic moral cognition and have methodological implications for studying moral judgments in several other clinical populations. PMID:27020307

Liberating reason from the passions: overriding intuitionist moral judgments through emotion reappraisal.

PubMed

Feinberg, Matthew; Willer, Robb; Antonenko, Olga; John, Oliver P

2012-07-01

A classic problem in moral psychology concerns whether and when moral judgments are driven by intuition versus deliberate reasoning. In this investigation, we explored the role of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that involves construing an emotion-eliciting situation in a way that diminishes the intensity of the emotional experience. We hypothesized that although emotional reactions evoke initial moral intuitions, reappraisal weakens the influence of these intuitions, leading to more deliberative moral judgments. Three studies of moral judgments in emotionally evocative, disgust-eliciting moral dilemmas supported our hypothesis. A greater tendency to reappraise was related to fewer intuition-based judgments (Study 1). Content analysis of open-ended descriptions of moral-reasoning processes revealed that reappraisal was associated with longer time spent in deliberation and with fewer intuitionist moral judgments (Study 2). Finally, in comparison with participants who simply watched an emotion-inducing film, participants who had been instructed to reappraise their reactions while watching the film subsequently reported less intense emotional reactions to moral dilemmas, and these dampened reactions led, in turn, to fewer intuitionist moral judgments (Study 3).

On the role of attention and emotion in morality: attentional control modulates unrelated disgust in moral judgments.

PubMed

Van Dillen, Lotte F; van der Wal, Reine C; van den Bos, Kees

2012-09-01

The emotion of disgust can influence people's moral judgments, even if this emotion objectively is unrelated to the moral judgment in question. The present work demonstrates that attentional control regulates this effect. In three studies, disgust was induced. In an unrelated part of the studies, participants then judged a moral transgression. Disgust resulted in more severe moral judgments when attentional control (either measured by means of individual predisposition or manipulated with experimental control) was weak as opposed to strong (Studies 1-3). Findings further showed that attentional control mediated the positive relation between the intensity of participants' disgust responses and the severity of their moral judgments (Study 2). Moreover, attentional control has its effects through the regulation of affective processing (Study 3). Taken together, the findings suggest that unrelated influences of disgust on moral judgments are contingent on the attention system.

Alcohol dependence associated with increased utilitarian moral judgment: a case control study.

PubMed

Khemiri, Lotfi; Guterstam, Joar; Franck, Johan; Jayaram-Lindström, Nitya

2012-01-01

Recent studies indicate that emotional processes, mediated by the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), are of great importance for moral judgment. Neurological patients with VMPC dysfunction have been shown to generate increased utilitarian moral judgments, i.e. are more likely to endorse emotionally aversive actions in order to maximize aggregate welfare, when faced with emotionally salient personal moral dilemmas. Patients with alcohol dependence (AD) also exhibit impairments in functions mediated by the prefrontal cortex, but whether they exhibit increased utilitarian moral reasoning has not previously been investigated. The aim of this study was to investigate moral judgment in AD patients (n = 20) compared to healthy controls (n = 20) matched by sex, age and education years. Each subject responded to a battery of 50 hypothetical dilemmas categorized as non-moral, moral impersonal and moral personal. They also responded to a questionnaire evaluating explicit knowledge of social and moral norms. Results confirmed our hypothesis that AD patients generated increased utilitarian moral judgment compared to controls when faced with moral personal dilemmas. Crucially, there was no difference in their responses to non-moral or impersonal moral dilemmas, nor knowledge of explicit social and moral norms. One possible explanation is that damage to the VMPC, caused by long term repeated exposure to alcohol results in emotional dysfunction, predisposing to utilitarian moral judgment. This work elucidates a novel aspect of the neuropsychological profile of AD patients, namely a tendency to generate utilitarian moral judgment when faced with emotionally salient moral personal dilemmas.

Can model-free reinforcement learning explain deontological moral judgments?

PubMed

Ayars, Alisabeth

2016-05-01

Dual-systems frameworks propose that moral judgments are derived from both an immediate emotional response, and controlled/rational cognition. Recently Cushman (2013) proposed a new dual-system theory based on model-free and model-based reinforcement learning. Model-free learning attaches values to actions based on their history of reward and punishment, and explains some deontological, non-utilitarian judgments. Model-based learning involves the construction of a causal model of the world and allows for far-sighted planning; this form of learning fits well with utilitarian considerations that seek to maximize certain kinds of outcomes. I present three concerns regarding the use of model-free reinforcement learning to explain deontological moral judgment. First, many actions that humans find aversive from model-free learning are not judged to be morally wrong. Moral judgment must require something in addition to model-free learning. Second, there is a dearth of evidence for central predictions of the reinforcement account-e.g., that people with different reinforcement histories will, all else equal, make different moral judgments. Finally, to account for the effect of intention within the framework requires certain assumptions which lack support. These challenges are reasonable foci for future empirical/theoretical work on the model-free/model-based framework. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Low levels of empathic concern predict utilitarian moral judgment.

PubMed

Gleichgerrcht, Ezequiel; Young, Liane

2013-01-01

Is it permissible to harm one to save many? Classic moral dilemmas are often defined by the conflict between a putatively rational response to maximize aggregate welfare (i.e., the utilitarian judgment) and an emotional aversion to harm (i.e., the non-utilitarian judgment). Here, we address two questions. First, what specific aspect of emotional responding is relevant for these judgments? Second, is this aspect of emotional responding selectively reduced in utilitarians or enhanced in non-utilitarians? The results reveal a key relationship between moral judgment and empathic concern in particular (i.e., feelings of warmth and compassion in response to someone in distress). Utilitarian participants showed significantly reduced empathic concern on an independent empathy measure. These findings therefore reveal diminished empathic concern in utilitarian moral judges.

Alcohol Dependence Associated with Increased Utilitarian Moral Judgment: A Case Control Study

PubMed Central

Khemiri, Lotfi; Guterstam, Joar; Franck, Johan; Jayaram-Lindström, Nitya

2012-01-01

Recent studies indicate that emotional processes, mediated by the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), are of great importance for moral judgment. Neurological patients with VMPC dysfunction have been shown to generate increased utilitarian moral judgments, i.e. are more likely to endorse emotionally aversive actions in order to maximize aggregate welfare, when faced with emotionally salient personal moral dilemmas. Patients with alcohol dependence (AD) also exhibit impairments in functions mediated by the prefrontal cortex, but whether they exhibit increased utilitarian moral reasoning has not previously been investigated. The aim of this study was to investigate moral judgment in AD patients (n = 20) compared to healthy controls (n = 20) matched by sex, age and education years. Each subject responded to a battery of 50 hypothetical dilemmas categorized as non-moral, moral impersonal and moral personal. They also responded to a questionnaire evaluating explicit knowledge of social and moral norms. Results confirmed our hypothesis that AD patients generated increased utilitarian moral judgment compared to controls when faced with moral personal dilemmas. Crucially, there was no difference in their responses to non-moral or impersonal moral dilemmas, nor knowledge of explicit social and moral norms. One possible explanation is that damage to the VMPC, caused by long term repeated exposure to alcohol results in emotional dysfunction, predisposing to utilitarian moral judgment. This work elucidates a novel aspect of the neuropsychological profile of AD patients, namely a tendency to generate utilitarian moral judgment when faced with emotionally salient moral personal dilemmas. PMID:22761922

Relationship between ethical ideology and moral judgment: Academic nurse educators' perception.

PubMed

Abou Hashish, Ebtsam Aly; Ali Awad, Nadia Hassan

2017-01-01

Ascertaining the relationship between ethical ideology, moral judgment, and ethical decision among academic nurse educators at work appears to be a challenge particularly in situations when they are faced with a need to solve an ethical problem and make a moral decision. This study aims to investigate the relationship between ethical ideology, moral judgment, and ethical decision as perceived by academic nurse educators. A descriptive correlational research design was conducted at Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University. All academic nurse educators were included in the study (N = 220). Ethical Position Questionnaire and Questionnaire of Moral Judgment and Ethical Decisions were proved reliable to measure study variables. Ethical considerations: Approval was obtained from Ethics Committee at Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University. Privacy and confidentiality of data were maintained and assured by obtaining subjects' informed consent. This study reveals a significant positive moderate correlation between idealism construct of ethical ideology and moral judgment in terms of recognition of the behavior as an ethical issue and the magnitude of emotional consequences of the ethical situation (p < 0.001; p = 0.031) respectively. Also, there is a positive significant moderate correlation between relativism construct of ethical ideology and overall moral judgment (p = 0.010). Approximately 3.5% of the explained variance of overall moral judgment is predicted by idealism together with relativism. The findings suggest that variations in ethical position and ideology are associated with moral judgment and ethical decision. Organizations of academic nursing education should provide a supportive work environment to help their academic staff to develop their self-awareness and knowledge of their ethical position and promoting their ethical ideologies and, in turn, enhance their moral judgment as well as develop ethical reasoning and decision-making capability of nursing

Reflection and Reasoning in Moral Judgment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Paxton, Joseph M.; Ungar, Leo; Greene, Joshua D.

2012-01-01

While there is much evidence for the influence of automatic emotional responses on moral judgment, the roles of reflection and reasoning remain uncertain. In Experiment 1, we induced subjects to be more reflective by completing the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) prior to responding to moral dilemmas. This manipulation increased utilitarian…

A psychophysiological investigation of moral judgment after ventromedial prefrontal damage.

PubMed

Moretto, Giovanna; Làdavas, Elisabetta; Mattioli, Flavia; di Pellegrino, Giuseppe

2010-08-01

Converging evidence suggests that emotion processing mediated by ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is necessary to prevent personal moral violations. In moral dilemmas, for example, patients with lesions in vmPFC are more willing than normal controls to approve harmful actions that maximize good consequences (e.g., utilitarian moral judgments). Yet, none of the existing studies has measured subjects' emotional responses while they considered moral dilemmas. Therefore, a direct link between emotion processing and moral judgment is still lacking. Here, vmPFC patients and control participants considered moral dilemmas while skin conductance response (SCR) was measured as a somatic index of affective state. Replicating previous evidence, vmPFC patients approved more personal moral violations than did controls. Critically, we found that, unlike control participants, vmPFC patients failed to generate SCRs before endorsing personal moral violations. In addition, such anticipatory SCRs correlated negatively with the frequency of utilitarian judgments in normal participants. These findings provide direct support to the hypothesis that the vmPFC promotes moral behavior by mediating the anticipation of the emotional consequences of personal moral violations.

Low Levels of Empathic Concern Predict Utilitarian Moral Judgment

PubMed Central

Gleichgerrcht, Ezequiel; Young, Liane

2013-01-01

Is it permissible to harm one to save many? Classic moral dilemmas are often defined by the conflict between a putatively rational response to maximize aggregate welfare (i.e., the utilitarian judgment) and an emotional aversion to harm (i.e., the non-utilitarian judgment). Here, we address two questions. First, what specific aspect of emotional responding is relevant for these judgments? Second, is this aspect of emotional responding selectively reduced in utilitarians or enhanced in non-utilitarians? The results reveal a key relationship between moral judgment and empathic concern in particular (i.e., feelings of warmth and compassion in response to someone in distress). Utilitarian participants showed significantly reduced empathic concern on an independent empathy measure. These findings therefore reveal diminished empathic concern in utilitarian moral judges. PMID:23593213

Kill or Die: Moral Judgment Alters Linguistic Coding of Causality

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

De Freitas, Julian; DeScioli, Peter; Nemirow, Jason; Massenkoff, Maxim; Pinker, Steven

2017-01-01

What is the relationship between the language people use to describe an event and their moral judgments? We test the hypothesis that moral judgment and causative verbs rely on the same underlying mental model of people's actions. Experiment 1a finds that participants choose different verbs to describe the major variants of a moral dilemma, the…

Assessing Medical Students' Moral Judgment over the Course of a Four-Year Professionalism and Humanism Curriculum

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Riegle, Sandra E.; Frye, Ann W.; Glenn, Jason; Smith, Kirk L.

2012-01-01

Teachers tasked with developing moral character in future physicians face an array of pedagogic challenges, among them identifying tools to measure progress in instilling the requisite skill set. One validated instrument for assessing moral judgment is the Defining Issues Test (DIT-2). Based on the work of Lawrence Kohlberg, the test's main…

What makes moral dilemma judgments "utilitarian" or "deontological"?

PubMed

Gawronski, Bertram; Beer, Jennifer S

2017-12-01

The distinction between utilitarianism and deontology has become a prevailing framework for conceptualizing moral judgment. According to the principle of utilitarianism, the morality of an action depends on its outcomes. In contrast, the principle of deontology states that the morality of an action depends on its consistency with moral norms. To identify the processes underlying utilitarian and deontological judgments, research in psychology and neuroscience has investigated responses to moral dilemmas that pit one principle against the other (e.g., trolley dilemma). However, the interpretation of responses in this paradigm is ambiguous, because the defining aspects of utilitarianism and deontology, outcomes and norms, are not manipulated. We illustrate how this shortcoming distorts interpretations of empirical findings and describe an alternative approach that overcomes the limitations of the traditional paradigm.

Moral judgments, emotions and the utilitarian brain.

PubMed

Moll, Jorge; de Oliveira-Souza, Ricardo

2007-08-01

The investigation of the neural and cognitive mechanisms underlying the moral mind is of paramount importance for understanding complex human behaviors, from altruism to antisocial acts. A new study on patients with prefrontal damage provides key insights on the neurobiology of moral judgment and raises new questions on the mechanisms by which reason and emotion contribute to moral cognition.

Moral Judgments in Parochial and Public School Second-Graders.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moran, James D., III; Jennings, Marge S.

The moral judgments of 22 parochial school second graders and 20 public school children of similar age and intelligence were compared in this study. The children were read 12 moral judgment stories of either negative intention and positive consequence or positive intention and negative consequence. Story content included either damage to personal…

The impact of autism spectrum disorder and alexithymia on judgments of moral acceptability.

PubMed

Brewer, Rebecca; Marsh, Abigail A; Catmur, Caroline; Cardinale, Elise M; Stoycos, Sarah; Cook, Richard; Bird, Geoffrey

2015-08-01

One's own emotional response toward a hypothetical action can influence judgments of its moral acceptability. Some individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit atypical emotional processing, and moral judgments. Research suggests, however, that emotional deficits in ASD are due to co-occurring alexithymia, meaning atypical moral judgments in ASD may be due to alexithymia also. Individuals with and without ASD (matched for alexithymia) judged the moral acceptability of emotion-evoking statements and identified the emotion evoked. Moral acceptability judgments were predicted by alexithymia. Crucially, however, this relationship held only for individuals without ASD. While ASD diagnostic status did not directly predict either judgment, those with ASD did not base their moral acceptability judgments on emotional information. Findings are consistent with evidence demonstrating that decision-making is less subject to emotional biases in those with ASD. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

The Impact of Autism Spectrum Disorder and Alexithymia on Judgments of Moral Acceptability

PubMed Central

2015-01-01

One’s own emotional response toward a hypothetical action can influence judgments of its moral acceptability. Some individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit atypical emotional processing, and moral judgments. Research suggests, however, that emotional deficits in ASD are due to co-occurring alexithymia, meaning atypical moral judgments in ASD may be due to alexithymia also. Individuals with and without ASD (matched for alexithymia) judged the moral acceptability of emotion-evoking statements and identified the emotion evoked. Moral acceptability judgments were predicted by alexithymia. Crucially, however, this relationship held only for individuals without ASD. While ASD diagnostic status did not directly predict either judgment, those with ASD did not base their moral acceptability judgments on emotional information. Findings are consistent with evidence demonstrating that decision-making is less subject to emotional biases in those with ASD. PMID:26375827

Intentionality, degree of damage, and moral judgments.

PubMed

Berg-Cross, L G

1975-12-01

153 first graders were given Piagetian moral judgment problems with a new simplified methodology as well as the usual story-pair paradigm. The new methodology involved making quantitative judgments about single stories and examined the influence of level of intentionality and degree of damage upon absolute punishment ratings. Contrary to results obtained with a story-pair methodology, it was found that with single stories even 6-year-old children responded to the level of intention in the stories as well as the quantity and quality of damage involved. This suggested that Piaget's methodology may be forcing children to employ a simplifying strategy while under other conditions they are able to perform the mental operations necessary to make complex moral judgments.

Assessing Veterinary and Animal Science Students' Moral Judgment Development on Animal Ethics Issues.

PubMed

Verrinder, Joy M; Phillips, Clive J C

2015-01-01

Little has been done to assess veterinarians' moral judgment in relation to animal ethics issues. Following development of the VetDIT, a new moral judgment measure for animal ethics issues, this study aimed to refine and further validate the VetDIT, and to identify effects of teaching interventions on moral judgment and changes in moral judgment over time. VetDIT-V1 was refined into VetDIT-V2, and V3 was developed as a post-intervention test to prevent repetition. To test these versions for comparability, veterinary and animal science students (n=271) were randomly assigned to complete different versions. The VetDIT discriminates between stages of moral judgment, condensed into three schemas: Personal Interest (PI), Maintaining Norms (MN), and Universal Principles (UP). There were no differences in the scores for MN and UP between the versions, and we equated PI scores to account for differences between versions. Veterinary science students (n=130) who completed a three-hour small-group workshop on moral development theory and ethical decision making increased their use of UP in moral reasoning, whereas students (n=271) who received similar information in a 50-minute lecture did not. A longitudinal comparison of matched first- and third-year students (n=39) revealed no moral judgment development toward greater use of UP. The VetDIT is therefore useful for assessing moral judgment of animal and human ethics issues in veterinary and other animal-related professions. Intensive small-group workshops using moral development knowledge and skills, rather than lectures, are conducive to developing veterinary students' moral judgment.

The Moral Judgment of Juvenile Delinquents: A Meta-Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stams, Geert Jan; Brugman, Daniel; Dekovic, Maja; van Rosmalen, Lenny; van der Laan, Peter; Gibbs, John C.

2006-01-01

A meta-analysis of 50 studies was conducted to investigate whether juvenile delinquents use lower levels of moral judgment than their nondelinquent age-mates and, if so, what factors may influence or moderate the developmental delay. The results show a lower stage of moral judgment for juvenile delinquents (d = 0.76). Effect sizes were large for…

Moral Judgment and Distributive Justice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gunzburger, David W.; And Others

1977-01-01

This research focused on the modes of distributive justice employed by individuals differing in the maturity of their moral judgments. Distinctions were made between five modes of distribution response: self interest, parity, equity, social responsibility, and individual responsibility. (MS)

Leadership Styles and Moral Judgment Competence of Community College Personnel

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McFadden, Cheryl; Miller, Brian; Sypawka, William; Clay, Maria; Hoover-Plonk, Shelly

2013-01-01

This study investigated the convergence of leadership styles and moral judgment competence of community college personnel participating in a leadership institute using the Leadership Orientation Instrument (Bolman & Deal, 1984) and the Moral Judgment Test (Lind, 1978). Results indicated that the human resource and structural frames were the…

[Role of the orbitofrontal cortex in moral judgment].

PubMed

Mimura, Masaru

2010-11-01

The neural substrates of moral judgments have recently been advocated to consist of widely distributed brain networks including the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), anterior temporal lobe and superior temporal gyrus. Moral judgments could be regarded as a conflict between the top-down rational/logical processes and the bottom-up irrational/emotional processes. Individuals with OFC damage are usually difficult to inhibit emotionally-driven outrages, thereby demonstrating severe impairment of moral judgments despite their well-preserved moral knowledge. Individuals with OFC damage frequently present with anti-social less moral behaviors. However, clinical observation indicates that some OFC patients may show "hypermoral" tendency in the sense that they are too strict to overlook other person's offense. Two representative cases with OFC damage were reported, both presented with extreme rage against others' offensive behaviors. To further elucidate the "hypermorality" of OFC patients, an experiment was performed in which patients with OFC damage and healthy control participants were asked to determine punishments for other's fictitious crimes that varied in perpetrator responsibility and crime severity. Individuals with OFC damage punished more strictly than healthy controls those persons for mitigating circumstances. The results are consistent with clinical observation of OFC patients' highly rigid and inflexible behaviors against third person's offense.

The neural bases of cognitive conflict and control in moral judgment.

PubMed

Greene, Joshua D; Nystrom, Leigh E; Engell, Andrew D; Darley, John M; Cohen, Jonathan D

2004-10-14

Traditional theories of moral psychology emphasize reasoning and "higher cognition," while more recent work emphasizes the role of emotion. The present fMRI data support a theory of moral judgment according to which both "cognitive" and emotional processes play crucial and sometimes mutually competitive roles. The present results indicate that brain regions associated with abstract reasoning and cognitive control (including dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex) are recruited to resolve difficult personal moral dilemmas in which utilitarian values require "personal" moral violations, violations that have previously been associated with increased activity in emotion-related brain regions. Several regions of frontal and parietal cortex predict intertrial differences in moral judgment behavior, exhibiting greater activity for utilitarian judgments. We speculate that the controversy surrounding utilitarian moral philosophy reflects an underlying tension between competing subsystems in the brain.

Serotonin selectively influences moral judgment and behavior through effects on harm aversion

PubMed Central

Crockett, Molly J.; Clark, Luke; Hauser, Marc D.; Robbins, Trevor W.

2010-01-01

Aversive emotional reactions to real or imagined social harms infuse moral judgment and motivate prosocial behavior. Here, we show that the neurotransmitter serotonin directly alters both moral judgment and behavior through increasing subjects’ aversion to personally harming others. We enhanced serotonin in healthy volunteers with citalopram (a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) and contrasted its effects with both a pharmacological control treatment and a placebo on tests of moral judgment and behavior. We measured the drugs' effects on moral judgment in a set of moral 'dilemmas' pitting utilitarian outcomes (e.g., saving five lives) against highly aversive harmful actions (e.g., killing an innocent person). Enhancing serotonin made subjects more likely to judge harmful actions as forbidden, but only in cases where harms were emotionally salient. This harm-avoidant bias after citalopram was also evident in behavior during the ultimatum game, in which subjects decide to accept or reject fair or unfair monetary offers from another player. Rejecting unfair offers enforces a fairness norm but also harms the other player financially. Enhancing serotonin made subjects less likely to reject unfair offers. Furthermore, the prosocial effects of citalopram varied as a function of trait empathy. Individuals high in trait empathy showed stronger effects of citalopram on moral judgment and behavior than individuals low in trait empathy. Together, these findings provide unique evidence that serotonin could promote prosocial behavior by enhancing harm aversion, a prosocial sentiment that directly affects both moral judgment and moral behavior. PMID:20876101

Serotonin selectively influences moral judgment and behavior through effects on harm aversion.

PubMed

Crockett, Molly J; Clark, Luke; Hauser, Marc D; Robbins, Trevor W

2010-10-05

Aversive emotional reactions to real or imagined social harms infuse moral judgment and motivate prosocial behavior. Here, we show that the neurotransmitter serotonin directly alters both moral judgment and behavior through increasing subjects' aversion to personally harming others. We enhanced serotonin in healthy volunteers with citalopram (a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) and contrasted its effects with both a pharmacological control treatment and a placebo on tests of moral judgment and behavior. We measured the drugs' effects on moral judgment in a set of moral 'dilemmas' pitting utilitarian outcomes (e.g., saving five lives) against highly aversive harmful actions (e.g., killing an innocent person). Enhancing serotonin made subjects more likely to judge harmful actions as forbidden, but only in cases where harms were emotionally salient. This harm-avoidant bias after citalopram was also evident in behavior during the ultimatum game, in which subjects decide to accept or reject fair or unfair monetary offers from another player. Rejecting unfair offers enforces a fairness norm but also harms the other player financially. Enhancing serotonin made subjects less likely to reject unfair offers. Furthermore, the prosocial effects of citalopram varied as a function of trait empathy. Individuals high in trait empathy showed stronger effects of citalopram on moral judgment and behavior than individuals low in trait empathy. Together, these findings provide unique evidence that serotonin could promote prosocial behavior by enhancing harm aversion, a prosocial sentiment that directly affects both moral judgment and moral behavior.

Damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is associated with impairments in both spontaneous and deliberative moral judgments

PubMed Central

Cameron, C. Daryl; Reber, Justin; Spring, Victoria L.; Tranel, Daniel

2018-01-01

Implicit moral evaluations—spontaneous, unintentional judgments about the moral status of actions or persons—are thought to play a pivotal role in moral experience, suggesting a need for research to model these moral evaluations in clinical populations. Prior research reveals that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is a critical area underpinning affect and morality, and patients with vmPFC lesions show abnormalities in moral judgment and moral behavior. We use indirect measurement and multinomial modeling to understand differences in implicit moral evaluations among patients with vmPFC lesions. Our model quantifies multiple processes of moral judgment: implicit moral evaluations in response to distracting moral transgressions (Unintentional Judgment), accurate moral judgments about target actions (Intentional Judgment), and a directional tendency to judge actions as morally wrong (Response Bias). Compared to individuals with non-vmPFC brain damage and neurologically healthy comparisons, patients with vmPFC lesions showed a dual deficit in processes of moral judgment. First, patients with vmPFC lesions showed reduced Unintentional Judgment about moral transgressions, but not about non-moral negative affective distracters. Second, patients with vmPFC lesions showed reduced Intentional Judgment about target actions. These findings highlight the utility of a formal modeling approach in moral psychology, revealing a dual deficit in multiple component processes of moral judgment among patients with vmPFC lesions. PMID:29382558

Damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is associated with impairments in both spontaneous and deliberative moral judgments.

PubMed

Cameron, C Daryl; Reber, Justin; Spring, Victoria L; Tranel, Daniel

2018-03-01

Implicit moral evaluations-spontaneous, unintentional judgments about the moral status of actions or persons-are thought to play a pivotal role in moral experience, suggesting a need for research to model these moral evaluations in clinical populations. Prior research reveals that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is a critical area underpinning affect and morality, and patients with vmPFC lesions show abnormalities in moral judgment and moral behavior. We use indirect measurement and multinomial modeling to understand differences in implicit moral evaluations among patients with vmPFC lesions. Our model quantifies multiple processes of moral judgment: implicit moral evaluations in response to distracting moral transgressions (Unintentional Judgment), accurate moral judgments about target actions (Intentional Judgment), and a directional tendency to judge actions as morally wrong (Response Bias). Compared to individuals with non-vmPFC brain damage and neurologically healthy comparisons, patients with vmPFC lesions showed a dual deficit in processes of moral judgment. First, patients with vmPFC lesions showed reduced Unintentional Judgment about moral transgressions, but not about non-moral negative affective distracters. Second, patients with vmPFC lesions showed reduced Intentional Judgment about target actions. These findings highlight the utility of a formal modeling approach in moral psychology, revealing a dual deficit in multiple component processes of moral judgment among patients with vmPFC lesions. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Neural correlates of moral judgment in pedophilia

PubMed Central

Kärgel, Christian; Weiß, Simone; Walter, Martin; Ponseti, Jorge; HC Krueger, Tillmann; Walter, Henrik; Schiffer, Boris

2017-01-01

Abstract Pedophilia is a sexual preference that is often associated with child sex offending (CSO). Sexual urges towards prepubescent children and specifically acting upon those urges are universally regarded as immoral. However, up until now, it is completely unknown whether moral processing of sexual offenses is altered in pedophiles. A total of 31 pedophilic men and 19 healthy controls were assessed by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in combination with a moral judgment paradigm consisting of 36 scenarios describing different types of offenses. Scenarios depicting sexual offenses against children compared to those depicting adults were associated with higher pattern of activation in the left temporo-parietal-junction (TPJ) and left posterior insular cortex, the posterior cingulate gyrus as well as the precuneus in controls relative to pedophiles, and vice versa. Moreover, brain activation in these areas were positively associated with ratings of moral reprehensibility and negatively associated with decision durations, but only in controls. Brain activation, found in key areas related to the broad network of moral judgment, theory of mind and (socio-)moral disgust - point to different moral processing of sexual offenses in pedophilia in general. The lack of associations between brain activation and behavioral responses in pedophiles further suggest a biased response pattern or dissected implicit valuation processes. PMID:28992273

The emotional dog and its rational tail: a social intuitionist approach to moral judgment.

PubMed

Haidt, J

2001-10-01

Research on moral judgment has been dominated by rationalist models, in which moral judgment is thought to be caused by moral reasoning. The author gives 4 reasons for considering the hypothesis that moral reasoning does not cause moral judgment; rather, moral reasoning is usually a post hoc construction, generated after a judgment has been reached. The social intuitionist model is presented as an alternative to rationalist models. The model is a social model in that it deemphasizes the private reasoning done by individuals and emphasizes instead the importance of social and cultural influences. The model is an intuitionist model in that it states that moral judgment is generally the result of quick, automatic evaluations (intuitions). The model is more consistent that rationalist models with recent findings in social, cultural, evolutionary, and biological psychology, as well as in anthropology and primatology.

Discrepancies between Judgment and Choice of Action in Moral Dilemmas

PubMed Central

Tassy, Sébastien; Oullier, Olivier; Mancini, Julien; Wicker, Bruno

2013-01-01

Everyone has experienced the potential discrepancy between what one judges as morally acceptable and what one actually does when a choice between alternative behaviors is to be made. The present study explores empirically whether judgment and choice of action differ when people make decisions on dilemmas involving moral issues. Two hundred and forty participants evaluated 24 moral and non-moral dilemmas either by judging (“Is it acceptable to…”) or reporting the choice of action they would make (“Would you do…”). We also investigated the influence of varying the number of people benefiting from the decision and the closeness of relationship of the decision maker with the potential victim on these two types of decision. Variations in the number of beneficiaries from the decision did not influence judgment nor choice of action. By contrast, closeness of relationship with the victim had a greater influence on the choice of action than on judgment. This differentiation between evaluative judgments and choices of action argues in favor of each of them being supported by (at least partially) different psychological processes. PMID:23720645

Children's Moral Judgments and Moral Emotions Following Exclusion of Children with Disabilities: Relations with Inclusive Education, Age, and Contact Intensity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gasser, Luciano; Malti, Tina; Buholzer, Alois

2013-01-01

We investigated relations between children's moral judgments and moral emotions following disability-based exclusion and inclusive education, age, and contact intensity. Nine- and 12-year-old Swiss children (N = 351) from inclusive and noninclusive classrooms provided moral judgments and moral emotion attributions following six vignettes about…

Cold-hearted or cool-headed: physical coldness promotes utilitarian moral judgment

PubMed Central

Nakamura, Hiroko; Ito, Yuichi; Honma, Yoshiko; Mori, Takuya; Kawaguchi, Jun

2014-01-01

In the current study, we examine the effect of physical coldness on personal moral dilemma judgment. Previous studies have indicated that utilitarian moral judgment—sacrificing a few people to achieve the greater good for others—was facilitated when: (1) participants suppressed an initial emotional response and deliberately thought about the utility of outcomes; (2) participants had a high-level construal mindset and focused on abstract goals (e.g., save many); or (3) there was a decreasing emotional response to sacrificing a few. In two experiments, we exposed participants to extreme cold or typical room temperature and then asked them to make personal moral dilemma judgments. The results of Experiment 1 indicated that coldness prompted utilitarian judgment, but the effect of coldness was independent from deliberate thought or abstract high-level construal mindset. As Experiment 2 revealed, coldness facilitated utilitarian judgment via reduced empathic feelings. Therefore, physical coldness did not affect the “cool-headed” deliberate process or the abstract high-level construal mindset. Rather, coldness biased people toward being “cold-hearted,” reduced empathetic concern, and facilitated utilitarian moral judgments. PMID:25324800

Moral Judgment Development across Cultures: Revisiting Kohlberg's Universality Claims

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gibbs, John C.; Basinger, Karen S.; Grime, Rebecca L.; Snarey, John R.

2007-01-01

This article revisits Kohlberg's cognitive developmental claims that stages of moral judgment, facilitative processes of social perspective-taking, and moral values are commonly identifiable across cultures. Snarey [Snarey, J. (1985). "The cross-cultural universality of social-moral development: A critical review of Kohlbergian research."…

Effects of Incidental Emotions on Moral Dilemma Judgments: An Analysis Using the CNI Model.

PubMed

Gawronski, Bertram; Conway, Paul; Armstrong, Joel; Friesdorf, Rebecca; Hütter, Mandy

2018-02-01

Effects of incidental emotions on moral dilemma judgments have garnered interest because they demonstrate the context-dependent nature of moral decision-making. Six experiments (N = 727) investigated the effects of incidental happiness, sadness, and anger on responses in moral dilemmas that pit the consequences of a given action for the greater good (i.e., utilitarianism) against the consistency of that action with moral norms (i.e., deontology). Using the CNI model of moral decision-making, we further tested whether the three kinds of emotions shape moral dilemma judgments by influencing (a) sensitivity to consequences, (b) sensitivity to moral norms, or (c) general preference for inaction versus action regardless of consequences and moral norms (or some combination of the three). Incidental happiness reduced sensitivity to moral norms without affecting sensitivity to consequences or general preference for inaction versus action. Incidental sadness and incidental anger did not show any significant effects on moral dilemma judgments. The findings suggest a central role of moral norms in the contribution of emotional responses to moral dilemma judgments, requiring refinements of dominant theoretical accounts and supporting the value of formal modeling approaches in providing more nuanced insights into the determinants of moral dilemma judgments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Moral Judgments and History Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Black, Hedda

1977-01-01

By providing adolescents with the opportunity to interact with a much extended social environment of humans past and distant, the history teacher is able to promote maturity of moral judgment as an important aspect of social development. Some normative data relating to this transition in adolescents are presented. (Editor/RK)

Implicit moral evaluations: A multinomial modeling approach.

PubMed

Cameron, C Daryl; Payne, B Keith; Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter; Scheffer, Julian A; Inzlicht, Michael

2017-01-01

Implicit moral evaluations-i.e., immediate, unintentional assessments of the wrongness of actions or persons-play a central role in supporting moral behavior in everyday life. Yet little research has employed methods that rigorously measure individual differences in implicit moral evaluations. In five experiments, we develop a new sequential priming measure-the Moral Categorization Task-and a multinomial model that decomposes judgment on this task into multiple component processes. These include implicit moral evaluations of moral transgression primes (Unintentional Judgment), accurate moral judgments about target actions (Intentional Judgment), and a directional tendency to judge actions as morally wrong (Response Bias). Speeded response deadlines reduced Intentional Judgment but not Unintentional Judgment (Experiment 1). Unintentional Judgment was stronger toward moral transgression primes than non-moral negative primes (Experiments 2-4). Intentional Judgment was associated with increased error-related negativity, a neurophysiological indicator of behavioral control (Experiment 4). Finally, people who voted for an anti-gay marriage amendment had stronger Unintentional Judgment toward gay marriage primes (Experiment 5). Across Experiments 1-4, implicit moral evaluations converged with moral personality: Unintentional Judgment about wrong primes, but not negative primes, was negatively associated with psychopathic tendencies and positively associated with moral identity and guilt proneness. Theoretical and practical applications of formal modeling for moral psychology are discussed. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The road to heaven is paved with effort: Perceived effort amplifies moral judgment.

PubMed

Bigman, Yochanan E; Tamir, Maya

2016-12-01

If good intentions pave the road to hell, what paves the road to heaven? We propose that moral judgments are based, in part, on the degree of effort exerted in performing the immoral or moral act. Because effort can serve as an index of goal importance, greater effort in performing immoral acts would lead to more negative judgments, whereas greater effort in performing moral acts would lead to more positive judgments. In support of these ideas, we found that perceived effort intensified judgments of both immoral (Studies 1-2) and moral (Studies 2-7) agents. The effect of effort on judgment was independent of the outcome (Study 3) and of perceptions of the outcome extremity (Study 6). Furthermore, the effect of effort on judgment was mediated by perceived goal importance (Studies 4-6), even when controlling for perceived intentions (Studies 5-6). Finally, we demonstrate that perceived effort can influence actual behavior, such as the assignment of monetary rewards (Study 7). We discuss the possible implications of effort as a causal motivational factor in moral judgment and social retribution. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Impact of Psychopathy on Moral Judgments about Causing Fear and Physical Harm

PubMed Central

2015-01-01

Psychopathy is a personality variable associated with persistent immoral behaviors. Despite this, attempts to link moral reasoning deficits to psychopathic traits have yielded mixed results with many findings supporting intact moral reasoning in individuals with psychopathic traits. Abundant evidence shows that psychopathy impairs responses to others’ emotional distress. However, most studies of morality and psychopathy focus on judgments about causing others physical harm. Results of such studies may be inconsistent because physical harm is an imperfect proxy for emotional distress. No previous paradigm has explicitly separated judgments about physical harm and emotional distress and assessed how psychopathy affects each type of judgment. In three studies we found that psychopathy impairs judgments about causing others emotional distress (specifically fear) but minimally affects judgments about causing physical harm and that judgments about causing fear predict instrumental aggression in psychopathy. These findings are consistent with reports linking psychopathy to insensitivity to others’ fear, and suggest that sensitivity to others’ fear may play a fundamental role in the types of moral decision-making impaired by psychopathy. PMID:25992566

Neural correlates of moral judgment in pedophilia.

PubMed

Massau, Claudia; Kärgel, Christian; Weiß, Simone; Walter, Martin; Ponseti, Jorge; Hc Krueger, Tillmann; Walter, Henrik; Schiffer, Boris

2017-09-01

Pedophilia is a sexual preference that is often associated with child sex offending (CSO). Sexual urges towards prepubescent children and specifically acting upon those urges are universally regarded as immoral. However, up until now, it is completely unknown whether moral processing of sexual offenses is altered in pedophiles. A total of 31 pedophilic men and 19 healthy controls were assessed by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in combination with a moral judgment paradigm consisting of 36 scenarios describing different types of offenses.Scenarios depicting sexual offenses against children compared to those depicting adults were associated with higher pattern of activation in the left temporo-parietal-junction (TPJ) and left posterior insular cortex, the posterior cingulate gyrus as well as the precuneus in controls relative to pedophiles, and vice versa. Moreover, brain activation in these areas were positively associated with ratings of moral reprehensibility and negatively associated with decision durations, but only in controls. Brain activation, found in key areas related to the broad network of moral judgment, theory of mind and (socio-)moral disgust - point to different moral processing of sexual offenses in pedophilia in general. The lack of associations between brain activation and behavioral responses in pedophiles further suggest a biased response pattern or dissected implicit valuation processes. © The Author (2017). Published by Oxford University Press.

The relationship between moral judgment and cooperation in children with high-functioning autism

PubMed Central

Li, Jing; Zhu, Liqi; Gummerum, Michaela

2014-01-01

This study investigated moral judgment in children with high-functioning autism and their cooperation in prisoner's dilemma game with partners of different moralities. Thirty-eight 6- to 12-year-old high-functioning autistic (HFA) children and 31 typically developing (TD) children were recruited. Children were asked to judge story protagonists' morality. After making this moral judgment correctly, they were asked to play with the morally nice and the morally naughty child in a repeated prisoner's dilemma game. Results showed that both HFA and TD children made correct moral judgments, and that HFA children might even have more rigid criteria for what constitutes morally naughty acts. HFA children's cooperation did not differ depending on the morality of the interaction partner, while TD children showed higher cooperation when interacting with the morally nice than the morally naughty child did. Thus, partner's morality did influence TD children's but not HFA children's subsequent cooperation. PMID:24603775

Can cognitive psychological research on reasoning enhance the discussion around moral judgments?

PubMed

Bialek, Michal; Terbeck, Sylvia

2016-08-01

In this article we will demonstrate how cognitive psychological research on reasoning and decision making could enhance discussions and theories of moral judgments. In the first part, we will present recent dual-process models of moral judgments and describe selected studies which support these approaches. However, we will also present data that contradict the model predictions, suggesting that approaches to moral judgment might be more complex. In the second part, we will show how cognitive psychological research on reasoning might be helpful in understanding moral judgments. Specifically, we will highlight approaches addressing the interaction between intuition and reflection. Our data suggest that a sequential model of engaging in deliberation might have to be revised. Therefore, we will present an approach based on Signal Detection Theory and on intuitive conflict detection. We predict that individuals arrive at the moral decisions by comparing potential action outcomes (e.g., harm caused and utilitarian gain) simultaneously. The response criterion can be influenced by intuitive processes, such as heuristic moral value processing, or considerations of harm caused.

Intentionality, Degree of Damage, and Moral Judgments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Berg-Cross, Linda Gail

1975-01-01

Piagetian moral judgment problems were simplified and tested on first grade children to ascertain whether the simplification would affect the subjects' perceptions of intentionality and punishment. (JMB)

The Foreign Language Effect on Moral Judgment: The Role of Emotions and Norms.

PubMed

Geipel, Janet; Hadjichristidis, Constantinos; Surian, Luca

2015-01-01

We investigated whether and why the use of a foreign language influences moral judgment. We studied the trolley and footbridge dilemmas, which propose an action that involves killing one individual to save five. In line with prior work, the use of a foreign language increased the endorsement of such consequentialist actions for the footbridge dilemma, but not for the trolley dilemma. But contrary to recent theorizing, this effect was not driven by an attenuation of emotions. An attenuation of emotions was found in both dilemmas, and it did not mediate the foreign language effect on moral judgment. An examination of additional scenarios revealed that foreign language influenced moral judgment when the proposed action involved a social or moral norm violation. We propose that foreign language influences moral judgment by reducing access to normative knowledge.

Bible Knowledge and Moral Judgment: Knowing Scripture and Using Ethical Reasoning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nelson, Daniel

2004-01-01

The relationship between moral judgment and religious knowledge was investigated, with an analysis of the impact of academic skill on both domains. Fifty-six Bible college seniors completed measures of moral judgment (Defining Issues Test), Bible knowledge (Standardized Bible Content Test), and academic skill (Academic Profile). Results indicate…

Manipulating Morality: Third-Party Intentions Alter Moral Judgments by Changing Causal Reasoning.

PubMed

Phillips, Jonathan; Shaw, Alex

2015-08-01

The present studies investigate how the intentions of third parties influence judgments of moral responsibility for other agents who commit immoral acts. Using cases in which an agent acts under some situational constraint brought about by a third party, we ask whether the agent is blamed less for the immoral act when the third party intended for that act to occur. Study 1 demonstrates that third-party intentions do influence judgments of blame. Study 2 finds that third-party intentions only influence moral judgments when the agent's actions precisely match the third party's intention. Study 3 shows that this effect arises from changes in participants' causal perception that the third party was controlling the agent. Studies 4 and 5, respectively, show that the effect cannot be explained by changes in the distribution of blame or perceived differences in situational constraint faced by the agent. © 2014 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

tDCS Over DLPFC Leads to Less Utilitarian Response in Moral-Personal Judgment

PubMed Central

Zheng, Haoli; Lu, Xinbo; Huang, Daqiang

2018-01-01

The profound nature of moral judgment has been discussed and debated for centuries. When facing the trade-off between pursuing moral rights and seeking better consequences, most people make different moral choices between two kinds of dilemmas. Such differences were explained by the dual-process theory involving an automatic emotional response and a controlled application of utilitarian decision-rules. In neurocognitive studies, the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) has been demonstrated to play an important role in cognitive “rational” control processes in moral dilemmas. However, the profile of results across studies is not entirely consistent. Although one transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) study revealed that disrupting the right DLPFC led to less utilitarian responses, other TMS studies indicated that inhibition of the right DLPFC led to more utilitarian choices. Moreover, the right temporoparietal junction (TPJ) is essential for its function of integrating belief and intention in moral judgment, which is related to the emotional process according to the dual-process theory. Relatively few studies have reported the causal relationship between TPJ and participants' moral responses, especially in moral dilemmas. In the present study, we aimed to demonstrate a direct link between the neural and behavioral results by application of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in the bilateral DLPFC or TPJ of our participants. We observed that activating the right DLPFC as well as inhibiting the left DLPFC led to less utilitarian judgments, especially in moral-personal conditions, indicating that the right DLPFC plays an essential role, not only through its function of moral reasoning but also through its information integrating process in moral judgments. It was also revealed that altering the excitability of the bilateral TPJ using tDCS negligibly altered the moral response in non-moral, moral-impersonal and moral-personal dilemmas

tDCS Over DLPFC Leads to Less Utilitarian Response in Moral-Personal Judgment.

PubMed

Zheng, Haoli; Lu, Xinbo; Huang, Daqiang

2018-01-01

The profound nature of moral judgment has been discussed and debated for centuries. When facing the trade-off between pursuing moral rights and seeking better consequences, most people make different moral choices between two kinds of dilemmas. Such differences were explained by the dual-process theory involving an automatic emotional response and a controlled application of utilitarian decision-rules. In neurocognitive studies, the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) has been demonstrated to play an important role in cognitive "rational" control processes in moral dilemmas. However, the profile of results across studies is not entirely consistent. Although one transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) study revealed that disrupting the right DLPFC led to less utilitarian responses, other TMS studies indicated that inhibition of the right DLPFC led to more utilitarian choices. Moreover, the right temporoparietal junction (TPJ) is essential for its function of integrating belief and intention in moral judgment, which is related to the emotional process according to the dual-process theory. Relatively few studies have reported the causal relationship between TPJ and participants' moral responses, especially in moral dilemmas. In the present study, we aimed to demonstrate a direct link between the neural and behavioral results by application of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in the bilateral DLPFC or TPJ of our participants. We observed that activating the right DLPFC as well as inhibiting the left DLPFC led to less utilitarian judgments, especially in moral-personal conditions, indicating that the right DLPFC plays an essential role, not only through its function of moral reasoning but also through its information integrating process in moral judgments. It was also revealed that altering the excitability of the bilateral TPJ using tDCS negligibly altered the moral response in non-moral, moral-impersonal and moral-personal dilemmas

The Theory of Dyadic Morality: Reinventing Moral Judgment by Redefining Harm.

PubMed

Schein, Chelsea; Gray, Kurt

2018-02-01

The nature of harm-and therefore moral judgment-may be misunderstood. Rather than an objective matter of reason, we argue that harm should be redefined as an intuitively perceived continuum. This redefinition provides a new understanding of moral content and mechanism-the constructionist Theory of Dyadic Morality (TDM). TDM suggests that acts are condemned proportional to three elements: norm violations, negative affect, and-importantly-perceived harm. This harm is dyadic, involving an intentional agent causing damage to a vulnerable patient (A→P). TDM predicts causal links both from harm to immorality (dyadic comparison) and from immorality to harm (dyadic completion). Together, these two processes make the "dyadic loop," explaining moral acquisition and polarization. TDM argues against intuitive harmless wrongs and modular "foundations," but embraces moral pluralism through varieties of values and the flexibility of perceived harm. Dyadic morality impacts understandings of moral character, moral emotion, and political/cultural differences, and provides research guidelines for moral psychology.

The Foreign Language Effect on Moral Judgment: The Role of Emotions and Norms

PubMed Central

Geipel, Janet; Hadjichristidis, Constantinos; Surian, Luca

2015-01-01

We investigated whether and why the use of a foreign language influences moral judgment. We studied the trolley and footbridge dilemmas, which propose an action that involves killing one individual to save five. In line with prior work, the use of a foreign language increased the endorsement of such consequentialist actions for the footbridge dilemma, but not for the trolley dilemma. But contrary to recent theorizing, this effect was not driven by an attenuation of emotions. An attenuation of emotions was found in both dilemmas, and it did not mediate the foreign language effect on moral judgment. An examination of additional scenarios revealed that foreign language influenced moral judgment when the proposed action involved a social or moral norm violation. We propose that foreign language influences moral judgment by reducing access to normative knowledge. PMID:26177508

Children's moral judgments and moral emotions following exclusion of children with disabilities: relations with inclusive education, age, and contact intensity.

PubMed

Gasser, Luciano; Malti, Tina; Buholzer, Alois

2013-03-01

We investigated relations between children's moral judgments and moral emotions following disability-based exclusion and inclusive education, age, and contact intensity. Nine- and 12-year-old Swiss children (N=351) from inclusive and noninclusive classrooms provided moral judgments and moral emotion attributions following six vignettes about social exclusion of children with disabilities. Children also reported on their level of sympathy towards children with disabilities and their contact intensity with children with disabilities. Overall, children condemned disability-based exclusion, attributed few positive emotions to excluder targets, and expressed high sympathy for children with disabilities, independent of age and educational setting. However, younger children from inclusive classrooms exhibited more moral judgments and moral emotions than younger children from noninclusive classrooms. Moreover, children who expressed high sympathy towards children with disabilities were more likely to report frequent contact with children with disabilities. The findings extend existing research on social exclusion by examining disability-based exclusion and are discussed with respect to developmental research on social and moral judgments and emotions following children's inclusion and exclusion decisions. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Moral Judgments of Chief Academic Officers at Institutions of Higher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Weaver, Megan D.

2012-01-01

Chief Academic Officers (CAO) are leaders in institutions of higher education and have wide decision-making scope. Previous research has clearly demonstrated the need for leaders to engage in ethical decision-making. Moral judgments are an aspect of ethical decision-making, so it is important for CAOs to make moral judgments. This study examined…

Cultural differences in moral judgment and behavior, across and within societies.

PubMed

Graham, Jesse; Meindl, Peter; Beall, Erica; Johnson, Kate M; Zhang, Li

2016-04-01

We review contemporary work on cultural factors affecting moral judgments and values, and those affecting moral behaviors. In both cases, we highlight examples of within-societal cultural differences in morality, to show that these can be as substantial and important as cross-societal differences. Whether between or within nations and societies, cultures vary substantially in their promotion and transmission of a multitude of moral judgments and behaviors. Cultural factors contributing to this variation include religion, social ecology (weather, crop conditions, population density, pathogen prevalence, residential mobility), and regulatory social institutions such as kinship structures and economic markets. This variability raises questions for normative theories of morality, but also holds promise for future descriptive work on moral thought and behavior. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effects of Age of Transgressor, Damage, and Type of Presentation on Kindergarten Children's Moral Judgments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rybash, John M.; And Others

1975-01-01

This study used both verbal and videotape presentation techniques to assess the role of cognitive conflict in children's moral judgments. The results indicated that the children presented problems via videotape based their moral judgments on intentions, while verbal presentation increased the number of moral judgments based on damage. (JMB)

Do Contributors to Intellect Explain the Moral Judgment Abilities of Gifted Youth?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Derryberry, W. Pitt; Barger, Brian

2008-01-01

To assess reaction time and attributional complexity as factors contributing to the relatively high moral judgment of gifted youth, a sample of 30 gifted youth and 30 college students responded to a computerized measure of moral judgment development, which also indexed reaction time. Additionally, participants completed a measurement of…

Moral emotions and moral judgments in children's narratives: comparing real-life and hypothetical transgressions.

PubMed

Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger, Eveline; Gasser, Luciano; Malti, Tina

2010-01-01

How children make meaning of their own social experiences in situations involving moral issues is central to their subsequent affective and cognitive moral learning. Our study of young children's narratives describing their interpersonal conflicts shows that the emotions and judgments constructed in the course of these real-life narratives differ from the emotions and judgments generated in the context of hypothetical transgressions. In the narratives, all emotions mentioned spontaneously were negative. In contrast, emotions attributed in the interview part covered a broader spectrum. One's own real-life transgressions were judged less severe and more justified than hypothetical transgressions. © Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The Relationship between Moral Decision Making and Patterns of Consolidation and Transition in Moral Judgment Development.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thoma, Stephen J.; Rest, James R.

1999-01-01

Assessed the relationship between a measure of consolidation and transition in moral-judgment development and utility of moral concepts in sociomoral decision making in multiple cross-sectional and longitudinal samples. Found that participants' reliance on a Kohlbergian moral framework was highest during periods of consolidation and lowest during…

The development of moral judgments concerning capital punishment.

PubMed

Kohlberg, Lawrence; Elfenbein, Donald

1975-07-01

Data from a 20-year longitudinal study of the development of moral judgment in American males indicate that the most mature stages evince moral condemnation of the death penalty. The authors conclude that American moral standards are evolving towards a view of execution as unjust punishment. They contend that a theory of punishment based on the highest stage of moral reasoning is more valid than lower-stage justifications for capital punishment, and that it provides a rational basis for asserting the immorality--and unconstitutionality--of capital punishment, irrespective of uncertainties as to the deterrent efficacy of the death penalty.

The sadistic trait predicts minimization of intention and causal responsibility in moral judgment.

PubMed

Trémolière, Bastien; Djeriouat, Hakim

2016-01-01

The present research tests the hypothesis that specific socially aversive traits-subclinical sadism in particular-are associated with an impaired judgment of moral wrongness, guilt, and punishment in various moral scenarios manipulating intent, cause and consequence of harm. In three online studies (total N=1069), participants completed a battery of tests scaled to assess sadism and the Dark Triad constructs, then faced different situations involving moral issues (attempted harm, intentional harm, accidental harm). Study 1 revealed that a sadistic personality trait was associated with minimization of the importance of harmful intent in moral judgment. Study 2 showed that a sadistic personality trait predicted minimization of the importance of causal mechanisms to harmful consequences in moral judgment. Study 3 showed that these effects were mediated by enjoyment of cruelty, a characteristic unique to sadists. In the light of Cushman's (2008) two-process model of moral judgment, this set of studies provides the first evidence that deficits in the integration of the theory of mind and causality can be observed in personality traits. The independent predictive value of sadism highlights that features other than emotional deficits are essential in explaining impaired moral evaluations. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Critical thinking, educational preparation, and development of moral judgment among selected groups of practicing nurses.

PubMed

Ketefian, S

1981-01-01

The focus of this descriptive study was the relationship between critical thinking, educational preparation, and level of moral judgment in 79 practicing nurses. The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal Test was used to measure critical thinking; information on the participating nurses' educational preparation was obtained from a personal information sheet. Moral judgment was measured by Rest's Defining Issues Test. The hypothesis that critical thinking would be positively related to moral judgment was tested by Pearson product moment correlation; the obtained coefficient of .5326 was significant at the .001 level. The hypothesis that there would be a difference between professional and technical nurses' moral judgments was tested through a one-way analysis of variance. The F ratio (F [1,77] = 9.6) was significant beyond the .01 level. Data also supported the hypothesis that critical thinking and educational preparation would predict greater variance in moral judgment than either variable alone, which was tested through multiple regression analysis (F [2,75] = 18.3, p = .01). Critical thinking and education together accounted for 32.9 percent of the variance in moral judgment. Implications of the findings are discussed for nursing research, practice, and education.

Moral Emotions and Moral Judgments in Children's Narratives: Comparing Real-Life and Hypothetical Transgressions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger, Eveline; Gasser, Luciano; Malti, Tina

2010-01-01

How children make meaning of their own social experiences in situations involving moral issues is central to their subsequent affective and cognitive moral learning. Our study of young children's narratives describing their interpersonal conflicts shows that the emotions and judgments constructed in the course of these real-life narratives differ…

Effects of Suboptimally Presented Erotic Pictures on Moral Judgments: A Cross-Cultural Comparison.

PubMed

Olivera-La Rosa, Antonio; Corradi, Guido; Villacampa, Javier; Martí-Vilar, Manuel; Arango, Olber Eduardo; Rosselló, Jaume

2016-01-01

Previous research has identified a set of core factors that influence moral judgments. The present study addresses the interplay between moral judgments and four factors: (a) incidental affects, (b) sociocultural context, (c) type of dilemma, and (d) participant's sex. We asked participants in two different countries (Colombia and Spain) to judge the acceptability of actions in response to personal and impersonal moral dilemmas. Before each dilemma an affective prime (erotic, pleasant or neutral pictures) was presented suboptimally. Our results show that: a) relative to neutral priming, erotic primes increase the acceptance of harm for a greater good (i.e., more utilitarian judgments), b) relative to Colombians, Spanish participants rated causing harm as less acceptable, c) relative to impersonal dilemmas, personal dilemmas reduced the acceptance of harm, and d) relative to men, women were less likely to consider harm acceptable. Our results are congruent with findings showing that sex is a crucial factor in moral cognition, and they extend previous research by showing the interaction between culture and incidental factors in the making of moral judgments.

Effects of Suboptimally Presented Erotic Pictures on Moral Judgments: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

PubMed Central

Martí-Vilar, Manuel; Arango, Olber Eduardo

2016-01-01

Previous research has identified a set of core factors that influence moral judgments. The present study addresses the interplay between moral judgments and four factors: (a) incidental affects, (b) sociocultural context, (c) type of dilemma, and (d) participant’s sex. We asked participants in two different countries (Colombia and Spain) to judge the acceptability of actions in response to personal and impersonal moral dilemmas. Before each dilemma an affective prime (erotic, pleasant or neutral pictures) was presented suboptimally. Our results show that: a) relative to neutral priming, erotic primes increase the acceptance of harm for a greater good (i.e., more utilitarian judgments), b) relative to Colombians, Spanish participants rated causing harm as less acceptable, c) relative to impersonal dilemmas, personal dilemmas reduced the acceptance of harm, and d) relative to men, women were less likely to consider harm acceptable. Our results are congruent with findings showing that sex is a crucial factor in moral cognition, and they extend previous research by showing the interaction between culture and incidental factors in the making of moral judgments. PMID:27367795

Contextual and perceptual brain processes underlying moral cognition: a quantitative meta-analysis of moral reasoning and moral emotions.

PubMed

Sevinc, Gunes; Spreng, R Nathan

2014-01-01

Human morality has been investigated using a variety of tasks ranging from judgments of hypothetical dilemmas to viewing morally salient stimuli. These experiments have provided insight into neural correlates of moral judgments and emotions, yet these approaches reveal important differences in moral cognition. Moral reasoning tasks require active deliberation while moral emotion tasks involve the perception of stimuli with moral implications. We examined convergent and divergent brain activity associated with these experimental paradigms taking a quantitative meta-analytic approach. A systematic search of the literature yielded 40 studies. Studies involving explicit decisions in a moral situation were categorized as active (n = 22); studies evoking moral emotions were categorized as passive (n = 18). We conducted a coordinate-based meta-analysis using the Activation Likelihood Estimation to determine reliable patterns of brain activity. Results revealed a convergent pattern of reliable brain activity for both task categories in regions of the default network, consistent with the social and contextual information processes supported by this brain network. Active tasks revealed more reliable activity in the temporoparietal junction, angular gyrus and temporal pole. Active tasks demand deliberative reasoning and may disproportionately involve the retrieval of social knowledge from memory, mental state attribution, and construction of the context through associative processes. In contrast, passive tasks reliably engaged regions associated with visual and emotional information processing, including lingual gyrus and the amygdala. A laterality effect was observed in dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, with active tasks engaging the left, and passive tasks engaging the right. While overlapping activity patterns suggest a shared neural network for both tasks, differential activity suggests that processing of moral input is affected by task demands. The results provide novel

Contextual and Perceptual Brain Processes Underlying Moral Cognition: A Quantitative Meta-Analysis of Moral Reasoning and Moral Emotions

PubMed Central

Sevinc, Gunes; Spreng, R. Nathan

2014-01-01

Background and Objectives Human morality has been investigated using a variety of tasks ranging from judgments of hypothetical dilemmas to viewing morally salient stimuli. These experiments have provided insight into neural correlates of moral judgments and emotions, yet these approaches reveal important differences in moral cognition. Moral reasoning tasks require active deliberation while moral emotion tasks involve the perception of stimuli with moral implications. We examined convergent and divergent brain activity associated with these experimental paradigms taking a quantitative meta-analytic approach. Data Source A systematic search of the literature yielded 40 studies. Studies involving explicit decisions in a moral situation were categorized as active (n = 22); studies evoking moral emotions were categorized as passive (n = 18). We conducted a coordinate-based meta-analysis using the Activation Likelihood Estimation to determine reliable patterns of brain activity. Results & Conclusions Results revealed a convergent pattern of reliable brain activity for both task categories in regions of the default network, consistent with the social and contextual information processes supported by this brain network. Active tasks revealed more reliable activity in the temporoparietal junction, angular gyrus and temporal pole. Active tasks demand deliberative reasoning and may disproportionately involve the retrieval of social knowledge from memory, mental state attribution, and construction of the context through associative processes. In contrast, passive tasks reliably engaged regions associated with visual and emotional information processing, including lingual gyrus and the amygdala. A laterality effect was observed in dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, with active tasks engaging the left, and passive tasks engaging the right. While overlapping activity patterns suggest a shared neural network for both tasks, differential activity suggests that processing of

No Absolutism Here: Harm Predicts Moral Judgment 30× Better Than Disgust-Commentary on Scott, Inbar, & Rozin (2016).

PubMed

Gray, Kurt; Schein, Chelsea

2016-05-01

Moral absolutism is the idea that people's moral judgments are insensitive to considerations of harm. Scott, Inbar, and Rozin (2016, this issue) claim that most moral opponents to genetically modified organisms are absolutely opposed-motivated by disgust and not harm. Yet there is no evidence for moral absolutism in their data. Perceived risk/harm is the most significant predictor of moral judgments for "absolutists," accounting for 30 times more variance than disgust. Reanalyses suggest that disgust is not even a significant predictor of the moral judgments of absolutists once accounting for perceived harm and anger. Instead of revealing actual moral absolutism, Scott et al. find only empty absolutism: hypothetical, forecasted, self-reported moral absolutism. Strikingly, the moral judgments of so-called absolutists are somewhat more sensitive to consequentialist concerns than those of nonabsolutists. Mediation reanalyses reveal that moral judgments are most proximally predicted by harm and not disgust, consistent with dyadic morality. © The Author(s) 2016.

Variation in the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) is associated with differences in moral judgment

PubMed Central

Chaponis, Jonathan; Siburian, Richie; Gallagher, Patience; Ransohoff, Katherine; Wikler, Daniel; Perlis, Roy H.; Greene, Joshua D.

2016-01-01

Moral judgments are produced through the coordinated interaction of multiple neural systems, each of which relies on a characteristic set of neurotransmitters. Genes that produce or regulate these neurotransmitters may have distinctive influences on moral judgment. Two studies examined potential genetic influences on moral judgment using dilemmas that reliably elicit competing automatic and controlled responses, generated by dissociable neural systems. Study 1 (N = 228) examined 49 common variants (SNPs) within 10 candidate genes and identified a nominal association between a polymorphism (rs237889) of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) and variation in deontological vs utilitarian moral judgment (that is, judgments favoring individual rights vs the greater good). An association was likewise observed for rs1042615 of the arginine vasopressin receptor gene (AVPR1A). Study 2 (N = 322) aimed to replicate these findings using the aforementioned dilemmas as well as a new set of structurally similar medical dilemmas. Study 2 failed to replicate the association with AVPR1A, but replicated the OXTR finding using both the original and new dilemmas. Together, these findings suggest that moral judgment is influenced by variation in the oxytocin receptor gene and, more generally, that single genetic polymorphisms can have a detectable effect on complex decision processes. PMID:27497314

Variation in the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) is associated with differences in moral judgment.

PubMed

Bernhard, Regan M; Chaponis, Jonathan; Siburian, Richie; Gallagher, Patience; Ransohoff, Katherine; Wikler, Daniel; Perlis, Roy H; Greene, Joshua D

2016-12-01

Moral judgments are produced through the coordinated interaction of multiple neural systems, each of which relies on a characteristic set of neurotransmitters. Genes that produce or regulate these neurotransmitters may have distinctive influences on moral judgment. Two studies examined potential genetic influences on moral judgment using dilemmas that reliably elicit competing automatic and controlled responses, generated by dissociable neural systems. Study 1 (N = 228) examined 49 common variants (SNPs) within 10 candidate genes and identified a nominal association between a polymorphism (rs237889) of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) and variation in deontological vs utilitarian moral judgment (that is, judgments favoring individual rights vs the greater good). An association was likewise observed for rs1042615 of the arginine vasopressin receptor gene (AVPR1A). Study 2 (N = 322) aimed to replicate these findings using the aforementioned dilemmas as well as a new set of structurally similar medical dilemmas. Study 2 failed to replicate the association with AVPR1A, but replicated the OXTR finding using both the original and new dilemmas. Together, these findings suggest that moral judgment is influenced by variation in the oxytocin receptor gene and, more generally, that single genetic polymorphisms can have a detectable effect on complex decision processes. © The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press.

Moral Development in Context: Associations of Neighborhood and Maternal Discipline with Preschoolers' Moral Judgments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ball, Courtney L.; Smetana, Judith G.; Sturge-Apple, Melissa L.; Suor, Jennifer H.; Skibo, Michael A.

2017-01-01

Associations among moral judgments, neighborhood risk, and maternal discipline were examined in 118 socioeconomically diverse preschoolers (M[subscript age] = 41.84 months, SD = 1.42). Children rated the severity and punishment deserved for 6 prototypical moral transgressions entailing physical and psychological harm and unfairness. They also…

Once a Utilitarian, Consistently a Utilitarian? Examining Principledness in Moral Judgment via the Robustness of Individual Differences.

PubMed

Helzer, Erik G; Fleeson, William; Furr, R Michael; Meindl, Peter; Barranti, Maxwell

2017-08-01

Although individual differences in the application of moral principles, such as utilitarianism, have been documented, so too have powerful context effects-effects that raise doubts about the durability of people's moral principles. In this article, we examine the robustness of individual differences in moral judgment by examining them across time and across different decision contexts. In Study 1, consistency in utilitarian judgment of 122 adult participants was examined over two different survey sessions. In Studies 2A and 2B, large samples (Ns = 130 and 327, respectively) of adult participants made a series of 32 moral judgments across eight different contexts that are known to affect utilitarian endorsement. Contrary to some contemporary theorizing, our results reveal a strong degree of consistency in moral judgment. Across time and experimental manipulations of context, individuals maintained their relative standing on utilitarianism, and aggregated moral decisions reached levels of near-perfect consistency. Results support the view that on at least one dimension (utilitarianism), people's moral judgments are robustly consistent, with context effects tailoring the application of principles to the particulars of any given moral judgment. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The Application of Moral Judgments to Other Cultures: Relativism and Universality.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wainryb, Cecilia

1993-01-01

Sixth and tenth graders and college students were asked to apply moral judgments which they had made about a familiar context to contexts in cultures different from their own. Most subjects contextualized their judgments with respect to cultures with different informational beliefs but made nonrelativistic judgments with respect to cultures with…

Story Content as a Factor in Children's Moral Judgments.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moran, James D., III

This study investigates effects of perceived rule-breaking on the moral reasoning of young children. Thirty first-grade children (15 males and 15 females) were read 10 randomly ordered moral judgment stories by one of three experimenters. Each story was accompanied by a two-frame cartoon-like drawing depicting the action. Two stories of each of…

Sociocultural Influences on Moral Judgments: East–West, Male–Female, and Young–Old

PubMed Central

Arutyunova, Karina R.; Alexandrov, Yuri I.; Hauser, Marc D.

2016-01-01

Gender, age, and culturally specific beliefs are often considered relevant to observed variation in social interactions. At present, however, the scientific literature is mixed with respect to the significance of these factors in guiding moral judgments. In this study, we explore the role of each of these factors in moral judgment by presenting the results of a web-based study of Eastern (i.e., Russia) and Western (i.e., USA, UK, Canada) subjects, male and female, and young and old. Participants (n = 659) responded to hypothetical moral scenarios describing situations where sacrificing one life resulted in saving five others. Though men and women from both types of cultures judged (1) harms caused by action as less permissible than harms caused by omission, (2) means-based harms as less permissible than side-effects, and (3) harms caused by contact as less permissible than by non-contact, men in both cultures delivered more utilitarian judgments (save the five, sacrifice one) than women. Moreover, men from Western cultures were more utilitarian than Russian men, with no differences observed for women. In both cultures, older participants delivered less utilitarian judgments than younger participants. These results suggest that certain core principles may mediate moral judgments across different societies, implying some degree of universality, while also allowing a limited range of variation due to sociocultural factors. PMID:27656155

A Study on the Link between Moral Judgment Competences and Critical Thinking Skills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Samanci, Nilay Keskin

2015-01-01

Although many studies have established a direct link between moral judgment competences and critical thinking skills, none has been found to reveal the nature of the link between these two skills in the national and international literature. The present study looked at biology and primary education teacher candidates' moral judgment and critical…

For the greater goods? Ownership rights and utilitarian moral judgment.

PubMed

Millar, J Charles; Turri, John; Friedman, Ori

2014-10-01

People often judge it unacceptable to directly harm a person, even when this is necessary to produce an overall positive outcome, such as saving five other lives. We demonstrate that similar judgments arise when people consider damage to owned objects. In two experiments, participants considered dilemmas where saving five inanimate objects required destroying one. Participants judged this unacceptable when it required violating another's ownership rights, but not otherwise. They also judged that sacrificing another's object was less acceptable as a means than as a side-effect; judgments did not depend on whether property damage involved personal force. These findings inform theories of moral decision-making. They show that utilitarian judgment can be decreased without physical harm to persons, and without personal force. The findings also show that the distinction between means and side-effects influences the acceptability of damaging objects, and that ownership impacts utilitarian moral judgment. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Decisional Bias as Implicit Moral Judgment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Spring, Toni; Saltzstein, Herbert D.

2017-01-01

Decisional bias (false alarm rate) when judging the guilt/innocence of a suspect is offered as an implicit measure of moral judgment. Combining two data sets, 215 participants, ages 10-12, 13-15, and 16-18 watched the visually identical film involving a person setting a fire, framed either as (1) intentional but not resulting in a fire (BI-NF),…

Exploring the Role of Theory of Mind in Moral Judgment: The Case of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

PubMed

Fadda, Roberta; Parisi, Marinella; Ferretti, Luca; Saba, Gessica; Foscoliano, Maria; Salvago, Azzurra; Doneddu, Giuseppe

2016-01-01

This paper adds to the growing research on moral judgment (MJ) by considering whether theory of mind (ToM) might foster children's autonomous MJ achievement. A group of 30 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was compared in MJ and ToM with 30 typically developing (TD) children. Participants were tested for MJ with a classical Piaget's task and for ToM with a second order False Belief task. In the moral task, children were told two versions of a story: in one version the protagonist acted according to a moral intention but the action resulted in a harmful consequence; in the other version the protagonist acted according to an immoral intention, but the action resulted in a harmless consequence. Children were asked which of the two protagonists was the "naughtier." In line with previous studies, the results indicated that, while the majority of TD participants succeeded in the second order False Belief task, only few individuals with ASD showed intact perspective taking abilities. The analysis of the MJ in relation to ToM showed that children with ASD lacking ToM abilities judged guilty the protagonists of the two versions of the story in the moral task because both of them violated a moral rule or because they considered the consequences of the actions, ignoring any psychological information. These results indicate a heteronomous morality in individuals with ASD, based on the respect of learned moral rules and outcomes rather than others' subjective states.

Selective impairment of cognitive empathy for moral judgment in adults with high functioning autism

PubMed Central

Torralva, Teresa; Rattazzi, Alexia; Marenco, Victoria; Roca, María; Manes, Facundo

2013-01-01

Faced with a moral dilemma, conflict arises between a cognitive controlled response aimed at maximizing welfare, i.e. the utilitarian judgment, and an emotional aversion to harm, i.e. the deontological judgment. In the present study, we investigated moral judgment in adult individuals with high functioning autism/Asperger syndrome (HFA/AS), a clinical population characterized by impairments in prosocial emotions and social cognition. In Experiment 1, we compared the response patterns of HFA/AS participants and neurotypical controls to moral dilemmas with low and high emotional saliency. We found that HFA/AS participants more frequently delivered the utilitarian judgment. Their perception of appropriateness of moral transgression was similar to that of controls, but HFA/AS participants reported decreased levels of emotional reaction to the dilemma. In Experiment 2, we explored the way in which demographic, clinical and social cognition variables including emotional and cognitive aspects of empathy and theory of mind influenced moral judgment. We found that utilitarian HFA/AS participants showed a decreased ability to infer other people’s thoughts and to understand their intentions, as measured both by performance on neuropsychological tests and through dispositional measures. We conclude that greater prevalence of utilitarianism in HFA/AS is associated with difficulties in specific aspects of social cognition. PMID:22689217

Selective impairment of cognitive empathy for moral judgment in adults with high functioning autism.

PubMed

Gleichgerrcht, Ezequiel; Torralva, Teresa; Rattazzi, Alexia; Marenco, Victoria; Roca, María; Manes, Facundo

2013-10-01

Faced with a moral dilemma, conflict arises between a cognitive controlled response aimed at maximizing welfare, i.e. the utilitarian judgment, and an emotional aversion to harm, i.e. the deontological judgment. In the present study, we investigated moral judgment in adult individuals with high functioning autism/Asperger syndrome (HFA/AS), a clinical population characterized by impairments in prosocial emotions and social cognition. In Experiment 1, we compared the response patterns of HFA/AS participants and neurotypical controls to moral dilemmas with low and high emotional saliency. We found that HFA/AS participants more frequently delivered the utilitarian judgment. Their perception of appropriateness of moral transgression was similar to that of controls, but HFA/AS participants reported decreased levels of emotional reaction to the dilemma. In Experiment 2, we explored the way in which demographic, clinical and social cognition variables including emotional and cognitive aspects of empathy and theory of mind influenced moral judgment. We found that utilitarian HFA/AS participants showed a decreased ability to infer other people's thoughts and to understand their intentions, as measured both by performance on neuropsychological tests and through dispositional measures. We conclude that greater prevalence of utilitarianism in HFA/AS is associated with difficulties in specific aspects of social cognition.

Exploring the Role of Theory of Mind in Moral Judgment: The Case of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

PubMed Central

Fadda, Roberta; Parisi, Marinella; Ferretti, Luca; Saba, Gessica; Foscoliano, Maria; Salvago, Azzurra; Doneddu, Giuseppe

2016-01-01

This paper adds to the growing research on moral judgment (MJ) by considering whether theory of mind (ToM) might foster children’s autonomous MJ achievement. A group of 30 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was compared in MJ and ToM with 30 typically developing (TD) children. Participants were tested for MJ with a classical Piaget’s task and for ToM with a second order False Belief task. In the moral task, children were told two versions of a story: in one version the protagonist acted according to a moral intention but the action resulted in a harmful consequence; in the other version the protagonist acted according to an immoral intention, but the action resulted in a harmless consequence. Children were asked which of the two protagonists was the “naughtier.” In line with previous studies, the results indicated that, while the majority of TD participants succeeded in the second order False Belief task, only few individuals with ASD showed intact perspective taking abilities. The analysis of the MJ in relation to ToM showed that children with ASD lacking ToM abilities judged guilty the protagonists of the two versions of the story in the moral task because both of them violated a moral rule or because they considered the consequences of the actions, ignoring any psychological information. These results indicate a heteronomous morality in individuals with ASD, based on the respect of learned moral rules and outcomes rather than others’ subjective states. PMID:27148131

Normative Value Conceptions of Modern Parents, Teachers, and Educators (Analysis of Moral Value Judgments)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shelina, S. L.; Mitina, O. V.

2015-01-01

The article presents the results of an analysis of the moral value judgments of adults (parents, teachers, educators) that directly concern the socialization process of the young generation in the modern metropolis. This paper follows the model study by Jean Piaget that investigated the moral value judgments of children. A comparative analysis of…

Situational variation in moral judgment: In a stage or on a stage?

PubMed

Carpendale, J I; Krebs, D L

1992-04-01

Two issues were examined in this study-the consistency of moral judgment across different types of dilemma and different social contexts, and the relationship between the structure (stage) of moral judgment and the content of moral decisions. Forty subjects were given two hypothetical dilemmas about business decisions and two standard Kohlberg dilemmas. Half the subjects directed their responses to a business audience, half to a philosophical audience. Responses to the moral dilemmas were scored in accordance with the Colby and Kohlberg (1987) scoring manual. Stage of moral reasoning was found to be significantly higher on the Kohlberg dilemmas than on the business dilemmas. A significant interaction between type of dilemma and audience was attributed to the tendency of subjects directing their responses to a business audience to interpret one of the business dilemmas in terms of the moral order of business, but for subjects directing their responses to a philosophy audience to treat it as a philosophical dilemma. The other business dilemma evoked uniformly low-level moral judgments. The amount of selfishness intrinsic in subjects' moral choices on the business dilemmas was significantly negatively correlated with moral maturity on the business dilemmas, but not with their moral maturity on Kohlberg's test. These results are interpreted as more consistent with models of moral development such as those advanced by C. G. Levine ([1979] "Stage Acquisition and Stage Use: An Appraisal of Stage Displacement Explanations of Variation in Moral Reasoning, " Human Development, Vol. 22, pp. 145-164), J. Rest ([1983] "Morality," in: P. H. Mussen [ed.], J. H. Flavell and E. Markman [Vol. eds.], Handbook of Child Psychology [Vol. 3, 4th ed.], John Wiley & Sons, New York), and R. Harré ([1984]) Personal Being: A Theory for Individual Psychology, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts), which posit a relatively wide range of within-person stage use and emphasize the

Sound Morality: Irritating and Icky Noises Amplify Judgments in Divergent Moral Domains

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Seidel, Angelika; Prinz, Jesse

2013-01-01

Theoretical models and correlational research suggest that anger and disgust play different roles in moral judgment. Anger is theorized to underlie reactions to crimes against persons, such as battery and unfairness, and disgust is theorized to underlie reactions to crimes against nature, such as sexual transgressions and cannibalism. To date,…

Spatiotemporal neural dynamics of moral judgment: A high-density ERP study

PubMed Central

Yoder, Keith J.

2014-01-01

Morality is a pervasive aspect of human nature across all cultures, and neuroscience investigations are necessary for identifying what computational mechanisms underpin moral cognition. The current study used high-density ERPs to examine how moral evaluations are mediated by automatic and controlled processes as well as how quickly information and causal-intentional representations can be extracted when viewing morally laden behavior. The study also explored the extent to which individual dispositions in affective and cognitive empathy as well as justice sensitivity influence the encoding of moral valence when healthy participants make moral judgments about prosocial (interpersonal assistance) and antisocial (interpersonal harm) actions. Moral judgment differences were reflected in differential amplitudes for components associated with cognitive appraisal (LPP) as well as early components associated with emotional salience (N1 and N2). Moreover, source estimation was performed to indicate potential neural generators. A posterior-to-anterior shift was observed, with current density peaks first in right inferior parietal cortex (at the temporoparietal junction), then later in medial prefrontal cortex. Cognitive empathy scores predicted behavioral ratings of blame as well as differential amplitudes in LPP and component activity at posterior sites. Overall, this study offers important insights into the temporal unfolding of moral evaluations, including when in time individual differences in empathy influence neural encoding of moral valence. PMID:24905282

Post-conventional moral reasoning is associated with increased ventral striatal activity at rest and during task.

PubMed

Fang, Zhuo; Jung, Wi Hoon; Korczykowski, Marc; Luo, Lijuan; Prehn, Kristin; Xu, Sihua; Detre, John A; Kable, Joseph W; Robertson, Diana C; Rao, Hengyi

2017-08-02

People vary considerably in moral reasoning. According to Kohlberg's theory, individuals who reach the highest level of post-conventional moral reasoning judge moral issues based on deeper principles and shared ideals rather than self-interest or adherence to laws and rules. Recent research has suggested the involvement of the brain's frontostriatal reward system in moral judgments and prosocial behaviors. However, it remains unknown whether moral reasoning level is associated with differences in reward system function. Here, we combined arterial spin labeling perfusion and blood oxygen level-dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging and measured frontostriatal reward system activity both at rest and during a sequential risky decision making task in a sample of 64 participants at different levels of moral reasoning. Compared to individuals at the pre-conventional and conventional level of moral reasoning, post-conventional individuals showed increased resting cerebral blood flow in the ventral striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Cerebral blood flow in these brain regions correlated with the degree of post-conventional thinking across groups. Post-conventional individuals also showed greater task-induced activation in the ventral striatum during risky decision making. These findings suggest that high-level post-conventional moral reasoning is associated with increased activity in the brain's frontostriatal system, regardless of task-dependent or task-independent states.

Biases in Children's and Adults' Moral Judgments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Powell, Nina L.; Derbyshire, Stuart W. G.; Guttentag, Robert E.

2012-01-01

Two experiments examined biases in children's (5/6- and 7/8-year-olds) and adults' moral judgments. Participants at all ages judged that it was worse to produce harm when harm occurred (a) through action rather than inaction (omission bias), (b) when physical contact with the victim was involved (physical contact principle), and (c) when the harm…

The Development of Intention-Based Moral Judgments in Three- and Four-Year-Old Children.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moran, James D., III; O'Brien, Gayle

The developmental sequence of preschool children's moral judgments, and their emphasis on intentions versus property damage was investigated. Eight moral judgment stories with drawings were read to twelve 3 1/2- and twelve 4 1/2-year-old children (mean ages = 46.6 and 54.0 months, respectively). The stories included either positive or negative…

Harming kin to save strangers: further evidence for abnormally utilitarian moral judgments after ventromedial prefrontal damage.

PubMed

Thomas, Bradley C; Croft, Katie E; Tranel, Daniel

2011-09-01

The ventromedial PFC (vmPFC) has been implicated as a critical neural substrate mediating the influence of emotion on moral reasoning. It has been shown that the vmPFC is especially important for making moral judgments about "high-conflict" moral dilemmas involving direct personal actions, that is, scenarios that pit compelling utilitarian considerations of aggregate welfare against the highly emotionally aversive act of directly causing harm to others [Koenigs, M., Young, L., Adolphs, R., Tranel, D., Cushman, F., Hauser, M., et al. Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgments. Nature, 446, 908-911, 2007]. The current study was designed to elucidate further the role of the vmPFC in high-conflict moral judgments, including those that involve indirect personal actions, such as indirectly causing harm to one's kin to save a group of strangers. We found that patients with vmPFC lesions were more likely than brain-damaged and healthy comparison participants to endorse utilitarian outcomes on high-conflict dilemmas regardless of whether the dilemmas (1) entailed direct versus indirect personal harms and (2) were presented from the Self versus Other perspective. In addition, all groups were more likely to endorse utilitarian outcomes in the Other perspective as compared with the Self perspective. These results provide important extensions of previous work, and the findings align with the proposal that the vmPFC is critical for reasoning about moral dilemmas in which anticipating the social-emotional consequences of an action (e.g., guilt or remorse) is crucial for normal moral judgments [Greene, J. D. Why are VMPFC patients more utilitarian?: A dual-process theory of moral judgment explains. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11, 322-323, 2007; Koenigs, M., Young, L., Adolphs, R., Tranel, D., Cushman, F., Hauser, M., et al. Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgments. Nature, 446, 908-911, 2007].

Disentangling the Effect of Valence and Arousal on Judgments Concerning Moral Transgressions.

PubMed

de la Viña, Luis; Garcia-Burgos, David; Okan, Yasmina; Cándido, Antonio; González, Felisa

2015-08-10

An increasing body of research has investigated the effect of emotions on judgments concerning moral transgressions. Yet, few studies have controlled for arousal levels associated with the emotions. High arousal may affect moral processing by triggering attention to salient features of transgressions, independently of valence. Therefore previously documented differences in effects of negative and positive emotions may have been confounded by differences in arousal. We conducted two studies to shed light on this issue. In Study 1 we developed a questionnaire including vignettes selected on the basis of psychometrical properties (i.e., mean ratings of the actions and variability). This questionnaire was administered to participants in Study 2, after presenting them with selected pictures inducing different valence but equivalent levels of arousal. Negative pictures led to more severe moral judgments than neutral (p = .054, d = 0.60) and positive pictures (p = .002, d = 1.02), for vignettes that were not associated with extreme judgments. In contrast, positive pictures did not reliably affect judgments concerning such vignettes. These findings suggest that the observed effects of emotions cannot be accounted for by an increase in attention linked to the arousal which accompanies these emotions.

Brazilian adolescents' prosocial moral judgment and behavior: relations to sympathy, perspective taking, gender-role orientation, and demographic characteristics.

PubMed

Eisenberg, N; Zhou, Q; Koller, S

2001-01-01

The goal of this study was to examine demographic and individual difference variables that predict level of prosocial moral judgment and self-reported prosocial behavior and to test mediating or moderating relations among predictors. The relations of prosocial moral reasoning and self-reported prosocial behavior to perspective taking, sympathy, age, sociometric status, and gender-role orientation were examined with a sample of 149 Brazilian adolescents who completed a series of questionnaire measures. Prosocial moral judgment was expected to be predicted by both sympathy and perspective taking, whereas sympathy or prosocial moral judgment was expected to mediate the relations of femininity and perspective taking to prosocial behavior. Self-reported perspective taking and sympathy interacted when predicting prosocial moral judgment; adolescents who were high in either sympathy or perspective taking (or both) scored high in prosocial moral reasoning. A feminine orientation predicted sympathy and perspective taking, perspective taking predicted prosocial moral reasoning and sympathy, and sympathy had both direct and indirect paths (through moral judgment) to prosocial behavior. The findings generally were consistent with the contention that both the tendency to take others' perspectives and to sympathize are related to level of prosocial moral reasoning, which in turn motivates prosocial behavior. Moreover, patterns of correlations among variables were similar to those found in the United States.

Equity or equality? Moral judgments follow the money.

PubMed

DeScioli, Peter; Massenkoff, Maxim; Shaw, Alex; Petersen, Michael Bang; Kurzban, Robert

2014-12-22

Previous research emphasizes people's dispositions as a source of differences in moral views. We investigate another source of moral disagreement, self-interest. In three experiments, participants played a simple economic game in which one player divides money with a partner according to the principle of equality (same payoffs) or the principle of equity (pay-offs proportional to effort expended). We find, first, that people's moral judgment of an allocation rule depends on their role in the game. People not only prefer the rule that most benefits them but also judge it to be more fair and moral. Second, we find that participants' views about equality and equity change in a matter of minutes as they learn where their interests lie. Finally, we find limits to self-interest: when the justification for equity is removed, participants no longer show strategic advocacy of the unequal division. We discuss implications for understanding moral debate and disagreement. © 2014 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Equity or equality? Moral judgments follow the money

PubMed Central

DeScioli, Peter; Massenkoff, Maxim; Shaw, Alex; Petersen, Michael Bang; Kurzban, Robert

2014-01-01

Previous research emphasizes people's dispositions as a source of differences in moral views. We investigate another source of moral disagreement, self-interest. In three experiments, participants played a simple economic game in which one player divides money with a partner according to the principle of equality (same payoffs) or the principle of equity (payoffs proportional to effort expended). We find, first, that people's moral judgment of an allocation rule depends on their role in the game. People not only prefer the rule that most benefits them but also judge it to be more fair and moral. Second, we find that participants' views about equality and equity change in a matter of minutes as they learn where their interests lie. Finally, we find limits to self-interest: when the justification for equity is removed, participants no longer show strategic advocacy of the unequal division. We discuss implications for understanding moral debate and disagreement. PMID:25355480

Unifying Kohlberg with Information Integration: The Moral Algebra of Recompense and of Kohlbergian Moral Informers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hommers, Wilfried; Lee, Wha-Yong

2010-01-01

In order to unify two major theories of moral judgment, a novel task is employed which combines elements of Kohlberg's stage theory and of the theory of information integration. In contrast to the format of Kohlberg's moral judgment interview, a nonverbal and quantitative response which makes low demands on verbal facility was used. Moral…

Beyond Affective Influences on Deontological Moral Judgment: The Role of Motivations for Prevention in the Moral Condemnation of Harm.

PubMed

Gamez-Djokic, Monica; Molden, Daniel

2016-09-20

Past research suggests that deontological judgments, which condemn deliberate harm no matter what the beneficial consequences, typically arise from emotional and intuitive reactions to the harm, whereas utilitarian judgments, which acknowledge the potential benefits of deliberate harm, typically arise from rational deliberation about whether these benefits outweigh the costs. The present research explores whether specific motivational orientations might, at times, increase the likelihood of deontological judgments without increasing emotional reactions. A meta-analysis of 10 newly conducted studies indicated that, compared with when focused on advancement (promotion), when people were focused on security (prevention) they made stronger deontological judgments in hypothetical moral dilemmas. Moreover, this effect could not be explained by participants' differing emotional reactions to the dilemmas when prevention-focused, but instead mirrored reports of their explicit reasoning. Implications for expanding current models of deontological and utilitarian moral judgment are discussed. © 2016 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

Moral Judgments and Emotions: Adolescents' Evaluations in Intergroup Social Exclusion Contexts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cooley, Shelby; Elenbaas, Laura; Killen, Melanie

2012-01-01

This article examines children's moral judgments and emotional evaluations in the context of social exclusion. As they age, children and adolescents face increasingly complex situations in which group membership and allegiance are in opposition with morally relevant decisions, such as the exclusion of an individual from a group. While adolescents…

The Influence of Negligence, Intention, and Outcome on Children's Moral Judgments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nobes, Gavin; Panagiotaki, Georgia.; Pawson, Chris

2009-01-01

Piaget (1932) and subsequent researchers have reported that young children's moral judgments are based more on the outcomes of actions than on the agents' intentions. The current study investigated whether negligence might also influence these judgments and explain children's apparent focus on outcome. Children (3-8 years of age) and adults (N =…

Hand Washing Induces a Clean Slate Effect in Moral Judgments: A Pupillometry and Eye-Tracking Study

PubMed Central

Kaspar, Kai; Krapp, Vanessa; König, Peter

2015-01-01

Physical cleansing is commonly understood to protect us against physical contamination. However, recent studies showed additional effects on moral judgments. Under the heading of the “Macbeth effect” direct links between bodily cleansing and one’s own moral purity have been demonstrated. Here we investigate (1) how moral judgments develop over time and how they are altered by hand washing, (2) whether changes in moral judgments can be explained by altered information sampling from the environment, and (3) whether hand washing affects emotional arousal. Using a pre-post control group design, we found that morality ratings of morally good and bad scenes acquired more extreme values in the control group over time, an effect that was fully counteracted by intermediate hand washing. This result supports the notion of a clean slate effect by hand washing. Thereby, eye-tracking data did not uncover differences in eye movement behavior that may explain differences in moral judgments. Thus, the clean slate effect is not due to altered information sampling from the environment. Finally, compared to the control group, pupil diameter decreased after hand washing, thus demonstrating a direct physiological effect. The results shed light on the physiological mechanisms behind this type of embodiment phenomenon. PMID:25994083

Improving epistemological beliefs and moral judgment through an STS-based science ethics education program.

PubMed

Han, Hyemin; Jeong, Changwoo

2014-03-01

This study develops a Science-Technology-Society (STS)-based science ethics education program for high school students majoring in or planning to major in science and engineering. Our education program includes the fields of philosophy, history, sociology and ethics of science and technology, and other STS-related theories. We expected our STS-based science ethics education program to promote students' epistemological beliefs and moral judgment development. These psychological constructs are needed to properly solve complicated moral and social dilemmas in the fields of science and engineering. We applied this program to a group of Korean high school science students gifted in science and engineering. To measure the effects of this program, we used an essay-based qualitative measurement. The results indicate that there was significant development in both epistemological beliefs and moral judgment. In closing, we briefly discuss the need to develop epistemological beliefs and moral judgment using an STS-based science ethics education program.

Enough Skill to Kill: Intentionality Judgments and the Moral Valence of Action

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Guglielmo, Steve; Malle, Bertram F.

2010-01-01

Extant models of moral judgment assume that an action's intentionality precedes assignments of blame. Knobe (2003b) challenged this fundamental order and proposed instead that the badness or blameworthiness of an action directs (and thus unduly biases) people's intentionality judgments. His and other researchers' studies suggested that blameworthy…

Between Kohlberg and Gilligan: Levels of Moral Judgment among Elementary School Principals

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vitton, Charles J.; Wasonga, Teresa A.

2009-01-01

This research investigated levels of moral judgment among public elementary school principals as measured by the Defining Issues Test Version 2 for occupationally relevant and other moral dilemmas. The participants scored lower (38.7) than the predicted average P score (postconventional thinking) for individuals who have attained graduate level…

To push or not to push? Affective influences on moral judgment depend on decision frame.

PubMed

Pastötter, Bernhard; Gleixner, Sabine; Neuhauser, Theresa; Bäuml, Karl-Heinz T

2013-03-01

People's moods can influence moral judgment. Such influences may arise because moods affect moral emotion, or because moods affect moral thought. The present study provides evidence that, at least in the footbridge dilemma, moods affect moral thought. The results of two experiments are reported in which, after induction of positive, negative, or neutral moods and presentation of the footbridge scenario, participants were asked one of two differentially framed closing questions. In the active frame, participants were asked whether they would be active and push the man, making thoughts about pushing accessible; in the passive frame, they were asked whether they would be passive and not push the man, making thoughts about not pushing accessible. The results show that affective influences on moral judgment depended on participants' decision frame. Compared to neutral moods, positive moods induced utilitarian responding - i.e., deciding to push - in the active decision frame, but induced nonutilitarian responding - i.e., deciding to not push - in the passive decision frame; in negative moods, exactly the opposite picture arose. The results suggest that people's moods affect moral judgment by conferring value on moral thought. Positive moods promote and negative moods inhibit accessible thoughts. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A Quantitative Methodology to Examine the Development of Moral Judgment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Buchanan, James P.; Thompson, Spencer K.

1973-01-01

Unlike Piaget's clinical procedure, the experiment's methodology allowed substantiation of the ability of children to simultaneously weigh damage and intent information when making a moral judgment. Other advantages of this quantitative methodology are also presented. (Authors)

Internet Trolling and Everyday Sadism: Parallel Effects on Pain Perception and Moral Judgment.

PubMed

Buckels, Erin E; Trapnell, Paul D; Andjelovic, Tamara; Paulhus, Delroy L

2018-04-16

To clarify the association between online trolling and sadistic personality; and provide evidence that the reward and rationalization processes at work in sadism are likewise manifest in online trolling. Online respondents (total N = 1,715) completed self-report measures of personality and trolling behavior. They subsequently engaged in one of two judgment tasks. In Study 1, respondents viewed stimuli depicting scenes of emotional/physical suffering, and provided ratings of (a) perceived pain intensity and (b) pleasure experienced while viewing the photos. In Study 2, the iTroll questionnaire was developed and validated. It was then administered alongside a moral judgment task. Across both studies, online trolling was strongly associated with a sadistic personality profile. Moreover, sadism and trolling predicted identical patterns of pleasure and harm minimization. The incremental contribution of sadism was sustained even when controlling for broader antisocial tendencies (i.e., the Dark Triad, callous-emotionality, and trait aggression). Results confirm that online trolling is motivated (at least in part) by sadistic tendencies. Coupled with effective rationalization mechanisms, sadistic pleasure can be consummated in such everyday behaviors as online trolling. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Neural correlates of moral judgments in first- and third-person perspectives: implications for neuroethics and beyond

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background There appears to be an inconsistency in experimental paradigms used in fMRI research on moral judgments. As stimuli, moral dilemmas or moral statements/ pictures that induce emotional reactions are usually employed; a main difference between these stimuli is the perspective of the participants reflecting first-person (moral dilemmas) or third-person perspective (moral reactions). The present study employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in order to investigate the neural correlates of moral judgments in either first- or third-person perspective. Results Our results indicate that different neural mechanisms appear to be involved in these perspectives. Although conjunction analysis revealed common activation in the anterior medial prefrontal cortex, third person-perspective elicited unique activations in hippocampus and visual cortex. The common activation can be explained by the role the anterior medial prefrontal cortex may play in integrating different information types and also by its involvement in theory of mind. Our results also indicate that the so-called "actor-observer bias" affects moral evaluation in the third-person perspective, possibly due to the involvement of the hippocampus. We suggest two possible ways in which the hippocampus may support the process of moral judgment: by the engagement of episodic memory and its role in understanding the behaviors and emotions of others. Conclusion We posit that these findings demonstrate that first or third person perspectives in moral cognition involve distinct neural processes, that are important to different aspects of moral judgments. These  results are important to a deepened understanding of neural correlates of moral cognition—the so-called “first tradition” of neuroethics, with the caveat that any results must be interpreted and employed with prudence, so as to heed neuroethics “second tradition” that sustains the pragmatic evaluation of outcomes, capabilities and

Preschool Children's Judgments of Moral and Personal Events Involving Physical Harm and Property Damage.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tisak, Marie S.

1993-01-01

Three studies examined preschoolers' judgments of moral and personal rules. Children were interviewed about punishment, the relative importance of various rule violations, and authority. Children reported that moral transgressions were more wrong than personal rule violations and that moral rule violators deserved greater punishment than did…

Understanding the Role of Dispositional and Situational Threat Sensitivity in Our Moral Judgments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wright, Jennifer Cole; Baril, Galen L.

2013-01-01

Previous research has identified different moral judgments in liberals and conservatives. While both care about harm/fairness ("individualizing" foundations), conservatives emphasize in-group/authority/purity ("binding" foundations) more than liberals. Thus, some argue that conservatives have a more complex morality. We suggest…

Switching Away from Utilitarianism: The Limited Role of Utility Calculations in Moral Judgment

PubMed Central

Baumard, Nicolas

2016-01-01

Our moral motivations might include a drive towards maximizing overall welfare, consistent with an ethical theory called “utilitarianism.” However, people show non-utilitarian judgments in domains as diverse as healthcare decisions, income distributions, and penal laws. Rather than these being deviations from a fundamentally utilitarian psychology, we suggest that our moral judgments are generally non-utilitarian, even for cases that are typically seen as prototypically utilitarian. We show two separate deviations from utilitarianism in such cases: people do not think maximizing welfare is required (they think it is merely acceptable, in some circumstances), and people do not think that equal welfare tradeoffs are even acceptable. We end by discussing how utilitarian reasoning might play a restricted role within a non-utilitarian moral psychology. PMID:27505424

Switching Away from Utilitarianism: The Limited Role of Utility Calculations in Moral Judgment.

PubMed

Sheskin, Mark; Baumard, Nicolas

2016-01-01

Our moral motivations might include a drive towards maximizing overall welfare, consistent with an ethical theory called "utilitarianism." However, people show non-utilitarian judgments in domains as diverse as healthcare decisions, income distributions, and penal laws. Rather than these being deviations from a fundamentally utilitarian psychology, we suggest that our moral judgments are generally non-utilitarian, even for cases that are typically seen as prototypically utilitarian. We show two separate deviations from utilitarianism in such cases: people do not think maximizing welfare is required (they think it is merely acceptable, in some circumstances), and people do not think that equal welfare tradeoffs are even acceptable. We end by discussing how utilitarian reasoning might play a restricted role within a non-utilitarian moral psychology.

Reciprocal Associations between Young Children's Developing Moral Judgments and Theory of Mind

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smetana, Judith G.; Jambon, Marc; Conry-Murray, Clare; Sturge-Apple, Melissa L.

2012-01-01

Associations between young children's developing theory of mind (ToM) and judgments of prototypical moral transgressions were examined 3 times across 1 year in 70 American middle class 2.5- to 4-year-olds. Separate path models controlling for cross-time stability in judgments, within-time associations, and children's age at Wave 1 indicated that…

To Push or Not to Push? Affective Influences on Moral Judgment Depend on Decision Frame

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pastotter, Bernhard; Gleixner, Sabine; Neuhauser, Theresa; Bauml, Karl-Heinz T.

2013-01-01

People's moods can influence moral judgment. Such influences may arise because moods affect moral emotion, or because moods affect moral thought. The present study provides evidence that, at least in the footbridge dilemma, moods affect moral thought. The results of two experiments are reported in which, after induction of positive, negative, or…

[On the necessity to distinguishing judgment from subjective choice in the cognitive neuroscience of morality].

PubMed

Tassy, Sébastien

2011-10-01

Recently, cognitive neuroscience has shed new light on our understanding of the neural underpinning of humans' morality. These findings allow for a fundamental questioning and rethinking of the alleged dichotomy between reason and emotion, that has profoundly shaped both moral philosophy and moral psychology. Functional neuroimaging and neuropsychology studies have provided strong arguments favoring a dynamic and interdependent interaction between rational and emotional processes in the brain. Yet another fundamental issue remains largely unexplored: the dissociation between certain behaviours and the moral judgments that seem to precede them. The importance of this dissociation was highlighted in a study of psychopathic patients during which they preserved their moral judgments while frequently engaging in completely non moral behaviour. Such dissociation could result from the cognitive difference between an objective moral judgement with no personal consequence, and a subjective behavioural choice that has effective or potential personal consequences. Consequently, the results of moral dilemma experiments would differ widely depending whether they explore objective or subjective moral evaluations. That these evaluations involve two distinct neural processes should be taken into account when exploring the neural bases of human morality. © 2011 médecine/sciences – Inserm / SRMS.

Personal Injury and Property Damage in the Moral Judgments of Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Elkind, David; Dabek, Ruth F.

1977-01-01

A total of 72 elementary school students responded to six moral judgment story pairs which corresponded to all the possible combinations of intentionality (intentional/unintentional) and type of damage (personal injury/property damage). (Author/JMB)

Various Measures of Moral Judgment as a Function of Social Pressure.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Guttmann, Joseph

1981-01-01

Tests 210 Israeli fifth graders' reactions to peer, adult, and control conditions. The four measures of moral judgment used were: resistance to temptation, severity of punishment, tendency to confess, and level of guilt feelings. (CM)

Is moral beauty different from facial beauty? Evidence from an fMRI study.

PubMed

Wang, Tingting; Mo, Lei; Mo, Ce; Tan, Li Hai; Cant, Jonathan S; Zhong, Luojin; Cupchik, Gerald

2015-06-01

Is moral beauty different from facial beauty? Two functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments were performed to answer this question. Experiment 1 investigated the network of moral aesthetic judgments and facial aesthetic judgments. Participants performed aesthetic judgments and gender judgments on both faces and scenes containing moral acts. The conjunction analysis of the contrasts 'facial aesthetic judgment > facial gender judgment' and 'scene moral aesthetic judgment > scene gender judgment' identified the common involvement of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), inferior temporal gyrus and medial superior frontal gyrus, suggesting that both types of aesthetic judgments are based on the orchestration of perceptual, emotional and cognitive components. Experiment 2 examined the network of facial beauty and moral beauty during implicit perception. Participants performed a non-aesthetic judgment task on both faces (beautiful vs common) and scenes (containing morally beautiful vs neutral information). We observed that facial beauty (beautiful faces > common faces) involved both the cortical reward region OFC and the subcortical reward region putamen, whereas moral beauty (moral beauty scenes > moral neutral scenes) only involved the OFC. Moreover, compared with facial beauty, moral beauty spanned a larger-scale cortical network, indicating more advanced and complex cerebral representations characterizing moral beauty. © The Author (2014). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation of the Left Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex Shifts Preference of Moral Judgments

PubMed Central

Kuehne, Maria; Heimrath, Kai; Heinze, Hans-Jochen; Zaehle, Tino

2015-01-01

Attitude to morality, reflecting cultural norms and values, is considered unique to human social behavior. Resulting moral behavior in a social environment is controlled by a widespread neural network including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), which plays an important role in decision making. In the present study we investigate the influence of neurophysiological modulation of DLPFC reactivity by means of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on moral reasoning. For that purpose we administered anodal, cathodal, and sham stimulation of the left DLPFC while subjects judged the appropriateness of hard moral personal dilemmas. In contrast to sham and cathodal stimulation, anodal stimulation induced a shift in judgment of personal moral dilemmas towards more non-utilitarian actions. Our results demonstrate that alterations of left DLPFC activity can change moral judgments and, in consequence, provide a causal link between left DLPFC activity and moral reasoning. Most important, the observed shift towards non-utilitarian actions suggests that moral decision making is not a permanent individual trait but can be manipulated; consequently individuals with boundless, uncontrollable, and maladaptive moral behavior, such as found in psychopathy, might benefit from neuromodulation-based approaches. PMID:25985442

Is moral beauty different from facial beauty? Evidence from an fMRI study

PubMed Central

Wang, Tingting; Mo, Ce; Tan, Li Hai; Cant, Jonathan S.; Zhong, Luojin; Cupchik, Gerald

2015-01-01

Is moral beauty different from facial beauty? Two functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments were performed to answer this question. Experiment 1 investigated the network of moral aesthetic judgments and facial aesthetic judgments. Participants performed aesthetic judgments and gender judgments on both faces and scenes containing moral acts. The conjunction analysis of the contrasts ‘facial aesthetic judgment > facial gender judgment’ and ‘scene moral aesthetic judgment > scene gender judgment’ identified the common involvement of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), inferior temporal gyrus and medial superior frontal gyrus, suggesting that both types of aesthetic judgments are based on the orchestration of perceptual, emotional and cognitive components. Experiment 2 examined the network of facial beauty and moral beauty during implicit perception. Participants performed a non-aesthetic judgment task on both faces (beautiful vs common) and scenes (containing morally beautiful vs neutral information). We observed that facial beauty (beautiful faces > common faces) involved both the cortical reward region OFC and the subcortical reward region putamen, whereas moral beauty (moral beauty scenes > moral neutral scenes) only involved the OFC. Moreover, compared with facial beauty, moral beauty spanned a larger-scale cortical network, indicating more advanced and complex cerebral representations characterizing moral beauty. PMID:25298010

Moral judgment and conduct disorder intensity in adolescents involved in delinquency: matching controls by school grade.

PubMed

Chudzik, Lionel

2007-08-01

Most studies that have found associations between delinquency and moral judgment generally compare incarcerated juveniles with adolescents in normal schooling. However, this comparison is subject to two criticisms. First, a large number of adolescents in school who are not charged with any crime in the legal system are still involved in unlawful behaviour. Second, adolescents involved with delinquency often have difficulties at school. The aim of the present study was to measure this association by matching a sample of adolescents involved with delinquency (n=18, M age=15.8, SD=1.1) to adolescents not involved in delinquency (n=42, M age=15.8, SD=0.8) according to their school grade and Conduct Disorder Intensity as measured by a self-report index using DSM-IV diagnostic criteria. Participants who met four or more criteria were assigned to the High Conduct Disorder group (n=28), and the rest were assigned to the Low Conduct Disorder group (n=32). Their level of moral judgment was evaluated with the French version of the Sociomoral Reflection Measure-Short Form by Gibbs, Basinger, and Fuller, inspired by Kohlberg's model of moral development. Findings demonstrate that in both samples, adolescents in the High Conduct Disorder group presented moral judgment that was significantly less mature than that of adolescents in the Low Conduct Disorder group. However, the majority of participants in the Low Conduct Disorder group also scored low on the Sociomoral Reflection Measure-Short Form, suggesting more immature moral judgment. The bias introduced by the mode of recruitment in most comparisons of adolescents involved with delinquency to adolescents with no delinquency problems is discussed, and an argument is made for the importance of analysing moral judgment development within a framework of general cognitive development.

Ecology shapes moral judgments towards food-wasting behavior: Evidence from the Yali of West Papua, the Ngorongoro Maasai, and Poles.

PubMed

Misiak, Michał; Butovskaya, Marina; Sorokowski, Piotr

2018-06-01

People judge food wasting as an immoral behavior. Although moral concerns vary widely across cultures, to this date, food wasting moral judgments were investigated only among rich and industrialized ones. This study reports first evidence of cultural variability on moral judgments of food wasting between modern and traditional cultures. We conducted our study among the Maasai - pastoralists of Ngorongoro, Yali - horticulturalists of West Papua, and among citizens of Poland. According to the results, Maasai judge food wasting as more immoral compared to Yali and Poles. What's more, Yali judge food wasting harsher than Poles. These results suggest that there are cultural differences in moral judgments of food wasting. These differences might reflect the impact of unstable ecology on food economy of a given society. We hypothesize that harsh moral judgment concerning food waste may serve as a cultural adaptation for food insecurity. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Effect of Training Children to Consider Intentions When Making Moral Judgments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jensen, Larry C.; Hafen, Gregory E.

1973-01-01

Study investigated whether a training program could foster the maturation of moral judgments in prekindergarten children, and the differential effects of two training methods: discussion and verbal discrimination. (Authors/CB)

TMS affects moral judgment, showing the role of DLPFC and TPJ in cognitive and emotional processing.

PubMed

Jeurissen, Danique; Sack, Alexander T; Roebroeck, Alard; Russ, Brian E; Pascual-Leone, Alvaro

2014-01-01

Decision-making involves a complex interplay of emotional responses and reasoning processes. In this study, we use TMS to explore the neurobiological substrates of moral decisions in humans. To examining the effects of TMS on the outcome of a moral-decision, we compare the decision outcome of moral-personal and moral-impersonal dilemmas to each other and examine the differential effects of applying TMS over the right DLPFC or right TPJ. In this comparison, we find that the TMS-induced disruption of the DLPFC during the decision process, affects the outcome of the moral-personal judgment, while TMS-induced disruption of TPJ affects only moral-impersonal conditions. In other words, we find a double-dissociation between DLPFC and TPJ in the outcome of a moral decision. Furthermore, we find that TMS-induced disruption of the DLPFC during non-moral, moral-impersonal, and moral-personal decisions lead to lower ratings of regret about the decision. Our results are in line with the dual-process theory and suggest a role for both the emotional response and cognitive reasoning process in moral judgment. Both the emotional and cognitive processes were shown to be involved in the decision outcome.

Schools as Promoters of Moral Judgment: The Essential Role of Teachers' Encouragement of Critical Thinking

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Weinstock, Michael; Assor, Avi; Broide, Galia

2009-01-01

The assumption that high level functioning is characterized by a great deal of autonomy is central to some major theories of moral development [Kohlberg (in T. Lickona (ed.) "Moral development and behavior: Theory, research and social issues," 1976); Piaget ("The moral judgment of the child", 1932)] and to the self-determination theory of…

The Effects of Transgressors' Affective Reaction on Children's Moral Judgments.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rybash, John M.; Roodin, Paul A.

1982-01-01

Describes a study which showed that a transgressor's affective reactions significantly influenced children's moral judgments. Children in grades 1-3 told stories in which a transgressor acted out of good or bad intent, produced low or high levels of damage, and displayed various emotions because of the outcomes he produced. (RM)

Small-scale societies exhibit fundamental variation in the role of intentions in moral judgment

PubMed Central

Barrett, H. Clark; Bolyanatz, Alexander; Crittenden, Alyssa N.; Fessler, Daniel M. T.; Fitzpatrick, Simon; Gurven, Michael; Henrich, Joseph; Kanovsky, Martin; Kushnick, Geoff; Pisor, Anne; Scelza, Brooke A.; Stich, Stephen; von Rueden, Chris; Zhao, Wanying; Laurence, Stephen

2016-01-01

Intent and mitigating circumstances play a central role in moral and legal assessments in large-scale industrialized societies. Although these features of moral assessment are widely assumed to be universal, to date, they have only been studied in a narrow range of societies. We show that there is substantial cross-cultural variation among eight traditional small-scale societies (ranging from hunter-gatherer to pastoralist to horticulturalist) and two Western societies (one urban, one rural) in the extent to which intent and mitigating circumstances influence moral judgments. Although participants in all societies took such factors into account to some degree, they did so to very different extents, varying in both the types of considerations taken into account and the types of violations to which such considerations were applied. The particular patterns of assessment characteristic of large-scale industrialized societies may thus reflect relatively recently culturally evolved norms rather than inherent features of human moral judgment. PMID:27035959

Small-scale societies exhibit fundamental variation in the role of intentions in moral judgment.

PubMed

Barrett, H Clark; Bolyanatz, Alexander; Crittenden, Alyssa N; Fessler, Daniel M T; Fitzpatrick, Simon; Gurven, Michael; Henrich, Joseph; Kanovsky, Martin; Kushnick, Geoff; Pisor, Anne; Scelza, Brooke A; Stich, Stephen; von Rueden, Chris; Zhao, Wanying; Laurence, Stephen

2016-04-26

Intent and mitigating circumstances play a central role in moral and legal assessments in large-scale industrialized societies. Although these features of moral assessment are widely assumed to be universal, to date, they have only been studied in a narrow range of societies. We show that there is substantial cross-cultural variation among eight traditional small-scale societies (ranging from hunter-gatherer to pastoralist to horticulturalist) and two Western societies (one urban, one rural) in the extent to which intent and mitigating circumstances influence moral judgments. Although participants in all societies took such factors into account to some degree, they did so to very different extents, varying in both the types of considerations taken into account and the types of violations to which such considerations were applied. The particular patterns of assessment characteristic of large-scale industrialized societies may thus reflect relatively recently culturally evolved norms rather than inherent features of human moral judgment.

Neural Correlates of Moral Sensitivity and Moral Judgment Associated with Brain Circuitries of Selfhood: A Meta-Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Han, Hyemin

2017-01-01

The present study meta-analyzed 45 experiments with 959 subjects and 463 activation foci reported in 43 published articles that investigated the neural mechanism of moral functions by comparing neural activity between the moral task conditions and non-moral task conditions with the Activation Likelihood Estimation method. The present study…

Gender differences in moral judgment and the evaluation of gender-specified moral agents.

PubMed

Capraro, Valerio; Sippel, Jonathan

2017-11-01

Whether, and if so, how exactly gender differences are manifested in moral judgment has recently been at the center of much research on moral decision making. Previous research suggests that women are more deontological than men in personal, but not impersonal, moral dilemmas. However, typical personal and impersonal moral dilemmas differ along two dimensions: Personal dilemmas are more emotionally salient than impersonal ones and involve a violation of Kant's practical imperative that humans must never be used as a mere means, but only as ends. Thus, it remains unclear whether the reported gender difference is due to emotional salience or to the violation of the practical imperative. To answer this question, we explore gender differences in three moral dilemmas: a typical personal dilemma, a typical impersonal dilemma, and an intermediate dilemma, which is not as emotionally salient as typical personal moral dilemmas, but contains an equally strong violation of Kant's practical imperative. While we replicate the result that women tend to embrace deontological ethics more than men in personal, but not impersonal, dilemmas, we find no gender differences in the intermediate situation. This suggests that gender differences in these type of dilemmas are driven by emotional salience, and not by the violation of the practical imperative. Additionally, we also explore whether people think that women should behave differently than men in these dilemmas. Across all three dilemmas, we find no statistically significant differences about how people think men and women should behave.

The neural basis of the interaction between theory of mind and moral judgment

PubMed Central

Young, Liane; Cushman, Fiery; Hauser, Marc; Saxe, Rebecca

2007-01-01

Is the basis of criminality an act that causes harm, or an act undertaken with the belief that one will cause harm? The present study takes a cognitive neuroscience approach to investigating how information about an agent's beliefs and an action's consequences contribute to moral judgment. We build on prior developmental evidence showing that these factors contribute differentially to the young child's moral judgments coupled with neurobiological evidence suggesting a role for the right temporoparietal junction (RTPJ) in belief attribution. Participants read vignettes in a 2 × 2 design: protagonists produced either a negative or neutral outcome based on the belief that they were causing the negative outcome (“negative” belief) or the neutral outcome (“neutral” belief). The RTPJ showed significant activation above baseline for all four conditions but was modulated by an interaction between belief and outcome. Specifically, the RTPJ response was highest for cases of attempted harm, where protagonists were condemned for actions that they believed would cause harm to others, even though the harm did not occur. The results not only suggest a general role for belief attribution during moral judgment, but also add detail to our understanding of the interaction between these processes at both the neural and behavioral levels. PMID:17485679

Psychopathy Increases Perceived Moral Permissibility of Accidents

PubMed Central

Young, Liane; Koenigs, Michael; Kruepke, Michael; Newman, Joseph P.

2015-01-01

Psychopaths are notorious for their antisocial and immoral behavior, yet experimental studies have typically failed to identify deficits in their capacities for explicit moral judgment. We tested 20 criminal psychopaths and 25 criminal nonpsychopaths on a moral judgment task featuring hypothetical scenarios that systematically varied an actor’s intention and the action’s outcome. Participants were instructed to evaluate four classes of actions: accidental harms, attempted harms, intentional harms, and neutral acts. Psychopaths showed a selective difference, compared with nonpsychopaths, in judging accidents, where one person harmed another unintentionally. Specifically, psychopaths judged these actions to be more morally permissible. We suggest that this pattern reflects psychopaths’ failure to appreciate the emotional aspect of the victim’s experience of harm. These findings provide direct evidence of abnormal moral judgment in psychopathy. PMID:22390288

What Are They Thinking? The Moral Judgment of Children with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hardman, Elizabeth L.

2015-01-01

This study was conducted to describe the moral judgment of 12 third- through fifth-grade children with and without emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) and to explore how feelings affected their thought processes. Data were gathered via three individually conducted moral dilemma interviews with each child participant. These procedures produced…

Rejected by peers-attracted to antisocial media content: rejection-based anger impairs moral judgment among adolescents.

PubMed

Plaisier, Xanthe S; Konijn, Elly A

2013-06-01

Adolescence is an important developmental stage during which both peers and the media have a strong influence. Both peer rejection and the use of morally adverse media are associated with negative developmental outcomes. This study examines processes by which peer rejection might drive adolescents to select antisocial media content by tying together developmental research on peer rejection and research on media effects. Assumed underlying mechanisms are rejection-based anger and frustration and the adolescent's moral judgment. A between-participants experimental design manipulated peer rejection versus acceptance in adolescents (Mage = 13.88 years; N = 74) and young adults (Mage = 21.37 years; N = 75), applying the Cyberball paradigm. Measures included the State Anger Inventory (STAXI) to assess feelings of rejection and the newly devised Media, Morals, and Youth Questionnaire (MMaYQue) to assess media preferences and moral judgment of media content. Using bootstrapping analyses, a double mediation was established: Higher levels of state anger in peer-rejected adolescents induced more tolerable moral judgments of antisocial media content, subsequently instigating a preference for antisocial media content. In contrast, the young adult sample showed no relations between peer rejection and antisocial media preference. Results are discussed within a downward spiral framework of combined peer and media influences. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved

Selective deficit in personal moral judgment following damage to ventromedial prefrontal cortex.

PubMed

Ciaramelli, Elisa; Muccioli, Michela; Làdavas, Elisabetta; di Pellegrino, Giuseppe

2007-06-01

Recent fMRI evidence has detected increased medial prefrontal activation during contemplation of personal moral dilemmas compared to impersonal ones, which suggests that this cortical region plays a role in personal moral judgment. However, functional imaging results cannot definitively establish that a brain area is necessary for a particular cognitive process. This requires evidence from lesion techniques, such as studies of human patients with focal brain damage. Here, we tested 7 patients with lesions in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and 12 healthy individuals in personal moral dilemmas, impersonal moral dilemmas and non-moral dilemmas. Compared to normal controls, patients were more willing to judge personal moral violations as acceptable behaviors in personal moral dilemmas, and they did so more quickly. In contrast, their performance in impersonal and non-moral dilemmas was comparable to that of controls. These results indicate that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is necessary to oppose personal moral violations, possibly by mediating anticipatory, self-focused, emotional reactions that may exert strong influence on moral choice and behavior.

Selective deficit in personal moral judgment following damage to ventromedial prefrontal cortex

PubMed Central

Ciaramelli, Elisa; Muccioli, Michela; Làdavas, Elisabetta

2007-01-01

Recent fMRI evidence has detected increased medial prefrontal activation during contemplation of personal moral dilemmas compared to impersonal ones, which suggests that this cortical region plays a role in personal moral judgment. However, functional imaging results cannot definitively establish that a brain area is necessary for a particular cognitive process. This requires evidence from lesion techniques, such as studies of human patients with focal brain damage. Here, we tested 7 patients with lesions in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and 12 healthy individuals in personal moral dilemmas, impersonal moral dilemmas and non-moral dilemmas. Compared to normal controls, patients were more willing to judge personal moral violations as acceptable behaviors in personal moral dilemmas, and they did so more quickly. In contrast, their performance in impersonal and non-moral dilemmas was comparable to that of controls. These results indicate that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is necessary to oppose personal moral violations, possibly by mediating anticipatory, self-focused, emotional reactions that may exert strong influence on moral choice and behavior. PMID:18985127

Developmental frontal lobe imaging in moral judgment: Arthur Benton's enduring influence 60 years later.

PubMed

Eslinger, Paul J; Robinson-Long, Melissa; Realmuto, Jennifer; Moll, Jorge; deOliveira-Souza, Ricardo; Tovar-Moll, Fernanda; Wang, Jianli; Yang, Qing X

2009-02-01

Early prefrontal cortex damage has been associated with developmental deficits in social adaptation, moral behavior, and empathy that alter the maturation of social cognition and social emotions. The seminal case of Ackerly and Benton (1948) continues to provide the most striking clinical example of prefrontal-related neurodevelopmental impairments, with more recent case reports confirming and elaborating these influential observations. This study investigated the prefrontal hypothesis of moral decision making in healthy, typically developing children and adolescents (10-17 years of age) using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Participants judged the actions in age-appropriate moral vignettes as right or wrong, and results were contrasted to a nonsocial/nonmoral baseline condition requiring similar right versus wrong judgments. Results confirmed a predominant cluster of activity in the most rostral-medial (frontal polar) prefrontal region across moral judgment conditions, along with left lateroposterior orbitofrontal/ventrolateral prefrontal, left temporoparietal junction, midline thalamus and globus pallidus, and bilateral inferior occipital clusters. Trials entailing ambiguous moral situations activated considerably more prefrontal and parietal regions than did routine moral situations, suggesting the need for more neurocognitive resources. While age regression analysis identified a few regions of greater or lesser activity with age, the frontal polar activations did not change with age. Findings confirm a significant role for anterior-medial prefrontal cortex in the typical development and maturation of moral decision making, consistent with clinical lesion case descriptions.

The Impact of Gender and Role Perspective on Moral Judgment.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Oakes, Ruth; Quina, Katherine

A study was made of the effects of role perspective and gender on the moral judgments of children. Because they represent a transitional period in cognitive development from heteronomy to autonomy, a total of 25 male and 38 female third-grade students of approximately 9 years of age were selected for participation. The effect of perspective taking…

The Contact Principle and Utilitarian Moral Judgments in Young Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pellizzoni, Sandra; Siegal, Michael; Surian, Luca

2010-01-01

In three experiments involving 207 preschoolers and 28 adults, we investigated the extent to which young children base moral judgments of actions aimed to protect others on utilitarian principles. When asked to judge the rightness of intervening to hurt one person in order to save five others, the large majority of children aged 3 to 5 years…

A Comparative Analysis of Cognition and Moral Judgment in Chicano, Black, and Anglo Children.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cortese, Anthony

A sample of 245 Chicano, Black, and Anglo children, grades 2-9, from three midwestern states was chosen for a comparative study of moral judgment, to measure differences among the ethnic groups and to determine whether they made the same progression through Kohlberg's three levels of moral development. Subjects viewed video tapes of five moral…

Reduced empathic concern leads to utilitarian moral judgments in trait alexithymia

PubMed Central

Patil, Indrajeet; Silani, Giorgia

2014-01-01

Recent research with moral dilemmas supports dual-process model of moral decision making. This model posits two different paths via which people can endorse utilitarian solution that requires personally harming someone in order to achieve the greater good (e.g., killing one to save five people): (i) weakened emotional aversion to the prospect of harming someone due to reduced empathic concern for the victim; (ii) enhanced cognition which supports cost-benefit analysis and countervails the prepotent emotional aversion to harm. Direct prediction of this model would be that personality traits associated with reduced empathy would show higher propensity to endorse utilitarian solutions. As per this prediction, we found that trait alexithymia, which is well-known to have deficits in empathy, was indeed associated with increased utilitarian tendencies on emotionally aversive personal moral dilemmas and this was due to reduced empathic concern for the victim. Results underscore the importance of empathy for moral judgments in harm/care domain of morality. PMID:24904510

Better Minds, Better Morals: A Procedural Guide to Better Judgment.

PubMed

Schaefer, G Owen; Savulescu, Julian

2017-01-01

Making more moral decisions - an uncontroversial goal, if ever there was one. But how to go about it? In this article, we offer a practical guide on ways to promote good judgment in our personal and professional lives. We will do this not by outlining what the good life consists in or which values we should accept.Rather, we offer a theory of procedural reliability : a set of dimensions of thought that are generally conducive to good moral reasoning. At the end of the day, we all have to decide for ourselves what is good and bad, right and wrong. The best way to ensure we make the right choices is to ensure the procedures we're employing are sound and reliable. We identify four broad categories of judgment to be targeted - cognitive, self-management, motivational and interpersonal. Specific factors within each category are further delineated, with a total of 14 factors to be discussed. For each, we will go through the reasons it generally leads to more morally reliable decision-making, how various thinkers have historically addressed the topic, and the insights of recent research that can offer new ways to promote good reasoning. The result is a wide-ranging survey that contains practical advice on how to make better choices. Finally, we relate this to the project of transhumanism and prudential decision-making. We argue that transhumans will employ better moral procedures like these. We also argue that the same virtues will enable us to take better control of our own lives, enhancing our responsibility and enabling us to lead better lives from the prudential perspective.

Better Minds, Better Morals: A Procedural Guide to Better Judgment

PubMed Central

Schaefer, G. Owen; Savulescu, Julian

2017-01-01

Making more moral decisions – an uncontroversial goal, if ever there was one. But how to go about it? In this article, we offer a practical guide on ways to promote good judgment in our personal and professional lives. We will do this not by outlining what the good life consists in or which values we should accept.Rather, we offer a theory of procedural reliability: a set of dimensions of thought that are generally conducive to good moral reasoning. At the end of the day, we all have to decide for ourselves what is good and bad, right and wrong. The best way to ensure we make the right choices is to ensure the procedures we’re employing are sound and reliable. We identify four broad categories of judgment to be targeted – cognitive, self-management, motivational and interpersonal. Specific factors within each category are further delineated, with a total of 14 factors to be discussed. For each, we will go through the reasons it generally leads to more morally reliable decision-making, how various thinkers have historically addressed the topic, and the insights of recent research that can offer new ways to promote good reasoning. The result is a wide-ranging survey that contains practical advice on how to make better choices. Finally, we relate this to the project of transhumanism and prudential decision-making. We argue that transhumans will employ better moral procedures like these. We also argue that the same virtues will enable us to take better control of our own lives, enhancing our responsibility and enabling us to lead better lives from the prudential perspective. PMID:29098205

Psychopathy increases perceived moral permissibility of accidents.

PubMed

Young, Liane; Koenigs, Michael; Kruepke, Michael; Newman, Joseph P

2012-08-01

Psychopaths are notorious for their antisocial and immoral behavior, yet experimental studies have typically failed to identify deficits in their capacities for explicit moral judgment. We tested 20 criminal psychopaths and 25 criminal nonpsychopaths on a moral judgment task featuring hypothetical scenarios that systematically varied an actor's intention and the action's outcome. Participants were instructed to evaluate four classes of actions: accidental harms, attempted harms, intentional harms, and neutral acts. Psychopaths showed a selective difference, compared with nonpsychopaths, in judging accidents, where one person harmed another unintentionally. Specifically, psychopaths judged these actions to be more morally permissible. We suggest that this pattern reflects psychopaths' failure to appreciate the emotional aspect of the victim's experience of harm. These findings provide direct evidence of abnormal moral judgment in psychopathy. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved.

Medical ethics, moral philosophy and moral tradition.

PubMed

Murray, T H

1987-01-01

Medical ethics is commonly assumed to be a form of 'applied moral philosophy' in which practical moral judgments are deduced from moral theories. This account of the relationship between moral theory and moral judgment is inadequate in several reports. The deductivist approach often results in inadequate attention being given to social, historical and developmental contexts. It also fails to explain some common phenomena in practical moral reasoning. In contrast to the emphasis in deductivism, a case-centered or casuistic practical ethics insists on immersion in the particularities of cases and on interpretation of details in light of moral maxims and other mid-level forms of moral reasoning. Two features of casuistics that ought to be distinguished but frequently are not, are: (1) the emphasis on immersion and interpretation, and (2) a claim about the relation between moral judgment and moral theory as sources of moral knowledge. Once we consider case-centered moral judgments as sources of moral knowledge, we must also begin to look critically but open-mindedly to moral traditions which, upon examination, appear to be more dynamic and to have more reformist potential than is commonly assumed.

Aggressive and nonaggressive children's moral judgments and moral emotion attributions in situations involving retaliation and unprovoked aggression.

PubMed

Gasser, Luciano; Malti, Tina; Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger, Eveline

2012-01-01

The authors investigated 7- and 9-year-old children's moral understanding of retaliation as compared to unprovoked aggression with regard to their aggressive behavior status. Based on peer ratings, 48 children were selected as overtly aggressive and 91 as nonaggressive. Their moral understanding of retaliation and unprovoked aggression was assessed by an interview including questions about their moral judgments and emotion attributions. Aggressive children judged retaliations as less serious than did nonaggressive children. They also referred less often to the harmful consequences of retaliation and were more likely to excuse the retaliation because of the provocation. In unprovoked aggressive situations younger aggressive children, compared with the younger nonaggressive children, attributed more happiness to transgressors, more anger to victims, and less sadness to transgressors and victims. The results are discussed in terms of previous research on aggressive children's moral understanding of retaliation and unprovoked aggression.

Moral Cognition and Multiple Sclerosis: A Neuropsychological Study.

PubMed

Realmuto, Sabrina; Dodich, Alessandra; Meli, Riccardo; Canessa, Nicola; Ragonese, Paolo; Salemi, Giuseppe; Cerami, Chiara

2018-05-30

Recent literature proved that social cognition impairments may characterize the neuropsychological profile of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients. However, little is still known about moral cognition in MS. In this study, we evaluated non-social, social, and moral cognitive performances in 45 relapsing-remitting MS patients. Patients underwent the Brief International Cognitive Assessment for Multiple Sclerosis battery, the Cognitive Estimation and Stroop tasks, the Ekman-60 Faces test, the Reading the Mind in the Eye and Story-based Empathy task. Additionally, a task of moral dilemmas including both "instrumental" and "incidental" conditions was administered to patients. Forty-five age-, gender- and education-matched healthy control subjects (HC) were enrolled for comparisons. The majority of patients (i.e., 77.6%) showed deficits at non-social tasks, particularly in the executive domains. A subset of MS sample (i.e., 24%) presented with emotion recognition and socio-affective processing impairments. Overall, MS patients showed comparable levels of moral judgment with respect to HC. The rate of yes/no response in resolution of moral dilemmas and scores of attribution of emotional valence were comparable between groups. Nevertheless, lower moral permissibility and emotional arousal, particularly for the instrumental dilemmas, characterized the MS profile. Significant correlations between the attribution of emotional valence to moral actions and mentalizing scores emerged. Our findings expand current literature on MS supporting not only deficits in executive and socio-emotional domains but also low levels of permissibility of immoral actions and emotional detachment in the moral judgment process.

Dirty Money: The Role of Moral History in Economic Judgments.

PubMed

Tasimi, Arber; Gelman, Susan A

2017-04-01

Although traditional economic models posit that money is fungible, psychological research abounds with examples that deviate from this assumption. Across eight experiments, we provide evidence that people construe physical currency as carrying traces of its moral history. In Experiments 1 and 2, people report being less likely to want money with negative moral history (i.e., stolen money). Experiments 3-5 provide evidence against an alternative account that people's judgments merely reflect beliefs about the consequences of accepting stolen money rather than moral sensitivity. Experiment 6 examines whether an aversion to stolen money may reflect contamination concerns, and Experiment 7 indicates that people report they would donate stolen money, thereby counteracting its negative history with a positive act. Finally, Experiment 8 demonstrates that, even in their recall of actual events, people report a reduced tendency to accept tainted money. Altogether, these findings suggest a robust tendency to evaluate money based on its moral history, even though it is designed to participate in exchanges that effectively erase its origins. Copyright © 2016 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Sidetracked by trolleys: Why sacrificial moral dilemmas tell us little (or nothing) about utilitarian judgment.

PubMed

Kahane, Guy

2015-01-01

Research into moral decision-making has been dominated by sacrificial dilemmas where, in order to save several lives, it is necessary to sacrifice the life of another person. It is widely assumed that these dilemmas draw a sharp contrast between utilitarian and deontological approaches to morality, and thereby enable us to study the psychological and neural basis of utilitarian judgment. However, it has been previously shown that some sacrificial dilemmas fail to present a genuine contrast between utilitarian and deontological options. Here, I raise deeper problems for this research paradigm. Even when sacrificial dilemmas present a contrast between utilitarian and deontological options at a philosophical level, it is misleading to interpret the responses of ordinary folk in these terms. What is currently classified as "utilitarian judgment" does not in fact share essential features of a genuine utilitarian outlook, and is better explained in terms of commonsensical moral notions. When subjects deliberate about such dilemmas, they are not deciding between opposing utilitarian and deontological solutions, but engaging in a richer process of weighing opposing moral reasons. Sacrificial dilemmas therefore tell us little about utilitarian decision-making. An alternative approach to studying proto-utilitarian tendencies in everyday moral thinking is proposed.

Rules Mothers and Sons Use to Integrate Intent and Damage Information in Their Moral Judgments.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leon, Manuel

1984-01-01

The similarity between rules used by mothers and those used by sons was extensive. Results suggest that research should emphasize the process by which children come to employ multidimensional rules and the role of parental models in this process. Current research in moral judgments largely ignores the rule-governed nature of children's judgments.…

Moral judgments about Jewish-Arab intergroup exclusion: The role of cultural identity and contact

PubMed Central

Brenick, Alaina; Killen, Melanie

2014-01-01

Prejudice and discrimination as justifications for social exclusion are often viewed as violations of the moral principles of welfare, justice, and equality but intergroup exclusion can also often be viewed as a necessary and legitimate means to maintain group identity and cohesion (Rutland, Killen, & Abrams, 2010). The current study was guided by the Social Reasoning Developmental perspective (Killen & Rutland, 2011) to examine the moral judgments of social exclusion encounters, and the degree to which cultural identity and actual contact with members of other cultural groups is related to social evaluations. Surprisingly, no research has examined how intergroup contact bears on moral judgments about Jewish-Arab encounters in the U.S. The present study surveyed 241 Jewish and 249 non-Arab/non-Jewish (comparison group) 14 and 17 year olds to assess their cultural identification, intergroup contact, and moral judgments regarding intergroup peer social exclusion situations between Jewish and Arab youth in peer, home, and community contexts. Participants overwhelmingly rejected exclusion of an outgroup member explicitly because of their group membership, though male and Jewish participants were more accepting of such exclusion and less accepting of including an outgroup member. Context effects emerged, and exclusion was rated as most acceptable in the community context and least acceptable in the peer context. Three factors of identity (i.e., exploration, commitment, and concern for relationships) were explored. Generally, higher identity commitment and lower identity concern for relationships were related to more inclusive evaluations. Interactions between the identity factors and intergroup contact and cultural group, however, differentially predicted evaluations of intergroup exclusion. PMID:24188040

Preschoolers' social and moral judgments of third-party helpers and hinderers align with infants' social evaluations.

PubMed

Van de Vondervoort, Julia W; Hamlin, J Kiley

2017-12-01

Two experiments explored preschoolers' social preferences and moral judgments of prosocial and antisocial others. In Experiment 1, 3- to 5-year-olds (N=74) observed helping and hindering scenarios previously used to explore sociomoral evaluation in preverbal infants. Whereas 3-year-olds in Experiment 1 did not reliably distinguish between the helper and hinderer when reporting social preferences or moral judgments, both 4- and 5-year-olds preferred the helper, judged the helper to be "nicer" than the hinderer, selectively allocated punishment to the hinderer, and were able to justify their punishment allocations. A simplified procedure and the addition of comprehension questions in Experiment 2 (N=24) improved 3-year-olds' performance, suggestive that their performance in Experiment 1 was likely due to processing or memory difficulties rather than an inability to engage in explicit social and moral evaluation. These studies reveal that young children readily interpret helping and hindering scenarios as socially and morally relevant. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

[The Recognition of Emotions, Empathy and Moral Judgment in the National Mental Health Survey in Colombia, 2015].

PubMed

Matallana, Diana; Gómez-Restrepo, Carlos; Ramirez, Paulina; Martínez, Nathalie Tamayo; Rondon, Martin

2016-12-01

Social cognition refers to the mental processes involved in social interactions. Different aspects, such as the perception of others, self-knowledge, motivation and the cultural context, can modulate empathy responses and moral judgments regarding the actions of others. The National Mental Health Survey (ENSM for its acronym in Spanish) explored aspects of social cognition such as the perception of emotions, empathy and moral judgment in situations in which another person experiences pain. To describe the overall findings of the ENSM in relation to the emotional perception and empathic responses to situations where pain is inflicted on others in an intentional or accidental manner. A total of 3863 people aged 18-96 years old completed the social cognition module. They were asked to identify the emotions expressed in the images of several faces. A modified version of the awareness of social inference test (TASIT) was used. Additionally, the cognitive, affective, and moral elements of empathy were assessed with a modified version of the empathy for pain task (EPT), which uses a sequence of images in which someone is being hurt. Happiness was identified by 91.5% of those interviewed; neutral or emotionless faces were identified by 65%; 55% of respondents correctly identified surprise. Only 19.7%, 21.8% and 27.4% could identify negative emotions like fear, disgust and sadness, respectively. When the data were analysed by age, poverty status, and different regions of the country, the results tend to vary. As regards empathy, 73.7% correctly identified intentional actions, and accidental actions were identified by 56.6%. According to the moral judgment of some respondents, even in situations where the pain was caused by accident, there must be some kind of punishment (20.7% deserved a low punishment and 26.8% a moderate one). Noteworthy findings include the high recognition of happiness by the respondents, in contrast to the apparent difficulty in recognising sadness

Blind Ethics: Closing One's Eyes Polarizes Moral Judgments and Discourages Dishonest Behavior

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Caruso, Eugene M.; Gino, Francesca

2011-01-01

Four experiments demonstrate that closing one's eyes affects ethical judgment and behavior because it induces people to mentally simulate events more extensively. People who considered situations with their eyes closed rather than open judged immoral behaviors as more unethical and moral behaviors as more ethical. In addition, considering…

The Concept of Cultural Relativity in Moral Judgments Concerning Gender-Related Issues.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boyd, D. R.; And Others

The comparative study was designed to determine whether cultural relativism and ethical reasoning develop in a hierarchical manner when applied to culturally different phenomena. The phenomena investigated were moral judgments concerning gender-related issues. Thirty-six first through sixth-grade students from two private schools and 130…

Similar Task Features Shape Judgment and Categorization Processes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hoffmann, Janina A.; von Helversen, Bettina; Rieskamp, Jörg

2016-01-01

The distinction between similarity-based and rule-based strategies has instigated a large body of research in categorization and judgment. Within both domains, the task characteristics guiding strategy shifts are increasingly well documented. Across domains, past research has observed shifts from rule-based strategies in judgment to…

Moral Judgement and Prosocial Behavior: An Interactional Approach.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Erkut, Sumru; Jaquette, Dan

The study focuses on the interaction between moral development and situational factors as it affects prosocial behavior. Three experimental conditions varied the permissibility of interrupting a task to help an "ailing" confederate. A situation by moral judgment interaction was predicted. Stage three and four subjects, defining right action in…

Toward a Choice-Based Judgment Bias Task for Horses.

PubMed

Hintze, Sara; Roth, Emma; Bachmann, Iris; Würbel, Hanno

2017-01-01

Judgment bias tasks for nonhuman animals are promising tools to assess emotional valence as a measure of animal welfare. In view of establishing a valid judgment bias task for horses, the present study aimed to evaluate 2 versions (go/no-go and active choice) of an auditory judgment bias task for horses in terms of acquisition learning and discrimination of ambiguous cues. Five mares and 5 stallions were randomly assigned to the 2 designs and trained for 10 trials per day to acquire different operant responses to a low-frequency tone and a high-frequency tone, respectively. Following acquisition learning, horses were tested on 4 days with 3 ambiguous-tone trials interspersed between the 10 high-tone and low-tone trials. All 5 go/no-go horses but only one active-choice horse successfully learned their task, indicating that it is more difficult to train horses on an active choice task than on a go/no-go task. During testing, however, go/no-go horses did not differentiate between the 3 different ambiguous cues, thereby making the validity of the test results questionable in terms of emotional valence.

Children's Moral Judgments as a Function of Intention, Damage, and an Actor's Physical Harm.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Suls, Jerry; Kalle, Robert J.

1979-01-01

Examines children's moral judgments of story characters who accidently harm themselves. Children in kindergarten and in grades 3 and 5 rated actors in stories which varied in terms of intention, damage, and harm to the actor. (SS)

Divergent effects of different positive emotions on moral judgment.

PubMed

Strohminger, Nina; Lewis, Richard L; Meyer, David E

2011-05-01

Positive emotions are often treated as relatively similar in their cognitive-behavioral effects, and as having unambiguously beneficial consequences. For example, Valdesolo and DeSteno (2006) reported that a humorous video made people more prone to choose a utilitarian solution to a moral dilemma. They attributed this finding to increased positive affect. To determine whether such results actually stem in general from positive affect or from other more specific properties of humor, we conducted an experiment with moral dilemmas presented during an interleaved emotion-induction procedure involving mirth and another positive emotion, elevation. Mirth increased permissiveness for deontological violations, whereas elevation had the opposite effect. Furthermore, affective valence had no apparent independent influence on these judgments. Our results suggest that mirth and elevation have distinct cognitive consequences whose properties reflect their respective social functions, not their shared positive valence. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Ignorance Is No Excuse: Moral Judgments Are Influenced by a Genetic Variation on the Oxytocin Receptor Gene

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Walter, Nora T.; Montag, Christian; Markett, Sebastian; Felten, Andrea; Voigt, Gesine; Reuter, Martin

2012-01-01

Perspective-taking has become a main focus of studies on moral judgments. Recent fMRI studies have demonstrated that individual differences in brain activation predict moral decision making. In particular, pharmacological studies highlighted the crucial role for the neuropeptide oxytocin in social behavior and emotional perception. In the present…

Developmental Changes and Interrelationships Among Role-Taking, Moral Judgments and Children's Sharing.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Olejnik, Anthony B.

This study investigated the interrelationships among the development of role-taking skills, moral judgments, and sharing behavior of boys and girls in K-3. A total of 160 lower middle class white children (20 boys and 20 girls from each grade) participated in the study. Data were collected on four measures: (1) sharing candy with a friend, (2)…

It is the outcome that counts! Damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex disrupts the integration of outcome and belief information for moral judgment.

PubMed

Ciaramelli, Elisa; Braghittoni, Davide; di Pellegrino, Giuseppe

2012-11-01

Moral judgment involves considering not only the outcome of an action but also the intention with which it was pursued. Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research has shown that integrating outcome and belief information for moral judgment relies on a brain network including temporo-parietal, precuneus, and medial prefrontal regions. Here, we investigated whether the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) plays a crucial role in this process. Patients with lesions in vmPFC (vmPFC patients), and brain-damaged and healthy controls considered scenarios in which the protagonist caused intentional harm (negative-outcome, negative-belief), accidental harm (negative-outcome, neutral-belief), attempted harm (neutral-outcome, negative-belief), or no harm (neutral-outcome, neutral-belief), and rated the moral permissibility of the protagonists' behavior. All groups responded similarly to scenarios involving intentional harm and no harm. vmPFC patients, however, judged attempted harm as more permissible, and accidental harm as less permissible, than the control groups. For vmPFC patients, outcome information, rather than belief information, shaped moral judgment. The results indicate that vmPFC is necessary for integrating outcome and belief information during moral reasoning. During moral judgment vmPFC may mediate intentions' understanding, and overriding of prepotent responses to salient outcomes.

An Event-Related Potential Study of Adolescents' and Young Adults' Judgments of Moral and Social Conventional Violations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lahat, Ayelet; Helwig, Charles C.; Zelazo, Philip David

2013-01-01

The neurocognitive development of moral and conventional judgments was examined. Event-related potentials were recorded while 24 adolescents (13 years) and 30 young adults (20 years) read scenarios with 1 of 3 endings: moral violations, conventional violations, or neutral acts. Participants judged whether the act was acceptable or unacceptable…

The influence of intention, outcome and question-wording on children's and adults' moral judgments.

PubMed

Nobes, Gavin; Panagiotaki, Georgia; Bartholomew, Kimberley J

2016-12-01

The influence of intention and outcome information on moral judgments was investigated by telling children aged 4-8yearsandadults (N=169) stories involving accidental harms (positive intention, negative outcome) or attempted harms (negative intention, positive outcome) from two studies (Helwig, Zelazo, & Wilson, 2001; Zelazo, Helwig, & Lau, 1996). When the original acceptability (wrongness) question was asked, the original findings were closely replicated: children's and adults' acceptability judgments were based almost exclusively on outcome, and children's punishment judgments were also primarily outcome-based. However, when this question was rephrased, 4-5-year-olds' judgments were approximately equally influenced by intention and outcome, and from 5-6years they were based considerably more on intention than outcome. These findings indicate that, for methodological reasons, children's (and adults') ability to make intention-based judgment has often been substantially underestimated. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The good, the bad, and the timely: how temporal order and moral judgment influence causal selection

PubMed Central

Reuter, Kevin; Kirfel, Lara; van Riel, Raphael; Barlassina, Luca

2014-01-01

Causal selection is the cognitive process through which one or more elements in a complex causal structure are singled out as actual causes of a certain effect. In this paper, we report on an experiment in which we investigated the role of moral and temporal factors in causal selection. Our results are as follows. First, when presented with a temporal chain in which two human agents perform the same action one after the other, subjects tend to judge the later agent to be the actual cause. Second, the impact of temporal location on causal selection is almost canceled out if the later agent did not violate a norm while the former did. We argue that this is due to the impact that judgments of norm violation have on causal selection—even if the violated norm has nothing to do with the obtaining effect. Third, moral judgments about the effect influence causal selection even in the case in which agents could not have foreseen the effect and did not intend to bring it about. We discuss our findings in connection to recent theories of the role of moral judgment in causal reasoning, on the one hand, and to probabilistic models of temporal location, on the other. PMID:25477851

An Empirical Investigation of the Moral Judgment Development of a Sample of High School Kuwaiti Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Al-Shurai, Saad

2012-01-01

This study was conducted to investigate the moral development of one hundred Kuwaiti high school teachers. They ranged in age from 23 to 48 years with a mean of 28.6 years and a standard deviation of 8.3 years. The teachers' individual moral judgment levels were assessed by the Defining Issues Test (DIT)--an objective test designed by James Rest…

A comparison of four measures of moral reasoning.

PubMed

Wilmoth, G H; McFarland, S G

1977-08-01

Kohlberg's Moral Judgment Scale, Gilligan et al.'s Sexual Moral Judgment Scale, Maitland and Goldman's Objective Moral Judgment Scale, and Hogan's Maturity of Moral Judgment Scale, were examined for reliability and inter-scale relationships. All measures except the Objective Moral Judgment Scale had good reliabilities. The obtained relations between the Moral Judgment Scale and the Sexual Moral Judgment Scale replicated previous research. The Objective Moral Judgment Scale was not found to validly assess the Kohlberg stages. The Maturity of Moral Judgment Scale scores were strongly related to the subjects's classification on the Kohlberg stages, and the scale appears to offer a reliable, quickly scored, and valid index of mature thought, although the scale's continuous scores do not permit clear stage classification.

Moral Judgments of In-Group and Out-Group Harm in Post-conflict Urban and Rural Croatian Communities

PubMed Central

Moncrieff, Michael A.; Lienard, Pierre

2018-01-01

Our research brings to light features of the social world that impact moral judgments and how they do so. The moral vignette data presented were collected in rural and urban Croatian communities that were involved to varying degrees in the Croatian Homeland War. We argue that rapid shifts in moral accommodations during periods of violent social strife can be explained by considering the role that coordination and social agents' ability to reconfigure their social network (i.e., relational mobility) play in moral reasoning. Social agents coordinate on (moral) norms, a general attitude which broadly facilitates cooperation, and makes possible the collective enforcement of compliance. During social strife interested parties recalibrate their determination of others' moral standing and recast their established moral circle, in accordance with their new or prevailing social investments. To that extent, social coordination—and its particular promoters, inhibitors, and determinants—effects significant changes in individuals' ranking of moral priorities. Results indicate that rural participants evaluate the harmful actions of third parties more harshly than urban participants. Coordination mediates that relationship between social environment and moral judgment. Coordination also matters more for the moral evaluation of the harmful actions of moral scenarios involving characters belonging to different social units than for scenarios involving characters belonging to the same group. Participants high in relational mobility—that ability to recompose one's social network—moralize similarly wrongdoings perpetrated by both in- and out-group members. Those low in relational mobility differentiate when an out-group member causes the harm. Additionally, perceptions of third-party guilt are also affected by specifics of the social environment. Overall, we find that social coordination and relational mobility affect moral reasoning more so than ethnic commitment. PMID

Development of a moral judgment measure for veterinary education.

PubMed

Verrinder, Joy M; Phillips, Clive J C

2014-01-01

Veterinarians increasingly face animal ethics issues, conflicts, and dilemmas, both in practice and in policy, such as the tension between clients' and animals' interests. Little has been done to measure the capacity of veterinarians to make ethical judgments to prevent and address these issues or to identify the effectiveness of strategies to build this capacity. The objectives of this study were, first, to develop a test to identify the capacity of veterinarians to make ethical decisions in relation to animal ethics issues and, second, to assess students' perceptions of the usefulness of three methods for the development of ethical decision making. The Veterinary Defining Issues Test (VetDIT) was piloted with 88 first-year veterinary students at an Australian university. The veterinary students were at a variety of reasoning stages in their use of the Personal Interest (PI), Maintaining Norms (MN), and Universal Principles (UP) reasoning methods in relation to both human ethics and animal ethics issues and operated at a higher level of reasoning for animal than human ethics. Thirty-eight students assessed three methods for developing ethical decision-making skills and identified these as being helpful in clarifying their positions, clarifying others' positions, increasing awareness of the complexity of making ethical decisions, using ethical frameworks and principles, and improving moral reasoning skills, with two methods identified as most helpful. These methods and the VetDIT have the potential to be used as tools for development and assessment of moral judgment in veterinary education to address animal ethics issues.

The Male Group Effect: Measuring Moral Judgment and Reasoning among Two Cohorts of First-Year College Men

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Terry, Daniel J.

2013-01-01

What kinds of experiences, interventions, or programs within the college context appear to foster or enhance moral growth beyond what one would expect developmentally from any 18-22 year old student? This quasi-experimental study is directed toward the effects of a particular aspect of the college environment on the moral judgment development of a…

Moral heuristics.

PubMed

Sunstein, Cass R

2005-08-01

With respect to questions of fact, people use heuristics--mental short-cuts, or rules of thumb, that generally work well, but that also lead to systematic errors. People use moral heuristics too--moral short-cuts, or rules of thumb, that lead to mistaken and even absurd moral judgments. These judgments are highly relevant not only to morality, but to law and politics as well. examples are given from a number of domains, including risk regulation, punishment, reproduction and sexuality, and the act/omission distinction. in all of these contexts, rapid, intuitive judgments make a great deal of sense, but sometimes produce moral mistakes that are replicated in law and policy. One implication is that moral assessments ought not to be made by appealing to intuitions about exotic cases and problems; those intuitions are particularly unlikely to be reliable. Another implication is that some deeply held moral judgments are unsound if they are products of moral heuristics. The idea of error-prone heuristics is especially controversial in the moral domain, where agreement on the correct answer may be hard to elicit; but in many contexts, heuristics are at work and they do real damage. Moral framing effects, including those in the context of obligations to future generations, are also discussed.

The Accidental Transgressor: Morally Relevant Theory of Mind

PubMed Central

Killen, Melanie; Mulvey, Kelly Lynn; Richardson, Cameron; Jampol, Noah

2014-01-01

To test young children’s false belief theory of mind in a morally relevant context, two experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, children (N = 162) at 3.5, 5.5, and 7.5 years of age were administered 3 tasks: prototypic moral transgression task, false belief theory of mind task (ToM), and an “accidental transgressor” task, which measured a morally relevant false belief theory of mind (MoToM). Children who did not pass false belief ToM were more likely to attribute negative intentions to an accidental transgressor than children who passed false belief ToM, and to use moral reasons when blaming the accidental transgressor. In Experiment 2, children (N = 46) who did not pass false belief ToM viewed it as more acceptable to punish the accidental transgressor than did participants who passed false belief ToM. Findings are discussed in light of research on the emergence of moral judgment and theory of mind. PMID:21377148

Blind ethics: Closing one's eyes polarizes moral judgments and discourages dishonest behavior.

PubMed

Caruso, Eugene M; Gino, Francesca

2011-02-01

Four experiments demonstrate that closing one's eyes affects ethical judgment and behavior because it induces people to mentally simulate events more extensively. People who considered situations with their eyes closed rather than open judged immoral behaviors as more unethical and moral behaviors as more ethical. In addition, considering potential decisions with closed eyes decreased stated intentions to behave ethically and actual self-interested behavior. This relationship was mediated by the more extensive mental simulation that occurred with eyes closed rather than open, which, in turn, intensified emotional reactions to the ethical situation. We discuss the implications of these findings for moral psychology and ethical decision making. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Emotion-based learning systems and the development of morality.

PubMed

Blair, R J R

2017-10-01

In this paper it is proposed that important components of moral development and moral judgment rely on two forms of emotional learning: stimulus-reinforcement and response-outcome learning. Data in support of this position will be primarily drawn from work with individuals with the developmental condition of psychopathy as well as fMRI studies with healthy individuals. Individuals with psychopathy show impairment on moral judgment tasks and a pronounced increased risk for instrumental antisocial behavior. It will be argued that these impairments are developmental consequences of impaired stimulus-aversive conditioning on the basis of distress cue reinforcers and response-outcome learning in individuals with this disorder. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Mind Perception Is the Essence of Morality.

PubMed

Gray, Kurt; Young, Liane; Waytz, Adam

2012-04-01

Mind perception entails ascribing mental capacities to other entities, whereas moral judgment entails labeling entities as good or bad or actions as right or wrong. We suggest that mind perception is the essence of moral judgment. In particular, we suggest that moral judgment is rooted in a cognitive template of two perceived minds-a moral dyad of an intentional agent and a suffering moral patient. Diverse lines of research support dyadic morality. First, perceptions of mind are linked to moral judgments: dimensions of mind perception (agency and experience) map onto moral types (agents and patients), and deficits of mind perception correspond to difficulties with moral judgment. Second, not only are moral judgments sensitive to perceived agency and experience, but all moral transgressions are fundamentally understood as agency plus experienced suffering-that is, interpersonal harm-even ostensibly harmless acts such as purity violations. Third, dyadic morality uniquely accounts for the phenomena of dyadic completion (seeing agents in response to patients, and vice versa), and moral typecasting (characterizing others as either moral agents or moral patients). Discussion also explores how mind perception can unify morality across explanatory levels, how a dyadic template of morality may be developmentally acquired, and future directions.

Swiss Children's Moral and Psychological Judgments about Inclusion and Exclusion of Children with Disabilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gasser, Luciano; Malti, Tina; Buholzer, Alois

2014-01-01

Children's judgments about inclusion and exclusion of children with disabilities were investigated in a Swiss sample of 6-, 9-, and 12-year-old children from inclusive and noninclusive classrooms (N = 422). Overall, the majority of children judged it as morally wrong to exclude children with disabilities. Yet, participants were less likely to…

Mind Perception Is the Essence of Morality

PubMed Central

Gray, Kurt; Young, Liane; Waytz, Adam

2012-01-01

Mind perception entails ascribing mental capacities to other entities, whereas moral judgment entails labeling entities as good or bad or actions as right or wrong. We suggest that mind perception is the essence of moral judgment. In particular, we suggest that moral judgment is rooted in a cognitive template of two perceived minds—a moral dyad of an intentional agent and a suffering moral patient. Diverse lines of research support dyadic morality. First, perceptions of mind are linked to moral judgments: dimensions of mind perception (agency and experience) map onto moral types (agents and patients), and deficits of mind perception correspond to difficulties with moral judgment. Second, not only are moral judgments sensitive to perceived agency and experience, but all moral transgressions are fundamentally understood as agency plus experienced suffering—that is, interpersonal harm—even ostensibly harmless acts such as purity violations. Third, dyadic morality uniquely accounts for the phenomena of dyadic completion (seeing agents in response to patients, and vice versa), and moral typecasting (characterizing others as either moral agents or moral patients). Discussion also explores how mind perception can unify morality across explanatory levels, how a dyadic template of morality may be developmentally acquired, and future directions. PMID:22754268

Analysis of the Relationship between Moral Judgment Competences and Empathic Skills of University Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aridag, Nermin Ciftci; Yuksel, Asuman

2010-01-01

The aim of this study is to analyse whether there is a significant relationship between moral judgment competence and empathic skills of the students studying at Uludag University. In this article, the results of two researches carried out on two different samples are presented. In the first research, data were collected using David's…

On judgment and judgmentalism: how counselling can make people better

PubMed Central

Gibson, S

2005-01-01

Counsellors, like other members of the caring professions, are required to practise within an ethical framework, at least in so far as they seek professional accreditation. As such, the counsellor is called upon to exercise her moral agency. In most professional contexts this requirement is, in itself, unproblematic. It has been suggested, however, that counselling practice does present a problem in this respect, in so far as the counsellor is expected to take a non-judgemental stance and an attitude of "unconditional positive regard" toward the client. If, as might appear to be the case, this stance and attitude are at odds with the making of moral judgments, the possibility of an adequate ethics of counselling is called into question. This paper explores the nature and extent of the problem suggesting that, understood in a Kantian context, non-judgmentalism can be seen to be at odds with neither the moral agency of the counsellor nor that of the client. Instead, it is argued, the relationship between the non-judgmental counsellor and her client is a fundamentally moral relationship, based on respect for the client's unconditional worth as a moral agent. PMID:16199597

Changes in Emotional-Social Intelligence, Caring, Leadership and Moral Judgment during Health Science Education Programs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Larin, Helene; Benson, Gerry; Wessel, Jean; Martin, Lynn; Ploeg, Jenny

2014-01-01

In addition to having academic knowledge and clinical skills, health professionals need to be caring, ethical practitioners able to understand the emotional concerns of their patients and to effect change. The purpose of this study was to determine whether emotional-social intelligence, caring, leadership and moral judgment of health science…

Moral Judgments on Short-Term Sexual Behaviors among Chinese College Students: Exploring the Roles of Gender and Physical Attractiveness.

PubMed

Xiao, Qianguo; Li, Aijuan; Zhu, Yi

2017-01-01

This study primarily investigated the effects of gender and physical attractiveness on moral judgments on three typical kinds of short-term sexual behaviors (short-term fling, one-night stand, and hookup) in the Chinese culture context. A total of 120 university student subjects were presented with a series of stereotypically physically attractive (versus physically unattractive) photos before they rated the extent to which each of the three short-term sexual behaviors are morally acceptable. The results showed that male students judged all three behaviors to be more morally acceptable than female students did. Further analyses showed that this gender difference was moderated by the level of physical attractiveness. Under the high attractiveness condition, short-term flings and hookups were judged more morally acceptable by male students than by female students, but this gender difference was not significant under the low attractiveness condition. However, with regard to one-night stands, the data showed that male students judged this type of behavior to be more morally acceptable than did female students under the low attractiveness condition, while this gender difference was not significant under the high attractiveness condition. Thus, these findings further our understanding of how Chinese young people view different types of short-term sexual behaviors, and provide novel evidence regarding how physical attractiveness influences people's moral judgments on short-term sexual behaviors.

Moral Judgments on Short-Term Sexual Behaviors among Chinese College Students: Exploring the Roles of Gender and Physical Attractiveness

PubMed Central

Xiao, Qianguo; Li, Aijuan; Zhu, Yi

2017-01-01

This study primarily investigated the effects of gender and physical attractiveness on moral judgments on three typical kinds of short-term sexual behaviors (short-term fling, one-night stand, and hookup) in the Chinese culture context. A total of 120 university student subjects were presented with a series of stereotypically physically attractive (versus physically unattractive) photos before they rated the extent to which each of the three short-term sexual behaviors are morally acceptable. The results showed that male students judged all three behaviors to be more morally acceptable than female students did. Further analyses showed that this gender difference was moderated by the level of physical attractiveness. Under the high attractiveness condition, short-term flings and hookups were judged more morally acceptable by male students than by female students, but this gender difference was not significant under the low attractiveness condition. However, with regard to one-night stands, the data showed that male students judged this type of behavior to be more morally acceptable than did female students under the low attractiveness condition, while this gender difference was not significant under the high attractiveness condition. Thus, these findings further our understanding of how Chinese young people view different types of short-term sexual behaviors, and provide novel evidence regarding how physical attractiveness influences people’s moral judgments on short-term sexual behaviors. PMID:28243218

The Importance of Moral Construal: Moral versus Non-Moral Construal Elicits Faster, More Extreme, Universal Evaluations of the Same Actions

PubMed Central

Van Bavel, Jay J.; Packer, Dominic J.; Haas, Ingrid Johnsen; Cunningham, William A.

2012-01-01

Over the past decade, intuitionist models of morality have challenged the view that moral reasoning is the sole or even primary means by which moral judgments are made. Rather, intuitionist models posit that certain situations automatically elicit moral intuitions, which guide moral judgments. We present three experiments showing that evaluations are also susceptible to the influence of moral versus non-moral construal. We had participants make moral evaluations (rating whether actions were morally good or bad) or non-moral evaluations (rating whether actions were pragmatically or hedonically good or bad) of a wide variety of actions. As predicted, moral evaluations were faster, more extreme, and more strongly associated with universal prescriptions—the belief that absolutely nobody or everybody should engage in an action—than non-moral (pragmatic or hedonic) evaluations of the same actions. Further, we show that people are capable of flexibly shifting from moral to non-moral evaluations on a trial-by-trial basis. Taken together, these experiments provide evidence that moral versus non-moral construal has an important influence on evaluation and suggests that effects of construal are highly flexible. We discuss the implications of these experiments for models of moral judgment and decision-making. PMID:23209557

'Utilitarian' judgments in sacrificial moral dilemmas do not reflect impartial concern for the greater good.

PubMed

Kahane, Guy; Everett, Jim A C; Earp, Brian D; Farias, Miguel; Savulescu, Julian

2015-01-01

A growing body of research has focused on so-called 'utilitarian' judgments in moral dilemmas in which participants have to choose whether to sacrifice one person in order to save the lives of a greater number. However, the relation between such 'utilitarian' judgments and genuine utilitarian impartial concern for the greater good remains unclear. Across four studies, we investigated the relationship between 'utilitarian' judgment in such sacrificial dilemmas and a range of traits, attitudes, judgments and behaviors that either reflect or reject an impartial concern for the greater good of all. In Study 1, we found that rates of 'utilitarian' judgment were associated with a broadly immoral outlook concerning clear ethical transgressions in a business context, as well as with sub-clinical psychopathy. In Study 2, we found that 'utilitarian' judgment was associated with greater endorsement of rational egoism, less donation of money to a charity, and less identification with the whole of humanity, a core feature of classical utilitarianism. In Studies 3 and 4, we found no association between 'utilitarian' judgments in sacrificial dilemmas and characteristic utilitarian judgments relating to assistance to distant people in need, self-sacrifice and impartiality, even when the utilitarian justification for these judgments was made explicit and unequivocal. This lack of association remained even when we controlled for the antisocial element in 'utilitarian' judgment. Taken together, these results suggest that there is very little relation between sacrificial judgments in the hypothetical dilemmas that dominate current research, and a genuine utilitarian approach to ethics. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A Comparison of Four-Year Longitudinal Studies of Postconventional Moral Judgment Reasoning in Teacher Education and Other Selected Undergraduate Samples.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reiman, Alan J.

This paper identifies moral judgment as a needed aim in higher education and teacher education, suggesting that moral issues are a central part of the content of various disciplines in higher education and noting that there are calls to integrate ethics across the curriculum. A cognitive-developmental theory that includes new social role-taking…

Detestable or marvelous? Neuroanatomical correlates of character judgments.

PubMed

Croft, Katie E; Duff, Melissa C; Kovach, Christopher K; Anderson, Steven W; Adolphs, Ralph; Tranel, Daniel

2010-05-01

As we learn new information about the social and moral behaviors of other people, we form and update character judgments of them, and this can profoundly influence how we regard and act towards others. In the study reported here, we capitalized on two interesting neurological patient populations where this process of complex "moral updating" may go awry: patients with bilateral damage to ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and patients with bilateral damage to hippocampus (HC). We predicted that vmPFC patients, who have impaired emotion processing, would exhibit reduced moral updating, and we also investigated how moral updating might be affected by severe declarative memory impairment in HC patients. The vmPFC, HC, and brain-damaged comparison (BDC) participants made moral judgments about unfamiliar persons before and after exposure to social scenarios depicting the persons engaged in morally good, bad, or neutral behaviors. In line with our prediction, the vmPFC group showed the least amount of change in moral judgments, and interestingly, the HC group showed the most amount of change. These results suggest that the vmPFC and hippocampus play critical but complementary roles in updating moral character judgments about others: the vmPFC may attribute emotional salience to moral information, whereas the hippocampus may provide necessary contextual information from which to make appropriate character judgments. 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

"Righteous minds" in health care: measurement and explanatory value of social intuitionism in accounting for the moral judgments in a sample of U.S. physicians.

PubMed

Tilburt, Jon C; James, Katherine M; Jenkins, Sarah M; Antiel, Ryan M; Curlin, Farr A; Rasinski, Kenneth A

2013-01-01

The broad diversity in physicians' judgments on controversial health care topics may reflect differences in religious characteristics, political ideologies, and moral intuitions. We tested an existing measure of moral intuitions in a new population (U.S. physicians) to assess its validity and to determine whether physicians' moral intuitions correlate with their views on controversial health care topics as well as other known predictors of these intuitions such as political affiliation and religiosity. In 2009, we mailed an 8-page questionnaire to a random sample of 2000 practicing U.S. physicians from all specialties. The survey included the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ30), along with questions on physicians' judgments about controversial health care topics including abortion and euthanasia (no moral objection, some moral objection, strong moral objection). A total of 1032 of 1895 (54%) physicians responded. Physicians' overall mean moral foundations scores were 3.5 for harm, 3.3 for fairness, 2.8 for loyalty, 3.2 for authority, and 2.7 for sanctity on a 0-5 scale. Increasing levels of religious service attendance, having a more conservative political ideology, and higher sanctity scores remained the greatest positive predictors of respondents objecting to abortion (β = 0.12, 0.23, 0.14, respectively, each p<0.001) as well as euthanasia (β = 0.08, 0.17, and 0.17, respectively, each p<0.001), even after adjusting for demographics. Higher authority scores were also significantly negatively associated with objection to abortion (β = -0.12, p<0.01), but not euthanasia. These data suggest that the relative importance physicians place on the different categories of moral intuitions may predict differences in physicians' judgments about morally controversial topics and may interrelate with ideology and religiosity. Further examination of the diversity in physicians' moral intuitions may prove illustrative in describing and addressing moral differences that

The reasons young children give to peers when explaining their judgments of moral and conventional rules.

PubMed

Mammen, Maria; Köymen, Bahar; Tomasello, Michael

2018-02-01

Moral justifications work, when they do, by invoking values that are shared in the common ground of the interlocutors. We asked 3- and 5-year-old peer dyads (N = 144) to identify and punish norm transgressors. In the moral condition, the transgressor violated a moral norm (e.g., by stealing); in the social rules condition, she/he violated a context-specific rule (e.g., by placing a yellow toy in a green box, instead of a yellow box). Children in both age groups justified their punishment in the social rules condition mostly by referring to the rule (e.g., "He must put yellow toys in the yellow box"). In contrast, in the moral condition they mostly justified their punishment by simply referring to the observed fact (e.g., "He stole"), seeing no need to state the norm involved (e.g., "He must not steal"), presumably because they assumed this as part of their moral common ground with their partner. These results suggest that preschoolers assume certain common ground moral values with their peers and use these in formulating explicit moral judgments and justifications. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

The Association Between Callous-Unemotional Traits, Externalizing Problems, and Gender in Predicting Cognitive and Affective Morality Judgments in Adolescence.

PubMed

Fragkaki, Iro; Cima, Maaike; Meesters, Cor

2016-09-01

Morality deficits have been linked to callous-unemotional traits and externalizing problems in response to moral dilemmas, but these associations are still obscure in response to antisocial acts in adolescence. Limited evidence on young boys suggested that callous-unemotional traits and externalizing problems were associated with affective but not cognitive morality judgments. The present study investigated these associations in a community sample of 277 adolescents (M age  = 15.35, 64 % females). Adolescents with high callous-unemotional traits showed deficits in affective but not cognitive morality, indicating that they can identify the appropriate moral emotions in others, but experience deviant moral emotions when imagining themselves committing antisocial acts. Externalizing problems and male gender were also strongly related to deficits in affective morality, but they had smaller associations with deficits in cognitive morality too. Implications for treatment and the justice system are discussed.

Task- and age-dependent effects of visual stimulus properties on children's explicit numerosity judgments.

PubMed

Defever, Emmy; Reynvoet, Bert; Gebuis, Titia

2013-10-01

Researchers investigating numerosity processing manipulate the visual stimulus properties (e.g., surface). This is done to control for the confound between numerosity and its visual properties and should allow the examination of pure number processes. Nevertheless, several studies have shown that, despite different visual controls, visual cues remained to exert their influence on numerosity judgments. This study, therefore, investigated whether the impact of the visual stimulus manipulations on numerosity judgments is dependent on the task at hand (comparison task vs. same-different task) and whether this impact changes throughout development. In addition, we examined whether the influence of visual stimulus manipulations on numerosity judgments plays a role in the relation between performance on numerosity tasks and mathematics achievement. Our findings confirmed that the visual stimulus manipulations affect numerosity judgments; more important, we found that these influences changed with increasing age and differed between the comparison and the same-different tasks. Consequently, direct comparisons between numerosity studies using different tasks and age groups are difficult. No meaningful relationship between the performance on the comparison and same-different tasks and mathematics achievement was found in typically developing children, nor did we find consistent differences between children with and without mathematical learning disability (MLD). Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

‘Utilitarian’ judgments in sacrificial moral dilemmas do not reflect impartial concern for the greater good

PubMed Central

Kahane, Guy; Everett, Jim A.C.; Earp, Brian D.; Farias, Miguel; Savulescu, Julian

2015-01-01

A growing body of research has focused on so-called ‘utilitarian’ judgments in moral dilemmas in which participants have to choose whether to sacrifice one person in order to save the lives of a greater number. However, the relation between such ‘utilitarian’ judgments and genuine utilitarian impartial concern for the greater good remains unclear. Across four studies, we investigated the relationship between ‘utilitarian’ judgment in such sacrificial dilemmas and a range of traits, attitudes, judgments and behaviors that either reflect or reject an impartial concern for the greater good of all. In Study 1, we found that rates of ‘utilitarian’ judgment were associated with a broadly immoral outlook concerning clear ethical transgressions in a business context, as well as with sub-clinical psychopathy. In Study 2, we found that ‘utilitarian’ judgment was associated with greater endorsement of rational egoism, less donation of money to a charity, and less identification with the whole of humanity, a core feature of classical utilitarianism. In Studies 3 and 4, we found no association between ‘utilitarian’ judgments in sacrificial dilemmas and characteristic utilitarian judgments relating to assistance to distant people in need, self-sacrifice and impartiality, even when the utilitarian justification for these judgments was made explicit and unequivocal. This lack of association remained even when we controlled for the antisocial element in ‘utilitarian’ judgment. Taken together, these results suggest that there is very little relation between sacrificial judgments in the hypothetical dilemmas that dominate current research, and a genuine utilitarian approach to ethics. PMID:25460392

Moral foundations vignettes: a standardized stimulus database of scenarios based on moral foundations theory.

PubMed

Clifford, Scott; Iyengar, Vijeth; Cabeza, Roberto; Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter

2015-12-01

Research on the emotional, cognitive, and social determinants of moral judgment has surged in recent years. The development of moral foundations theory (MFT) has played an important role, demonstrating the breadth of morality. Moral psychology has responded by investigating how different domains of moral judgment are shaped by a variety of psychological factors. Yet, the discipline lacks a validated set of moral violations that span the moral domain, creating a barrier to investigating influences on judgment and how their neural bases might vary across the moral domain. In this paper, we aim to fill this gap by developing and validating a large set of moral foundations vignettes (MFVs). Each vignette depicts a behavior violating a particular moral foundation and not others. The vignettes are controlled on many dimensions including syntactic structure and complexity making them suitable for neuroimaging research. We demonstrate the validity of our vignettes by examining respondents' classifications of moral violations, conducting exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and demonstrating the correspondence between the extracted factors and existing measures of the moral foundations. We expect that the MFVs will be beneficial for a wide variety of behavioral and neuroimaging investigations of moral cognition.

Moral foundations vignettes: a standardized stimulus database of scenarios based on moral foundations theory

PubMed Central

Iyengar, Vijeth; Cabeza, Roberto; Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter

2016-01-01

Research on the emotional, cognitive, and social determinants of moral judgment has surged in recent years. The development of moral foundations theory (MFT) has played an important role, demonstrating the breadth of morality. Moral psychology has responded by investigating how different domains of moral judgment are shaped by a variety of psychological factors. Yet, the discipline lacks a validated set of moral violations that span the moral domain, creating a barrier to investigating influences on judgment and how their neural bases might vary across the moral domain. In this paper, we aim to fill this gap by developing and validating a large set of moral foundations vignettes (MFVs). Each vignette depicts a behavior violating a particular moral foundation and not others. The vignettes are controlled on many dimensions including syntactic structure and complexity making them suitable for neuroimaging research. We demonstrate the validity of our vignettes by examining respondents’ classifications of moral violations, conducting exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and demonstrating the correspondence between the extracted factors and existing measures of the moral foundations. We expect that the MFVs will be beneficial for a wide variety of behavioral and neuroimaging investigations of moral cognition. PMID:25582811

Morality, Intentionality, and Intergroup Attitudes

PubMed Central

Killen, Melanie; Rizzo, Michael T.

2015-01-01

Morality is at the core of what it means to be social. Moral judgments require the recognition of intentionality, that is, an attribution of the target’s intentions towards another. Most research on the origins of morality has focused on intragroup morality, which involves applying morality to individuals in one’s own group. Yet, increasingly, there has been new evidence that beginning early in development, children are able to apply moral concepts to members of an outgroup as well, and that this ability appears to be complex. The challenges associated with applying moral judgments to members of outgroups includes understanding group dynamics, the intentions of others who are different from the self, and having the capacity to challenge stereotypic expectations of others who are different from the ingroup. Research with children provides a window into the complexities of moral judgment and raises new questions, which are ripe for investigations into the evolutionary basis of morality. PMID:25717199

Neural basis of moral verdict and moral deliberation

PubMed Central

Borg, Jana Schaich; Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter; Calhoun, Vince D.; Kiehl, Kent A.

2011-01-01

How people judge something to be morally right or wrong is a fundamental question of both the sciences and the humanities. Here we aim to identify the neural processes that underlie the specific conclusion that something is morally wrong. To do this, we introduce a novel distinction between “moral deliberation,” or the weighing of moral considerations, and the formation of a “moral verdict,” or the commitment to one moral conclusion. We predict and identify hemodynamic activity in the bilateral anterior insula and basal ganglia that correlates with committing to the moral verdict “this is morally wrong” as opposed to “this is morally not wrong,” a finding that is consistent with research from economic decision-making. Using comparisons of deliberation-locked vs. verdict-locked analyses, we also demonstrate that hemodynamic activity in high-level cortical regions previously implicated in morality—including the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate, and temporoparietal junction—correlates primarily with moral deliberation as opposed to moral verdicts. These findings provide new insights into what types of processes comprise the enterprise of moral judgment, and in doing so point to a framework for resolving why some clinical patients, including psychopaths, may have intact moral judgment but impaired moral behavior. PMID:21590588

Hierarchical structure of moral stages assessed by a sorting task.

PubMed

Boom, J; Brugman, D; van der Heijden, P G

2001-01-01

Following criticism of Kohlberg's theory of moral judgment, an empirical re-examination of hierarchical stage structure was desirable. Utilizing Piaget's concept of reflective abstraction as a basis, the hierarchical stage structure was investigated using a new method. Study participants (553 Dutch university students and 196 Russian high school students) sorted statements in terms of moral sophistication. These statements were typical for the different stages of moral development as defined in Colby and Kohlberg. The rank ordering performed by participants confirmed the hypotheses. First, despite large individual variation, the ordering of the statements that gave the best fit revealed that each consecutive Kohlbergian stage was perceived to be more morally sophisticated. Second, the lower the stage as represented by the items, the higher the agreement among the participants in their ranking; and the higher the stage as represented by the items, the lower the agreement among the participants in the rankings. Moreover, the pivotal point depended on the developmental characteristics of the sample, which demonstrated a developmental effect: The ordering of statements representative of moral stages below one's own current stage was straightforward, whereas the ordering of statements above one's own stage was difficult. It was concluded that the Piagetian idea of reflective abstraction can be used successfully to operationalize and measure the hierarchical nature of moral development.

Gender Differences in Sexual Attraction and Moral Judgment: Research With Artificial Face Models.

PubMed

González-Álvarez, Julio; Cervera-Crespo, Teresa

2018-01-01

Sexual attraction in humans is influenced by cultural or moral factors, and some gender differences can emerge in this complex interaction. A previous study found that men dissociate sexual attraction from moral judgment more than women do. Two experiments consisting of giving attractiveness ratings to photos of real opposite-sex individuals showed that men, compared to women, were significantly less influenced by the moral valence of a description about the person shown in each photo. There is evidence of some processing differences between real and artificial computer-generated faces. The present study tests the robustness of González-Álvarez's findings and extends the research to an experimental design using artificial face models as stimuli. A sample of 88 young adults (61 females and 27 males, average age 19.32, SD = 2.38) rated the attractiveness of 80 3D artificial face models generated with the FaceGen Modeller 3.5 software. Each face model was paired with a "good" and a "bad" (from a moral point of view) sentence depicting a quality or activity of the person represented in the model (e.g., she/he is an altruistic nurse in Africa vs. she/he is a prominent drug dealer). Results were in line with the previous findings and showed that, with artificial faces as well, sexual attraction is less influenced by morality in men than in women. This gender difference is consistent with an evolutionary perspective on human sexuality.

The mere exposure effect is differentially sensitive to different judgment tasks.

PubMed

Seamon, J G; McKenna, P A; Binder, N

1998-03-01

The mere exposure effect is the increase in positive affect that results from the repeated exposure to previously novel stimuli. We sought to determine if judgments other than affective preference could reliably produce a mere exposure effect for two-dimensional random shapes. In two experiments, we found that brighter and darker judgments did not differentiate target from distracter shapes, liking judgments led to target selection greater than chance, and disliking judgments led to distracter selection greater than chance. These results for brighter, darker, and liking judgments were obtained regardless of whether shape recognition was greater (Experiment 1) or not greater (Experiment 2) than chance. Effects of prior exposure to novel shapes were reliably observed only for affective judgment tasks. These results are inconsistent with general predictions made by the nonspecific activation hypothesis, but not the affective primacy or perceptual fluency hypotheses which were discussed in terms of cognitive neuroscience research. Copyright 1998 Academic Press.

Comparative morality judgments about lesbians and gay men teaching and adopting children.

PubMed

Kirby, Brenda J; Michaelson, Christina

2015-01-01

The purpose of this study was to compare morality judgments of American Catholics and the general public about lesbians and gay men adopting and teaching children. The general sample endorsed higher agreement that lesbians and gay men should be allowed to adopt and to teach children compared to the Catholic only sample. Older participants were less accepting than all other age groups, and there was an interaction effect between education and political ideology such that those with less education and with more politically conservative beliefs were generally less accepting of lesbians and gay men adopting and teaching children.

Morality, Reason and Feeling.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bailey, Charles

1980-01-01

This paper argues that morality is essentially a matter of rational reflection and judgment and has little to do with feelings or affections. The notions of reason and justification are analyzed. Four types of feelings are defined and shown to provide inadequate bases for moral judgment. (Author/SJL)

Consequences, norms, and generalized inaction in moral dilemmas: The CNI model of moral decision-making.

PubMed

Gawronski, Bertram; Armstrong, Joel; Conway, Paul; Friesdorf, Rebecca; Hütter, Mandy

2017-09-01

Research on moral dilemma judgments has been fundamentally shaped by the distinction between utilitarianism and deontology. According to the principle of utilitarianism, the moral status of behavioral options depends on their consequences; the principle of deontology states that the moral status of behavioral options depends on their consistency with moral norms. To identify the processes underlying utilitarian and deontological judgments, researchers have investigated responses to moral dilemmas that pit one principle against the other (e.g., trolley problem). However, the conceptual meaning of responses in this paradigm is ambiguous, because the central aspects of utilitarianism and deontology-consequences and norms-are not manipulated. We illustrate how this shortcoming undermines theoretical interpretations of empirical findings and describe an alternative approach that resolves the ambiguities of the traditional paradigm. Expanding on this approach, we present a multinomial model that allows researchers to quantify sensitivity to consequences (C), sensitivity to moral norms (N), and general preference for inaction versus action irrespective of consequences and norms (I) in responses to moral dilemmas. We present 8 studies that used this model to investigate the effects of gender, cognitive load, question framing, and psychopathy on moral dilemma judgments. The findings obtained with the proposed CNI model offer more nuanced insights into the determinants of moral dilemma judgments, calling for a reassessment of dominant theoretical assumptions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Explaining Moral Behavior.

PubMed

Osman, Magda; Wiegmann, Alex

2017-03-01

In this review we make a simple theoretical argument which is that for theory development, computational modeling, and general frameworks for understanding moral psychology researchers should build on domain-general principles from reasoning, judgment, and decision-making research. Our approach is radical with respect to typical models that exist in moral psychology that tend to propose complex innate moral grammars and even evolutionarily guided moral principles. In support of our argument we show that by using a simple value-based decision model we can capture a range of core moral behaviors. Crucially, the argument we propose is that moral situations per se do not require anything specialized or different from other situations in which we have to make decisions, inferences, and judgments in order to figure out how to act.

Sidetracked by trolleys: Why sacrificial moral dilemmas tell us little (or nothing) about utilitarian judgment

PubMed Central

Kahane, Guy

2015-01-01

Research into moral decision-making has been dominated by sacrificial dilemmas where, in order to save several lives, it is necessary to sacrifice the life of another person. It is widely assumed that these dilemmas draw a sharp contrast between utilitarian and deontological approaches to morality, and thereby enable us to study the psychological and neural basis of utilitarian judgment. However, it has been previously shown that some sacrificial dilemmas fail to present a genuine contrast between utilitarian and deontological options. Here, I raise deeper problems for this research paradigm. Even when sacrificial dilemmas present a contrast between utilitarian and deontological options at a philosophical level, it is misleading to interpret the responses of ordinary folk in these terms. What is currently classified as “utilitarian judgment” does not in fact share essential features of a genuine utilitarian outlook, and is better explained in terms of commonsensical moral notions. When subjects deliberate about such dilemmas, they are not deciding between opposing utilitarian and deontological solutions, but engaging in a richer process of weighing opposing moral reasons. Sacrificial dilemmas therefore tell us little about utilitarian decision-making. An alternative approach to studying proto-utilitarian tendencies in everyday moral thinking is proposed. PMID:25791902

Behavioral Norms, Moral Judgments, and Social Approval of Participant Roles in School Bullying in a Singapore Sample

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sim, Tick Ngee; Tan, Melinda Meizhen

2013-01-01

This study examines behavioral norms, moral judgments, and social approval of participant roles in classroom physical, verbal, and relational bullying, including a relatively new reporter role (where nothing is done during the bullying but there is subsequent reporting to a teacher). A sample of 1,131 Secondary 1 (mean age = 12 years 7 months) and…

“Righteous Minds” in Health Care: Measurement and Explanatory Value of Social Intuitionism in Accounting for the Moral Judgments in a Sample of U.S. Physicians

PubMed Central

Tilburt, Jon C.; James, Katherine M.; Jenkins, Sarah M.; Antiel, Ryan M.; Curlin, Farr A.; Rasinski, Kenneth A.

2013-01-01

The broad diversity in physicians’ judgments on controversial health care topics may reflect differences in religious characteristics, political ideologies, and moral intuitions. We tested an existing measure of moral intuitions in a new population (U.S. physicians) to assess its validity and to determine whether physicians’ moral intuitions correlate with their views on controversial health care topics as well as other known predictors of these intuitions such as political affiliation and religiosity. In 2009, we mailed an 8-page questionnaire to a random sample of 2000 practicing U.S. physicians from all specialties. The survey included the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ30), along with questions on physicians’ judgments about controversial health care topics including abortion and euthanasia (no moral objection, some moral objection, strong moral objection). A total of 1032 of 1895 (54%) physicians responded. Physicians’ overall mean moral foundations scores were 3.5 for harm, 3.3 for fairness, 2.8 for loyalty, 3.2 for authority, and 2.7 for sanctity on a 0–5 scale. Increasing levels of religious service attendance, having a more conservative political ideology, and higher sanctity scores remained the greatest positive predictors of respondents objecting to abortion (β = 0.12, 0.23, 0.14, respectively, each p<0.001) as well as euthanasia (β = 0.08, 0.17, and 0.17, respectively, each p<0.001), even after adjusting for demographics. Higher authority scores were also significantly negatively associated with objection to abortion (β = −0.12, p<0.01), but not euthanasia. These data suggest that the relative importance physicians place on the different categories of moral intuitions may predict differences in physicians’ judgments about morally controversial topics and may interrelate with ideology and religiosity. Further examination of the diversity in physicians’ moral intuitions may prove illustrative in describing and

Emotional reactions in moral decision-making are influenced by empathy and alexithymia.

PubMed

Cecchetto, Cinzia; Korb, Sebastian; Rumiati, Raffaella Ida; Aiello, Marilena

2018-04-01

The role of emotional processes in driving moral choices remains debated. In particular, diminished emotional processing and reduced empathy have been associated with unusual high rates of utilitarian responses in moral judgments while, to date, the effects of diminished emotional processing and empathy on moral decision-making have been only partially considered. In this study, we investigated the influence of empathy and alexithymia on behavior and emotional responses while participants performed a moral decision task. Self-report (valence and arousal ratings) and physiological (skin conductance and heart rate) measures were collected during the task. Results showed that empathy and alexithymia shaped emotional reactions to moral decisions but did not bias moral choices. The more empathic the participants, the more dilemmas were perceived as unpleasant and arousing, and the greater the increase in skin conductance. Conversely, alexithymia was characterized by a reduced physiological activation during moral decisions, but normal self-report ratings. Heart rate was not modulated by empathy or alexithymia. These results add new evidence to the field of moral decision showing that empathy and alexithymia modulate emotional reactions to moral decision.

Competency criteria and the class inclusion task: modeling judgments and justifications.

PubMed

Thomas, H; Horton, J J

1997-11-01

Preschool age children's class inclusion task responses were modeled as mixtures of different probability distributions. The main idea: Different response strategies are equivalent to different probability distributions. A child displays cognitive strategy s if P (child uses strategy s, given the child's observed score X = x) = p(s) is the most probable strategy. The general approach is widely applicable to many settings. Both judgment and justification questions were asked. Judgment response strategies identified were subclass comparison, guessing, and inclusion logic. Children's justifications lagged their judgments in development. Although justification responses may be useful, C. J. Brainerd was largely correct: If a single response variable is to be selected, a judgments variable is likely the preferable one. But the process must be modeled to identify cognitive strategies, as B. Hodkin has demonstrated.

A Neo-Kohlbergian Approach to Morality Research.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rest, James R.; Narvaez, Darcia; Thoma, Stephen J.; Bebeau, Muriel J.

2000-01-01

Proposes a model of moral judgment that builds on Lawrence Kohlberg's core assumptions. Addresses the concerns that have surfaced related to Kohlberg's work in moral judgment. Presents an overview of this model using Kohlberg's basic starting points, ideas from cognitive science, and developments in moral philosophy. (CMK)

When ignorance is no excuse: Different roles for intent across moral domains.

PubMed

Young, Liane; Saxe, Rebecca

2011-08-01

A key factor in legal and moral judgments is intent. Intent differentiates, for instance, murder from manslaughter. Is this true for all moral judgments? People deliver moral judgments of many kinds of actions, including harmful actions (e.g., assault) and purity violations (e.g., incest, consuming taboo substances). We show that intent is a key factor for moral judgments of harm, but less of a factor for purity violations. Based on the agent's innocent intent, participants judged accidental harms less morally wrong than accidental incest; based on the agent's guilty intent, participants judged failed attempts to harm more morally wrong than failed attempts to commit incest. These patterns were specific to moral judgments versus judgments of the agent's control, knowledge, or intent, the action's overall emotional salience, or participants' ratings of disgust. The current results therefore reveal distinct cognitive signatures of distinct moral domains, and may inform the distinct functional roles of moral norms. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Development of Intention-Based Morality: The Influence of Intention Salience and Recency, Negligence, and Outcome on Children's and Adults' Judgments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nobes, Gavin; Panagiotaki, Georgia; Engelhardt, Paul E.

2017-01-01

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the influences on 4-8 year-olds' and adults' moral judgments. In both, participants were told stories from previous studies that had indicated that children's judgments are largely outcome-based. Building on recent research in which one change to these studies' methods resulted in substantially more…

Damage to ventromedial prefrontal cortex impairs judgment of harmful intent.

PubMed

Young, Liane; Bechara, Antoine; Tranel, Daniel; Damasio, Hanna; Hauser, Marc; Damasio, Antonio

2010-03-25

Moral judgments, whether delivered in ordinary experience or in the courtroom, depend on our ability to infer intentions. We forgive unintentional or accidental harms and condemn failed attempts to harm. Prior work demonstrates that patients with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC) deliver abnormal judgments in response to moral dilemmas and that these patients are especially impaired in triggering emotional responses to inferred or abstract events (e.g., intentions), as opposed to real or actual outcomes. We therefore predicted that VMPC patients would deliver abnormal moral judgments of harmful intentions in the absence of harmful outcomes, as in failed attempts to harm. This prediction was confirmed in the current study: VMPC patients judged attempted harms, including attempted murder, as more morally permissible relative to controls. These results highlight the critical role of the VMPC in processing harmful intent for moral judgment. (c) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The measurement of principled morality by the Kohlberg Moral Dilemma Questionnaire.

PubMed

Heilbrun, A B; Georges, M

1990-01-01

The four stages preceding the postconventional level in the Kohlberg (1958, 1971, 1976) system of moral development are described as involving moral judgments that conform to external conditions of punishment, reward, social expectation, and conformity to the law. No special level of self-control seems necessary to behave in keeping with these conditions of external reinforcement. In contrast, the two stages of postconventional (principled) mortality involve defiance of majority opinion and defiance of the law--actions that would seem to require greater self-control. This study was concerned with whether postconventional moral reasoning, as measured by the Kohlberg Moral Dilemma Questionnaire (MDQ), can be associated with higher self-control. If so, prediction of principled moral behavior from the MDQ would be based not only on postconventional moral reasoning but bolstered by the necessary level of self-control as well. College students who came the closest to postconventional moral reasoning showed better self-control than college students who were more conventional or preconventional in their moral judgments. These results support the validity of the MDQ for predicting principled moral behavior.

Ethical safety of deep brain stimulation: A study on moral decision-making in Parkinson's disease.

PubMed

Fumagalli, Manuela; Marceglia, Sara; Cogiamanian, Filippo; Ardolino, Gianluca; Picascia, Marta; Barbieri, Sergio; Pravettoni, Gabriella; Pacchetti, Claudio; Priori, Alberto

2015-07-01

The possibility that deep brain stimulation (DBS) in Parkinson's disease (PD) alters patients' decisions and actions, even temporarily, raises important clinical, ethical and legal questions. Abnormal moral decision-making can lead to ethical rules violations. Previous experiments demonstrated the subthalamic (STN) activation during moral decision-making. Here we aim to study whether STN DBS can affect moral decision-making in PD patients. Eleven patients with PD and bilateral STN DBS implant performed a computerized moral task in ON and OFF stimulation conditions. A control group of PD patients without DBS implant performed the same experimental protocol. All patients underwent motor, cognitive and psychological assessments. STN stimulation was not able to modify neither reaction times nor responses to moral task both when we compared the ON and the OFF state in the same patient (reaction times, p = .416) and when we compared DBS patients with those treated only with the best medical treatment (reaction times: p = .408, responses: p = .776). Moral judgment is the result of a complex process, requiring cognitive executive functions, problem-solving, anticipations of consequences of an action, conflict processing, emotional evaluation of context and of possible outcomes, and involving different brain areas and neural circuits. Our data show that STN DBS leaves unaffected moral decisions thus implying relevant clinical and ethical implications for DBS consequences on patients' behavior, on decision-making and on judgment ability. In conclusion, the technique can be considered safe on moral behavior. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Roman Catholic beliefs produce characteristic neural responses to moral dilemmas

PubMed Central

Flexas, Albert; de Miguel, Pedro; Cela-Conde, Camilo J.; Munar, Enric

2014-01-01

This study provides exploratory evidence about how behavioral and neural responses to standard moral dilemmas are influenced by religious belief. Eleven Catholics and 13 Atheists (all female) judged 48 moral dilemmas. Differential neural activity between the two groups was found in precuneus and in prefrontal, frontal and temporal regions. Furthermore, a double dissociation showed that Catholics recruited different areas for deontological (precuneus; temporoparietal junction) and utilitarian moral judgments [dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC); temporal poles], whereas Atheists did not (superior parietal gyrus for both types of judgment). Finally, we tested how both groups responded to personal and impersonal moral dilemmas: Catholics showed enhanced activity in DLPFC and posterior cingulate cortex during utilitarian moral judgments to impersonal moral dilemmas and enhanced responses in anterior cingulate cortex and superior temporal sulcus during deontological moral judgments to personal moral dilemmas. Our results indicate that moral judgment can be influenced by an acquired set of norms and conventions transmitted through religious indoctrination and practice. Catholic individuals may hold enhanced awareness of the incommensurability between two unequivocal doctrines of the Catholic belief set, triggered explicitly in a moral dilemma: help and care in all circumstances—but thou shalt not kill. PMID:23160812

Roman Catholic beliefs produce characteristic neural responses to moral dilemmas.

PubMed

Christensen, Julia F; Flexas, Albert; de Miguel, Pedro; Cela-Conde, Camilo J; Munar, Enric

2014-02-01

This study provides exploratory evidence about how behavioral and neural responses to standard moral dilemmas are influenced by religious belief. Eleven Catholics and 13 Atheists (all female) judged 48 moral dilemmas. Differential neural activity between the two groups was found in precuneus and in prefrontal, frontal and temporal regions. Furthermore, a double dissociation showed that Catholics recruited different areas for deontological (precuneus; temporoparietal junction) and utilitarian moral judgments [dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC); temporal poles], whereas Atheists did not (superior parietal gyrus for both types of judgment). Finally, we tested how both groups responded to personal and impersonal moral dilemmas: Catholics showed enhanced activity in DLPFC and posterior cingulate cortex during utilitarian moral judgments to impersonal moral dilemmas and enhanced responses in anterior cingulate cortex and superior temporal sulcus during deontological moral judgments to personal moral dilemmas. Our results indicate that moral judgment can be influenced by an acquired set of norms and conventions transmitted through religious indoctrination and practice. Catholic individuals may hold enhanced awareness of the incommensurability between two unequivocal doctrines of the Catholic belief set, triggered explicitly in a moral dilemma: help and care in all circumstances-but thou shalt not kill.

Extraversion, neuroticism, immoral judgment and criminal behaviour.

PubMed

Addad, M; Leslau, A

1989-01-01

The present study examines delinquent behaviour by integrating two approaches until now employed separately: Eysnck's theory linking delinquency to extraversion and neuroticism, and Kohlberg's theory of moral development and its connection to moral behaviour. The study analyzes the relations between extraversion, neuroticism and moral judgment, as well as their independent and/or interactive effect upon the development of anti-social behaviour. The relationships are tested by retrospective measurements of personality traits and moral judgment in three groups: delinquency (N = 203), control (N = 82) and comparative (N = 407) groups. Findings show that criminals are higher than control subjects in neuroticism and immoral judgment but not in extraversion. Similar relationships were found between criminals and the comparative group, with one exception: here extraversion was found to be positively related to delinquency, both independently and interactively with neuroticism. The implications of these results for differential development of anti-social behaviour are discussed.

From moral to legal judgment: the influence of normative context in lawyers and other academics

PubMed Central

Spranger, Tade M.; Erk, Susanne; Walter, Henrik

2011-01-01

Various kinds of normative judgments are an integral part of everyday life. We extended the scrutiny of social cognitive neuroscience into the domain of legal decisions, investigating two groups, lawyers and other academics, during moral and legal decision-making. While we found activation of brain areas comprising the so-called ‘moral brain’ in both conditions, there was stronger activation in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and middle temporal gyrus particularly when subjects made legal decisions, suggesting that these were made in respect to more explicit rules and demanded more complex semantic processing. Comparing both groups, our data show that behaviorally lawyers conceived themselves as emotionally less involved during normative decision-making in general. A group × condition interaction in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex suggests a modulation of normative decision-making by attention based on subjects’ normative expertise. PMID:20194515

From moral to legal judgment: the influence of normative context in lawyers and other academics.

PubMed

Schleim, Stephan; Spranger, Tade M; Erk, Susanne; Walter, Henrik

2011-01-01

Various kinds of normative judgments are an integral part of everyday life. We extended the scrutiny of social cognitive neuroscience into the domain of legal decisions, investigating two groups, lawyers and other academics, during moral and legal decision-making. While we found activation of brain areas comprising the so-called 'moral brain' in both conditions, there was stronger activation in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and middle temporal gyrus particularly when subjects made legal decisions, suggesting that these were made in respect to more explicit rules and demanded more complex semantic processing. Comparing both groups, our data show that behaviorally lawyers conceived themselves as emotionally less involved during normative decision-making in general. A group × condition interaction in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex suggests a modulation of normative decision-making by attention based on subjects' normative expertise.

Education in Values and Moral Education in Vocational Colleges

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ludecke-Plumer, Sigrid

2007-01-01

On the assumption that education in values and moral education are necessary, moral competence (to make judgments) and the structure and development of the faculty of moral judgment should not be disregarded, even in the vocational education system. The main features of Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development are described as a basis for…

Combining Excellence and Ethics: Implications for Moral Education for the Gifted

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tirri, Kirsi

2011-01-01

In this article the current empirical research on morality and giftedness is reviewed with an emphasis on moral sensitivity. The component of moral judgment has been the most studied aspect in morality. Although high-ability students have been shown to be superior in moral judgment when compared to average-ability students, morality includes other…

Neural evidence for moral intuition and the temporal dynamics of interactions between emotional processes and moral cognition.

PubMed

Gui, Dan-Yang; Gan, Tian; Liu, Chao

2016-01-01

Behavioral and neurological studies have revealed that emotions influence moral cognition. Although moral stimuli are emotionally charged, the time course of interactions between emotions and moral judgments remains unknown. In the present study, we investigated the temporal dynamics of the interaction between emotional processes and moral cognition. The results revealed that when making moral judgments, the time course of the event-related potential (ERP) waveform was significantly different between high emotional arousal and low emotional arousal contexts. Different stages of processing were distinguished, showing distinctive interactions between emotional processes and moral reasoning. The precise time course of moral intuition and moral reasoning sheds new light on theoretical models of moral psychology. Specifically, the N1 component (interpreted as representing moral intuition) did not appear to be influenced by emotional arousal. However, the N2 component and late positive potential were strongly affected by emotional arousal; the slow wave was influenced by both emotional arousal and morality, suggesting distinct moral processing at different emotional arousal levels.

Elevated moral condemnation of third-party violations in multiple sclerosis patients.

PubMed

Patil, Indrajeet; Young, Liane; Sinay, Vladimiro; Gleichgerrcht, Ezequiel

2017-06-01

Recent research has demonstrated impairments in social cognition associated with multiple sclerosis (MS). The present work asks whether these impairments are associated with atypical moral judgment. Specifically, we assessed whether MS patients are able to integrate information about intentions and outcomes for moral judgment (i.e., appropriateness and punishment judgments) in the case of third-party acts. We found a complex pattern of moral judgments in MS patients: although their moral judgments were comparable to controls' for specific types of acts (e.g., accidental or intentional harms), they nevertheless judged behaviors to be less appropriate and endorsed more severe punishment across the board, and they were also more likely to report that others' responses would be congruent with theirs. Further analyses suggested that elevated levels of externally oriented cognition in MS (due to co-occurring alexithymia) explain these effects. Additionally, we found that the distinction between appropriateness and punishment judgments, whereby harmful outcomes influence punishment judgments to a greater extent than appropriateness judgments, was preserved in MS despite the observed disruptions in the affective and motivational components of empathy. The current results inform the two-process model for intent-based moral judgments as well as possible strategies for improving the quality of life in MS patients.

Why People with More Emotion Regulation Difficulties Made a More Deontological Judgment: The Role of Deontological Inclinations

PubMed Central

Zhang, Lisong; Li, Zhongquan; Wu, Xiaoyuan; Zhang, Ziyuan

2017-01-01

Previous studies have demonstrated the key role of emotion in moral judgment, and explored the relationship between emotion regulation and moral judgment. The present study investigated the influence of individual differences in emotion regulation difficulties on moral judgment. Study 1 examined whether individuals with high emotion regulation difficulties made a more deontological judgment. Study 2 explored the underlying mechanism using a process-dissociation approach, examining whether deontological inclinations and utilitarian inclinations separately or jointly accounted for the association. The results indicated that individuals with high emotion regulation difficulties rated the utilitarian actions less morally appropriate, and one’s deontological inclinations mediated the association between emotion regulation difficulties and moral judgment. PMID:29234299

Children's Moral Emotion Attribution in the Happy Victimizer Task: The Role of Response Format.

PubMed

Gummerum, Michaela; López-Pérez, Belén; Ambrona, Tamara; Rodríguez-Cano, Sonia; Dellaria, Giulia; Smith, Gary; Wilson, Ellie

2016-01-01

Previous research in the happy victimizer tradition indicated that preschool and early elementary school children attribute positive emotions to the violator of a moral norm, whereas older children attribute negative (moral) emotions. Cognitive and motivational processes have been suggested to underlie this developmental shift. The current research investigated whether making the happy victimizer task less cognitively demanding by providing children with alternative response formats would increase their attribution of moral emotions and moral motivation. In Study 1, 93 British children aged 4-7 years old responded to the happy victimizer questions either in a normal condition (where they spontaneously pointed with a finger), a wait condition (where they had to wait before giving their answers), or an arrow condition (where they had to point with a paper arrow). In Study 2, 40 Spanish children aged 4 years old responded to the happy victimizer task either in a normal or a wait condition. In both studies, participants' attribution of moral emotions and moral motivation was significantly higher in the conditions with alternative response formats (wait, arrow) than in the normal condition. The role of cognitive abilities for emotion attribution in the happy victimizer task is discussed.

The development of intention-based morality: The influence of intention salience and recency, negligence, and outcome on children's and adults' judgments.

PubMed

Nobes, Gavin; Panagiotaki, Georgia; Engelhardt, Paul E

2017-10-01

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the influences on 4-8 year-olds' and adults' moral judgments. In both, participants were told stories from previous studies that had indicated that children's judgments are largely outcome-based. Building on recent research in which one change to these studies' methods resulted in substantially more intention-based judgment, in Experiment 1 (N = 75) the salience and recency of intention information were increased, and in Experiment 2 (N = 99) carefulness information (i.e., the absence of negligence) was also added. In both experiments even the youngest children's judgments were primarily intention-based, and in Experiment 2 punishment judgments were similar to adults' from 5-6 years. Comparisons of data across studies and experiments indicated that both changes increased the proportion of intention-based punishment judgments-but not acceptability judgments-across age-groups. These findings challenge and help to explain those of much previous research, according to which children's judgments are primarily outcome-based. However, younger participants continued to judge according to outcome more than older participants. This might indicate that young children are more influenced by outcomes than are adults, but other possible explanations are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Prisoners' perception of informing to the authorities: an analysis in terms of functional moral judgment.

PubMed

Wolf, Yuval; Addad, Moshe; Arkin, Nilly

2003-12-01

A series of functional measurement experiment show that prisoners modulate their moral judgments of violations of their in-group regulations. The participants were 67 women and 80 men, sentenced for at least three years for murder, robbery, drug-traffic or white collar offenses. Each was asked, individually, to imagine a series of incidents where incriminating information on in-group or out-group inmates is delivered to the prison authorities or to an ingroup source and to rate the deserved denigration of the informer, who was characterized as a leader or not and as a drug-addict or not who had a prison-leave or not. An assignment of approximately equal weight for social status, drug use and prison leave was found, beyond gender and type of offense. In line with the hypothesis of judgmental modularity, informing to an out-group source was judged much more severely than informing to in-group arbiter and than informing on an out-group inmate.

When Ignorance Is No Excuse: Different Roles for Intent across Moral Domains

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Young, Liane; Saxe, Rebecca

2011-01-01

A key factor in legal and moral judgments is intent. Intent differentiates, for instance, murder from manslaughter. Is this true for all moral judgments? People deliver moral judgments of many kinds of actions, including harmful actions (e.g., assault) and purity violations (e.g., incest, consuming taboo substances). We show that intent is a key…

Intentionality, Morality, and the Incest Taboo in Madagascar.

PubMed

Sousa, Paulo; Swiney, Lauren

2016-01-01

In a recent article (Astuti and Bloch, 2015), cognitive anthropologists Astuti and Bloch claim that the Malagasy are ambivalent as to whether considerations of intentionality are relevant to moral judgments concerning incest and its presumed catastrophic consequences: when making moral judgments about those who commit incest, the Malagasy take into account whether the incest is intentional or not, but, when making moral judgments relating to incest's catastrophic consequences, they do not take intentionality into account. Astuti and Bloch explain the irrelevance of intentionality in terms of incest entailing such a fundamental attack on the transcendental social order that the Malagasy become dumbfounded and leave aside considerations of intentionality. Finally, they claim that a similar dumbfound reaction is what is involved in the moral dumbfounding concerning incest that social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has found in the US. In this article, we argue that (i) Astuti and Bloch are unclear about many aspects of their claims (in particular, about the moral judgments at stake), (ii) they do not provide sufficient evidence that considerations of intentionality are deemed irrelevant to moral judgments relating to incest's presumed catastrophic consequences (and hence for the claim that the Malagasy are ambivalent), (iii) their hypothesis that conceiving of incest as an attack on the transcendental social renders considerations of intentionality irrelevant lacks coherence, and (iv) the extension of their explanatory account to the moral dumfounding of American students in Haidt's well-known scenario of intentional incest is unwarranted.

Intentionality, Morality, and the Incest Taboo in Madagascar

PubMed Central

Sousa, Paulo; Swiney, Lauren

2016-01-01

In a recent article (Astuti and Bloch, 2015), cognitive anthropologists Astuti and Bloch claim that the Malagasy are ambivalent as to whether considerations of intentionality are relevant to moral judgments concerning incest and its presumed catastrophic consequences: when making moral judgments about those who commit incest, the Malagasy take into account whether the incest is intentional or not, but, when making moral judgments relating to incest’s catastrophic consequences, they do not take intentionality into account. Astuti and Bloch explain the irrelevance of intentionality in terms of incest entailing such a fundamental attack on the transcendental social order that the Malagasy become dumbfounded and leave aside considerations of intentionality. Finally, they claim that a similar dumbfound reaction is what is involved in the moral dumbfounding concerning incest that social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has found in the US. In this article, we argue that (i) Astuti and Bloch are unclear about many aspects of their claims (in particular, about the moral judgments at stake), (ii) they do not provide sufficient evidence that considerations of intentionality are deemed irrelevant to moral judgments relating to incest’s presumed catastrophic consequences (and hence for the claim that the Malagasy are ambivalent), (iii) their hypothesis that conceiving of incest as an attack on the transcendental social renders considerations of intentionality irrelevant lacks coherence, and (iv) the extension of their explanatory account to the moral dumfounding of American students in Haidt’s well-known scenario of intentional incest is unwarranted. PMID:27092099

A functional imaging investigation of moral deliberation and moral intuition

PubMed Central

Harenski, Carla L.; Antonenko, Olga; Shane, Matthew S.; Kiehl, Kent A.

2014-01-01

Prior functional imaging studies of moral processing have utilized ‘explicit’ moral tasks that involve moral deliberation (e.g., reading statements such as ‘he shot the victim’ and rating the moral appropriateness of the behavior) or ‘implicit’ moral tasks that involve moral intuition (e.g., reading similar statements and memorizing them for a test but not rating their moral appropriateness). Although the neural mechanisms underlying moral deliberation and moral intuition may differ, these have not been directly compared. Studies using explicit moral tasks have reported increased activity in several regions, most consistently the medial prefrontal cortex and temporo-parietal junction. In the few studies that have utilized implicit moral tasks, medial prefrontal activity has been less consistent, suggesting the medial prefrontal cortex is more critical for moral deliberation than moral intuition. Thus, we hypothesized that medial prefrontal activity would be increased during an explicit, but not an implicit, moral task. Participants (n = 28) were scanned using fMRI while viewing 50 unpleasant pictures, half of which depicted moral violations. Half of the participants rated pictures on moral violation severity (explicit task) while the other half indicated whether pictures occurred indoors or outdoors (implicit task). As predicted, participants performing the explicit, but not the implicit, task showed increased ventromedial prefrontal activity while viewing moral pictures. Both groups showed increased temporo-parietal junction activity while viewing moral pictures. These results suggest that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex may contribute more to moral deliberation than moral intuition, whereas the temporo-parietal junction may contribute more to moral intuition than moral deliberation. PMID:19878727

Cognitive abilities required in time judgment depending on the temporal tasks used: A comparison of children and adults.

PubMed

Droit-Volet, S; Wearden, J H; Zélanti, P S

2015-01-01

The aim of this study was to examine age-related differences in time judgments during childhood as a function of the temporal task used. Children aged 5 and 8 years, as well as adults, were submitted to 3 temporal tasks (bisection, generalization and reproduction) with short (0.4/0.8 s) and long durations (8/16 s). Furthermore, their cognitive capacities in terms of working memory, attentional control, and processing speed were assessed by a wide battery of neuropsychological tests. The results showed that the age-related differences in time judgment were greater in the reproduction task than in the temporal discrimination tasks. This task was indeed more demanding in terms of working memory and information processing speed. In addition, the bisection task appeared to be easier for children than the generalization task, whereas these 2 tasks were similar for the adults, although the generalization task required more attention to be paid to the processing of durations. Our study thus demonstrates that it is important to understand the different cognitive processes involved in time judgment as a function of the temporal tasks used before venturing to draw conclusions about the development of time perception capabilities.

Face-to-Face and Online: An Investigation of Children's and Adolescents' Bullying Behavior through the Lens of Moral Emotions and Judgments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Conway, Lauryn; Gomez-Garibello, Carlos; Talwar, Victoria; Shariff, Shaheen

2016-01-01

The current study investigated the influence of type of aggression (cyberbullying or traditional bullying) and participant role (bystander or perpetrator) on children and adolescents' self-attribution of moral emotions and judgments, while examining the influence of chronological age. Participants (N = 122, 8-16 years) evaluated vignettes and were…

Moral Enhancement Meets Normative and Empirical Reality: Assessing the Practical Feasibility of Moral Enhancement Neurotechnologies.

PubMed

Dubljević, Veljko; Racine, Eric

2017-06-01

Moral enhancement refers to the possibility of making individuals and societies better from a moral standpoint. A fierce debate has emerged about the ethical aspects of moral enhancement, notably because steering moral enhancement in a particular direction involves choosing amongst a wide array of competing options, and these options entail deciding which moral theory or attributes of the moral agent would benefit from enhancement. Furthermore, the ability and effectiveness of different neurotechnologies to enhance morality have not been carefully examined. In this paper, we assess the practical feasibility of moral enhancement neurotechnologies. We reviewed the literature on neuroscience and cognitive science models of moral judgment and analyzed their implications for the specific target of intervention (cognition, volition or affect) in moral enhancement. We also reviewed and compared evidence on available neurotechnologies that could serve as tools of moral enhancement. We conclude that the predictions of rationalist, emotivist, and dual process models are at odds with evidence, while different intuitionist models of moral judgment are more likely to be aligned with it. Furthermore, the project of moral enhancement is not feasible in the near future as it rests on the use of neurointerventions, which have no moral enhancement effects or, worse, negative effects. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The Cognitive Developmental Approach to "Epistemology" and Its Relation to Logical and Moral Stages.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Broughton, John

This paper presents a cross-sectional investigation of adolescents' and young adults' reflective epistemological development. Three groups of 8 subjects (4 male and female) ages 10, 14, and 18 were given Piagetian tasks, the Kohlberg moral judgment questionnaire, and an epistemology interview covering such concepts as knowledge, thought, feeling,…

[Orbitofrontal cortex and morality].

PubMed

Funayama, Michitaka; Mimura, Masaru

2012-10-01

Research on the neural substrates of morality is a recently emerging field in neuroscience. The anatomical structures implicated to play a role in morality include the frontal lobe, temporal lobe, cingulate gyrus, amygdala, hippocampus, and basal ganglia. In particular, the orbitofrontal or ventromedial prefrontal areas are thought to be involved in decision-making, and damage to these areas is likely to cause decision-making deficits and/or problems in impulsive control, which may lead to antisocial and less moral behaviors. In this article, we focus on case presentation and theory development with regard to moral judgment. First, we discuss notable cases and syndromes developing after orbitofrontal/ventromedial prefrontal damage, such as the famous cases of Gage and EVR, cases of childhood orbitofrontal damage, forced collectionism, squalor syndrome, and hypermoral syndrome. We then review the proposed theories and neuropsychological mechanisms underlying decision-making deficits following orbitofrontal/ventromedial prefrontal damage, including the somatic-marker hypothesis, reversal learning, preference judgment, theory of mind, and moral dilemma.

Living Slow and Being Moral : Life History Predicts the Dual Process of Other-Centered Reasoning and Judgments.

PubMed

Zhu, Nan; Hawk, Skyler T; Chang, Lei

2018-06-01

Drawing from the dual process model of morality and life history theory, the present research examined the role of cognitive and emotional processes as bridges between basic environmental challenges (i.e., unpredictability and competition) and other-centered moral orientation (i.e., prioritizing the welfare of others). In two survey studies, cognitive and emotional processes represented by future-oriented planning and emotional attachment, respectively (Study 1, N = 405), or by perspective taking and empathic concern, respectively (Study 2, N = 424), positively predicted other-centeredness in prosocial moral reasoning (Study 1) and moral judgment dilemmas based on rationality or intuition (Study 2). Cognitive processes were more closely related to rational aspects of other-centeredness, whereas the emotional processes were more closely related to the intuitive aspects of other-centeredness (Study 2). Finally, the cognitive and emotional processes also mediated negative effects of unpredictability (i.e., negative life events and childhood financial insecurity), as well as positive effects of individual-level, contest competition (i.e., educational and occupational competition) on other-centeredness. Overall, these findings support the view that cognitive and emotional processes do not necessarily contradict each other. Rather, they might work in concert to promote other-centeredness in various circumstances and might be attributed to humans' developmental flexibility in the face of environmental challenges.

A Moral (Normative) Framework for the Judgment of Actions and Decisions in the Construction Industry and Engineering: Part II.

PubMed

Alkhatib, Omar J

2017-12-01

The construction industry is typically characterized as a fragmented, multi-organizational setting in which members from different technical backgrounds and moral values join together to develop a particular business or project. The most challenging obstacle in the construction process is to achieve a successful practice and to identify and apply an ethical framework to manage the behavior of involved specialists and contractors and to ensure the quality of all completed construction activities. The framework should reflect a common moral ground for myriad people involved in this process to survive and compete ethically in today's turbulent construction market. This study establishes a framework for moral judgment of behavior and actions conducted in the construction process. The moral framework provides the basis of judging actions as "moral" or "immoral" based on three levels of moral accountability: personal, professional, and social. The social aspect of the proposed framework is developed primarily from the essential attributes of normative business decision-making models identified in the literature review and subsequently incorporates additional attributes related to professional and personal moral values. The normative decision-making models reviewed are based primarily on social attributes as related to moral theories (e.g., utilitarianism, duty, rights, virtue, etc.). The professional and moral attributes are established by identifying a set of common moral values recognized by professionals in the construction industry and required to prevent common construction breaches. The moral framework presented here is the complementary part of the ethical framework developed in Part I of this article and is based primarily on the personal behavior or the moral aspect of professional responsibility. The framework can be implemented as a form of preventive personal ethics, which would help avoid ethical dilemmas and moral implications in the first place

An investigation of moral judgement in frontotemporal dementia.

PubMed

Mendez, Mario F; Anderson, Eric; Shapira, Jill S

2005-12-01

To investigate the basis of disturbed moral judgment in patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD). FTD is characterized by difficulty in modulating social behavior. Patients lack social propriety and may perform sociopathic acts. In addition, FTD patients often lack empathy for others. These findings suggest alterations in the nature of morality in patients with FTD. We administered an inventory of moral knowledge and two moral dilemmas to 26 patients with the frontal variant of FTD, 26 patients with Alzheimer disease (AD), and 26 normal control subjects. The FTD patients met Consensus Criteria for FTD and had corroborative frontal abnormalities on functional neuroimaging. The FTD and AD patients were comparably impaired on dementia measures. All these groups showed the retention of knowledge for moral behavior and the ability to make "impersonal" moral judgments. In contrast, the FTD patients were impaired in their ability to make immediate, emotionally based moral judgments compared with the patients with AD and the normal control subjects. These findings are consistent with an attenuation of the automatic emotional identification with others that is part of the innate moral sense. Such a disturbance may result from neurodegenerative disease affecting the ventromedial frontal cortex.

The mismeasure of morals: antisocial personality traits predict utilitarian responses to moral dilemmas.

PubMed

Bartels, Daniel M; Pizarro, David A

2011-10-01

Researchers have recently argued that utilitarianism is the appropriate framework by which to evaluate moral judgment, and that individuals who endorse non-utilitarian solutions to moral dilemmas (involving active vs. passive harm) are committing an error. We report a study in which participants responded to a battery of personality assessments and a set of dilemmas that pit utilitarian and non-utilitarian options against each other. Participants who indicated greater endorsement of utilitarian solutions had higher scores on measures of Psychopathy, machiavellianism, and life meaninglessness. These results question the widely-used methods by which lay moral judgments are evaluated, as these approaches lead to the counterintuitive conclusion that those individuals who are least prone to moral errors also possess a set of psychological characteristics that many would consider prototypically immoral. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A Sorrow Shared Is a Sorrow Halved: Moral Judgments of Harm to Single versus Multiple Victims

PubMed Central

Konis, Daffie; Haran, Uriel; Saporta, Kelly; Ayal, Shahar

2016-01-01

We describe a bias in moral judgment in which the mere existence of other victims reduces assessments of the harm suffered by each harmed individual. Three experiments support the seemingly paradoxical relationship between the number of harmed individuals and the perceived severity of the harming act. In Experiment 1a, participants expressed lower punitive intentions toward a perpetrator of an unethical act that hurt multiple people and assigned lower monetary compensation to each victim than did those who judged a similar act that harmed only one person. In Experiment 1b, participants displayed greater emotional involvement in the case of a single victim than when there were multiple victims, regardless of whether the victims were unrelated and unaware of each other or constituted a group. Experiment 2 measured the responses of the victims themselves. Participants received false performance feedback on a task before being informed that they had been deceived. Victims who were deceived alone reported more negative feelings and judged the deception as more immoral than did those who knew that others had been deceived as well. Taken together, these results suggest that a victim’s plight is perceived as less severe when others share it, and this bias is common to both third-party judges and victims. PMID:27531988

Perceptual judgments made better by indirect interactions: Evidence from a joint localization task

PubMed Central

Sebanz, Natalie; Knoblich, Günther

2017-01-01

Others’ perceptual judgments tend to have strong effects on our own, and can improve perceptual judgments when task partners engage in communication. The present study investigated whether individuals benefit from others’ perceptual judgments in indirect interactions, where outcomes of individual decisions can be observed in a shared environment. Participants located a target in a 2D projection of a 3D container either from two complementary viewpoints (Experiment 1), or from a single viewpoint (Experiment 2). Uncertainty about the target location was high on the front-back dimension and low on the left-right dimension. The results showed that pairs of participants benefitted from taking turns in providing judgments. When each member of the pair had access to one complementary perspective, the pair achieved the same level of accuracy as when the two individuals had access to both complimentary perspectives and better performance than when the two individuals had access to only one perspective. These findings demonstrate the important role of a shared environment for successful integration of perceptual information while highlighting limitations in assigning appropriate weights to others’ judgments. PMID:29095951

Temporal Order Judgment in Dyslexia--Task Difficulty or Temporal Processing Deficiency?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Skottun, Bernt C.; Skoyles, John R.

2010-01-01

Dyslexia has been widely held to be associated with deficient temporal processing. It is, however, not established that the slower visual processing of dyslexic readers is not a secondary effect of task difficulty. To illustrate this we re-analyze data from Liddle et al. (2009) who studied temporal order judgment in dyslexia and plotted the…

Psychopathy: what apology making tells us about moral agency.

PubMed

Ayob, Gloria; Thornton, Tim

2014-02-01

Psychopathy is often used to settle disputes about the nature of moral judgment. The "trolley problem" is a familiar scenario in which psychopathy is used as a test case. Where a convergence in response to the trolley problem is registered between psychopathic subjects and non-psychopathic (normal) subjects, it is assumed that this convergence indicates that the capacity for making moral judgments is unimpaired in psychopathy. This, in turn, is taken to have implications for the dispute between motivation internalists and motivation externalists, for instance. In what follows, we want to do two things: firstly, we set out to question the assumption that convergence is informative of the capacity for moral judgment in psychopathy. Next, we consider a distinct feature of psychopathy which we think provides strong grounds for holding that the capacity for moral judgment is seriously impaired in psychopathic subjects. The feature in question is the psychopathic subject's inability to make sincere apologies. Our central claim will be this: convergence in response to trolley problems does not tell us very much about the psychopathic subject's capacity to make moral judgments, but his inability to make sincere apologies does provide us with strong grounds for holding that this capacity is seriously impaired in psychopathy.

Dirty liberals! Reminders of physical cleanliness influence moral and political attitudes.

PubMed

Helzer, Erik G; Pizarro, David A

2011-04-01

Many moral codes place a special emphasis on bodily purity, and manipulations that directly target bodily purity have been shown to influence a variety of moral judgments. Across two studies, we demonstrated that reminders of physical purity influence specific moral judgments regarding behaviors in the sexual domain as well as broad political attitudes. In Study 1, individuals in a public setting who were given a reminder of physical cleansing reported being more politically conservative than did individuals who were not given such a reminder. In Study 2, individuals reminded of physical cleansing in the laboratory demonstrated harsher moral judgments toward violations of sexual purity and were more likely to report being politically conservative than control participants. Together, these experiments provide further evidence of a deep link between physical purity and moral judgment, and they offer preliminary evidence that manipulations of physical purity can influence general (and putatively stable) political attitudes.

On the Wrong Track: Process and Content in Moral Psychology

PubMed Central

Kahane, Guy

2012-01-01

According to Joshua Greene's influential dual process model of moral judgment, different modes of processing are associated with distinct moral outputs: automatic processing with deontological judgment, and controlled processing with utilitarian judgment. This article aims to clarify and assess Greene's model. I argue that the proposed tie between process and content is based on a misinterpretation of the evidence, and that the supposed evidence for controlled processing in utilitarian judgment is actually likely to reflect, not ‘utilitarian reasoning’, but a form of moral deliberation which, ironically, is actually in serious tension with a utilitarian outlook. This alternative account is further supported by the results of a neuroimaging study showing that intuitive and counterintuitive judgments have similar neural correlates whether or not their content is utilitarian or deontological. PMID:23335831

The Engineering and Science Issues Test (ESIT): a discipline-specific approach to assessing moral judgment.

PubMed

Borenstein, Jason; Drake, Matthew J; Kirkman, Robert; Swann, Julie L

2010-06-01

To assess ethics pedagogy in science and engineering, we developed a new tool called the Engineering and Science Issues Test (ESIT). ESIT measures moral judgment in a manner similar to the Defining Issues Test, second edition, but is built around technical dilemmas in science and engineering. We used a quasi-experimental approach with pre- and post-tests, and we compared the results to those of a control group with no overt ethics instruction. Our findings are that several (but not all) stand-alone classes showed a significant improvement compared to the control group when the metric includes multiple stages of moral development. We also found that the written test had a higher response rate and sensitivity to pedagogy than the electronic version. We do not find significant differences on pre-test scores with respect to age, education level, gender or political leanings, but we do on whether subjects were native English speakers. We did not find significant differences on pre-test scores based on whether subjects had previous ethics instruction; this could suggest a lack of a long-term effect from the instruction.

The Enforcement of Moral Boundaries Promotes Cooperation and Prosocial Behavior in Groups

PubMed Central

Simpson, Brent; Willer, Robb; Harrell, Ashley

2017-01-01

The threat of free-riding makes the marshalling of cooperation from group members a fundamental challenge of social life. Where classical social science theory saw the enforcement of moral boundaries as a critical way by which group members regulate one another’s self-interest and build cooperation, moral judgments have most often been studied as processes internal to individuals. Here we investigate how the interpersonal expression of positive and negative moral judgments encourages cooperation in groups and prosocial behavior between group members. In a laboratory experiment, groups whose members could make moral judgments achieved greater cooperation than groups with no capacity to sanction, levels comparable to those of groups featuring costly material sanctions. In addition, members of moral judgment groups subsequently showed more interpersonal trust, trustworthiness, and generosity than all other groups. These findings extend prior work on peer enforcement, highlighting how the enforcement of moral boundaries offers an efficient solution to cooperation problems and promotes prosocial behavior between group members. PMID:28211503

A meta-analysis of response-time tests of the sequential two-systems model of moral judgment.

PubMed

Baron, Jonathan; Gürçay, Burcu

2017-05-01

The (generalized) sequential two-system ("default interventionist") model of utilitarian moral judgment predicts that utilitarian responses often arise from a system-two correction of system-one deontological intuitions. Response-time (RT) results that seem to support this model are usually explained by the fact that low-probability responses have longer RTs. Following earlier results, we predicted response probability from each subject's tendency to make utilitarian responses (A, "Ability") and each dilemma's tendency to elicit deontological responses (D, "Difficulty"), estimated from a Rasch model. At the point where A = D, the two responses are equally likely, so probability effects cannot account for any RT differences between them. The sequential two-system model still predicts that many of the utilitarian responses made at this point will result from system-two corrections of system-one intuitions, hence should take longer. However, when A = D, RT for the two responses was the same, contradicting the sequential model. Here we report a meta-analysis of 26 data sets, which replicated the earlier results of no RT difference overall at the point where A = D. The data sets used three different kinds of moral judgment items, and the RT equality at the point where A = D held for all three. In addition, we found that RT increased with A-D. This result holds for subjects (characterized by Ability) but not for items (characterized by Difficulty). We explain the main features of this unanticipated effect, and of the main results, with a drift-diffusion model.

Disgust and the moralization of purity.

PubMed

Horberg, E J; Oveis, Christopher; Keltner, Dacher; Cohen, Adam B

2009-12-01

Guided by appraisal-based models of the influence of emotion upon judgment, we propose that disgust moralizes--that is, amplifies the moral significance of--protecting the purity of the body and soul. Three studies documented that state and trait disgust, but not other negative emotions, moralize the purity moral domain but not the moral domains of justice or harm/care. In Study 1, integral feelings of disgust, but not integral anger, predicted stronger moral condemnation of behaviors violating purity. In Study 2, experimentally induced disgust, compared with induced sadness, increased condemnation of behaviors violating purity and increased approval of behaviors upholding purity. In Study 3, trait disgust, but not trait anger or trait fear, predicted stronger condemnation of purity violations and greater approval of behaviors upholding purity. We found that, confirming the domain specificity of the disgust-purity association, disgust was unrelated to moral judgments about justice (Studies 1 and 2) or harm/care (Study 3). Finally, across studies, individuals of lower socioeconomic status (SES) were more likely than individuals of higher SES to moralize purity but not justice or harm/care.

Positive and negative emotion enhances the processing of famous faces in a semantic judgment task.

PubMed

Bate, Sarah; Haslam, Catherine; Hodgson, Timothy L; Jansari, Ashok; Gregory, Nicola; Kay, Janice

2010-01-01

Previous work has consistently reported a facilitatory influence of positive emotion in face recognition (e.g., D'Argembeau, Van der Linden, Comblain, & Etienne, 2003). However, these reports asked participants to make recognition judgments in response to faces, and it is unknown whether emotional valence may influence other stages of processing, such as at the level of semantics. Furthermore, other evidence suggests that negative rather than positive emotion facilitates higher level judgments when processing nonfacial stimuli (e.g., Mickley & Kensinger, 2008), and it is possible that negative emotion also influences latter stages of face processing. The present study addressed this issue, examining the influence of emotional valence while participants made semantic judgments in response to a set of famous faces. Eye movements were monitored while participants performed this task, and analyses revealed a reduction in information extraction for the faces of liked and disliked celebrities compared with those of emotionally neutral celebrities. Thus, in contrast to work using familiarity judgments, both positive and negative emotion facilitated processing in this semantic-based task. This pattern of findings is discussed in relation to current models of face processing. Copyright 2009 APA, all rights reserved.

Pillars of judgment: how memory abilities affect performance in rule-based and exemplar-based judgments.

PubMed

Hoffmann, Janina A; von Helversen, Bettina; Rieskamp, Jörg

2014-12-01

Making accurate judgments is an essential skill in everyday life. Although how different memory abilities relate to categorization and judgment processes has been hotly debated, the question is far from resolved. We contribute to the solution by investigating how individual differences in memory abilities affect judgment performance in 2 tasks that induced rule-based or exemplar-based judgment strategies. In a study with 279 participants, we investigated how working memory and episodic memory affect judgment accuracy and strategy use. As predicted, participants switched strategies between tasks. Furthermore, structural equation modeling showed that the ability to solve rule-based tasks was predicted by working memory, whereas episodic memory predicted judgment accuracy in the exemplar-based task. Last, the probability of choosing an exemplar-based strategy was related to better episodic memory, but strategy selection was unrelated to working memory capacity. In sum, our results suggest that different memory abilities are essential for successfully adopting different judgment strategies. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Clinical judgment research on economic topics: Role of congruence of tasks in clinical practice.

PubMed

Huttin, Christine C

2017-01-01

This paper discusses what can ensure the performance of judgment studies with an information design that integrates economics of medical systems, in the context of digitalization of healthcare. It is part of a series of 5 methodological papers on statistical procedures and problems to implement judgment research designs and decision models, especially to address cost of care, and ways to measure conversation on cost of care between physicians and patients, with unstructured data such as economic narratives to complement billing and financial information (e.g. cost cognitive cues in conjoint or reversed conjoint designs). The paper discusses how congruence of tasks can increase the reliability of data. It uses some results of two Meta reviews of judgment studies in different fields of applications: psychology, business, medical sciences and education. It compares tests for congruence in judgment studies and efficiency tests in econometric studies.

Bridging the Divide: The Role of Motivation and Self-Regulation in Explaining the Judgment-Action Gap Related to Academic Dishonesty.

PubMed

Stephens, Jason M

2018-01-01

There is often a divide between moral judgment and moral action; between what we believe we ought to do (or not do) and what we do. Knowledge of this divide is not new, and numerous theories have attempted to offer more robust accounts of ethical decision-making and moral functioning. Knowledge of widespread academic dishonesty among students is also not new, and several studies have revealed that many students report cheating despite believing it is wrong. The present study, involving cross-sectional survey data from a sample of secondary students ( N = 380) in the United States, contributes to the literature on this important area of theory and research by fulfilling three broad purposes. The first purpose concerned the assessment of students' judgments related to academic dishonesty, and offered evidence for the utility of a new instrument that measures what domain (personal, conventional, or moral) students use to categorize various types of cheating behavior rather than how much they believe it to be wrong. The second purpose involved exploring the relations between domain judgments and engagement in academic dishonesty, and results provided evidence for the hypothesis that students who believed an action to be morally wrong would be less likely to report doing it. Finally, the third and most important purpose of the study involved bridging the divide between moral judgment and action of academic dishonesty by testing competing theoretical models of moral functioning. Results indicated that the data demonstrated the best fit to a modified version of the hypothesized four-component model, whereby self-regulation (in the form of selective moral disengagement) played a significant mediating role in the relations between moral judgment and academic dishonesty, and that moral judgment also affected self-regulation indirectly through moral motivation (i.e., responsibility judgments). In brief, findings from this study offer support for the contention that moral

Bridging the Divide: The Role of Motivation and Self-Regulation in Explaining the Judgment-Action Gap Related to Academic Dishonesty

PubMed Central

Stephens, Jason M.

2018-01-01

There is often a divide between moral judgment and moral action; between what we believe we ought to do (or not do) and what we do. Knowledge of this divide is not new, and numerous theories have attempted to offer more robust accounts of ethical decision-making and moral functioning. Knowledge of widespread academic dishonesty among students is also not new, and several studies have revealed that many students report cheating despite believing it is wrong. The present study, involving cross-sectional survey data from a sample of secondary students (N = 380) in the United States, contributes to the literature on this important area of theory and research by fulfilling three broad purposes. The first purpose concerned the assessment of students' judgments related to academic dishonesty, and offered evidence for the utility of a new instrument that measures what domain (personal, conventional, or moral) students use to categorize various types of cheating behavior rather than how much they believe it to be wrong. The second purpose involved exploring the relations between domain judgments and engagement in academic dishonesty, and results provided evidence for the hypothesis that students who believed an action to be morally wrong would be less likely to report doing it. Finally, the third and most important purpose of the study involved bridging the divide between moral judgment and action of academic dishonesty by testing competing theoretical models of moral functioning. Results indicated that the data demonstrated the best fit to a modified version of the hypothesized four-component model, whereby self-regulation (in the form of selective moral disengagement) played a significant mediating role in the relations between moral judgment and academic dishonesty, and that moral judgment also affected self-regulation indirectly through moral motivation (i.e., responsibility judgments). In brief, findings from this study offer support for the contention that moral

How Not to Evaluate a Psychological Measure: Rebuttal to Criticism of the Defining Issues Test of Moral Judgment Development by Curzer and Colleagues

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thoma, Stephen J.; Bebeau, Muriel J.; Narvaez, Darcia

2016-01-01

In a 2014 paper in "Theory and Research in Education," Howard Curzer and colleagues critique the Defining Issues Test of moral judgment development according to eight criteria that are described as difficulties any measure of educational outcomes must address. This article highlights how Curzer et al. do not consult existing empirical…

The role of judgment frames and task precision in object attention: Reduced template sharpness limits dual-object performance.

PubMed

Liu, Shiau-Hua; Dosher, Barbara Anne; Lu, Zhong-Lin

2009-06-01

Multiple attributes of a single-object are often processed more easily than attributes of different objects-a phenomenon associated with object attention. Here we investigate the influence of two factors, judgment frames and judgment precision, on dual-object report deficits as an index of object attention. [Han, S., Dosher, B., & Lu, Z.-L. (2003). Object attention revisited: Identifying mechanisms and boundary conditions. Psychological Science, 14, 598-604] predicted that consistency of the frame for judgments about two separate objects could reduce or eliminate the expression of object attention limitations. The current studies examine the effects of judgment frames and of task precision in orientation identification and find that dual-object report deficits within one feature are indeed affected modestly by the congruency of the judgments and more substantially by the required precision of judgments. The observed dual-object deficits affected contrast thresholds for incongruent frame conditions and for high precision judgments and reduce psychometric asymptotes. These dual-object deficits reflect a combined effect of multiplicative noise and external noise exclusion in dual-object conditions, both related to the effects of attention on the tuning of perceptual templates. These results have implications for modification of object attention theory, for understanding limitations on concurrent tasks.

Inferences about moral character moderate the impact of consequences on blame and praise.

PubMed

Siegel, Jenifer Z; Crockett, Molly J; Dolan, Raymond J

2017-10-01

Moral psychology research has highlighted several factors critical for evaluating the morality of another's choice, including the detection of norm-violating outcomes, the extent to which an agent caused an outcome, and the extent to which the agent intended good or bad consequences, as inferred from observing their decisions. However, person-centered accounts of moral judgment suggest that a motivation to infer the moral character of others can itself impact on an evaluation of their choices. Building on this person-centered account, we examine whether inferences about agents' moral character shape the sensitivity of moral judgments to the consequences of agents' choices, and agents' role in the causation of those consequences. Participants observed and judged sequences of decisions made by agents who were either bad or good, where each decision entailed a trade-off between personal profit and pain for an anonymous victim. Across trials we manipulated the magnitude of profit and pain resulting from the agent's decision (consequences), and whether the outcome was caused via action or inaction (causation). Consistent with previous findings, we found that moral judgments were sensitive to consequences and causation. Furthermore, we show that the inferred character of an agent moderated the extent to which people were sensitive to consequences in their moral judgments. Specifically, participants were more sensitive to the magnitude of consequences in judgments of bad agents' choices relative to good agents' choices. We discuss and interpret these findings within a theoretical framework that views moral judgment as a dynamic process at the intersection of attention and social cognition. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Culture and the quest for universal principles in moral reasoning.

PubMed

Sachdeva, Sonya; Singh, Purnima; Medin, Douglas

2011-06-01

The importance of including cultural perspectives in the study of human cognition has become apparent in recent decades, and the domain of moral reasoning is no exception. The present review focuses on moral cognition, beginning with Kohlberg's model of moral development which relies heavily on people's justifications for their judgments and then shifting to more recent theories that rely on rapid, intuitive judgments and see justifications as more or less irrelevant to moral cognition. Despite this dramatic shift, analyses of culture and moral decision-making have largely been framed as a quest for and test of universal principles of moral judgment. In this review, we discuss challenges that remain in trying to understand crosscultural variability in moral values and the processes that underlie moral cognition. We suggest that the universalist framework may lead to an underestimation of the role of culture in moral reasoning. Although the field has made great strides in incorporating more and more cultural perspectives in order to understand moral cognition, theories of moral reasoning still do not allow for substantial variation in how people might conceptualize the domain of the moral. The processes that underlie moral cognition may not be a human universal in any simple sense, because moral systems may play different roles in different cultures. We end our review with a discussion of work that remains to be done to understand cultural variation in the moral domain.

Eager feelings and vigilant reasons: Regulatory focus differences in judging moral wrongs

PubMed Central

Cornwell, James F. M.; Higgins, E. Tory

2015-01-01

For over a decade, moral psychologists have been actively researching the processes underlying moral judgments that are made intuitively without reference to an action’s concrete harms or injustice, such as the well-known case of non-procreative, consensual incest. We suggest that the reason some judge this scenario as wrong (using intuitive feelings) and others do not (using deliberative reasons) is due to an important motivational distinction. Consistent with this view, across seven studies, we demonstrate that negative judgments of such intuitive moral scenarios are more intense when processed in the promotion focus compared to the prevention focus, and that this is due to differences in whether eager (intuitive) versus vigilant (deliberative) means are employed in judging these moral wrongs. By examining various boundary conditions for this phenomenon and foundations for these judgments, we learn about the overall differences between promotion and prevention regarding how proscriptive judgments are processed, and begin to integrate these differences with existing theories in moral psychology. PMID:26726912

The Mismeasure of Morals: Antisocial Personality Traits Predict Utilitarian Responses to Moral Dilemmas

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bartels, Daniel M.; Pizarro, David A.

2011-01-01

Researchers have recently argued that utilitarianism is the appropriate framework by which to evaluate moral judgment, and that individuals who endorse non-utilitarian solutions to moral dilemmas (involving active vs. passive harm) are committing an error. We report a study in which participants responded to a battery of personality assessments…

Neural foundations to moral reasoning and antisocial behavior

PubMed Central

Yang, Yaling

2006-01-01

A common feature of the antisocial, rule-breaking behavior that is central to criminal, violent and psychopathic individuals is the failure to follow moral guidelines. This review summarizes key findings from brain imaging research on both antisocial behavior and moral reasoning, and integrates these findings into a neural moral model of antisocial behavior. Key areas found to be functionally or structurally impaired in antisocial populations include dorsal and ventral regions of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), amygdala, hippocampus, angular gyrus, anterior cingulate and temporal cortex. Regions most commonly activated in moral judgment tasks consist of the polar/medial and ventral PFC, amygdala, angular gyrus and posterior cingulate. It is hypothesized that the rule-breaking behavior common to antisocial, violent and psychopathic individuals is in part due to impairments in some of the structures (dorsal and ventral PFC, amygdala and angular gyrus) subserving moral cognition and emotion. Impairments to the emotional component that comprises the feeling of what is moral is viewed as the primary deficit in antisocials, although some disruption to the cognitive and cognitive-emotional components of morality (particularly self-referential thinking and emotion regulation) cannot be ruled out. While this neurobiological predisposition is likely only one of several biosocial processes involved in the etiology of antisocial behavior, it raises significant moral issues for the legal system and neuroethics. PMID:18985107

Children's Understanding of Morals.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Lee C.

Research efforts in the area of moral development of the child, as based on Piaget's theory, are discussed. Some of the important processes Piaget uses to explain cognitive growth are presented first, followed by his theory of how the individual's capacity for moral judgment evolves. The research discussed tests Piaget's chief underlying…

Does "science" make you moral? The effects of priming science on moral judgments and behavior.

PubMed

Ma-Kellams, Christine; Blascovich, Jim

2013-01-01

Previous work has noted that science stands as an ideological force insofar as the answers it offers to a variety of fundamental questions and concerns; as such, those who pursue scientific inquiry have been shown to be concerned with the moral and social ramifications of their scientific endeavors. No studies to date have directly investigated the links between exposure to science and moral or prosocial behaviors. Across four studies, both naturalistic measures of science exposure and experimental primes of science led to increased adherence to moral norms and more morally normative behaviors across domains. Study 1 (n = 36) tested the natural correlation between exposure to science and likelihood of enforcing moral norms. Studies 2 (n = 49), 3 (n = 52), and 4 (n = 43) manipulated thoughts about science and examined the causal impact of such thoughts on imagined and actual moral behavior. Across studies, thinking about science had a moralizing effect on a broad array of domains, including interpersonal violations (Studies 1, 2), prosocial intentions (Study 3), and economic exploitation (Study 4). These studies demonstrated the morally normative effects of lay notions of science. Thinking about science leads individuals to endorse more stringent moral norms and exhibit more morally normative behavior. These studies are the first of their kind to systematically and empirically test the relationship between science and morality. The present findings speak to this question and elucidate the value-laden outcomes of the notion of science.

Large sex difference in adolescents on a timed line judgment task: attentional contributors and task relationship to mathematics.

PubMed

Collaer, Marcia L; Hill, Erica M

2006-01-01

Visuospatial performance, assessed with the new, group-administered Judgment of Line Angle and Position test (JLAP-13), varied with sex and mathematical competence in a group of adolescents. The JLAP-13, a low-level perceptual task, was modeled after a neuropsychological task dependent upon functioning of the posterior region of the right hemisphere [Benton et al, 1994 Contributions to Neuropsychological Assessment: A Clinical Manual (New York: Oxford University Press)]. High-school boys (N = 52) performed better than girls (N = 62), with a large effect for sex (d = 1.11). Performance increased with mathematical competence, but the sex difference did not vary significantly across different levels of mathematics coursework. On the basis of earlier work, it was predicted that male, but not female, performance in line judgment would decline with disruptions to task geometry (page frame), and that the sex difference would disappear with disruptions to geometry. These predictions were supported by a number of univariate and sex-specific analyses, although an omnibus repeated-measures analysis did not detect the predicted interaction, most likely owing to limitations in power. Thus, there is partial support for the notion that attentional predispositions or strategies may contribute to visuospatial sex differences, with males more likely than females to attend to, and rely upon, internal or external representations of task geometry. Additional support for this hypothesis may require development of new measures or experimental manipulations with more powerful geometrical disruptions.

Children's developing metaethical judgments.

PubMed

Schmidt, Marco F H; Gonzalez-Cabrera, Ivan; Tomasello, Michael

2017-12-01

Human adults incline toward moral objectivism but may approach things more relativistically if different cultures are involved. In this study, 4-, 6-, and 9-year-old children (N=136) witnessed two parties who disagreed about moral matters: a normative judge (e.g., judging that it is wrong to do X) and an antinormative judge (e.g., judging that it is okay to do X). We assessed children's metaethical judgment, that is, whether they judged that only one party (objectivism) or both parties (relativism) could be right. We found that 9-year-olds, but not younger children, were more likely to judge that both parties could be right when a normative ingroup judge disagreed with an antinormative extraterrestrial judge (with different preferences and background) than when the antinormative judge was another ingroup individual. This effect was not found in a comparison case where parties disagreed about the possibility of different physical laws. These findings suggest that although young children often exhibit moral objectivism, by early school age they begin to temper their objectivism with culturally relative metaethical judgments. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Subcomponents of Psychopathy have Opposing Correlations with Punishment Judgments

PubMed Central

Borg, Jana Schaich; Kahn, Rachel E.; Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter; Kurzban, Robert; Robinson, Paul H.; Kiehl, Kent A.

2013-01-01

Psychopathy research is plagued by an enigma: Psychopaths reliably act immorally, but they also accurately report whether an action is morally wrong. The current study revealed that cooperative suppressor effects and conflicting subsets of personality traits within the construct of psychopathy might help explain this conundrum. Among a sample of adult male offenders (n = 100) who ranked deserved punishment of crimes, Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) total scores were not linearly correlated with deserved punishment task performance. However, these null results masked significant opposing associations between task performance and factors of psychopathy: the PCL-R Interpersonal/Affective (i.e. manipulative and callous) factor was positively associated with task performance, while the PCL-R Social Deviance (i.e. impulsive and antisocial) factor was simultaneously negatively associated with task performance. Importantly, these relationships were qualified by a significant interaction where the Interpersonal/Affective traits were positively associated with task performance when Social Deviance traits were high, but Social Deviance traits were negatively associated with task performance when Interpersonal/Affective traits were low. This interaction helped reveal a significant non-linear relationship between PCL-R total scores and task performance such that individuals with very low or very high PCL-R total scores performed better than those with middle-range PCL-R total scores. These results may explain the enigma of why individuals with very high psychopathic traits, but not other groups of anti-social individuals, usually have normal moral judgment in laboratory settings, but still behave immorally, especially in contexts where Social Deviance traits have strong influence. PMID:23834639

Moral, Conventional, and Personal Rules: The Perspective of Foster Youth

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mullins, David; Tisak, Marie S.

2006-01-01

Forty-five foster youth (9-13 year old and 14-17 year olds) were asked to evaluate moral, conventional, and personal rules and violations by providing judgments and reasons. The results suggest that foster youths' judgments distinguished between the moral, conventional, and personal domains. However, in providing reasons to support their judgments…

Moral Rationality and Intuition: An Exploration of Relationships between the Defining Issues Test and the Moral Foundations Questionnaire

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Glover, Rebecca J.; Natesan, Prathiba; Wang, Jie; Rohr, Danielle; McAfee-Etheridge, Lauri; Booker, Dana D.; Bishop, James; Lee, David; Kildare, Cory; Wu, Minwei

2014-01-01

Explorations of relationships between Haidt's Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ) and indices of moral decision-making assessed by the Defining Issues Test have been limited to correlational analyses. This study used Harm, Fairness, Ingroup, Authority and Purity to predict overall moral judgment and individual Defining Issues Test-2 (DIT-2)…

Are happier people less judgmental of other people's selfish behaviors? Experimental survey evidence from trust and gift exchange games.

PubMed

Drouvelis, Michalis; Powdthavee, Nattavudh

2015-10-01

What determines people's moral judgments of selfish behaviors? Here we study whether people's normative views in trust and gift exchange games, which underlie many situations of economic and social significance, are themselves functions of positive emotions. We use experimental survey methods to investigate the moral judgments of impartial observers empirically, and explore whether we could influence subsequent judgments by deliberately making some individuals happier. We find that moral judgments of selfish behaviors in the economic context depend strongly on the behavior of the interaction partner of the judged person, but their relationships are significantly moderated by an increase in happiness for the person making the judgment.

[The contribution of neuroscience to the understanding of moral behavior].

PubMed

Slachevsky, Andrea; Silva, Jaime R; Prenafeta, María Luisa; Novoa, Fernando

2009-03-01

The neuro-scientific study of moral actions and judgments is particularly relevant to medicine, especially when assessing behavior disorders secondary to brain diseases. In this paper, moral behavior is reviewed from an evolutionary and neuro-scientific perspective. We discuss the role of emotions in moral decisions, the role of brain development in moral development and the cerebral basis of moral behavior. Empirical evidence shows a relationship between brain and moral development: changes in cerebral architecture are related to changes in moral decision complexity. Moral development takes a long time, achieving its maturity during adulthood. It is suggested that moral cognition depends on cerebral regions and neural networks related to emotional and cognitive processing (i.e. prefrontal and temporal cortex) and that moral judgments are complex affective and cognitive phenomena. This paper concludes with the suggestion that a satisfactory clinical/legal evaluation of a patient requires that the neural basis of moral behavior should be taken into account.

Moral maturity and delinquency after prenatal alcohol exposure.

PubMed

Schonfeld, Amy M; Mattson, Sarah N; Riley, Edward P

2005-07-01

Prenatal exposure to alcohol is associated with cognitive, behavioral and social deficits, including delinquency. Although delinquent populations and those with intellectual and behavioral deficits exhibit impaired moral judgment and reasoning, this area remains unexplored in alcohol-exposed individuals. Moral maturity and delinquency were evaluated in 27 participants with prenatal alcohol exposure (ALC group) and 29 nonexposed controls (CON group) matched on age (range: 10-18), gender, handedness, socioeconomic status and ethnicity. Moral maturity was evaluated using the Sociomoral Reflection Measure-Short Form, and delinquency was evaluated with the Conduct Disorder (CD) Questionnaire. Additional measures included social desirability and inhibition. The ALC group performed at a lower level of moral maturity than the CON group. Whereas Verbal IQ primarily predicted this difference, a deficit on the moral value judgment having to do with relationships with others was specific to prenatal alcohol exposure. Furthermore, delinquency was higher in the ALC group, and specific sociomoral values were predictive of delinquent behavior. Finally, half of the children and adolescents with a history of prenatal alcohol exposure but without fetal alcohol syndrome had probable CD. The results of this study indicate that interventions aimed at reducing delinquency in those with prenatal alcohol exposure are necessary, and targeting moral judgment for this purpose may be beneficial.

Bringing free will down to Earth: people's psychological concept of free will and its role in moral judgment.

PubMed

Monroe, Andrew E; Dillon, Kyle D; Malle, Bertram F

2014-07-01

Belief in free will is widespread, and this belief is supposed to undergird moral and legal judgment. Despite the importance of the free will concept, however, there remains widespread confusion regarding its definition and its connection to blame. We address this confusion by testing two prominent models of the folk concept of free will-a metaphysical model, in which free will involves a soul as an uncaused "first mover," and a psychological model, in which free will involves choice, alignment with desires, and lack of constraints. We test the predictions of these two models by creating agents that vary in their capacity for choice and the presence of a soul. In two studies, people's judgments of free will and blame for these agents show little to no basis in ascriptions of a soul but are powerfully predicted by ascriptions of choice capacity. These results support a psychological model of the folk concept of free will. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Decision Processes in Military Moral Dilemmas: The Role of Moral Intensity and Moral Judgment

DTIC Science & Technology

2008-12-01

dilemmes moraux. Selon les analyses de régression, la façon dont les participants percevaient une option comparativement à l’autre (c.-à-d., d’une...option comparativement à l’autre (c.-à-d., d’une manière plus positive ou plus négative) sur l’échelle de l’intensité morale avait une corrélation...perception des participants à l’égard d’une option comparativement à l’autre pour ce qui est de l’intensité morale et de la

Adolescents' Self-Attributed Moral Emotions Following a Moral Transgression: Relations with Delinquency, Confidence in Moral Judgment and Age

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Krettenauer, Tobias; Eichler, Dana

2006-01-01

The study investigates adolescents' self-attributed moral emotions following a moral transgression by expanding research with children on the happy-victimizer phenomenon. In a sample of 200 German adolescents from Grades 7, 9, 11, and 13 (M=16.18 years, SD=2.41), participants were confronted with various scenarios describing different moral rule…

Moral complexity in middle childhood: children's evaluations of necessary harm.

PubMed

Jambon, Marc; Smetana, Judith G

2014-01-01

We assessed 5- to 11-year-olds' (N = 76) judgments of straightforward moral transgressions (prototypical harm) as well as their evaluations of complex, hypothetical scenarios in which an actor transgresses in order to prevent injury (necessary harm). The nature of the actor's transgression (psychological or physical harm) varied across participants. Moral judgments and justifications, knowledge of the actor's psychological experience, and their associations were examined. At all ages, children negatively evaluated prototypical harm; judgments of necessary harm became increasingly more forgiving with age as justifications pertaining to the actor's harm decreased. References to the actor's positive actions and children's tendency to coordinate conflicting concerns increased with age, but only when evaluating psychological harm. Across conditions, older children viewed transgressors as holding increasingly more positive attitudes toward their own actions, and this was uniquely associated with more forgiving moral judgments and justifications of necessary but not prototypical harm. Findings are discussed in relation to the emergence of more flexible and nuanced moral evaluations during middle childhood. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Cultural Practices, Oppression, and Morality.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Turiel, Elliot

1998-01-01

Argues that contested meanings, multiple judgments, and conflicts are part of cultures and the individual's thoughts and actions. Contends that people make moral judgments that may affirm or contradict cultural norms and practices, and sometimes invoke concepts of welfare, justice, and rights. Notes that some key aspects of Baumrind's neo-Marxist…

Dual-task interference effects on cross-modal numerical order and sound intensity judgments: the more the louder?

PubMed

Alards-Tomalin, Doug; Walker, Alexander C; Nepon, Hillary; Leboe-McGowan, Launa C

2017-09-01

In the current study, cross-task interactions between number order and sound intensity judgments were assessed using a dual-task paradigm. Participants first categorized numerical sequences composed of Arabic digits as either ordered (ascending, descending) or non-ordered. Following each number sequence, participants then had to judge the intensity level of a target sound. Experiment 1 emphasized processing the two tasks independently (serial processing), while Experiments 2 and 3 emphasized processing the two tasks simultaneously (parallel processing). Cross-task interference occurred only when the task required parallel processing and was specific to ascending numerical sequences, which led to a higher proportion of louder sound intensity judgments. In Experiment 4 we examined whether this unidirectional interaction was the result of participants misattributing enhanced processing fluency experienced on ascending sequences as indicating a louder target sound. The unidirectional finding could not be entirely attributed to misattributed processing fluency, and may also be connected to experientially derived conceptual associations between ascending number sequences and greater magnitude, consistent with conceptual mapping theory.

Investigating the Neural and Cognitive Basis of Moral Luck: It's Not What You Do but What You Know.

PubMed

Young, Liane; Nichols, Shaun; Saxe, Rebecca

2010-09-01

Moral judgments, we expect, ought not to depend on luck. A person should be blamed only for actions and outcomes that were under the person's control. Yet often, moral judgments appear to be influenced by luck. A father who leaves his child by the bath, after telling his child to stay put and believing that he will stay put, is judged to be morally blameworthy if the child drowns (an unlucky outcome), but not if his child stays put and doesn't drown. Previous theories of moral luck suggest that this asymmetry reflects primarily the influence of unlucky outcomes on moral judgments. In the current study, we use behavioral methods and fMRI to test an alternative: these moral judgments largely reflect participants' judgments of the agent's beliefs. In "moral luck" scenarios, the unlucky agent also holds a false belief. Here, we show that moral luck depends more on false beliefs than bad outcomes. We also show that participants with false beliefs are judged as having less justified beliefs and are therefore judged as more morally blameworthy. The current study lends support to a rationalist account of moral luck: moral luck asymmetries are driven not by outcome bias primarily, but by mental state assessments we endorse as morally relevant, i.e. whether agents are justified in thinking that they won't cause harm.

Developing Moral Responsibleness through Professional Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Strom, Sharon M.; Tennyson, W. Wesley

1989-01-01

Argues that more attention must be given in counselor preparation and practice to developing critical reflectiveness about valued ends when making professional judgments. Describes and evaluates an instructional model designed to further students' capacities and motivations for making rational moral judgments in counseling. (Author/TE)

Conflict Background Triggered Congruency Sequence Effects in Graphic Judgment Task

PubMed Central

Zhao, Liang; Wang, Yonghui

2013-01-01

Congruency sequence effects refer to the reduction of congruency effects when following an incongruent trial than following a congruent trial. The conflict monitoring account, one of the most influential contributions to this effect, assumes that the sequential modulations are evoked by response conflict. The present study aimed at exploring the congruency sequence effects in the absence of response conflict. We found congruency sequence effects occurred in graphic judgment task, in which the conflict stimuli acted as irrelevant information. The findings reveal that processing task-irrelevant conflict stimulus features could also induce sequential modulations of interference. The results do not support the interpretation of conflict monitoring and favor a feature integration account that the congruency sequence effects are attributed to the repetitions of stimulus and response features. PMID:23372766

Are happier people less judgmental of other people’s selfish behaviors? Experimental survey evidence from trust and gift exchange games

PubMed Central

Drouvelis, Michalis; Powdthavee, Nattavudh

2017-01-01

What determines people’s moral judgments of selfish behaviors? Here we study whether people’s normative views in trust and gift exchange games, which underlie many situations of economic and social significance, are themselves functions of positive emotions. We use experimental survey methods to investigate the moral judgments of impartial observers empirically, and explore whether we could influence subsequent judgments by deliberately making some individuals happier. We find that moral judgments of selfish behaviors in the economic context depend strongly on the behavior of the interaction partner of the judged person, but their relationships are significantly moderated by an increase in happiness for the person making the judgment. PMID:28729964

Moral reasoning in women with posttraumatic stress disorder related to childhood abuse

PubMed Central

Nazarov, Anthony; Walaszczyk, Victoria; Frewen, Paul; Oremus, Carolina; Lanius, Ruth; McKinnon, Margaret C.

2016-01-01

Background Preliminary evidence suggests that relative to healthy controls, patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) show deficits on several inter-related social cognitive tasks, including theory of mind, and emotion comprehension. Systematic investigations examining other aspects of social cognition, including moral reasoning, have not been conducted in PTSD stemming from childhood trauma. Objective To conduct a comprehensive assessment of moral reasoning performance in individuals with PTSD stemming from childhood abuse. Method Moral reasoning performance was assessed in 28 women with PTSD related to prolonged childhood trauma and 19 matched healthy controls. Performance was assessed using 12 modified moral dilemmas and was queried in three domains: utilitarian/deontological sacrificial dilemmas (personal and impersonal), social order vs. compassion, and altruism vs. self-interest. Participants were asked whether a proposed action was morally acceptable or unacceptable and whether or not they would perform this action under the circumstances described. Results Women with PTSD were less likely to carry out utilitarian actions in personal, sacrificial moral dilemmas, a choice driven primarily by consequential intrapersonal disapproval. Increased concern regarding intrapersonal disapproval was related to higher symptoms of guilt in the PTSD group. Patients with PTSD demonstrated less altruistic moral reasoning, primarily associated with decreased empathic role-taking for beneficiaries. Conclusions Women with PTSD due to childhood trauma show alterations in moral reasoning marked by decreased utilitarian judgment and decreased altruism. Childhood trauma may continue to impact moral choices made into adulthood. Highlights of the article Moral judgment processing was found to be altered in women with PTSD related to chronic childhood trauma. In comparison to healthy women, women with PTSD were less likely to approve utilitarian actions when required to

Educational Leaders as Moral Leaders: The Value of Virtue.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Growe, Roslin

This essay examines the nature of morality and professional judgment from the perspective of executive and administrative decision making. The central focus includes matters on moral development as related to the professional training of administrators. A conceptual framework of moral development in making moral decisions begins with an…

Responding to moral dilemmas: the roles of empathy and collectivist values among the Chinese.

PubMed

Mann, Stephen K F; Cheng, Viviana

2013-08-01

The present study assessed how empathy and vertical collectivism are related to moral competency in a sample of Hong Kong Chinese university students (N = 153; 70 men, 83 women). The Emotional Tendency Scale, Individualism-Collectivism Scale, and Moral Judgment Test were used to quantify empathy, vertical collectivism, and moral competency, respectively. Results showed that empathy was not statistically significantly correlated with moral judgment. The interaction of vertical collectivism and empathy predicted a theoretically important portion of the variance in moral competency. The role of culture in moral development was discussed.

The relevance of moral norms in distinct relational contexts: Purity versus harm norms regulate self-directed actions

PubMed Central

Dungan, James A.; Chakroff, Alek; Young, Liane

2017-01-01

Recent efforts to partition the space of morality have focused on the descriptive content of distinct moral domains (e.g., harm versus purity), or alternatively, the relationship between the perpetrator and victim of moral violations. Across three studies, we demonstrate that harm and purity norms are relevant in distinct relational contexts. Moral judgments of purity violations, compared to harm violations, are relatively more sensitive to the negative impact perpetrators have on themselves versus other victims (Study 1). This pattern replicates across a wide array of harm and purity violations varying in severity (Studies 2 and 3). Moreover, while perceptions of harm predict moral judgment consistently across relational contexts, perceptions of purity predict moral judgment more for self-directed actions, where perpetrators violate themselves, compared to dyadic actions, where perpetrators violate other victims (Study 3). Together, these studies reveal how an action’s content and its relational context interact to influence moral judgment, providing novel insights into the adaptive functions of harm and purity norms. PMID:28278214

Learning a commonsense moral theory.

PubMed

Kleiman-Weiner, Max; Saxe, Rebecca; Tenenbaum, Joshua B

2017-10-01

We introduce a computational framework for understanding the structure and dynamics of moral learning, with a focus on how people learn to trade off the interests and welfare of different individuals in their social groups and the larger society. We posit a minimal set of cognitive capacities that together can solve this learning problem: (1) an abstract and recursive utility calculus to quantitatively represent welfare trade-offs; (2) hierarchical Bayesian inference to understand the actions and judgments of others; and (3) meta-values for learning by value alignment both externally to the values of others and internally to make moral theories consistent with one's own attachments and feelings. Our model explains how children can build from sparse noisy observations of how a small set of individuals make moral decisions to a broad moral competence, able to support an infinite range of judgments and decisions that generalizes even to people they have never met and situations they have not been in or observed. It also provides insight into the causes and dynamics of moral change across time, including cases when moral change can be rapidly progressive, changing values significantly in just a few generations, and cases when it is likely to move more slowly. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Forms and Functions of Real-Life Moral Decision-Making.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Krebs, Dennis L.; Denton, Kathy; Wark, Gillian

1997-01-01

Observes that the Kohlbergian model of morality does not give a good account of the ways in which people make moral decisions in their everyday lives. Argues that a functional model of moral judgment and moral behavior derived from evolutionary theory may supply a better account of real-life morality. (DSK)

Active Learning in a Neuroethics Course Positively Impacts Moral Judgment Development in Undergraduates

PubMed Central

Abu-Odeh, Desiree; Dziobek, Derek; Jimenez, Nathalia Torres; Barbey, Christopher; Dubinsky, Janet M

2015-01-01

The growing neuroscientific understanding of the biological basis of behaviors has profound social and ethical implications. To address the need for public awareness of the consequences of these advances, we developed an undergraduate neuroethics course, Neuroscience and Society, at the University of Minnesota. Course evolution, objectives, content, and impact are described here. To engage all students and facilitate undergraduate ethics education, this course employed daily reading, writing, and student discussion, case analysis, and team presentations with goals of fostering development of moral reasoning and judgment and introducing application of bioethical frameworks to topics raised by neuroscience. Pre- and post-course Defining Issues Test (DIT) scores and student end-of-course reflections demonstrated that course objectives for student application of bioethical frameworks to neuroethical issues were met. The active-learning, student-centered pedagogical approaches used to achieve these goals serve as a model for how to effectively teach neuroethics at the undergraduate level. PMID:25838802

Homogeneity of Moral Judgment? Apprentices Solving Business Conflicts.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beck, Klaus; Heinrichs, Karin; Minnameier, Gerhard; Parche-Kawik, Kirsten

In an ongoing longitudinal study that started in 1994, the moral development of business apprentices is being studied. The focal point of this project is a critical analysis of L. Kohlberg's thesis of homogeneity, according to which people should judge every moral issue from the point of view of their "modal" stage (the most frequently…

Emotional and Utilitarian Appraisals of Moral Dilemmas Are Encoded in Separate Areas and Integrated in Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex

PubMed Central

Montaser-Kouhsari, Leila; Woodward, James; Rangel, Antonio

2015-01-01

Moral judgment often requires making difficult tradeoffs (e.g., is it appropriate to torture to save the lives of innocents at risk?). Previous research suggests that both emotional appraisals and more deliberative utilitarian appraisals influence such judgments and that these appraisals often conflict. However, it is unclear how these different types of appraisals are represented in the brain, or how they are integrated into an overall moral judgment. We addressed these questions using an fMRI paradigm in which human subjects provide separate emotional and utilitarian appraisals for different potential actions, and then make difficult moral judgments constructed from combinations of these actions. We found that anterior cingulate, insula, and superior temporal gyrus correlated with emotional appraisals, whereas temporoparietal junction and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex correlated with utilitarian appraisals. Overall moral value judgments were represented in an anterior portion of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Critically, the pattern of responses and functional interactions between these three sets of regions are consistent with a model in which emotional and utilitarian appraisals are computed independently and in parallel, and passed to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex where they are integrated into an overall moral value judgment. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Popular accounts of moral judgment often describe it as a battle for control between two systems, one intuitive and emotional, the other rational and utilitarian, engaged in winner-take-all inhibitory competition. Using a novel fMRI paradigm, we identified distinct neural signatures of emotional and utilitarian appraisals and used them to test different models of how they compete for the control of moral behavior. Importantly, we find little support for competitive inhibition accounts. Instead, moral judgments resembled the architecture of simple economic choices: distinct regions represented emotional

Moral Severity is Represented as a Domain-General Magnitude.