Emotional Intelligence and Cognitive Moral Development in Undergraduate Business Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McBride, Elizabeth A.

2010-01-01

This study examines relationships between emotional intelligence (EI) and cognitive moral development (CMD) in undergraduate business students. The ability model of emotional intelligence was used in this study, which evaluated possible relationships between EI and CMD in a sample of 82 undergraduate business students. The sample population was…

Subjective Idealism in Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development: A Cricital Analysis.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baribeau, Jacinthe M. C.; Braun, Claude M. J.

1978-01-01

Philosophical tendencies in Kohlberg's cognitive-developmental theory of moral development such as apriorism, absolutism and formalism are unfavorably contrasted with the dialectical categories of historicism, double interactionism and reflection. In logic and epistemology the cognitive-developmental theory is shown to be based on a subjective…

Aggression and Moral Development: Integrating Social Information Processing and Moral Domain Models

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arsenio, William F.; Lemerise, Elizabeth A.

2004-01-01

Social information processing and moral domain theories have developed in relative isolation from each other despite their common focus on intentional harm and victimization, and mutual emphasis on social cognitive processes in explaining aggressive, morally relevant behaviors. This article presents a selective summary of these literatures with…

Taxing Times: An Educational Intervention to Enhance Moral Reasoning in Tax

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Doyle, Elaine

2015-01-01

This paper outlines the development and implementation of an online educational intervention designed to enhance moral reasoning in higher level tax students. Before decisions are made about how to behave ethically, cognitive moral reasoning takes place. The importance of education in developing morally sensitive individuals who use principled…

Integrating Moral and Social Development within Middle School Social Studies: A Social Cognitive Domain Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nucci, Larry; Creane, Michael W.; Powers, Deborah W.

2015-01-01

Eleven teachers and 254 urban middle-school students comprised the sample of this study examining the social and moral development outcomes of the integration of social cognitive domain theory within regular classroom instruction. Participating teachers were trained to construct and implement history lessons that stimulated students' moral…

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

Moral learning: Psychological and philosophical perspectives.

PubMed

Cushman, Fiery; Kumar, Victor; Railton, Peter

2017-10-01

The past 15years occasioned an extraordinary blossoming of research into the cognitive and affective mechanisms that support moral judgment and behavior. This growth in our understanding of moral mechanisms overshadowed a crucial and complementary question, however: How are they learned? As this special issue of the journal Cognition attests, a new crop of research into moral learning has now firmly taken root. This new literature draws on recent advances in formal methods developed in other domains, such as Bayesian inference, reinforcement learning and other machine learning techniques. Meanwhile, it also demonstrates how learning and deciding in a social domain-and especially in the moral domain-sometimes involves specialized cognitive systems. We review the contributions to this special issue and situate them within the broader contemporary literature. Our review focuses on how we learn moral values and moral rules, how we learn about personal moral character and relationships, and the philosophical implications of these emerging models. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A Lamp for Diogenes: Leadership Giftedness and Moral Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lindsay, Bryan

1988-01-01

Leadership education is distinguished from leadership training, and moral education from moral indoctrination, in a discussion of the need to educate young gifted leaders in moral excellence. The role of parents is discussed, and parallels drawn between Bloom's Taxonomy and Kohlberg's model of cognitive moral development. (JW)

Emile's Moral Development. A Rousseauan Perspective on Kohlberg.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Simpson, Evan

1983-01-01

Uses Rousseau's "Emile" to explicate Kohlberg's characterization of moral development and to illuminate several theoretical problems in Kohlberg's cognitive-developmental account. Analysis supports contentions that Kohlberg's concept of morality is unduly narrow and suggests that his one-sidedly rationalistic approach exaggerates the…

Recovering the Role of Reasoning in Moral Education to Address Inequity and Social Justice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nucci, Larry

2016-01-01

This article reasserts the centrality of reasoning as the focus for moral education. Attention to moral cognition must be extended to incorporate sociogenetic processes in moral growth. Moral education is not simply growth within the moral domain, but addresses capacities of students to engage in cross-domain coordination. Development beyond…

Selective Ethics and Integrity: Moral Development and Prison Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Duguid, Stephen

1986-01-01

A case exists for there being a moral dimension to prison education and a case against moral education programs in prison. The argument is made that prisoners are one part of a large group of citizens who suffer from uneven development in the cognitive and moral realms due to biographical and structural factors. (Author/CT)

Effect of Training on Reasoning in Moral Choice.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kaplan, Martin F.

Moral development is viewed as a matter of progression in the cognitive reasoning and rationale underlying choices and judgments. Traditionally, retrospective reports of rationales have been used to measure moral development levels, resulting in unreliable information. Information Integration Theory attempts to assess individual differences in…

Adolescents' aggressive and prosocial behaviors: links with social information processing, negative emotionality, moral affect, and moral cognition.

PubMed

Laible, Deborah J; Murphy, Tia Panfile; Augustine, Mairin

2014-01-01

The goal of this study was to examine whether moral affect, moral cognition, negative emotionality, and attribution biases independently predicted adolescents' prosocial and aggressive behavior in adolescence. A total of 148 adolescents completed self-report measures of prosocial and aggressive behavior, moral affect, moral cognition, negative emotionality, and attribution biases. Although in general all 3 factors (emotional, moral, and social cognitive) were correlated with adolescent social behavior, the most consistent independent predictors of adolescent social behavior were moral affect and cognition. These findings have important implications for intervention and suggest that programs that promote adolescent perspective taking, moral reasoning, and moral affect are needed to reduce aggressive behavior and promote prosocial behavior.

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)

Where in the brain is morality? Everywhere and maybe nowhere.

PubMed

Young, Liane; Dungan, James

2012-01-01

The neuroscience of morality has focused on how morality works and where it is in the brain. In tackling these questions, researchers have taken both domain-specific and domain-general approaches-searching for neural substrates and systems dedicated to moral cognition versus characterizing the contributions of domain-general processes. Where in the brain is morality? On one hand, morality is made up of complex cognitive processes, deployed across many domains and housed all over the brain. On the other hand, no neural substrate or system that uniquely supports moral cognition has been found. In this review, we will discuss early assumptions of domain-specificity in moral neuroscience as well as subsequent investigations of domain-general contributions, taking emotion and social cognition (i.e., theory of mind) as case studies. Finally, we will consider possible cognitive accounts of a domain-specific morality: Does uniquely moral cognition exist?

A Comparison of the Cognitive Moral Development of Christian University Seniors in Traditional versus Adult Degree Completion Programs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Loomis, Michael J.

2009-01-01

This research uses the Defining Issues Test-2 (DIT-2) to investigate the cognitive moral development of college seniors in adult degree completion (ADC) programs and traditional undergraduate (TU) programs at three Council of Christian College and University institutions. Overall, TU students had significantly higher scores on the DIT-2, TU…

Managerial Cognitive Moral Development and the Firm's Owners' Salience: Empirical Evidence

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martynov, Aleksey; Logachev, Sergey

2016-01-01

In this paper, we study the agency relationship between the firm's owners and managers. We apply the theory of Cognitive Moral Development (CMD) to answer the question: What factors affect salience of the interests of the firm's owners to the managers? Using a sample of Russian managers, we found that higher levels of CMD weaken the relationship…

The rise of moral cognition.

PubMed

Greene, Joshua D

2015-02-01

The field of moral cognition has grown rapidly in recent years thanks in no small part to Cognition. Consistent with its interdisciplinary tradition, Cognition encouraged the growth of this field by supporting empirical research conducted by philosophers as well as research native to neighboring fields such as social psychology, evolutionary game theory, and behavioral economics. This research has been exceptionally diverse both in its content and methodology. I argue that this is because morality is unified at the functional level, but not at the cognitive level, much as vehicles are unified by shared function rather than shared mechanics. Research in moral cognition, then, has progressed by explaining the phenomena that we identify as "moral" (for high-level functional reasons) in terms of diverse cognitive components that are not specific to morality. In light of this, research on moral cognition may continue to flourish, not as the identification and characterization of distinctive moral processes, but as a testing ground for theories of high-level, integrative cognitive function. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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)

Kohlberg for Chaplains: A Theory of Moral Development.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zappone, Katherine E.

1978-01-01

Explains how Lawrence Kohlberg's cognitive developmental approach to moral education presents military chaplains with a potentially effective method of education. Cautions chaplains to recognize the differences between Kohlberg's philosophical/psychological ethics and Christian morality. Journal availability: see SO 506 875. (DB)

Integrated Moral Conviction Theory of Student Cheating: An Empirical Test

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roberts, Foster; Thomas, Christopher H.; Novicevic, Milorad M.; Ammeter, Anthony; Garner, Bart; Johnson, Paul; Popoola, Ifeoluwa

2018-01-01

In this article, we develop an "integrated moral conviction theory of student cheating" by integrating moral conviction with (a) the dual-process model of Hunt-Vitell's theory that gives primacy to individual ethical philosophies when moral judgments are made and (b) the social cognitive conceptualization that gives primacy to moral…

Moral Developmental Science between Changing Paradigms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Keller, Monika

2012-01-01

This review encompasses a time-span of about 50 years of research on morality and moral development. It discusses Kohlberg's (1984) work as a milestone that constituted the cognitive developmental viewpoint of morality and that dominated research for about three decades. In this paradigm the role of reasoning and deliberation was emphasized as the…

A Model of Moral Stages

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reed, Don Collins

2008-01-01

The argument of this paper focuses on the relationship between cognitive structures and structures of interaction. It contends that there is still a place in moral development theory and research for a concept of moral stages. The thesis, in short, is that moral stages are not structures of thought. They are structures of action encoded in…

The Moral Development of the Child: An Integrated Model

PubMed Central

Ma, Hing Keung

2013-01-01

Previous theories of moral development such as those by Piaget and Kohlberg usually focused on the cognitive or rational aspect, and seldom included the affective aspect in their construction. The characteristics of the stages of moral development in the present paper are elaborated with special reference to psychological needs, altruism and human relationships, and justice reasoning. The three stages are: (1) Physical Survival, Selfishness, and Obedience, (2) Love Needs, Reciprocal Altruism, and Instrumental Purpose; and (3) Belongingness Needs, Primary Group Altruism, and Mutual Interpersonal Expectations. At Stage 1, a deep and profound attachment to parents, empathy toward the significant others, and obedience to authorities all contribute to the physical survival of a person at this stage. People at Stage 2 are self-protective, dominant, exploitative, and opportunistic. The need to love and to be loved is gratified on the basis of reciprocal altruism. People at Stage 3 have a strong desire to gratify their belongingness needs to a primary group. They are willing to sacrifice for the benefits of the group at great cost. While the psychological needs and altruism are related to the affective aspect of moral development, the justice reasoning is related to the cognitive aspect. The proposed theoretical model attempts to integrate the affective and cognitive aspects of moral development, and prototypic responses to questions related to hypothetical moral dilemmas are presented to substantiate the proposed stage structures. It is hypothesized that the sequence of these three stages is invariant of person and culture. PMID:24350226

The moral development of the child: an integrated model.

PubMed

Ma, Hing Keung

2013-01-01

Previous theories of moral development such as those by Piaget and Kohlberg usually focused on the cognitive or rational aspect, and seldom included the affective aspect in their construction. The characteristics of the stages of moral development in the present paper are elaborated with special reference to psychological needs, altruism and human relationships, and justice reasoning. The three stages are: (1) Physical Survival, Selfishness, and Obedience, (2) Love Needs, Reciprocal Altruism, and Instrumental Purpose; and (3) Belongingness Needs, Primary Group Altruism, and Mutual Interpersonal Expectations. At Stage 1, a deep and profound attachment to parents, empathy toward the significant others, and obedience to authorities all contribute to the physical survival of a person at this stage. People at Stage 2 are self-protective, dominant, exploitative, and opportunistic. The need to love and to be loved is gratified on the basis of reciprocal altruism. People at Stage 3 have a strong desire to gratify their belongingness needs to a primary group. They are willing to sacrifice for the benefits of the group at great cost. While the psychological needs and altruism are related to the affective aspect of moral development, the justice reasoning is related to the cognitive aspect. The proposed theoretical model attempts to integrate the affective and cognitive aspects of moral development, and prototypic responses to questions related to hypothetical moral dilemmas are presented to substantiate the proposed stage structures. It is hypothesized that the sequence of these three stages is invariant of person and culture.

Universities as Moral Communities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kovac, Jeffrey; Coppola, Brian P.

2000-01-01

Explores what morally reflective educational practice might look like, focusing on education as a relational human activity that has a moral dimension. Discusses: (1) instructional goals (development of character, cognitive skills, and disciplinary skills, and reintegration of knowledge); (2) pedagogy (for example, the hidden curriculum in…

The Unifying Moral Dyad: Liberals and Conservatives Share the Same Harm-Based Moral Template.

PubMed

Schein, Chelsea; Gray, Kurt

2015-08-01

Do moral disagreements regarding specific issues (e.g., patriotism, chastity) reflect deep cognitive differences (i.e., distinct cognitive mechanisms) between liberals and conservatives? Dyadic morality suggests that the answer is "no." Despite moral diversity, we reveal that moral cognition--in both liberals and conservatives--is rooted in a harm-based template. A dyadic template suggests that harm should be central within moral cognition, an idea tested--and confirmed--through six specific hypotheses. Studies suggest that moral judgment occurs via dyadic comparison, in which counter-normative acts are compared with a prototype of harm. Dyadic comparison explains why harm is the most accessible and important of moral content, why harm organizes--and overlaps with--diverse moral content, and why harm best translates across moral content. Dyadic morality suggests that various moral content (e.g., loyalty, purity) are varieties of perceived harm and that past research has substantially exaggerated moral differences between liberals and conservatives. © 2015 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

The Development of Cooperation: Explorations in Cognitive and Moral Competence and Social Authority.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kutnick, P.J.; Brees, Patricia

1982-01-01

Three groups of children pursued sensitivity exercises, cooperative activities, and free play, respectively, over six weeks. Children in the sensitivity group (which promoted trust/dependence) showed less competitive and more cooperative behaviors on a cognitive task and more child-sensitivity on a moral task than the other two groups. (Author/MJL)

Moral Cognition: Explaining the Gender Difference in Antisocial Behavior.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barriga, Alvaro Q.; Morrison, Elizabeth M.; Liau, Albert K.; Gibbs, John C.

2001-01-01

Examined whether gender discrepancy in late adolescents' antisocial behavior may be attributed to gender differences in other moral cognitive variables. Found that mature moral judgment and higher moral self-relevance were associated with lower self-serving cognitive distortion, partially mediating the relationship between those variables and…

Effect of Psilocybin on Empathy and Moral Decision-Making

PubMed Central

Preller, Katrin H; Kometer, Michael; Dziobek, Isabel; Vollenweider, Franz X

2017-01-01

Abstract Background Impaired empathic abilities lead to severe negative social consequences and influence the development and treatment of several psychiatric disorders. Furthermore, empathy has been shown to play a crucial role in moral and prosocial behavior. Although the serotonin system has been implicated in modulating empathy and moral behavior, the relative contribution of the various serotonin receptor subtypes is still unknown. Methods We investigated the acute effect of psilocybin (0.215 mg/kg p.o.) in healthy human subjects on different facets of empathy and hypothetical moral decision-making using the multifaceted empathy test (n=32) and the moral dilemma task (n=24). Results Psilocybin significantly increased emotional, but not cognitive empathy compared with placebo, and the increase in implicit emotional empathy was significantly associated with psilocybin-induced changed meaning of percepts. In contrast, moral decision-making remained unaffected by psilocybin. Conclusions These findings provide first evidence that psilocybin has distinct effects on social cognition by enhancing emotional empathy but not moral behavior. Furthermore, together with previous findings, psilocybin appears to promote emotional empathy presumably via activation of serotonin 2A/1A receptors, suggesting that targeting serotonin 2A/1A receptors has implications for potential treatment of dysfunctional social cognition. PMID:28637246

A Trans-Actional Approach to Moral Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pamental, Matthew

2010-01-01

Among the latest trends in moral educational theory, several authors have suggested that a sociocultural approach to moral education is an improvement over the dominant cognitive-developmental and character educational paradigms. This approach draws its inspiration from the work of the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. In the 1920s, Vygotsky…

The Development of Generosity and Moral Cognition across Five Cultures

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cowell, Jason M.; Lee, Kang; Malcolm-Smith, Susan; Selcuk, Bilge; Zhou, Xinyue; Decety, Jean

2017-01-01

Morality is an evolved aspect of human nature, yet is heavily influenced by cultural environment. This developmental study adopted an integrative approach by combining measures of socioeconomic status (SES), executive function, affective sharing, empathic concern, theory of mind, and moral judgment in predicting sharing behavior in children (N =…

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…

Educating for Personal and Social Responsibility: A Review of the Literature

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Swaner, Lynn E.

2005-01-01

Educating for personal and social responsibility, from the perspective of moral cognition, involves promoting students' cognitive development. The literature suggests several approaches as successful in promoting cognitive development. Though Kohlberg views this development as primarily facilitated by dialogue with individuals in more advanced …

The Concept of the Moral Domain in Moral Foundations Theory and Cognitive Developmental Theory: Horses for Courses?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Maxwell, Bruce; Beaulac, Guillaume

2013-01-01

Moral foundations theory chastises cognitive developmental theory for having foisted on moral psychology a restrictive conception of the moral domain which involves arbitrarily elevating the values of justice and caring. The account of this negative influence on moral psychology, referred to in the moral foundations theory literature as the…

The Problem of Moral Motivation and the Happy Victimizer Phenomenon: Killing Two Birds with One Stone

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Minnameier, Gerhard

2010-01-01

One surprising feature of cognitive and emotional development in the moral domain is the so-called happy victimizer phenomenon, which is commonly explained by a lack of moral motivation. Concerning this general approach, there are two pieces of news in this chapter. The bad news is that moral motivation is a highly problematic concept and its…

Moral attentiveness: who pays attention to the moral aspects of life?

PubMed

Reynolds, Scott J

2008-09-01

This research draws from social cognitive theory to develop a construct known as moral attentiveness, the extent to which an individual chronically perceives and considers morality and moral elements in his or her experiences, and proposes that moral attentiveness affects a variety of behaviors. A series of 5 studies with undergraduates, MBA students, and managers were conducted to create and validate a reliable multidimensional scale and to provide evidence that moral attentiveness is associated with (a) the recall and reporting of self- and others' morality-related behaviors, (b) moral awareness, and (c) moral behavior. Results of the studies suggest that moral attentiveness has a significant effect on how individuals understand and act in their moral worlds.

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.

Moral disengagement and callous-unemotional traits: A longitudinal study of Italian adolescents with a disruptive behaviour disorder.

PubMed

Muratori, Pietro; Paciello, Marinella; Buonanno, Carlo; Milone, Annarita; Ruglioni, Laura; Lochman, John E; Masi, Gabriele

2017-12-01

Callous-unemotional traits have been proposed as risk factors for a poorer prognosis in young people with disruptive behaviour disorders. Identification of factors that may cause or maintain elevated levels of such traits could help in developing targeted therapeutic interventions. Some previous studies have investigated the role of moral cognitive mechanisms, such as moral disengagement, but these previous studies focused primarily on normal or 'at-risk' samples. We aimed to evaluate associations and possible interactions between moral disengagement as a cognitive dimension and callous-unemotional traits as an affective dimension in adolescents with disruptive behaviour disorders. We recruited 55 adolescents with a disruptive behaviour disorder from a community care hospital in Pisa. They were evaluated at baseline and after one year with measures that included a moral disengagement scale, the Antisocial Process Screening Device, to assess callous traits, and the Youth Self-Report, to explore externalising behaviour problems. Structural equation modelling showed that higher initial moral disengagement scores were associated with later higher levels of callous-unemotional traits in adolescents and vice versa, even after, respectively, controlling for previous levels of callous traits and moral disengagement. As impairments in either cognitive or affective traits may predispose to problematic development of the other, our findings would suggest that screening at the earliest opportunity possible for both moral disengagement and callous-unemotional traits among children with disruptive behaviour disorders could help to map natural outcome pathways and thus tailor more accurate interventions for prevention of antisocial or criminal behaviour. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Virtues and Vices of Moral Development Theorists.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Helwig, Charles C.; And Others

1996-01-01

Claims that Campbell and Christopher's literature on moral development construes the cognitive-developmental and domain approaches too narrowly, overinterprets the influence of Kant, excludes other equally important non-Kantian philosophical influences, and ignores much of the research evidence. Describes the need for drawing distinctions in…

Three Misunderstandings of Plato's Theory of Moral Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jonas, Mark E.

2016-01-01

In this essay, Mark Jonas argues that there are three broadly held misconceptions of Plato's philosophy that work against his relevance for contemporary moral education. The first is that he is an intellectualist who is concerned only with the cognitive aspect of moral development and does not sufficiently emphasize the affective and conative…

A Critical Comparison of Classical and Domain Theory: Some Implications for Character Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Keefer, Matthew Wilks

2006-01-01

Contemporary approaches to moral education are influenced by the "domain theory" approach to understanding moral development (Turiel, 1983; 1998; Nucci, 2001). Domain theory holds there are distinct conventional, personal and moral domains; each constituting a cognitive "structured-whole" with its own normative source and sphere of influence. One…

A Cognitive Approach to the "Happy Victimiser"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Minnameier, Gerhard

2012-01-01

The happy victimiser phenomenon has puzzled many researchers in the field of moral development. After having learnt and internalised what is morally right and wrong, young children tend to attribute positive feelings to observed models of their age who explicitly harm other children. This has been mainly explained as a lack of moral motivation or…

Toward a Holistic Framework for Moral Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clarken, Rodney H.

2007-01-01

Society is in turmoil that can be termed a moral crisis the result of dogmatic materialistic worldviews. A more holistic framework for moral development based on the tripartite theory that considers cognitive, affective and conative domains and capacities is presented along with some guiding principles as an answer to the needs of the modern…

All for One: Contributions of Age, Socioeconomic Factors, Executive Functioning, and Social Cognition to Moral Reasoning in Childhood

PubMed Central

Vera-Estay, Evelyn; Seni, Anne G.; Champagne, Caroline; Beauchamp, Miriam H.

2016-01-01

Moral reasoning (MR) is a socio-cognitive skill essential to appropriate social functioning in childhood, and evolves in quality and complexity during ontogenetic development. Past research suggests that MR is related to age, socioeconomic factors, as well as some social and cognitive skills, such as executive functioning (EF), theory of mind (ToM), empathy, and affect recognition. However, their contributions have been studied in silos rather than comprehensively, with little integration of the relative and combined contribution of these skills to MR. Furthermore, few studies have addressed the putative links between these factors in childhood, a period during which these skills are in maturation. The aim of this study was to explore what factors predict moral maturity in typically developing children (n = 76, 47.4% males, M = 9.2, SD = 1.67 years), explore the potential moderating and mediating role of executive functions and social cognition in the relationship between age and MR maturity, and identify the specific contributions of age, socioeconomic factors, EF, and social cognition, using an innovative visual MR assessment tool (So-Moral). The results indicate that MR maturity was correlated with age, EF (inhibition, verbal fluency, and attentional control), and social cognition (ToM and affect recognition). Neither EF nor social cognition moderated the effect of age on MR maturity. However, verbal fluency and third-order false beliefs had a moderating role in this link. MR maturity in children was predicted by three variables from each of the three domains: age, verbal fluency, and third-order ToM. These results contribute to a better understanding of the underpinnings of MR during childhood, suggesting that MR is not reducible to general developmental factors such as age, but that higher order skills, such EF and social cognition also contribute to moral maturity. The findings have relevance for both typically developing and clinical populations in which social skills may be reduced, as well as for the identification of potential loci for intervention in children at-risk for socially maladaptive behaviors. PMID:27014110

Main and moderated effects of moral cognition and status on bullying and defending.

PubMed

Caravita, Simona C S; Gini, Gianluca; Pozzoli, Tiziana

2012-01-01

This study analyzed the relations of two dimensions of moral cognition (i.e., acceptance of moral transgression and moral disengagement) and two forms of status in the peer group (i.e., social preference and perceived popularity) with bullying and defending among 235 primary-school children and 305 middle-school early adolescents. Social status was tested as a moderator of the associations between moral cognition and bullying and defending. Participants completed self-reports assessing the two dimensions of moral cognition and peer nominations for status, bullying, and defending. Both acceptance of moral transgression and moral disengagement were associated to bullying among early adolescents only, whereas in childhood moral disengagement was linked to defending among girls. Social status moderated the associations between morality dimensions and bullying and defending. The moderating effects of status were discussed considering status as a magnifying lens for the relations between individual characteristics and social behavior. The results were also discussed with reference to age and gender differences in the associations. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Distributed Cognition and Distributed Morality: Agency, Artifacts and Systems.

PubMed

Heersmink, Richard

2017-04-01

There are various philosophical approaches and theories describing the intimate relation people have to artifacts. In this paper, I explore the relation between two such theories, namely distributed cognition and distributed morality theory. I point out a number of similarities and differences in these views regarding the ontological status they attribute to artifacts and the larger systems they are part of. Having evaluated and compared these views, I continue by focussing on the way cognitive artifacts are used in moral practice. I specifically conceptualise how such artifacts (a) scaffold and extend moral reasoning and decision-making processes, (b) have a certain moral status which is contingent on their cognitive status, and (c) whether responsibility can be attributed to distributed systems. This paper is primarily written for those interested in the intersection of cognitive and moral theory as it relates to artifacts, but also for those independently interested in philosophical debates in extended and distributed cognition and ethics of (cognitive) technology.

The ABC of moral development: an attachment approach to moral judgment

PubMed Central

Govrin, Aner

2014-01-01

As with other cognitive faculties, the etiology of moral judgment and its connection to early development is complex. Because research is limited, the causative and contributory factors to the development of moral judgment in preverbal infants are unclear. However, evidence is emerging from studies within both infant research and moral psychology that may contribute to our understanding of the early development of moral judgments. Though its finding are preliminary, this proposed paradigm synthesizes these findings to generate an overarching, model of the process that appears to contribute to the development of moral judgment in the first year of life. I will propose that through early interactions with the caregiver, the child acquires an internal representation of a system of rules that determine how right/wrong judgments are to be construed, used, and understood. By breaking moral situations down into their defining features, the attachment model of moral judgment outlines a framework for a universal moral faculty based on a universal, innate, deep structure that appears uniformly in the structure of almost all moral judgments regardless of their content. The implications of the model for our understanding of innateness, universal morality, and the representations of moral situations are discussed. PMID:24478739

Effect of Psilocybin on Empathy and Moral Decision-Making.

PubMed

Pokorny, Thomas; Preller, Katrin H; Kometer, Michael; Dziobek, Isabel; Vollenweider, Franz X

2017-09-01

Impaired empathic abilities lead to severe negative social consequences and influence the development and treatment of several psychiatric disorders. Furthermore, empathy has been shown to play a crucial role in moral and prosocial behavior. Although the serotonin system has been implicated in modulating empathy and moral behavior, the relative contribution of the various serotonin receptor subtypes is still unknown. We investigated the acute effect of psilocybin (0.215 mg/kg p.o.) in healthy human subjects on different facets of empathy and hypothetical moral decision-making using the multifaceted empathy test (n=32) and the moral dilemma task (n=24). Psilocybin significantly increased emotional, but not cognitive empathy compared with placebo, and the increase in implicit emotional empathy was significantly associated with psilocybin-induced changed meaning of percepts. In contrast, moral decision-making remained unaffected by psilocybin. These findings provide first evidence that psilocybin has distinct effects on social cognition by enhancing emotional empathy but not moral behavior. Furthermore, together with previous findings, psilocybin appears to promote emotional empathy presumably via activation of serotonin 2A/1A receptors, suggesting that targeting serotonin 2A/1A receptors has implications for potential treatment of dysfunctional social cognition. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of CINP.

The problem of moral motivation and the happy victimizer phenomenon: killing two birds with one stone.

PubMed

Minnameier, Gerhard

2010-01-01

One surprising feature of cognitive and emotional development in the moral domain is the so-called happy victimizer phenomenon, which is commonly explained by a lack of moral motivation. Concerning this general approach, there are two pieces of news in this chapter. The bad news is that moral motivation is a highly problematic concept and its purported theoretical role in moral functioning untenable. The good news is that the happy victimizer phenomenon can be explained without reference to something like "moral motivation." © Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

On Dual Processing and Heuristic Approaches to Moral Cognition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lapsley, Daniel K.; Hill, Patrick L.

2008-01-01

We examine the implications of dual-processing theories of cognition for the moral domain, with particular emphasis upon "System 1" theories: the Social Intuitionist Model (Haidt), moral heuristics (Sunstein), fast-and-frugal moral heuristics (Gigerenzer), schema accessibility (Lapsley & Narvaez) and moral expertise (Narvaez). We argue that these…

Investigating emotion in moral cognition: a review of evidence from functional neuroimaging and neuropsychology.

PubMed

Young, Liane; Koenigs, Michael

2007-01-01

Human moral decision-making has long been a topic of philosophical debate, and, more recently, a topic for empirical investigation. Central to this investigation is the extent to which emotional processes underlie our decisions about moral right and wrong. Neuroscience offers a unique perspective on this question by addressing whether brain regions associated with emotional processing are involved in moral cognition. We conduct a narrative review of neuroscientific studies focused on the role of emotion in morality. Specifically, we describe evidence implicating the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), a brain region known to be important for emotional processing. Functional imaging studies demonstrate VMPC activation during tasks probing moral cognition. Studies of clinical populations, including patients with VMPC damage, reveal an association between impairments in emotional processing and impairments in moral judgement and behaviour. Considered together, these studies indicate that not only are emotions engaged during moral cognition, but that emotions, particularly those mediated by VMPC, are in fact critical for human morality.

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.

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.

Discovering the Neural Nature of Moral Cognition? Empirical, Theoretical, and Practical Challenges in Bioethical Research with Electroencephalography (EEG).

PubMed

Wagner, Nils-Frederic; Chaves, Pedro; Wolff, Annemarie

2017-06-01

In this article we critically review the neural mechanisms of moral cognition that have recently been studied via electroencephalography (EEG). Such studies promise to shed new light on traditional moral questions by helping us to understand how effective moral cognition is embodied in the brain. It has been argued that conflicting normative ethical theories require different cognitive features and can, accordingly, in a broadly conceived naturalistic attempt, be associated with different brain processes that are rooted in different brain networks and regions. This potentially morally relevant brain activity has been empirically investigated through EEG-based studies on moral cognition. From neuroscientific evidence gathered in these studies, a variety of normative conclusions have been drawn and bioethical applications have been suggested. We discuss methodological and theoretical merits and demerits of the attempt to use EEG techniques in a morally significant way, point to legal challenges and policy implications, indicate the potential to reveal biomarkers of psychopathological conditions, and consider issues that might inform future bioethical work.

Adolescent sexuality: values, morality and decision making.

PubMed

Juhasz, A M; Sonnenshein-Schneider, M

1987-01-01

The first section of this paper presents a theoretical basis of morality and value formation which provides the background for an examination of adolescent sexual and cognitive development. Data from a study of influences on the sexual decisions of five hundred 13- to 19-year-olds are analyzed in the remainder of the article. Relationships between individual characteristics and the importance of various influences are interpreted in light of the structure of values and moral development.

Emotional learning and the development of differential moralities: implications from research on psychopathy.

PubMed

Blair, R James R; White, Stuart F; Meffert, Harma; Hwang, Soonjo

2013-09-01

In this paper, we will argue that (1) four classes of norm can be distinguished from a neuro-cognitive perspective; (2) learning the prohibitive power of these norms relies on relatively independent emotional systems; (3) individuals with psychopathy show selective impairment for one of these emotional learning systems and two classes of norm: care based and justice based; and (4) while emotional learning systems are necessary for appropriate moral development/reasoning, they are not sufficient for moral development/reasoning.

Habitual Cognitive Reappraisal Was Negatively Related to Perceived Immorality in the Harm and Fairness Domains

PubMed Central

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

2017-01-01

Emotion plays an important role in moral judgment, and people always use emotion regulation strategies to modulate emotion, consciously or unconsciously. Previous studies had investigated only the relationship between emotion regulation strategies and moral judgment in the Harm domain, and revealed divergent results. Based on Moral Foundations Theory, the present study extended the investigation into moral judgment in all five moral domains and used a set of standardized moral vignettes. Two hundred and six college students filled in the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire and completed emotional ratings and moral judgment on moral vignettes from Moral Foundations Vignettes. Correlation analysis indicated that habitual cognitive reappraisal was negatively related to immorality rating in Harm, Fairness, and Loyalty domains. Regression analysis revealed that after controlling the effect of other variables, cognitive reappraisal negatively predicted immorality ratings in the Harm and Fairness domains. Further mediation analysis showed that emotional valence only partially explained the association between cognitive reappraisal and moral judgment in Harm area. Some other factors beyond emotional valence were suggested for future studies. PMID:29075229

Habitual Cognitive Reappraisal Was Negatively Related to Perceived Immorality in the Harm and Fairness Domains.

PubMed

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

2017-01-01

Emotion plays an important role in moral judgment, and people always use emotion regulation strategies to modulate emotion, consciously or unconsciously. Previous studies had investigated only the relationship between emotion regulation strategies and moral judgment in the Harm domain, and revealed divergent results. Based on Moral Foundations Theory, the present study extended the investigation into moral judgment in all five moral domains and used a set of standardized moral vignettes. Two hundred and six college students filled in the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire and completed emotional ratings and moral judgment on moral vignettes from Moral Foundations Vignettes. Correlation analysis indicated that habitual cognitive reappraisal was negatively related to immorality rating in Harm, Fairness, and Loyalty domains. Regression analysis revealed that after controlling the effect of other variables, cognitive reappraisal negatively predicted immorality ratings in the Harm and Fairness domains. Further mediation analysis showed that emotional valence only partially explained the association between cognitive reappraisal and moral judgment in Harm area. Some other factors beyond emotional valence were suggested for future studies.

Can only one person be right? The development of objectivism and social preferences regarding widely shared and controversial moral beliefs.

PubMed

Heiphetz, Larisa; Young, Liane L

2017-10-01

Prior work has established that children and adults distinguish moral norms (e.g., hitting is wrong) from conventional norms (e.g., wearing pajamas to school is wrong). Specifically, moral norms are generally perceived as universal across time and space, similar to objective facts. We examined preschoolers' and adults' perceptions of moral beliefs alongside facts and opinions by asking whether only one person could be right in the case of disagreements. We also compared perceptions of widely shared moral beliefs (e.g., whether it is better to pull someone's hair or share with someone) and controversial moral beliefs (e.g., whether it is better to help someone with a project or make cookies for someone). In Studies 1 and 2, preschoolers and adults were more likely to judge that only one person could be right in the case of widely shared versus controversial moral beliefs, treating the former as more objective or fact-like. Children were also more likely than adults to say that only one person could be right in a moral disagreement. Study 2 additionally revealed that adults were more likely than children to report preferring individuals who shared their controversial moral beliefs. Study 3 replicated these patterns using a different sample of widely shared beliefs (e.g., whether it is okay to mock a poor classmate) and controversial moral beliefs (e.g., whether it is okay to tell small, prosocial lies). While some aspects of moral cognition may depend on abundant social learning and cognitive development, the perception that disagreements about widely shared moral beliefs have only one right answer while disagreements about controversial moral beliefs do not emerges relatively early. We discuss implications for moral learning and social preferences. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A Cognitive Developmental Approach to Social Problem Management.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Watts, Walter J.

The paper reviews L. Kohlberg's theory of moral reasoning and its relationship to cognitive development of children. R. Feuerstein's theories of mediated learning experience (MLE) are reviewed, and remediation for individuals deficient in cognitive functions is addressed. The paper notes the existence of deficient cognitive functions, specifically…

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…

Do unto others: How cognitive fusion shapes the transmission of moral behavior.

PubMed

Carnes, Nate C; Winer, Jeffrey P

2017-04-01

Moral transmission is the concept that moral behaviors can be contagious, spreading from person to person like a pathogen of social influence. We investigated how cognitive fusion-a transdiagnostic vulnerability to diverse mental health problems-influences moral transmission across 3 studies (N = 891) using real behavioral outcomes, including economic game decisions and donations to charity. The findings suggest that cognitively fused individuals are more susceptible to moral transmission because (a) they are more likely to pay forward or pay back moral behavior, and (b) they are more likely to engage in compensatory moral behavior. In fact, (c) our analyses revealed a more direct association between these 2 psychological processes, supporting our argument that moral transmission can integrate a variety of seemingly discrete social phenomena. As predicted, participants with more depression and anxiety symptoms revealed patterns of behavior similar to those high in cognitive fusion. Implications for research in both social and clinical psychology are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Deconstructing the brain’s moral network: dissociable functionality between the temporoparietal junction and ventro-medial prefrontal cortex

PubMed Central

Mobbs, Dean; Dalgleish, Tim

2014-01-01

Research has illustrated that the brain regions implicated in moral cognition comprise a robust and broadly distributed network. However, understanding how these brain regions interact and give rise to the complex interplay of cognitive processes underpinning human moral cognition is still in its infancy. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine patterns of activation for ‘difficult’ and ‘easy’ moral decisions relative to matched non-moral comparators. This revealed an activation pattern consistent with a relative functional double dissociation between the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) and ventro-medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Difficult moral decisions activated bilateral TPJ and deactivated the vmPFC and OFC. In contrast, easy moral decisions revealed patterns of activation in the vmPFC and deactivation in bilateral TPJ and dorsolateral PFC. Together these results suggest that moral cognition is a dynamic process implemented by a distributed network that involves interacting, yet functionally dissociable networks. PMID:23322890

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

Stages of Ethical Reasoning and Moral Norms of Carib Youths

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gorsuch, Richard L.; Barnes, M. Louise

1973-01-01

Ethical development was investigated in a cross-cultural context by examining both the cognitive structure of ethical reasoning and the content of perceived moral norms in black Carib boys of British Honduras in the framework of stage theory. (Author/JM)

The development of moral emotions and decision-making from adolescence to early adulthood: a 6-year longitudinal study.

PubMed

Krettenauer, Tobias; Colasante, Tyler; Buchmann, Marlis; Malti, Tina

2014-04-01

Adolescents' emotions in the context of moral decision-making repeatedly have been shown to predict actual behaviour. However, little systematic information on developmental change regarding these emotion expectancies has been available thus far. This longitudinal study investigated anticipated moral emotions and decision-making between the ages of 15 and 21 in a representative sample of Swiss adolescents (N = 1,258; 54 % female; M = 15.30 years). Anticipated moral emotions and decision-making were assessed through a semi-structured interview procedure. Using Bernoulli hierarchical linear modeling, it was found that positive feelings after a moral transgression (i.e., "happy victimizer" responses) decreased over time, whereas positive feelings after a moral decision (i.e., "happy moralist" responses) increased. However, this pattern was contingent upon the moral scenario presented. Systematic relationships between anticipated moral emotions and moral personality characteristics of sympathy, conscientiousness, and agreeableness were found, even when controlling for socio-demographic characteristics and cognitive ability. Overall, this study demonstrates that the development of anticipated moral emotions is not limited to childhood. Furthermore, our findings suggest that moral emotions serve as an important link between moral personality development and decision-making processes that are more proximal to everyday moral behavior.

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.

Evaluation of a Social Studies Curriculum Based on an Inquiry Method and a Cognitive-Developmental Approach to Moral Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lieberman, Marcus

The growing number of value clarification curriculum materials is an indication that moral education is becoming a major focal point of curriculum. This study looks at one social studies course that includes both a moral development component and an inquiry approach. The hypotheses of the study are that students will show significant growth in (1)…

Developmental relations between sympathy, moral emotion attributions, moral reasoning, and social justice values from childhood to early adolescence.

PubMed

Daniel, Ella; Dys, Sebastian P; Buchmann, Marlis; Malti, Tina

2014-10-01

This study examined the development of sympathy, moral emotion attributions (MEA), moral reasoning, and social justice values in a representative sample of Swiss children (N = 1273) at 6 years of age (Time 1), 9 years of age (Time 2), and 12 years of age (Time 3). Cross-lagged panel analyses revealed that sympathy predicted subsequent increases in MEA and moral reasoning, but not vice versa. In addition, sympathy and moral reasoning at 6 and 9 years of age were associated with social justice values at 12 years of age. The results point to increased integration of affect and cognition in children's morality from middle childhood to early adolescence, as well as to the role of moral development in the emergence of social justice values. Copyright © 2014 The Foundation for Professionals in Services for Adolescents. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Moral motivation based on multiple developmental structures: an exploration of cognitive and emotional dynamics.

PubMed

Kaplan, Ulas; Tivnan, Terrence

2014-01-01

Intrapersonal variability and multiplicity in the complexity of moral motivation were examined from Dynamic Systems and Self-Determination Theory perspectives. L. Kohlberg's (1969) stages of moral development are reconceptualized as soft-assembled and dynamically transformable process structures of motivation that may operate simultaneously within person in different degrees. Moral motivation is conceptualized as the real-time process of self-organization of cognitive and emotional dynamics out of which moral judgment and action emerge. A detailed inquiry into intrapersonal variation in moral motivation is carried out based on the differential operation of multiple motivational structures. A total of 74 high school students and 97 college students participated in the study by completing a new questionnaire, involving 3 different hypothetical moral judgments. As hypothesized, findings revealed significant multiplicity in the within-person operation of developmental stage structures, and intrapersonal variability in the degrees to which stages were used. Developmental patterns were found in terms of different distributions of multiple stages between high school and college samples, as well as the association between age and overall motivation scores. Differential relations of specific emotions to moral motivation revealed and confirmed the value of differentiating multiple emotions. Implications of the present theoretical perspective and the findings for understanding the complexity of moral judgment and motivation are discussed.

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.

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

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

Abused, Neglected, and Nonmaltreated Children's Conceptions of Moral and Social-Conventional Transgressions.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smetana, Judith G.; And Others

1984-01-01

The effect of child maltreatment on children's social-cognitive development was examined by investigating abused, neglected, and nonmaltreated children's judgments regarding the permissibility of social-conventional and moral transgressions pertaining to physical harm, psychological distress, and the unfair distribution of resources. (Author/RH)

Connecting United States Air Force Core Values to Mission Accomplishment

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-06-04

making ( Kohlberg , 2008), to published works with a specific focus on ethics in the Air Force. The case studies referenced throughout the paper are used...useful backdrop for solving this problem. Lawrence Kohlberg , an American psychologist, experimentally derived a model for moral development based...on the cognitive reasoning one employs in making moral decisions and solving ethical quandaries ( Kohlberg , 2008). How one thinks through moral and

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.

Towards a Moral Ecology of Pharmacological Cognitive Enhancement in British Universities.

PubMed

Vagwala, Meghana Kasturi; Bicquelet, Aude; Didziokaite, Gabija; Coomber, Ross; Corrigan, Oonagh; Singh, Ilina

2017-01-01

Few empirical studies in the UK have examined the complex social patterns and values behind quantitative estimates of the prevalence of pharmacological cognitive enhancement (PCE). We conducted a qualitative investigation of the social dynamics and moral attitudes that shape PCE practices among university students in two major metropolitan areas in the UK. Our thematic analysis of eight focus groups ( n  = 66) suggests a moral ecology that operates within the social infrastructure of the university. We find that PCE resilience among UK university students is mediated by normative and cultural judgments disfavoring competitiveness and prescription drug taking. PCE risk can be augmented by social factors such as soft peer pressure and normalization of enhancement within social and institutional networks. We suggest that moral ecological dynamics should be viewed as key mechanisms of PCE risk and resilience in universities. Effective PCE governance within universities should therefore attend to developing further understanding of the moral ecologies of PCE.

Assessing social cognition: age-related changes in moral reasoning in childhood and adolescence.

PubMed

Chiasson, V; Vera-Estay, E; Lalonde, G; Dooley, J J; Beauchamp, M H

2017-04-01

There is increasing recognition that socio-cognitive skills, such as moral reasoning (MR), are affected in a wide range of developmental and neuropsychological conditions. However, the lack of appropriate measures available to neuropsychologists poses a challenge for the direct assessment of these skills. This study sought to explore age-related changes in MR using an innovative visual tool and examine the developmental sensitivity of the task. To address some of the methodological limitations of traditional measures of MR, a novel, visual task, the Socio-Moral Reasoning Aptitude Level (So-Moral), was used to evaluate MR in 216 healthy participants aged 6-20 years. The findings show a linear increase in MR from childhood to late adolescence with significant group differences between childhood (6-8 years) and preadolescence (9-11 years), and between early adolescence (12-14 years) and middle adolescence (15-17 years). Interpreted in light of current brain development research, the results highlight age-related changes in MR that offer insight into typical MR development and opportunities for comparisons with clinical populations. The findings also provide evidence of the potential of the So-Moral as a developmentally appropriate measure of MR throughout childhood and adolescence.

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.

Moral Identity Predicts Doping Likelihood via Moral Disengagement and Anticipated Guilt.

PubMed

Kavussanu, Maria; Ring, Christopher

2017-08-01

In this study, we integrated elements of social cognitive theory of moral thought and action and the social cognitive model of moral identity to better understand doping likelihood in athletes. Participants (N = 398) recruited from a variety of team sports completed measures of moral identity, moral disengagement, anticipated guilt, and doping likelihood. Moral identity predicted doping likelihood indirectly via moral disengagement and anticipated guilt. Anticipated guilt about potential doping mediated the relationship between moral disengagement and doping likelihood. Our findings provide novel evidence to suggest that athletes, who feel that being a moral person is central to their self-concept, are less likely to use banned substances due to their lower tendency to morally disengage and the more intense feelings of guilt they expect to experience for using banned substances.

Beyond Ethical Frameworks: Using Moral Experimentation in the Engineering Ethics Classroom.

PubMed

Walling, Olivia

2015-12-01

Although undergraduate engineering ethics courses often include the development of moral sensitivity as a learning objective and the use of active learning techniques, teaching centers on the transmission of cognitive knowledge. This article describes a complementary assignment asking students to perform an ethics "experiment" on themselves that has a potential to enhance affective learning and moral imagination. The article argues that the focus on cognitive learning may not promote, and may even impair, our efforts to foster moral sensitivity. In contrast, the active learning assignments and exercises, like the ethics "experiment" discussed, offer great potential to expand the scope of instruction in engineering ethics to include ethical behavior as well as knowledge. Engineering ethics education needs to extend beyond the narrow range of human action associated with the technical work of the engineer and explore ways to draw on broader lifeworld experiences to enrich professional practice and identity.

[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.

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.

Prosocial Behavior in Adolescence: Gender Differences in Development and Links with Empathy.

PubMed

Van der Graaff, Jolien; Carlo, Gustavo; Crocetti, Elisabetta; Koot, Hans M; Branje, Susan

2018-05-01

Although adolescents' prosocial behavior is related to various positive outcomes, longitudinal research on its development and predictors is still sparse. This 6-wave longitudinal study investigated the development of prosocial behavior across adolescence, and examined longitudinal associations with perspective taking and empathic concern. Participants were 497 adolescents (M age t1 =  13.03 years, 43% girls) who reported on their prosocial behaviors, empathic concern, and perspective taking. The results revealed marked gender differences in the development of prosocial behavior. For boys, levels of prosocial behavior were stable until age 14, followed by an increase until age 17, and a slight decrease thereafter. For girls, prosocial behavior increased until age 16 years and then slightly decreased. Regarding longitudinal associations, empathic concern was consistently related to subsequent prosocial behavior. However, perspective taking was only indirectly related to prosocial behavior, via its effect on empathic concern. Tests of the direction of effects showed support for the notion that earlier prosocial behavior predicts subsequent empathy-related traits, but only for girls. The findings support cognitive-developmental and moral socialization theories of prosocial development and the primary role of moral emotions in predicting prosocial behaviors. Our findings inform strategies to foster prosocial behaviors by emphasizing moral emotions rather than moral cognitions during adolescence.

Cognitive-Decision Theorists' Approach to Moral/Citizenship Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Research for Better Schools, Inc., Philadelphia, PA.

The document contains a paper on the cognitive-decision approach to moral/citizenship education and three critiques of the paper. The major paper characterizes cognitive decisionists, describes strengths and weaknesses of their approach, and assesses the extent to which empirical knowledge is available for the approach. Cognitive decisionists…

Fourth Annual Conference on Public and Non-Public Schools: Value Education. December 1, 1977. Proceedings.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lachman, Seymour P., Ed.

Convened to offer a forum for discussion of values education to over 100 representatives of public and private schools, the conference explored moral dilemmas, educational trends, cognitive moral development, and educational objectives. The keynote address by values education exponent Dr. Edwin Fenton (Director, Carnegie-Mellon Education Center,…

Moral satisficing: rethinking moral behavior as bounded rationality.

PubMed

Gigerenzer, Gerd

2010-07-01

What is the nature of moral behavior? According to the study of bounded rationality, it results not from character traits or rational deliberation alone, but from the interplay between mind and environment. In this view, moral behavior is based on pragmatic social heuristics rather than moral rules or maximization principles. These social heuristics are not good or bad per se, but solely in relation to the environments in which they are used. This has methodological implications for the study of morality: Behavior needs to be studied in social groups as well as in isolation, in natural environments as well as in labs. It also has implications for moral policy: Only by accepting the fact that behavior is a function of both mind and environmental structures can realistic prescriptive means of achieving moral goals be developed. Copyright © 2010 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Cognitive Development of Social Justice through Re-Designed Courses and Community-Based Partnerships: An Initial Investigation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Robert E.; Creasey, Gary; Showalter, Brent D.; D'Santiago, Verenice

2010-01-01

Identifying (and assessing) the mechanisms responsible for promoting social justice awareness represent a process that could be illuminated via theory building. To illustrate, integrated theories of moral reasoning and prosocial development stipulate that ultimate altruistic/benevolent intentions and behaviors are preceded by cognitive and…

Moral dilemmas and moral principles: when emotion and cognition unite.

PubMed

Manfrinati, Andrea; Lotto, Lorella; Sarlo, Michela; Palomba, Daniela; Rumiati, Rino

2013-01-01

Traditional studies on moral judgement used resolutions of moral dilemmas that were framed in terms of acceptability of the consequentialist action promoting a greater good, thus overlooking the deontological implications (choices cannot be justified by their consequences). Recently, some authors have suggested a parallelism between automatic, unreflective emotional responses and deontological moral judgements. In this study, we developed a novel experimental paradigm in which participants were required to choose between two resolutions of a moral dilemma (consequentialist and deontological). To assess whether emotions are engaged in each of the two resolutions, we asked participants to evaluate their emotional experience through the ratings of valence and arousal. Results showed that emotion is involved not only in deontological but also in consequentialist resolutions. Moreover, response times pointed out a different interplay between emotion and cognition in determining a conflict in the dilemma's resolution. In particular, when people were faced with trolley-like dilemmas we found that decisions leading to deontological resolutions were slower than decisions leading to consequentialist resolutions. We propose that this finding reflects the special (but not accepted) permission provided by the doctrine of the double effect for incidentally causing death for the sake of a good end.

Educating Moral Emotions or Moral Selves: A False Dichotomy?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kristjansson, Kristjan

2010-01-01

In the post-Kohlbergian era of moral education, a "moral gap" has been identified between moral cognition and moral action. Contemporary moral psychologists lock horns over how this gap might be bridged. The two main contenders for such bridge-building are moral emotions and moral selves. I explore these two options from an Aristotelian…

Judgment of moral and social transgression in schizophrenia.

PubMed

McGuire, Jonathan; Brüne, Martin; Langdon, Robyn

2017-07-01

Despite evidence of pervasive social-cognitive deficits in schizophrenia, little is known of moral cognition in this population. While recent research indicates that impairment of explicit moral reasoning is explained by these individuals' other cognitive deficits, their capacities for basic moral judgment are unknown. 45 people with schizophrenia and 27 healthy controls completed the Moral-Conventional Distinction Task: a classic task that assesses judgment of violations of moral or social convention on permissibility, severity, and authority-contingence. Justifications of judgments were also probed. Basic cognition was indexed by measures of IQ, verbal memory, and information processing speed. Self-report inventories were used to assess different facets of 'empathy' (e.g., perspective-taking, or theory of mind, and empathic concern), and aggressive tendencies. Groups did not differ significantly in judgments of permissibility or authority-contingency, or justifications of judgments. Patients did, however, rate violations of social (but not moral) convention more harshly. They also took longer to judge impermissibility of moral (but nor social) transgressions. Slower moral judgment in patients was associated with lower levels of self-reported empathic concern, while harsher condemnation of social transgression was associated with poorer (self-reported) perspective-taking. Findings provide no evidence that moral judgment is fundamentally compromised in schizophrenia. Evidence of slower moral judgment in schizophrenia does suggest, however, that patients were less influenced by automatic aversive responses to amoral conduct. The association found between poorer (self-reported) perspective-taking and greater condemnation of social transgressions also suggests that an insensitivity to others' extenuating motives may exacerbate social misunderstandings in schizophrenia. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The myth of harmless wrongs in moral cognition: Automatic dyadic completion from sin to suffering.

PubMed

Gray, Kurt; Schein, Chelsea; Ward, Adrian F

2014-08-01

When something is wrong, someone is harmed. This hypothesis derives from the theory of dyadic morality, which suggests a moral cognitive template of wrongdoing agent and suffering patient (i.e., victim). This dyadic template means that victimless wrongs (e.g., masturbation) are psychologically incomplete, compelling the mind to perceive victims even when they are objectively absent. Five studies reveal that dyadic completion occurs automatically and implicitly: Ostensibly harmless wrongs are perceived to have victims (Study 1), activate concepts of harm (Studies 2 and 3), and increase perceptions of suffering (Studies 4 and 5). These results suggest that perceiving harm in immorality is intuitive and does not require effortful rationalization. This interpretation argues against both standard interpretations of moral dumbfounding and domain-specific theories of morality that assume the psychological existence of harmless wrongs. Dyadic completion also suggests that moral dilemmas in which wrongness (deontology) and harm (utilitarianism) conflict are unrepresentative of typical moral cognition. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Time and moral judgment.

PubMed

Suter, Renata S; Hertwig, Ralph

2011-06-01

Do moral judgments hinge on the time available to render them? According to a recent dual-process model of moral judgment, moral dilemmas that engage emotional processes are likely to result in fast deontological gut reactions. In contrast, consequentialist responses that tot up lives saved and lost in response to such dilemmas would require cognitive control to override the initial response. Cognitive control, however, takes time. In two experiments, we manipulated the time available to arrive at moral judgments in two ways: by allotting a fixed short or large amount of time, and by nudging people to answer swiftly or to deliberate thoroughly. We found that faster responses indeed lead to more deontological responses among those moral dilemmas in which the killing of one to save many necessitates manhandling an innocent person and in which this action is depicted as a means to an end. Thus, our results are the first demonstration that inhibiting cognitive control through manipulations of time alters moral judgments. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The development of generosity and moral cognition across five cultures.

PubMed

Cowell, Jason M; Lee, Kang; Malcolm-Smith, Susan; Selcuk, Bilge; Zhou, Xinyue; Decety, Jean

2017-07-01

Morality is an evolved aspect of human nature, yet is heavily influenced by cultural environment. This developmental study adopted an integrative approach by combining measures of socioeconomic status (SES), executive function, affective sharing, empathic concern, theory of mind, and moral judgment in predicting sharing behavior in children (N = 999) from the age of 5 to 12 in five large-scale societies: Canada, China, Turkey, South Africa, and the USA. Results demonstrate that age, gender, SES, culture, and social cognitive mechanisms explain over 20% of the variance worldwide in children's resource allocation. These findings are discussed in reference to standard cultural comparisons (individualist/collectivist), as well as the degree of market integration, and highlight continuities and discontinuities in children's generosity across urban contexts. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Moral Enhancement Should Target Self-Interest and Cognitive Capacity.

PubMed

Ahlskog, Rafael

2017-01-01

Current suggestions for capacities that should be targeted for moral enhancement has centered on traits like empathy, fairness or aggression. The literature, however, lacks a proper model for understanding the interplay and complexity of moral capacities, which limits the practicability of proposed interventions. In this paper, I integrate some existing knowledge on the nature of human moral behavior and present a formal model of prosocial motivation. The model provides two important results regarding the most friction-free route to moral enhancement. First, we should consider decreasing self-interested motivation rather than increasing prosociality directly. Second, this should be complemented with cognitive enhancement. These suggestions are tested against existing and emerging evidence on cognitive capacity, mindfulness meditation and the effects of psychedelic drugs and are found to have sufficient grounding for further theoretical and empirical exploration. Furthermore, moral effects of the latter two are hypothesized to result from a diminished sense of self with subsequent reductions in self-interest.

The Quality of Feeling.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wilkinson, Andrew

1985-01-01

Describes the efforts of the Crediton Project, an ongoing research project in Devon, England, to develop an assessment scheme that accounts for cognitive, affective, moral, and stylistic development in children's writing. (DF)

Music, Mind, and Morality: Arousing the Body Politic

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alperson, Philip; Carroll, Noel

2008-01-01

In this article, the authors address the conversation that, given the recent developments in the philosophy of mind, especially in terms of its cognitive turn, one task for philosophers of music might be to begin to speculate about the properties of music and organized sound that enable them to perform their various moral and cultural roles. The…

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 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,…

Moral Enhancement Using Non-invasive Brain Stimulation

PubMed Central

Darby, R. Ryan; Pascual-Leone, Alvaro

2017-01-01

Biomedical enhancement refers to the use of biomedical interventions to improve capacities beyond normal, rather than to treat deficiencies due to diseases. Enhancement can target physical or cognitive capacities, but also complex human behaviors such as morality. However, the complexity of normal moral behavior makes it unlikely that morality is a single capacity that can be deficient or enhanced. Instead, our central hypothesis will be that moral behavior results from multiple, interacting cognitive-affective networks in the brain. First, we will test this hypothesis by reviewing evidence for modulation of moral behavior using non-invasive brain stimulation. Next, we will discuss how this evidence affects ethical issues related to the use of moral enhancement. We end with the conclusion that while brain stimulation has the potential to alter moral behavior, such alteration is unlikely to improve moral behavior in all situations, and may even lead to less morally desirable behavior in some instances. PMID:28275345

Examining the Role of Religiosity in Moral Cognition, Specifically in the Formation of Sacred Values, and Researching Computational Models for Analyzing Sacred Rhetoric and its Consequential Emotions

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-08-13

AFRL-AFOSR-VA-TR-2015-0270 Examining the Role of Religiosity in Moral Cognition, Specifically in the Formation of Sacred Values, and Researching...Computational Models for Analyzing Sacred Rhetoric and its Consequential Emotions Morteza Dehghani UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES Final...SUBTITLE (YIP-12) Examining the Role of Religiosity in Moral Cognition, Specifically in the Formation of Sacred Values, and Researching Computational

Breaking Bad: The Efficacy of Ethics Education in Air Force Officer PME

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-02-12

development may influence ethical decision making, “ cognitions of right and wrong are not enough to explain or predict ethical decision-making behavior.”29...specific theory in this regard but presents several to show the pervasive impact of cognitive processes on ethical behavior and that it is possible to...accession training), and that lessons are commensurate with students’ grade, experience, and cognitive moral development .87 Moreover, each school

Development of the promoting teacher attribution model for promoting science teachers' moral and ethical characteristics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chanprathak, Anusorn; Worakham, Paisan; Suikraduang, Arun

2018-01-01

The promotion science teacher attribution model to develop the moral and ethical characteristics was to analyze, synthesis, and develop the guidelines of the scoping study into concepts, theories and research related about the moral and ethics of characteristically teachers from the resources, including research papers, research articles related research, and interviews with luminaries of 9 members. Using interviews and document analysis, data analysis, content analysis, and present an essay was built. The promoting attributes a teacher, moral principles, concepts and theories involved and guidance of a qualified were developed. The Multiple-Attribute Consensus Reaching (MACR) from 12 educational experts were checked the suitability and feasibility of the model, the possibility of the manual with the research instruments consisted of the promotion model attributes the moral and ethics teacher's characteristics were evaluated, to guide the promotion attributes' model forms were assessed, the first edition of the manual data analysis, information obtained from the evaluation of the suitability and feasibility analysis model and guide for the average were administered. The results have found that; the promoting moral teacher attribute data to their moral and ethical characteristics was divided into two groups, priests and scholars. In both groups, the promotion attributes, focusing on teacher's groups is moral in nature to modify the idea to a change of attitude within the organism. Students got down to real experience; an analysis and synthesis face learning environments that cause cognitive skills to act as a self-realization possibly. The promotion model, moral principles, including the importance of the activities, objectives and evaluation methods were attributed. These core concepts learning theory and social cognitive theory, and integrated learning experience were comprised in five stages and four processes, namely; the intended, memory storage process, the actions, and the incentives of the motivation processes. The appropriateness and feasibility of the model and the appropriateness of the form scales evidence of a high level. The assessing guide on the appropriateness of the guide scale and the possibility of the manual guide responded of at a high level, similarly.

Interpersonal relationship modulates the behavioral and neural responses during moral decision-making.

PubMed

Zhan, Youlong; Xiao, Xiao; Li, Jin; Liu, Lei; Chen, Jie; Fan, Wei; Zhong, Yiping

2018-04-13

Interpersonal relationship (IR) may play an important role in moral decision-making. However, it is little known about how IR influences neural and behavioral responses during moral decision-making. The present study utilized the dilemma scenario-priming paradigm to examine the time course of the different intimate IR (friend, acquaintance, or stranger) impacts on the emotional and cognitive processes during moral decision-making. Results showed that participants made less altruistic decisions with increased decision times and experienced more unpleasure for strangers versus friends and acquaintances. Moreover, at the early moral intuitional process, there was no significance difference observed at N1 under different intimate IR; however, at the emotional process, larger P260 which reflects the dilemma conflicts and negative emotional responses, was elicited when moral decision-making for strangers; at the later cognitive process, such difference was also observed at LPP (300-450 ms) which indexes the later top-down cognitive appraisal and reasoning processes. However, such differences were not observed between friends and acquaintances. Results indicate that IR modulates the emotional and cognitive processes during moral decision-making, suggesting that the closer the IR is, the weaker the dilemma conflicts and emotional responses are, and the more efficient this conflicts are solved. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Genetically-Driven Enhancement of Dopaminergic Transmission Affects Moral Acceptability in Females but Not in Males: A Pilot Study

PubMed Central

Pellegrini, Silvia; Palumbo, Sara; Iofrida, Caterina; Melissari, Erika; Rota, Giuseppina; Mariotti, Veronica; Anastasio, Teresa; Manfrinati, Andrea; Rumiati, Rino; Lotto, Lorella; Sarlo, Michela; Pietrini, Pietro

2017-01-01

Moral behavior has been a key topic of debate for philosophy and psychology for a long time. In recent years, thanks to the development of novel methodologies in cognitive sciences, the question of how we make moral choices has expanded to the study of neurobiological correlates that subtend the mental processes involved in moral behavior. For instance, in vivo brain imaging studies have shown that distinct patterns of brain neural activity, associated with emotional response and cognitive processes, are involved in moral judgment. Moreover, while it is well-known that responses to the same moral dilemmas differ across individuals, to what extent this variability may be rooted in genetics still remains to be understood. As dopamine is a key modulator of neural processes underlying executive functions, we questioned whether genetic polymorphisms associated with decision-making and dopaminergic neurotransmission modulation would contribute to the observed variability in moral judgment. To this aim, we genotyped five genetic variants of the dopaminergic pathway [rs1800955 in the dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4) gene, DRD4 48 bp variable number of tandem repeat (VNTR), solute carrier family 6 member 3 (SLC6A3) 40 bp VNTR, rs4680 in the catechol-O-methyl transferase (COMT) gene, and rs1800497 in the ankyrin repeat and kinase domain containing 1 (ANKK1) gene] in 200 subjects, who were requested to answer 56 moral dilemmas. As these variants are all located in genes belonging to the dopaminergic pathway, they were combined in multilocus genetic profiles for the association analysis. While no individual variant showed any significant effects on moral dilemma responses, the multilocus genetic profile analysis revealed a significant gender-specific influence on human moral acceptability. Specifically, those genotype combinations that improve dopaminergic signaling selectively increased moral acceptability in females, by making their responses to moral dilemmas more similar to those provided by males. As females usually give more emotionally-based answers and engage the “emotional brain” more than males, our results, though preliminary and therefore in need of replication in independent samples, suggest that this increase in dopamine availability enhances the cognitive and reduces the emotional components of moral decision-making in females, thus favoring a more rationally-driven decision process. PMID:28900390

Development and Evaluation of the Method with an Affective Interface for Promoting Employees' Morale

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fujino, Hidenori; Ishii, Hirotake; Shimoda, Hiroshi; Yoshikawa, Hidekazu

For the sustainable society, organization management not based on the mass production and mass consumption but having the flexibility to meet to various social needs precisely is required. For realizing such management, the emploees' work morale is required. Recently, however, the emploees' work morale is tend to decrease. Therefore, in this study, the authors developed the model of the method for promoting and keeping employees' work morale effectively and efficiently. Especially the authors thought “work morale” of “attitude to the work”. Based on this idea, it could be considered that the theory of the persuasion psychology and various persuasion techniques. Therefore, the model of the method applying the character agent was developed based on the forced compliance which is one of persuasion techniques based on the theory of the cognitive dissonance. By the evaluation experiment using human subjects, it was confirmed that developed method could improve workers' work morle effectively.

Motivational Aspects of Moral Learning and Progress

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Curren, Randall

2014-01-01

This article addresses a puzzle about moral learning concerning its social context and the potential for moral progress: Won't the social context of moral learning shape moral perceptions, beliefs, and motivation in ways that will inevitably "limit" moral cognition, motivation, and progress? It addresses the relationships between…

Should Kohlberg's Cognitive Developmental Approach to Morality Be Replaced with a More Pragmatic Approach? Comment on Krebs and Denton (2005)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gibbs, John C.

2006-01-01

Krebs and Denton (2005; see record 2005-08166-005) proposed that Kohlberg's cognitive developmental approach to morality be replaced by a pragmatic approach more relevant to everyday social behavior and the cooperative moral orders of society. Although the Krebs and Denton article raises some legitimate questions, their proposal is at best…

Rationale for Spiritually Oriented Cognitive Processing Therapy for Moral Injury in Active Duty Military and Veterans With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

PubMed

Koenig, Harold G; Boucher, Nathan A; Oliver, Rev John P; Youssef, Nagy; Mooney, Scott R; Currier, Joseph M; Pearce, Michelle

2017-02-01

Wartime experiences have long been known to cause ethical conflict, guilt, self-condemnation, difficulty forgiving, loss of trust, lack of meaning and purpose, and spiritual struggles. "Moral injury" (MI) (also sometimes called "inner conflict") is the term used to capture this emotional, cognitive, and behavioral state. In this article, we provide rationale for developing and testing Spiritually Oriented Cognitive Processing Therapy, a version of standard cognitive processing therapy for the treatment of MI in active duty and veteran service members (SMs) with posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms who are spiritual or religious (S/R). Many SMs have S/R beliefs that could increase vulnerability to MI. Because the injury is to deeply held moral standards and ethical values and often adversely affects spiritual beliefs and worldview, we believe that those who are S/R will respond more favorably to a therapy that directly targets this injury from a spiritually oriented perspective. An evidence-based treatment for MI in posttraumatic stress disorder that not only respects but also utilizes SMs' spiritual beliefs/behaviors may open the door to treatment for many S/R military personnel.

GETTING MORAL ENHANCEMENT RIGHT: THE DESIRABILITY OF MORAL BIOENHANCEMENT

PubMed Central

Persson, Ingmar; Savulescu, Julian

2013-01-01

We respond to a number of objections raised by John Harris in this journal to our argument that we should pursue genetic and other biological means of morally enhancing human beings (moral bioenhancement). We claim that human beings now have at their disposal means of wiping out life on Earth and that traditional methods of moral education are probably insufficient to achieve the moral enhancement required to ensure that this will not happen. Hence, we argue, moral bioenhancement should be sought and applied. We argue that cognitive enhancement and technological progress raise acute problems because it is easier to harm than to benefit. We address objections to this argument. We also respond to objections that moral bioenhancement: (1) interferes with freedom; (2) cannot be made to target immoral dispositions precisely; (3) is redundant, since cognitive enhancement by itself suffices. PMID:21797913

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.

Group-focused morality is associated with limited conflict detection and resolution capacity: Neuroanatomical evidence.

PubMed

Nash, Kyle; Baumgartner, Thomas; Knoch, Daria

2017-02-01

Group-focused moral foundations (GMFs) - moral values that help protect the group's welfare - sharply divide conservatives from liberals and religiously devout from non-believers. However, there is little evidence about what drives this divide. Moral foundations theory and the model of motivated social cognition both associate group-focused moral foundations with differences in conflict detection and resolution capacity, but in opposing directions. Individual differences in conflict detection and resolution implicate specific neuroanatomical differences. Examining neuroanatomy thus affords an objective and non-biased opportunity to contrast these influential theories. Here, we report that increased adherence to group-focused moral foundations was strongly associated (whole-brain corrected) with reduced gray matter volume in key regions of the conflict detection and resolution system (anterior cingulate cortex and lateral prefrontal cortex). Because reduced gray matter is reliably associated with reduced neural and cognitive capacity, these findings support the idea outlined in the model of motivated social cognition that belief in group-focused moral values is associated with reduced conflict detection and resolution capacity. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The moral development of medical students: a pilot study of the possible influence of medical education.

PubMed

Self, D J; Schrader, D E; Baldwin, D C; Wolinsky, F D

1993-01-01

Medicine endorses a code of ethics and encourages a high moral character among doctors. This study examines the influence of medical education on the moral reasoning and development of medical students. Kohlberg's Moral Judgment Interview was given to a sample of 20 medical students (41.7% of students in that class). The students were tested at the beginning and at the end of their medical course to determine whether their moral reasoning scores had increased to the same extent as other people who extend their formal education. It was found that normally expected increases in moral reasoning scores did not occur over the 4 years of medical education for these students, suggesting that their educational experience somehow inhibited their moral reasoning ability rather than facilitating it. With a range of moral reasoning scores between 315 and 482, the finding of a mean increase from first year to fourth year of 18.5 points was not statistically significant at the P < or = 0.05 level. Statistical analysis revealed no significant correlations at the P < or = 0.05 level between the moral reasoning scores and age, gender, Medical College Admission Test scores, or grade point average scores. Along with a brief description of Kohlberg's cognitive moral development theory, some interpretations and explanations are given for the findings of the study.

Beyond the Cognitive and the Virtue Approaches to Moral Education: Some Theoretical Foundations for an Integrated Account of Moral Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roh, Young-Ran

2000-01-01

Explores theoretical foundation for integrated approach to moral education; discusses rational choice and moral action within human reflective structure; investigates moral values required for integrative approach to moral education; discusses content of moral motivation, including role of emotion and reason. (Contains 15 references.) (PKP)

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

Will cognitive enhancement create post-persons? The use(lessness) of induction in determining the likelihood of moral status enhancement.

PubMed

Mihailov, Emilian; Dragomir, Alexandru

2018-06-01

The prospect of cognitive enhancement well beyond current human capacities raises worries that the fundamental equality in moral status of human beings could be undermined. Cognitive enhancement might create beings with moral status higher than persons. Yet, there is an expressibility problem of spelling out what the higher threshold in cognitive capacity would be like. Nicholas Agar has put forward the bold claim that we can show by means of inductive reasoning that indefinite cognitive enhancement will probably mark a difference in moral status. The hope is that induction can determine the plausibility of post-personhood existence in the absence of an account of what the higher status would be like. In this article, we argue that Agar's argument fails and, more generally, that inductive reasoning has little bearing on assessing the likelihood of post-personhood in the absence of an account of higher status. We conclude that induction cannot bypass the expressibility problem about post-persons. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

A Response to Edwin Fenton. An Exchange of Views between Edwin Fenton and Jack R. Fraenkel, the Cognitive-Developmental Approach to Moral Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fraenkel, Jack R.

1977-01-01

Restatement of the author's criticisms of Fenton's article about Kohlberg's cognitive-developmental approach to moral education in the April 1976 issue of "Social Education." Emphasis is made that (1) Fenton's definitive summations of Kohlberg's works should be more tentative and cautious, because (2) some parts of moral developmental research are…

Culture and Embodied Cognition: Moral Discourses in Internet Support Groups for Overeaters

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ignatow, Gabriel

2009-01-01

This article argues that a modified version of Bourdieu's "habitus" concept can generate insights into moral culture and the ways people use culture to make changes in their lives. If revised in light of recent findings from cognitive neuroscience, the habitus allows for the analysis of culture as embodied cognitive structures linking individuals…

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.

He Who Laughs First: The Importance of Humor to Young Children.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Krogh, Suzanne

1985-01-01

Reviews current theories of humor development, discusses the interaction of humor with other developmental areas (including cognitive development, personality development, creativity, and moral development), and suggests ways in which research can be applied in the early childhood classroom. (Author/DST)

Practice and Cognition to Strengthen College Students' Moral Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ren, Wanbin

2009-01-01

College students' ideological morality always is the hotspot concerned by various circles of the society, and to strengthen and improve the ideological and moral education in colleges, continually enhance the pertinence and actual effect of the moral education, help college students to dissolve their worldly confusion in moral culture, further…

Working at the social-clinical-community-criminology interface: The GMU Inmate Study.

PubMed

Tangney, June Price; Mashek, Debra; Stuewig, Jeffrey

2007-01-01

This paper describes our attempt to import social-personality theory and research on moral emotions and moral cognitions to applied problems of crime, substance abuse, and HIV risk behavior. Thus far, in an inmate sample, we have evidence that criminogenic beliefs and proneness to guilt are each predictive of re-offense after release from jail. In addition, we have evidence that jail programs and services may reduce criminogenic beliefs and enhance adaptive feelings of guilt. As our sample size increases, our next step is to test the full mediational model, examining the degree to which programs and services impact post-release desistance via their effect on moral emotions and cognitions. In addition to highlighting some of the key findings from our longitudinal study of jail inmates over the period of incarceration and post-release, we describe the origins and development of this interdisciplinary project, highlighting the challenges and rewards of such endeavors.

Working at the social-clinical-community-criminology interface: The GMU Inmate Study

PubMed Central

Tangney, June Price; Mashek, Debra; Stuewig, Jeffrey

2011-01-01

This paper describes our attempt to import social-personality theory and research on moral emotions and moral cognitions to applied problems of crime, substance abuse, and HIV risk behavior. Thus far, in an inmate sample, we have evidence that criminogenic beliefs and proneness to guilt are each predictive of re-offense after release from jail. In addition, we have evidence that jail programs and services may reduce criminogenic beliefs and enhance adaptive feelings of guilt. As our sample size increases, our next step is to test the full mediational model, examining the degree to which programs and services impact post-release desistance via their effect on moral emotions and cognitions. In addition to highlighting some of the key findings from our longitudinal study of jail inmates over the period of incarceration and post-release, we describe the origins and development of this interdisciplinary project, highlighting the challenges and rewards of such endeavors. PMID:21572973

United we stand, divided we fall: Cognition, emotion, and the moral link between them.

PubMed

Manfrinati, Andrea

2015-01-01

Contrary to Greene's dual-process theory of moral judgment (Greene 2013), this commentary suggests that the network view of the brain proposed by Pessoa, in which emotion and cognition may be used as labels in the context of certain behaviors, but will not map clearly into compartmentalized pieces of the brain, could represent a better explanation of the rationale behind people's moral behavior.

Harm mediates the disgust-immorality link.

PubMed

Schein, Chelsea; Ritter, Ryan S; Gray, Kurt

2016-09-01

Many acts are disgusting, but only some of these acts are immoral. Dyadic morality predicts that disgusting acts should be judged as immoral to the extent that they seem harmful. Consistent with this prediction, 3 studies reveal that perceived harm mediates the link between feelings of disgust and moral condemnation-even for ostensibly harmless "purity" violations. In many cases, accounting for perceived harm completely eliminates the link between disgust and moral condemnation. Analyses also reveal the predictive power of anger and typicality/weirdness in moral judgments of disgusting acts. The mediation of disgust by harm holds across diverse acts including gay marriage, sex acts, and religious blasphemy. Revealing the endogenous presence and moral relevance of harm within disgusting-but-ostensibly harmless acts argues against modular accounts of moral cognition such as moral foundations theory. Instead, these data support pluralistic conceptions of harm and constructionist accounts of morality and emotion. Implications for moral cognition and the concept of "purity" are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

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.

Nursing students' responses to ethical dilemmas in nursing practice.

PubMed

Dierckx de Casterlé, B; Grypdonck, M; Vuylsteke-Wauters, M; Janssen, P J

1997-01-01

In literature as well as in nursing practice a growing concern about nurses' ethical competence can be observed. Based on the cognitive theory of moral development by Kohlberg, this research examined nursing students' ethical behaviour in five nursing dilemmas. Ethical behaviour refers not only to the ethical reasoning of nursing students but also to the relationship between reasoning and behaviour. Kohlberg's definition of morality was refined by adding a care perspective. The results show that the majority of students can be located in the fourth moral stage according to Kohlberg's theory, that is, the conventional level of moral development. This finding implies that students are still guided by professional rules, norms and duties, and have not (yet) succeeded in making personal ethical decisions on the basis of their own principles and acting according to such decisions.

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 insight into distinct features of moral cognition, including the generation of moral context through associative processes and the perceptual detection of moral salience.

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 moral input is affected by task demands. The results provide novel insight into distinct features of moral cognition, including the generation of moral context through associative processes and the perceptual detection of moral salience. PMID:24503959

Cognitive biases can affect moral intuitions about cognitive enhancement

PubMed Central

Caviola, Lucius; Mannino, Adriano; Savulescu, Julian; Faulmüller, Nadira

2014-01-01

Research into cognitive biases that impair human judgment has mostly been applied to the area of economic decision-making. Ethical decision-making has been comparatively neglected. Since ethical decisions often involve very high individual as well as collective stakes, analyzing how cognitive biases affect them can be expected to yield important results. In this theoretical article, we consider the ethical debate about cognitive enhancement (CE) and suggest a number of cognitive biases that are likely to affect moral intuitions and judgments about CE: status quo bias, loss aversion, risk aversion, omission bias, scope insensitivity, nature bias, and optimistic bias. We find that there are more well-documented biases that are likely to cause irrational aversion to CE than biases in the opposite direction. This suggests that common attitudes about CE are predominantly negatively biased. Within this new perspective, we hope that subsequent research will be able to elaborate this hypothesis and develop effective de-biasing techniques that can help increase the rationality of the public CE debate and thus improve our ethical decision-making. PMID:25360088

Moral dilemmas film task: A study of spontaneous narratives by individuals with autism spectrum conditions.

PubMed

Barnes, Jennifer L; Lombardo, Michael V; Wheelwright, Sally; Baron-Cohen, Simon

2009-06-01

People with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) have difficulties with mentalizing, empathy, and narrative comprehension. A new test of social and narrative cognition, the Moral Dilemmas Film Task, was developed to probe individuals' spontaneous understanding of naturalistic film scenes. Twenty-eight individuals with ASC and 28 neurotypical controls, matched for age, sex, and IQ, watched four short emotionally charged film clips each depicting a moral dilemma, and were asked to write about what they had seen. Individuals with ASC produced significantly shorter film-based narratives and showed a smaller bias for mental states over objects in their narratives than controls. A significant correlation was found between verbal IQ and the level of mentalizing in film narratives for the ASC group, but not the control group, while the reverse pattern was found with a measure of self-reported cognitive and affective empathy. These results suggest that to the extent that both groups succeed in viewing moral dilemmas in terms of mental content, they do so in different ways, with individuals with ASC using verbal scaffolding to increase their ability to draw meaning from social scenes. The well-established empathy deficit in ASC extends to spontaneous interpretation of moral dilemmas. This new film task has the potential to assay different aspects of how the social world is represented differently in ASC, including during moral comprehension.

Preschoolers' Social Dominance, Moral Cognition, and Moral Behavior: An Evolutionary Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hawley, Patricia H.; Geldhof, G. John

2012-01-01

Various aspects of moral functioning, aggression, and positive peer regard were assessed in 153 preschool children. Our hypotheses were inspired by an evolutionary approach to morality that construes moral norms as tools of the social elite. Accordingly, children were also rated for social dominance and strategies for its attainment. We predicted…

Why Do You Believe in God? Relationships between Religious Belief, Analytic Thinking, Mentalizing and Moral Concern

PubMed Central

Jack, Anthony Ian; Friedman, Jared Parker; Boyatzis, Richard Eleftherios; Taylor, Scott Nolan

2016-01-01

Prior work has established that analytic thinking is associated with disbelief in God, whereas religious and spiritual beliefs have been positively linked to social and emotional cognition. However, social and emotional cognition can be subdivided into a number of distinct dimensions, and some work suggests that analytic thinking is in tension with some aspects of social-emotional cognition. This leaves open two questions. First, is belief linked to social and emotional cognition in general, or a specific dimension in particular? Second, does the negative relationship between belief and analytic thinking still hold after relationships with social and emotional cognition are taken into account? We report eight hypothesis-driven studies which examine these questions. These studies are guided by a theoretical model which focuses on the distinct social and emotional processing deficits associated with autism spectrum disorders (mentalizing) and psychopathy (moral concern). To our knowledge no other study has investigated both of these dimensions of social and emotion cognition alongside analytic thinking. We find that religious belief is robustly positively associated with moral concern (4 measures), and that at least part of the negative association between belief and analytic thinking (2 measures) can be explained by a negative correlation between moral concern and analytic thinking. Using nine different measures of mentalizing, we found no evidence of a relationship between mentalizing and religious or spiritual belief. These findings challenge the theoretical view that religious and spiritual beliefs are linked to the perception of agency, and suggest that gender differences in religious belief can be explained by differences in moral concern. These findings are consistent with the opposing domains hypothesis, according to which brain areas associated with moral concern and analytic thinking are in tension. PMID:27008093

Why Do You Believe in God? Relationships between Religious Belief, Analytic Thinking, Mentalizing and Moral Concern.

PubMed

Jack, Anthony Ian; Friedman, Jared Parker; Boyatzis, Richard Eleftherios; Taylor, Scott Nolan

2016-01-01

Prior work has established that analytic thinking is associated with disbelief in God, whereas religious and spiritual beliefs have been positively linked to social and emotional cognition. However, social and emotional cognition can be subdivided into a number of distinct dimensions, and some work suggests that analytic thinking is in tension with some aspects of social-emotional cognition. This leaves open two questions. First, is belief linked to social and emotional cognition in general, or a specific dimension in particular? Second, does the negative relationship between belief and analytic thinking still hold after relationships with social and emotional cognition are taken into account? We report eight hypothesis-driven studies which examine these questions. These studies are guided by a theoretical model which focuses on the distinct social and emotional processing deficits associated with autism spectrum disorders (mentalizing) and psychopathy (moral concern). To our knowledge no other study has investigated both of these dimensions of social and emotion cognition alongside analytic thinking. We find that religious belief is robustly positively associated with moral concern (4 measures), and that at least part of the negative association between belief and analytic thinking (2 measures) can be explained by a negative correlation between moral concern and analytic thinking. Using nine different measures of mentalizing, we found no evidence of a relationship between mentalizing and religious or spiritual belief. These findings challenge the theoretical view that religious and spiritual beliefs are linked to the perception of agency, and suggest that gender differences in religious belief can be explained by differences in moral concern. These findings are consistent with the opposing domains hypothesis, according to which brain areas associated with moral concern and analytic thinking are in tension.

In search of an everyday morality: the development of a measure.

PubMed

Shelton, C M; McAdams, D P

1990-01-01

Current interest in moral theorizing has been dominated by Kohlberg's cognitive-developmental view. Haan (1982) has challenged psychology's reliance on this rationalistic focus and has argued for a rethinking of morality's meaning in accord with everyday human experience. In light of this challenge, the present study gives both theoretical and empirical support to the advancement of a morality for everyday life. Specifically, a new measure called the Visions of Morality Scale (VMS) is reported. The VMS is sensitive to three dimensions which are necessary for an everyday morality: (1) a human constitutive component which is universally experienced by all human beings (empathy); (2) the inclusion of a behavioral component which reflects actual behavior (pro-social inclinations); and (3) a view of morality that is multilevel (private, interpersonal, and social). A brief sketch of the VMS is provided. Results are presented from a study of 181 high school students which relate the VMS to empathy and political orientation. Highly significant relationships were found among morality, political orientation, and empathy. In addition, results revealed numerous sex differences. Finally, the implications of an everyday morality are discussed.

Theoretical Approaches to Moral/Citizenship Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Heslep, Robert D.

Four theoretical approaches to moral/citizenship education are described and compared. Positive and negative aspects of the cognitive-decision, developmental, prosocial, and values approaches are discussed and ways of relating the four approaches to each other are suggested. The first approach, cognitive-decision, is distinctive for its…

A conceptual and computational model of moral decision making in human and artificial agents.

PubMed

Wallach, Wendell; Franklin, Stan; Allen, Colin

2010-07-01

Recently, there has been a resurgence of interest in general, comprehensive models of human cognition. Such models aim to explain higher-order cognitive faculties, such as deliberation and planning. Given a computational representation, the validity of these models can be tested in computer simulations such as software agents or embodied robots. The push to implement computational models of this kind has created the field of artificial general intelligence (AGI). Moral decision making is arguably one of the most challenging tasks for computational approaches to higher-order cognition. The need for increasingly autonomous artificial agents to factor moral considerations into their choices and actions has given rise to another new field of inquiry variously known as Machine Morality, Machine Ethics, Roboethics, or Friendly AI. In this study, we discuss how LIDA, an AGI model of human cognition, can be adapted to model both affective and rational features of moral decision making. Using the LIDA model, we will demonstrate how moral decisions can be made in many domains using the same mechanisms that enable general decision making. Comprehensive models of human cognition typically aim for compatibility with recent research in the cognitive and neural sciences. Global workspace theory, proposed by the neuropsychologist Bernard Baars (1988), is a highly regarded model of human cognition that is currently being computationally instantiated in several software implementations. LIDA (Franklin, Baars, Ramamurthy, & Ventura, 2005) is one such computational implementation. LIDA is both a set of computational tools and an underlying model of human cognition, which provides mechanisms that are capable of explaining how an agent's selection of its next action arises from bottom-up collection of sensory data and top-down processes for making sense of its current situation. We will describe how the LIDA model helps integrate emotions into the human decision-making process, and we will elucidate a process whereby an agent can work through an ethical problem to reach a solution that takes account of ethically relevant factors. Copyright © 2010 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Deconstructing the Elephant and the Flag in the Lavatory: Promises and Problems of Moral Foundations Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Haste, Helen

2013-01-01

Moral Foundations research offers rich promise, opening up key questions about how affect and cognition are integrated in moral response, and exploring how different moral discourses may supply meaning and valence to moral experience. Haidt and his colleagues also associate different discourses with different political positions. However I address…

Moral Education and the Perils of Developmentalism.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carr, David

2002-01-01

Discusses conception of moral formation. Traces progress to moral maturity through well defined stages of cognitive, conative, and/or affective growth. Explains that logical status of developmental theories are not clear. Argues that the accounts are more evaluative than descriptive. Explores the problematic moral educational implications of this…

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.

What does the modularity of morals have to do with ethics? Four moral sprouts plus or minus a few.

PubMed

Flanagan, Owen; Williams, Robert Anthony

2010-07-01

Flanagan (1991) was the first contemporary philosopher to suggest that a modularity of morals hypothesis (MMH) was worth consideration by cognitive science. There is now a serious empirically informed proposal that moral competence is best explained in terms of moral modules-evolutionarily ancient, fast-acting, automatic reactions to particular sociomoral experiences (Haidt & Joseph, 2007). MMH fleshes out an idea nascent in Aristotle, Mencius, and Darwin. We discuss the evidence for MMH, specifically an ancient version, "Mencian Moral Modularity," which claims four innate modules, and "Social Intuitionist Modularity," which claims five innate modules. We compare these two moral modularity models, discuss whether the postulated modules are best conceived as perceptual/Fodorian or emotional/Darwinian, and consider whether assuming MMH true has any normative ethical consequences whatsoever. The discussion of MMH reconnects cognitive science with normative ethics in a way that involves the reassertion of the "is-ought" problem. We explain in a new way what this problem is and why it would not yield. The reason does not involve the logic of "ought," but rather the plasticity of human nature and the realistic options to "grow" and "do" human nature in multifarious legitimate ways. Copyright © 2010 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

A preliminary investigation of moral reasoning and empathy after traumatic brain injury in adolescents.

PubMed

Beauchamp, M H; Dooley, J J; Anderson, V

2013-01-01

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) sustained during childhood can affect a number of socio-cognitive skills; however, little attention has focused on the integrity of moral reasoning in the assessment of post-TBI social sequelae and the role of empathy and intelligence on moral maturity. In a quasi-experimental, cross-sectional research design, moral reasoning maturity and empathy in adolescents with mild-to-severe TBI (n = 25) were compared to typically-developing peers (n = 66). Participants were administered the So-Moral and So-Mature, tasks of socio-moral reasoning and maturity, the Index of Empathy for Children and Adolescents, the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence and a demographic questionnaire. Participants with TBI had significantly lower levels of moral reasoning maturity. Further, adolescents with moderate-to-severe TBI had lower levels of empathy. Empathy correlated positively with moral reasoning abilities and, together with intellectual function, predicted a small, but significant proportion of moral reasoning outcome. Youth who sustained TBI during childhood have poorer moral reasoning abilities than their non-injured peers, potentially placing them at risk for poor social decision-making and socially maladaptive behaviour. This can have a significant impact on long-term social functioning.

Cognitive Underpinnings of Moral Reasoning in Adolescence: The Contribution of Executive Functions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vera-Estay, E.; Dooley, J. J.; Beauchamp, M. H.

2015-01-01

Adolescence is a developmental period characterized by intense changes, which impact the interaction between individuals and their environments. Moral reasoning (MR) is an important skill during adolescence because it guides social decisions between right and wrong. Identifying the cognitive underpinnings of MR is essential to understanding the…

Aliens Behaving Badly: Children's Acquisition of Novel Purity-Based Morals

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rottman, Joshua; Kelemen, Deborah

2012-01-01

The traditional cognitive developmental perspective on moral acquisition posits that children actively construct moral beliefs by assessing the negative impacts of antisocial behaviors. This account is not easily applied to actions that are considered immoral despite lacking consequences for others' welfare. We studied the moralization of…

The efficacy of teachers' responses to incidents of bullying and victimization: The mediational role of moral disengagement for bullying.

PubMed

Campaert, Kristel; Nocentini, Annalaura; Menesini, Ersilia

2017-09-01

Teachers respond differently to bullying and victimization. Socio-cognitive and moral domain theory suggest that students process teachers' behavior cognitively and that teachers' responses to incidents of bullying and victimization could affect students' level of moral disengagement. We examined the mediating effect of students' moral disengagement between types of teachers' responses to situations of bullying and victimization and individual bullying using multilevel mediation modelling. Participants were 609 students (50% boys, age M = 11.47, SD = 1.14) of central Italy, nested in 34 classes. Students rated the frequency of self-reported bullying and of teachers' responses to incidents of bullying and victimization on a 5-point Likert scale. Teachers' responses to bullying included non-intervention, mediation, group discussion, and sanctions. Teachers' responses to victimization included non-intervention, mediation, group discussion, and victim support. Results indicated that in the teachers' responses to incidents of bullying model, a significant indirect effect of non-intervention (β = .03; 95%CI [.01, .05]) and of sanctions (β = -.02; 95%CI [-.04, -.01]) on bullying through moral disengagement was found at the individual level. Similarly, in the model on teachers' responses toward victims there was a significant indirect effect through moral disengagement of non-intervention (β = .03; 95%CI [.02, .04]) and victim support (β = -.01; 95%CI [-.02, -.001]). At the class level there were no significant indirect effects. In sum, results indicated that moral disengagement is an important mediator at the individual level and suggest including teachers in anti-bullying interventions with a specific focus on their role for moral development. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Mode of effective connectivity within a putative neural network differentiates moral cognitions related to care and justice ethics.

PubMed

Cáceda, Ricardo; James, G Andrew; Ely, Timothy D; Snarey, John; Kilts, Clinton D

2011-02-25

Moral sensitivity refers to the interpretive awareness of moral conflict and can be justice or care oriented. Justice ethics is associated primarily with human rights and the application of moral rules, whereas care ethics is related to human needs and a situational approach involving social emotions. Among the core brain regions involved in moral issue processing are: medial prefrontal cortex, anterior (ACC) and posterior (PCC) cingulate cortex, posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), insula and amygdala. This study sought to inform the long standing debate of whether care and justice moral ethics represent one or two different forms of cognition. Model-free and model-based connectivity analysis were used to identify functional neural networks underlying care and justice ethics for a moral sensitivity task. In addition to modest differences in patterns of associated neural activity, distinct modes of functional and effective connectivity were observed for moral sensitivity for care and justice issues that were modulated by individual variation in moral ability. These results support a neurobiological differentiation between care and justice ethics and suggest that human moral behavior reflects the outcome of integrating opposing rule-based, self-other perspectives, and emotional responses.

Efficient Kill-Save Ratios Ease Up the Cognitive Demands on Counterintuitive Moral Utilitarianism.

PubMed

Trémolière, Bastien; Bonnefon, Jean-François

2014-07-01

The dual-process model of moral judgment postulates that utilitarian responses to moral dilemmas (e.g., accepting to kill one to save five) are demanding of cognitive resources. Here we show that utilitarian responses can become effortless, even when they involve to kill someone, as long as the kill-save ratio is efficient (e.g., 1 is killed to save 500). In Experiment 1, participants responded to moral dilemmas featuring different kill-save ratios under high or low cognitive load. In Experiments 2 and 3, participants responded at their own pace or under time pressure. Efficient kill-save ratios promoted utilitarian responding and neutered the effect of load or time pressure. We discuss whether this effect is more easily explained by a parallel-activation model or by a default-interventionist model. © 2014 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

The role of self-regulatory efficacy, moral disengagement and guilt on doping likelihood: A social cognitive theory perspective.

PubMed

Ring, Christopher; Kavussanu, Maria

2018-03-01

Given the concern over doping in sport, researchers have begun to explore the role played by self-regulatory processes in the decision whether to use banned performance-enhancing substances. Grounded on Bandura's (1991) theory of moral thought and action, this study examined the role of self-regulatory efficacy, moral disengagement and anticipated guilt on the likelihood to use a banned substance among college athletes. Doping self-regulatory efficacy was associated with doping likelihood both directly (b = -.16, P < .001) and indirectly (b = -.29, P < .001) through doping moral disengagement. Moral disengagement also contributed directly to higher doping likelihood and lower anticipated guilt about doping, which was associated with higher doping likelihood. Overall, the present findings provide evidence to support a model of doping based on Bandura's social cognitive theory of moral thought and action, in which self-regulatory efficacy influences the likelihood to use banned performance-enhancing substances both directly and indirectly via moral disengagement.

The Role of Social Perspective-Taking in Developing Students' Leadership Capacities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dugan, John P.; Bohle, Christopher W.; Woelker, Lindsey R.; Cooney, Matthew A.

2014-01-01

This study examined relationships between social perspective-taking (SPT) and the individual, group, and societal domains of socially responsible leadership. SPT is a higher-order cognitive skill linked to moral development and social coordination, but never empirically connected to leadership development. Analyses determined SPT has a strong…

Talking about Youth Development: Helping Campers Grow into Successful Adults.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Camping Magazine, 2001

2001-01-01

Youth development moves beyond risk reduction by turning a narrow negative focus on at-risk factors into positive action strategies. Critical components of youth development are providing positive ways for young people to meet their needs and building competencies. Physical, social, cognitive, vocational, and moral competence are described, and…

Salience network engagement with the detection of morally laden information

PubMed Central

Gurvit, Hakan; Spreng, R. Nathan

2017-01-01

Abstract Moral cognition is associated with activation of the default network, regions implicated in mentalizing about one’s own actions or the intentions of others. Yet little is known about the initial detection of moral information. We examined the neural correlates of moral processing during a narrative completion task, which included an implicit moral salience manipulation. During fMRI scanning, participants read a brief vignette and selected the most semantically congruent sentence from two options to complete the narrative. The options were immoral, moral or neutral statements. RT was fastest for the selection of neutral statements and slowest for immoral statements. Neuroimaging analyses revealed that responses involving morally laden content engaged default and executive control network brain regions including medial and rostral prefrontal cortex, and core regions of the salience network, including anterior insula and dorsal anterior cingulate. Immoral vs moral conditions additionally engaged the salience network. These results implicate the salience network in the detection of moral information, which may modulate downstream default and frontal control network interactions in the service of complex moral reasoning and decision-making processes. These findings suggest that moral cognition involves both bottom-up and top-down attentional processes, mediated by discrete large-scale brain networks and their interactions. PMID:28338944

Cognitive-Developmental Approaches to Moral Education: A Social Ethical Analysis.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Orr, John B.

This essay critically views the prescriptions of Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg concerning moral education within the public schools. Piaget's paradigm of the moral life is elaborated, and his prescriptive theories for the schools are presented. In contrast to Durkheim, Piaget argues that schools should resist adult-imposed moral rules whenever…

Religion and morality.

PubMed

McKay, Ryan; Whitehouse, Harvey

2015-03-01

The relationship between religion and morality has long been hotly debated. Does religion make us more moral? Is it necessary for morality? Do moral inclinations emerge independently of religious intuitions? These debates, which nowadays rumble on in scientific journals as well as in public life, have frequently been marred by a series of conceptual confusions and limitations. Many scientific investigations have failed to decompose "religion" and "morality" into theoretically grounded elements; have adopted parochial conceptions of key concepts-in particular, sanitized conceptions of "prosocial" behavior; and have neglected to consider the complex interplay between cognition and culture. We argue that to make progress, the categories "religion" and "morality" must be fractionated into a set of biologically and psychologically cogent traits, revealing the cognitive foundations that shape and constrain relevant cultural variants. We adopt this fractionating strategy, setting out an encompassing evolutionary framework within which to situate and evaluate relevant evidence. Our goals are twofold: to produce a detailed picture of the current state of the field, and to provide a road map for future research on the relationship between religion and morality. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved.

Empirical psychology, common sense, and Kant's empirical markers for moral responsibility.

PubMed

Frierson, Patrick

2008-12-01

This paper explains the empirical markers by which Kant thinks that one can identify moral responsibility. After explaining the problem of discerning such markers within a Kantian framework I briefly explain Kant's empirical psychology. I then argue that Kant's empirical markers for moral responsibility--linked to higher faculties of cognition--are not sufficient conditions for moral responsibility, primarily because they are empirical characteristics subject to natural laws. Next. I argue that these markers are not necessary conditions of moral responsibility. Given Kant's transcendental idealism, even an entity that lacks these markers could be free and morally responsible, although as a matter of fact Kant thinks that none are. Given that they are neither necessary nor sufficient conditions, I discuss the status of Kant's claim that higher faculties are empirical markers of moral responsibility. Drawing on connections between Kant's ethical theory and 'common rational cognition' (4:393), I suggest that Kant's theory of empirical markers can be traced to ordinary common sense beliefs about responsibility. This suggestion helps explain both why empirical markers are important and what the limits of empirical psychology are within Kant's account of moral responsibility.

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.

The Emotional Foundations of High Moral Intelligence

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Narvaez, Darcia

2010-01-01

Moral intelligence is grounded in emotion and reason. Neuroscientific and clinical research illustrate how early life co-regulation with caregivers influences emotion, cognition, and moral character. Triune ethics theory (Narvaez, 2008) integrates neuroscientific, evolutionary, and developmental findings to explain differences in moral…

Development and content validation of a questionnaire to assess moral distress among social workers in long-term care facilities.

PubMed

Lev, Sagit; Ayalon, Liat

2018-03-01

Despite the significance of ethical issues faced by social workers, research on moral distress among social workers has been extremely limited. The aim of the current study is to describe the development and content validation of a unique questionnaire to measure moral distress among social workers in long-term care facilities for older adults in Israel. The construction of the questionnaire was based on a secondary analysis of a qualitative study that addressed the moral dilemma of social workers in nursing homes in Israel. A content validation included review and evaluation by two experts, a cognitive interview with a nursing home social worker, and three focus groups of experts and the target population. The initial questionnaire consisted of 25 items. After the content validation process the questionnaire in its final version, consisted of 17 items and included two scales, measuring the frequency of morally loaded events and the intensity of distress that followed them. We believe that the questionnaire can contribute by broadening and deepening ethics discourse and research, with regard to social workers' obligation dilemmas and conflicts.

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.

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)

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…

Developmental outcomes after early prefrontal cortex damage.

PubMed

Eslinger, Paul J; Flaherty-Craig, Claire V; Benton, Arthur L

2004-06-01

The neuropsychological bases of cognitive, social, and moral development are minimally understood, with a seemingly wide chasm between developmental theories and brain maturation models. As one approach to bridging ideas in these areas, we review 10 cases of early prefrontal cortex damage from the clinical literature, highlighting overall clinical profiles and real life developmental outcomes. Based on these cases, there is preliminary evidence to support distinctive developmental differences after: (1) dorsolateral, (2) mesial, and (3) orbital-polar prefrontal lesions, for more profound impairments after bilateral damage, and possibly for recovery differences after very early vs. later childhood lesion onset. Further case and group studies are needed to confirm reliable effects of specific lesion locations, the influence of age of lesion onset, and related experiential and treatment variables in determining adult outcomes. Rather than a single underlying deficit associated with early prefrontal cortex damage, we interpret the findings to suggest that it is the altered integration and interplay of cognitive, emotional, self-regulatory, and executive/metacognitive deficits that contribute to diverse developmental frontal lobe syndromes. The findings support the fundamental importance of prefrontal cortex maturation in protracted cognitive, social-emotional, and moral development.

Secret Wisdom: Spiritual Intelligence in Adolescents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kilcup, Charmayne

2016-01-01

Current models of spiritual development suggest that adolescents have limited capacity for spirituality and spiritual experiences. Adolescents are seen to have immature moral and ethical judgment and be incapable of deep spiritual experience due to lack of cognitive development. This mixed-methods study explored the existence of spiritual…

Testing a social-cognitive model of moral behavior: the interactive influence of situations and moral identity centrality.

PubMed

Aquino, Karl; Freeman, Dan; Reed, Americus; Felps, Will; Lim, Vivien K G

2009-07-01

This article proposes and tests a social-cognitive framework for examining the joint influence of situational factors and the centrality of moral identity on moral intentions and behaviors. The authors hypothesized that if a situational factor increases the current accessibility of moral identity within the working self-concept, then it strengthens the motivation to act morally. In contrast, if a situational factor decreases the current accessibility of moral identity, then it weakens the motivation to act morally. The authors also expected the influence of situational factors to vary depending on the extent to which moral identity was central to a person's overall self-conception. Hypotheses derived from the framework were tested in 4 studies. The studies used recalling and reading a list of the Ten Commandments (Study 1), writing a story using morally laden terms (Study 4), and the presence of performance-based financial incentives (Studies 2 and 3) as situational factors. Participants' willingness to initiate a cause-related marketing program (Study 1), lie to a job candidate during a salary negotiation (Studies 2 and 3), and contribute to a public good (Study 4) were examined. Results provide strong support for the proposed framework. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).

Mode of Effective Connectivity within a Putative Neural Network Differentiates Moral Cognitions Related to Care and Justice Ethics

PubMed Central

Cáceda, Ricardo; James, G. Andrew; Ely, Timothy D.; Snarey, John; Kilts, Clinton D.

2011-01-01

Background Moral sensitivity refers to the interpretive awareness of moral conflict and can be justice or care oriented. Justice ethics is associated primarily with human rights and the application of moral rules, whereas care ethics is related to human needs and a situational approach involving social emotions. Among the core brain regions involved in moral issue processing are: medial prefrontal cortex, anterior (ACC) and posterior (PCC) cingulate cortex, posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), insula and amygdala. This study sought to inform the long standing debate of whether care and justice moral ethics represent one or two different forms of cognition. Methodology/Principal Findings Model-free and model-based connectivity analysis were used to identify functional neural networks underlying care and justice ethics for a moral sensitivity task. In addition to modest differences in patterns of associated neural activity, distinct modes of functional and effective connectivity were observed for moral sensitivity for care and justice issues that were modulated by individual variation in moral ability. Conclusions/Significance These results support a neurobiological differentiation between care and justice ethics and suggest that human moral behavior reflects the outcome of integrating opposing rule-based, self-other perspectives, and emotional responses. PMID:21364916

Longitudinal Relationships between Bullying and Moral Disengagement among Adolescents.

PubMed

Wang, Cixin; Ryoo, Ji Hoon; Swearer, Susan M; Turner, Rhonda; Goldberg, Taryn S

2017-06-01

Moral disengagement is a series of cognitive processes used to disengage moral standards to achieve absolved guilt and permit immoral conduct and has been found to be an important connection to bullying and aggressive behaviors among adolescents. This study examined the longitudinal relationship between moral disengagement and bullying behavior among a group of adolescents from fifth grade to ninth grade (n = 1180, mean age = 12.2, SD = 1.29, 46.5 % female, 80.2 % Caucasian/White, 7.1 % Black/African American, 5.4 % Latino/Hispanic, 2.4 % Asian American, and 1.7 % other) over three semesters. The objectives were to investigate (a) whether moral disengagement was a precursor to bullying behavior, vice versa, or whether the relationship was reciprocal and (b) whether gender and grade predicted moral disengagement and bullying behavior. The results showed that moral disengagement predicted bullying perpetration 6 months later. Also, older students and males utilized more moral disengagement than younger students and females and younger students and males engaged in greater bullying perpetration. Indirect paths linking gender and grade to bullying via moral disengagement at previous time points were identified and implications for bullying prevention are discussed. The findings underscore the importance of examining moral disengagement when studying bullying and across gender and development.

Empathy and motivation for justice: Cognitive empathy and concern, but not emotional empathy, predict sensitivity to injustice for others

PubMed Central

Decety, Jean; Yoder, Keith J.

2015-01-01

Why do people tend to care for upholding principles of justice? This study examined the association between individual differences in the affective, motivational and cognitive components of empathy, sensitivity to justice, and psychopathy in participants (N 265) who were also asked to rate the permissibility of everyday moral situations that pit personal benefit against moral standards of justice. Counter to commonsense, emotional empathy was not associated with sensitivity to injustice for others. Rather, individual differences in cognitive empathy and empathic concern predicted sensitivity to justice for others, as well as the endorsement of moral rules. Psychopathy coldheartedness scores were inversely associated with motivation for justice. Moreover, hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis revealed that self-focused and other-focused orientations toward justice had opposing influences on the permissibility of moral judgments. High scores on psychopathy were associated with less moral condemnation of immoral behavior. Together, these results contribute to a better understanding of the information processing mechanisms underlying justice motivation, and may guide interventions designed to foster justice and moral behavior. In order to promote justice motivation, it may be more effective to encourage perspective taking and reasoning to induce concern for others than emphasizing emotional sharing with the misfortune of others. PMID:25768232

Empathy and motivation for justice: Cognitive empathy and concern, but not emotional empathy, predict sensitivity to injustice for others.

PubMed

Decety, Jean; Yoder, Keith J

2016-01-01

Why do people tend to care for upholding principles of justice? This study examined the association between individual differences in the affective, motivational and cognitive components of empathy, sensitivity to justice, and psychopathy in participants (N 265) who were also asked to rate the permissibility of everyday moral situations that pit personal benefit against moral standards of justice. Counter to common sense, emotional empathy was not associated with sensitivity to injustice for others. Rather, individual differences in cognitive empathy and empathic concern predicted sensitivity to justice for others, as well as the endorsement of moral rules. Psychopathy coldheartedness scores were inversely associated with motivation for justice. Moreover, hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis revealed that self-focused and other-focused orientations toward justice had opposing influences on the permissibility of moral judgments. High scores on psychopathy were associated with less moral condemnation of immoral behavior. Together, these results contribute to a better understanding of the information processing mechanisms underlying justice motivation, and may guide interventions designed to foster justice and moral behavior. In order to promote justice motivation, it may be more effective to encourage perspective taking and reasoning than emphasizing emotional sharing with the misfortune of others.

Teacher Interpersonal Behaviour and Secondary Students' Cognitive, Affective and Moral Outcomes in Hong Kong

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sivan, Atara; Chan, Dennis W. K.

2013-01-01

This study validated the Chinese version of the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI) in the Hong Kong context as well as examined the relationship between students' perceptions of interpersonal teacher behaviour and their cognitive, affective and moral learning outcomes. Data were collected with the QTI and four other measures of student…

Empathy Mediates the Effects of Age and Sex on Altruistic Moral Decision Making.

PubMed

Rosen, Jan B; Brand, Matthias; Kalbe, Elke

2016-01-01

Moral decision making involves affective and cognitive functions like emotional empathy, reasoning and cognitive empathy/theory of mind (ToM), which are discussed to be subject to age-related alterations. Additionally, sex differences in moral decision making have been reported. However, age-related changes in moral decision making from early to late adulthood and their relation to sex and neuropsychological functions have not been studied yet. One hundred ninety seven participants (122 female), aged 19-86 years, were tested with a moral decision making task comprising forced choice "everyday life" situations in which an altruistic option that favors a socially accepted alternative had to be considered against an egoistic option that favors personal benefit over social interests. The percentage of altruistic decisions was analyzed. A structural equation model (SEM) was calculated to test the hypothesis whether age and sex predict altruistic moral decision, and whether relevant neuropsychological domains mediate these hypothesized relationships. A significant relationship between age and moral decision making was found indicating more frequent altruistic decisions with increasing age. Furthermore, women decided more altruistically than men. The SEM showed that both age and sex are significant predictors of altruistic moral decision making, mediated by emotional empathy but not by reasoning. No cognitive empathy and ToM scores were correlated to age and moral decision making at the same time and thus were not included in the SEM. Our data suggest that increasing age and female sex have an effect on altruistic moral decisions, but that this effect is fully mediated by emotional empathy. The fact that changes of moral decision making with age are mediated by emotional empathy can be interpreted in the light of the so-called "positivity effect" and increasing avoidance of negative affect in aging. The mediated sex effect might represent both biological aspects and socialized sex roles for higher emotional empathy leading to more altruistic decisions.

Empathy Mediates the Effects of Age and Sex on Altruistic Moral Decision Making

PubMed Central

Rosen, Jan B.; Brand, Matthias; Kalbe, Elke

2016-01-01

Moral decision making involves affective and cognitive functions like emotional empathy, reasoning and cognitive empathy/theory of mind (ToM), which are discussed to be subject to age-related alterations. Additionally, sex differences in moral decision making have been reported. However, age-related changes in moral decision making from early to late adulthood and their relation to sex and neuropsychological functions have not been studied yet. One hundred ninety seven participants (122 female), aged 19–86 years, were tested with a moral decision making task comprising forced choice “everyday life” situations in which an altruistic option that favors a socially accepted alternative had to be considered against an egoistic option that favors personal benefit over social interests. The percentage of altruistic decisions was analyzed. A structural equation model (SEM) was calculated to test the hypothesis whether age and sex predict altruistic moral decision, and whether relevant neuropsychological domains mediate these hypothesized relationships. A significant relationship between age and moral decision making was found indicating more frequent altruistic decisions with increasing age. Furthermore, women decided more altruistically than men. The SEM showed that both age and sex are significant predictors of altruistic moral decision making, mediated by emotional empathy but not by reasoning. No cognitive empathy and ToM scores were correlated to age and moral decision making at the same time and thus were not included in the SEM. Our data suggest that increasing age and female sex have an effect on altruistic moral decisions, but that this effect is fully mediated by emotional empathy. The fact that changes of moral decision making with age are mediated by emotional empathy can be interpreted in the light of the so-called “positivity effect” and increasing avoidance of negative affect in aging. The mediated sex effect might represent both biological aspects and socialized sex roles for higher emotional empathy leading to more altruistic decisions. PMID:27147990

Book Reviews.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fein, Greta G.; And Others

1993-01-01

Reviews the following books: "Child Care in Context" (Lamb et al., Eds.); "Making Friends in School: Promoting Relationships in Early Childhood" (Ramsay); "The Epigenesis of Mind: Essays on Biology and Cognition" (Carey and Gelman, Eds.); "Moral Maturity: Measuring the Development of Sociomoral Reflection"…

MORAL ENHANCEMENT AND FREEDOM

PubMed Central

Harris, John

2011-01-01

This paper identifies human enhancement as one of the most significant areas of bioethical interest in the last twenty years. It discusses in more detail one area, namely moral enhancement, which is generating significant contemporary interest. The author argues that so far from being susceptible to new forms of high tech manipulation, either genetic, chemical, surgical or neurological, the only reliable methods of moral enhancement, either now or for the foreseeable future, are either those that have been in human and animal use for millennia, namely socialization, education and parental supervision or those high tech methods that are general in their application. By that is meant those forms of cognitive enhancement that operate across a wide range of cognitive abilities and do not target specifically ‘ethical’ capacities. The paper analyses the work of some of the leading contemporary advocates of moral enhancement and finds that in so far as they identify moral qualities or moral emotions for enhancement they have little prospect of success. PMID:21133978

Moral enhancement and freedom.

PubMed

Harris, John

2011-02-01

This paper identifies human enhancement as one of the most significant areas of bioethical interest in the last twenty years. It discusses in more detail one area, namely moral enhancement, which is generating significant contemporary interest. The author argues that so far from being susceptible to new forms of high tech manipulation, either genetic, chemical, surgical or neurological, the only reliable methods of moral enhancement, either now or for the foreseeable future, are either those that have been in human and animal use for millennia, namely socialization, education and parental supervision or those high tech methods that are general in their application. By that is meant those forms of cognitive enhancement that operate across a wide range of cognitive abilities and do not target specifically 'ethical' capacities. The paper analyses the work of some of the leading contemporary advocates of moral enhancement and finds that in so far as they identify moral qualities or moral emotions for enhancement they have little prospect of success. © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Applications of the Wilkinson Model of Writing Maturity to College Writing.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sternglass, Marilyn

1982-01-01

Examines the four-category model developed by Andrew Wilkinson at the University of Essex (England) to assess growth in writing maturity. The four measures of development are stylistic, affective, cognitive, and moral. Each has several subcategories. Includes college student essays to illustrate the model. (HTH)

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

Knowing right from wrong, but just not always feeling it: relations among callous-unemotional traits, psychopathological symptoms, and cognitive and affective morality judgments in 8- to 12-year-old boys.

PubMed

Feilhauer, Johanna; Cima, Maaike; Benjamins, Caroline; Muris, Peter

2013-12-01

The present research expands our understanding of cognitive and affective morality by exploring associations with callous-unemotional (CU) traits and externalizing symptoms. Participants were 46 8- to 12-year-old boys from the community who completed the Affective Morality Index, the Youth Self-Report, and the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits. A pattern of results was found indicating that in particular the combination of high CU traits and high externalizing symptoms was associated with lack of affective morality, and an increased perceived likelihood of recommitting antisocial acts (recidivism). The implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.

The motor cost of telling lies: electrocortical signatures and personality foundations of spontaneous deception.

PubMed

Panasiti, Maria Serena; Pavone, Enea F; Mancini, Alessandra; Merla, Arcangelo; Grisoni, Luigi; Aglioti, Salvatore M

2014-01-01

Although universal, lying is generally considered immoral behavior. Most neuroscience studies on lying sanction or instruct deceptive behaviors and thus might fail to acknowledge the significance of lie-related moral conflicts. By combining electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings with a novel paradigm in which participants decided freely whether to deceive another person, we have generated indices of the cognitive (reaction times and stimulus-locked event-related components) and moral (readiness potential and its correlations with deception-related personality traits) cost of spontaneous deception. Our data fail to support the consensus that deception is cognitively more demanding than truth telling, suggesting that spontaneous deception, as opposed to lying out of requirement, might not mandate additional cognitive workload. Interestingly, lying was associated with decreased motor readiness, an event-related potential (ERP) component that is linked to motor preparation of self-determined actions and modulated when we face moral dilemmas. Notably, this reduction was less extensive in manipulative participants and greater in those who cared highly about their impression management. Our study expands on previous findings on deception by associating a cortical marker of reduced preparation to act with individual differences in moral cognition.

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.

Mortality salience and morality: thinking about death makes people less utilitarian.

PubMed

Trémolière, Bastien; Neys, Wim De; Bonnefon, Jean-François

2012-09-01

According to the dual-process model of moral judgment, utilitarian responses to moral conflict draw on limited cognitive resources. Terror Management Theory, in parallel, postulates that mortality salience mobilizes these resources to suppress thoughts of death out of focal attention. Consequently, we predicted that individuals under mortality salience would be less likely to give utilitarian responses to moral conflicts. Two experiments corroborated this hypothesis. Experiment 1 showed that utilitarian responses to non-lethal harm conflicts were less frequent when participants were reminded of their mortality. Experiment 2 showed that the detrimental effect of mortality salience on utilitarian conflict judgments was comparable to that of an extreme concurrent cognitive load. These findings raise the question of whether private judgment and public debate about controversial moral issues might be shaped by mortality salience effects, since these issues (e.g., assisted suicide) often involve matters of life and death. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Understanding libertarian morality: the psychological dispositions of self-identified libertarians.

PubMed

Iyer, Ravi; Koleva, Spassena; Graham, Jesse; Ditto, Peter; Haidt, Jonathan

2012-01-01

Libertarians are an increasingly prominent ideological group in U.S. politics, yet they have been largely unstudied. Across 16 measures in a large web-based sample that included 11,994 self-identified libertarians, we sought to understand the moral and psychological characteristics of self-described libertarians. Based on an intuitionist view of moral judgment, we focused on the underlying affective and cognitive dispositions that accompany this unique worldview. Compared to self-identified liberals and conservatives, libertarians showed 1) stronger endorsement of individual liberty as their foremost guiding principle, and weaker endorsement of all other moral principles; 2) a relatively cerebral as opposed to emotional cognitive style; and 3) lower interdependence and social relatedness. As predicted by intuitionist theories concerning the origins of moral reasoning, libertarian values showed convergent relationships with libertarian emotional dispositions and social preferences. Our findings add to a growing recognition of the role of personality differences in the organization of political attitudes.

Understanding Libertarian Morality: The Psychological Dispositions of Self-Identified Libertarians

PubMed Central

Iyer, Ravi; Koleva, Spassena; Graham, Jesse; Ditto, Peter; Haidt, Jonathan

2012-01-01

Libertarians are an increasingly prominent ideological group in U.S. politics, yet they have been largely unstudied. Across 16 measures in a large web-based sample that included 11,994 self-identified libertarians, we sought to understand the moral and psychological characteristics of self-described libertarians. Based on an intuitionist view of moral judgment, we focused on the underlying affective and cognitive dispositions that accompany this unique worldview. Compared to self-identified liberals and conservatives, libertarians showed 1) stronger endorsement of individual liberty as their foremost guiding principle, and weaker endorsement of all other moral principles; 2) a relatively cerebral as opposed to emotional cognitive style; and 3) lower interdependence and social relatedness. As predicted by intuitionist theories concerning the origins of moral reasoning, libertarian values showed convergent relationships with libertarian emotional dispositions and social preferences. Our findings add to a growing recognition of the role of personality differences in the organization of political attitudes. PMID:22927928

A Cognitive Developmental Approach to Morality: Investigating the Psychopath.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Blair, R. J. R.

1995-01-01

Examined the efficacy of a causal model suggesting that lack of a violence inhibitor when confronted with distress cues may explain psychopathic behavior. Compared to control subjects, the psychopaths made no moral/conventional distinction about transgressions, treated conventional transgressions like moral transgressions, and were much less…

Through Two Lenses: A Cultural-Developmental Approach to Moral Psychology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jensen, Lene Arnett

2008-01-01

This paper proposes a cultural-developmental approach to moral psychology. The approach builds on and synthesizes findings from different research traditions, including the cognitive-developmental, domain, two orientations, three ethics, and moral identity traditions. The paper introduces a conception termed a "cultural-developmental template."…

Tolerance of practices by Muslim actors: an integrative social-developmental perspective.

PubMed

Gieling, Maike; Thijs, Jochem; Verkuyten, Maykel

2010-01-01

Using social-cognitive domain theory and social identity theory, tolerance judgments of practices by Muslim actors among Dutch adolescents (12-17) were investigated. The findings for Study 1 (N=180) demonstrated that participants evaluated 4 practices using different types of reasons: personal, social-conventional, and moral. In Study 2 (N=970), participants were more tolerant of acts considered to be a personal issue than of acts that pertained to moral issues (social-conventional acts were in the middle). Furthermore, participants were more tolerant of the particular practices than of campaigns for public support of co-Muslims for these practices. Level of education, in-group identification, and multiculturalism had much weaker effects in the moral than in the other domains. Age was negatively related to tolerance. © 2010 The Authors. Child Development © 2010 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.

Functional and clinical neuroanatomy of morality.

PubMed

Fumagalli, Manuela; Priori, Alberto

2012-07-01

Morality is among the most sophisticated features of human judgement, behaviour and, ultimately, mind. An individual who behaves immorally may violate ethical rules and civil rights, and may threaten others' individual liberty, sometimes becoming violent and aggressive. In recent years, neuroscience has shown a growing interest in human morality, and has advanced our understanding of the cognitive and emotional processes involved in moral decisions, their anatomical substrates and the neurology of abnormal moral behaviour. In this article, we review research findings that have provided a key insight into the functional and clinical neuroanatomy of the brain areas involved in normal and abnormal moral behaviour. The 'moral brain' consists of a large functional network including both cortical and subcortical anatomical structures. Because morality is a complex process, some of these brain structures share their neural circuits with those controlling other behavioural processes, such as emotions and theory of mind. Among the anatomical structures implicated in morality are the frontal, temporal and cingulate cortices. The prefrontal cortex regulates activity in subcortical emotional centres, planning and supervising moral decisions, and when its functionality is altered may lead to impulsive aggression. The temporal lobe is involved in theory of mind and its dysfunction is often implicated in violent psychopathy. The cingulate cortex mediates the conflict between the emotional and the rational components of moral reasoning. Other important structures contributing to moral behaviour include the subcortical nuclei such as the amygdala, hippocampus and basal ganglia. Brain areas participating in moral processing can be influenced also by genetic, endocrine and environmental factors. Hormones can modulate moral behaviour through their effects on the brain. Finally, genetic polymorphisms can predispose to aggressivity and violence, arguing for a genetic-based predisposition to morality. Because abnormal moral behaviour can arise from both functional and structural brain abnormalities that should be diagnosed and treated, the neurology of moral behaviour has potential implications for clinical practice and raises ethical concerns. Last, since research has developed several neuromodulation techniques to improve brain dysfunction (deep brain stimulation, transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct current stimulation), knowing more about the 'moral brain' might help to develop novel therapeutic strategies for neurologically based abnormal moral behaviour.

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…

Personal and Impersonal Stimuli Differentially Engage Brain Networks during Moral Reasoning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Xue, Shao-Wei; Wang, Yan; Tang, Yi-Yuan

2013-01-01

Moral decision making has recently attracted considerable attention as a core feature of all human endeavors. Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging studies about moral judgment have identified brain areas associated with cognitive or emotional engagement. Here, we applied graph theory-based network analysis of event-related potentials…

Mortality Salience and Morality: Thinking about Death Makes People Less Utilitarian

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tremoliere, Bastien; De Neys, Wim; Bonnefon, Jean-Francois

2012-01-01

According to the dual-process model of moral judgment, utilitarian responses to moral conflict draw on limited cognitive resources. Terror Management Theory, in parallel, postulates that mortality salience mobilizes these resources to suppress thoughts of death out of focal attention. Consequently, we predicted that individuals under mortality…

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.

Teaching Academic Integrity: A Cognitive Developmental Model Based on Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Peterson, Lorna

An instructional model to develop academic integrity (honesty) in college students is proposed. Goals are to develop: adherence to the principle of doing one's own work, an understanding for the principle and nature of coauthorship, an understanding and adherence to citation practices, and an understanding of plagiarism. Students should be…

A Proposal for Studying the Values/Reasoning Distinction in Moral Development and Training.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kaplan, Martin F.

Application of a common framework in studies of the development of social cognition can reduce conceptual and methodological ambiguities and enable clearer study of core issues. This paper describes the core issues and their attendant problems, outlines a model of information integration that addresses the issues, and describes some illustrative…

Cognitive Dissidents Bite the Dust--The Demise of University Education in Canada's Prisons.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Duguid, Stephen

1993-01-01

Documents the demise of the 20-year university education program in British Columbia prisons as a new national strategy stressed correctional goals and behavior change over the humanities/moral development thrust of the Simon Fraser University curriculum. (SK)

Moral reasoning of Piagetian-matched retarded and nonretarded children and adolescents.

PubMed

Kahn, J V

1983-09-01

The moral reasoning of four IQ/etiology groups was investigated: 19 organically abnormal moderately retarded, 19 organically abnormal mildly retarded, 19 mildly retarded due to psychosocial disadvantage, and 19 nonretarded individuals. In each group 12 Ss were preoperational and seven concrete operational. Moral reasoning was assessed by an instrument using moral dilemmas based on Kohlberg's procedures. The Slosson Intelligence Test was used to determine the IQs and mental ages of each S. Piagetian stage was determined with the standard conservation of number tasks. The findings indicated no overall significant differences between the mildly retarded and the nonretarded Ss or between the mildly retarded and the moderately retarded Ss, but differences were found between the moderately retarded and the nonretarded Ss. A significant interaction was found between the two independent variables, IQ/etiology and cognitive level. The results were discussed as supporting Zigler's development position and as damaging to Kohlberg's position.

A single cognitive heuristic process meets the complexity of domain-specific moral heuristics.

PubMed

Dubljević, Veljko; Racine, Eric

2014-10-01

The inherence heuristic (a) offers modest insights into the complex nature of both the is-ought tension in moral reasoning and moral reasoning per se, and (b) does not reflect the complexity of domain-specific moral heuristics. Formal and general in nature, we contextualize the process described as "inherence heuristic" in a web of domain-specific heuristics (e.g., agent specific; action specific; consequences specific).

Unsentimental Ethics: Towards a Content-Specific Account of the Moral-Conventional Distinction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Royzman, Edward B.; Leeman, Robert F.; Baron, Jonathan

2009-01-01

In this paper, we offer an overview and a critique of the existing theories of the moral-conventional distinction, with emphasis on Nichols's [Nichols, S. (2002). Norms with feeling: Towards a psychological account of moral judgment. "Cognition, 84", 221-236] neo-sentimentalist approach. After discussing some distinctive features of Nichols's…

Noradrenaline effects on social behaviour, intergroup relations, and moral decisions.

PubMed

Terbeck, S; Savulescu, J; Chesterman, L P; Cowen, P J

2016-07-01

Recent research has begun to elucidate the neural basis of higher order social concepts, such as the mechanisms involved in intergroup relations, and moral judgments. Most theories have concentrated on higher order emotions, such as guilt, shame, or empathy, as core mechanisms. Accordingly, psychopharmacological and neurobiological studies have investigated the effects of manipulating serotonin or oxytocin activity on moral and social decisions and attitudes. However, recently it has been determined that changes in more basic emotions, such as fear and anger, might also have a significant role in social and moral cognition. This article summarizes psychopharmacological and fMRI research on the role of noradrenaline in higher order social cognition suggesting that indeed noradrenergic mediated affective changes might play key - and probably causal - role in certain social attitudes and moral judgments. Social judgments may also be directly influenced by numerous neurotransmitter manipulations but these effects could be mediated by modulation of basic emotions which appear to play an essential role in the formation of social concepts and moral behaviour. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Religion and Morality

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

The relationship between religion and morality has long been hotly debated. Does religion make us more moral? Is it necessary for morality? Do moral inclinations emerge independently of religious intuitions? These debates, which nowadays rumble on in scientific journals as well as in public life, have frequently been marred by a series of conceptual confusions and limitations. Many scientific investigations have failed to decompose “religion” and “morality” into theoretically grounded elements; have adopted parochial conceptions of key concepts—in particular, sanitized conceptions of “prosocial” behavior; and have neglected to consider the complex interplay between cognition and culture. We argue that to make progress, the categories “religion” and “morality” must be fractionated into a set of biologically and psychologically cogent traits, revealing the cognitive foundations that shape and constrain relevant cultural variants. We adopt this fractionating strategy, setting out an encompassing evolutionary framework within which to situate and evaluate relevant evidence. Our goals are twofold: to produce a detailed picture of the current state of the field, and to provide a road map for future research on the relationship between religion and morality. PMID:25528346

A lesion model of envy and Schadenfreude: legal, deservingness and moral dimensions as revealed by neurodegeneration

PubMed Central

Santamaría-García, Hernando; Baez, Sandra; Reyes, Pablo; Santamaría-García, José A; Santacruz-Escudero, José M; Matallana, Diana; Arévalo, Analía; Sigman, Mariano; García, Adolfo M; Ibáñez, Agustín

2017-01-01

Abstract The study of moral emotions (i.e. Schadenfreude and envy) is critical to understand the ecological complexity of everyday interactions between cognitive, affective, and social cognition processes. Most previous studies in this area have used correlational imaging techniques and framed Schadenfreude and envy as unified and monolithic emotional domains. Here, we profit from a relevant neurodegeneration model to disentangle the brain regions engaged in three dimensions of Schadenfreude and envy: deservingness, morality, and legality. We tested a group of patients with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), patients with Alzheimer’s disease, as a contrastive neurodegeneration model, and healthy controls on a novel task highlighting each of these dimensions in scenarios eliciting Schadenfreude and envy. Compared with the Alzheimer’s disease and control groups, patients with bvFTD obtained significantly higher scores on all dimensions for both emotions. Correlational analyses revealed an association between envy and Schadenfreude scores and greater deficits in social cognition, inhibitory control, and behaviour disturbances in bvFTD patients. Brain anatomy findings (restricted to bvFTD and controls) confirmed the partially dissociable nature of the moral emotions’ experiences and highlighted the importance of socio-moral brain areas in processing those emotions. In all subjects, an association emerged between Schadenfreude and the ventral striatum, and between envy and the anterior cingulate cortex. In addition, the results supported an association between scores for moral and legal transgression and the morphology of areas implicated in emotional appraisal, including the amygdala and the parahippocampus. By contrast, bvFTD patients exhibited a negative association between increased Schadenfreude and envy across dimensions and critical regions supporting social-value rewards and social-moral processes (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, angular gyrus and precuneus). Together, this study provides lesion-based evidence for the multidimensional nature of the emotional experiences of envy and Schadenfreude. Our results offer new insights into the mechanisms subsuming complex emotions and moral cognition in neurodegeneration. Moreover, this study presents the exacerbation of envy and Schadenfreude as a new potential hallmark of bvFTD that could impact in diagnosis and progression. PMID:29112719

A lesion model of envy and Schadenfreude: legal, deservingness and moral dimensions as revealed by neurodegeneration.

PubMed

Santamaría-García, Hernando; Baez, Sandra; Reyes, Pablo; Santamaría-García, José A; Santacruz-Escudero, José M; Matallana, Diana; Arévalo, Analía; Sigman, Mariano; García, Adolfo M; Ibáñez, Agustín

2017-12-01

The study of moral emotions (i.e. Schadenfreude and envy) is critical to understand the ecological complexity of everyday interactions between cognitive, affective, and social cognition processes. Most previous studies in this area have used correlational imaging techniques and framed Schadenfreude and envy as unified and monolithic emotional domains. Here, we profit from a relevant neurodegeneration model to disentangle the brain regions engaged in three dimensions of Schadenfreude and envy: deservingness, morality, and legality. We tested a group of patients with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), patients with Alzheimer's disease, as a contrastive neurodegeneration model, and healthy controls on a novel task highlighting each of these dimensions in scenarios eliciting Schadenfreude and envy. Compared with the Alzheimer's disease and control groups, patients with bvFTD obtained significantly higher scores on all dimensions for both emotions. Correlational analyses revealed an association between envy and Schadenfreude scores and greater deficits in social cognition, inhibitory control, and behaviour disturbances in bvFTD patients. Brain anatomy findings (restricted to bvFTD and controls) confirmed the partially dissociable nature of the moral emotions' experiences and highlighted the importance of socio-moral brain areas in processing those emotions. In all subjects, an association emerged between Schadenfreude and the ventral striatum, and between envy and the anterior cingulate cortex. In addition, the results supported an association between scores for moral and legal transgression and the morphology of areas implicated in emotional appraisal, including the amygdala and the parahippocampus. By contrast, bvFTD patients exhibited a negative association between increased Schadenfreude and envy across dimensions and critical regions supporting social-value rewards and social-moral processes (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, angular gyrus and precuneus). Together, this study provides lesion-based evidence for the multidimensional nature of the emotional experiences of envy and Schadenfreude. Our results offer new insights into the mechanisms subsuming complex emotions and moral cognition in neurodegeneration. Moreover, this study presents the exacerbation of envy and Schadenfreude as a new potential hallmark of bvFTD that could impact in diagnosis and progression. © The Authors 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America.

A Response to Jack R. Fraenkel. An Exchange of Views between Edwin Fenton and Jack R. Fraenkel, the Cognitive-Developmental Approach to Moral Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fenton, Edwin

1977-01-01

Responses to Fraenkel's 15 criticisms of the author's article about Kohlberg's cognitive-developmental approach to moral education in the April 1976 issue of "Social Education." Three circumstances are stated as reasons for the differences between the two men: (1) staying up-to-date with research and publications, (2) time consumed in refuting…

Motivational and social cognitive predictors of doping intentions in elite sports: an integrated approach.

PubMed

Barkoukis, V; Lazuras, L; Tsorbatzoudis, H; Rodafinos, A

2013-10-01

Doping use is an important issue in both competitive and non-competitive sports, and poses potentially irreversible health consequences to users. Scholars increasingly call for theory-driven studies on the psychosocial processes underlying doping use that will inform subsequent policy-making and prevention interventions. The aim of the study was to implement an integrative theoretical model to assess the direct and indirect effects of motivational variables, moral orientations, and social cognitions on doping intentions. A randomly selected and representative sample of 750 elite athletes anonymously completed a battery of questionnaires on motivational and moral constructs, and social cognitions related to doping. Hierarchical linear regression analysis and multiple mediation modeling were used. The effects of achievement goals and moral orientations were significantly mediated by attitudinal, normative, and self-efficacy beliefs, in both lifetime ever and never doping users. Moral orientations indirectly predicted the doping intentions of never users, but did not predict ever users' doping intentions. Achievement goals and sportspersonship orientations influence doping intentions indirectly, through the effects of attitudes and self-efficacy beliefs. Sportspersonship (moral) orientations were relevant to doping intentions among athletes with no prior experiences with doping, while achievement goals and situational temptation were relevant to both lifetime never and ever dopers. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Authority and the Development of Political Orientations.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Parks, Robert

The legitimate use of authority in political and moral education is examined from a cognitive-developmental perspective. However, legitimate authoritative communications by a teacher must have the potential for reasoned elaboration. These communications then mark off the boundaries of rational and authoritative communication from non- and…

Prosocial norms as a positive youth development construct: a conceptual review.

PubMed

Siu, Andrew M H; Shek, Daniel T L; Law, Ben

2012-01-01

Prosocial norms like reciprocity, social responsibility, altruism, and volunteerism are ethical standards and beliefs that youth development programs often want to promote. This paper reviews evolutionary, social-cognitive, and developmental theories of prosocial development and analyzes how young people learn and adopt prosocial norms. The paper showed that very few current theories explicitly address the issue of how prosocial norms, in form of feelings of moral obligations, may be challenged by a norm of self-interest and social circumstances when prosocial acts are needed. It is necessary to develop theories which put prosocial norms as a central construct, and a new social cognitive theory of norm activation has the potential to help us understand how prosocial norms may be applied. This paper also highlights how little we know about young people perceiving and receiving prosocial norms and how influential of school policies and peer influence on the prosocial development. Lastly, while training of interpersonal competence (e.g., empathy, moral reasoning, etc.) was commonly used in the youth development, their effectiveness was not systematically evaluated. It will also be interesting to examine how computer and information technology or video games may be used in e-learning of prosocial norms.

Prosocial Norms as a Positive Youth Development Construct: A Conceptual Review

PubMed Central

Siu, Andrew M. H.; Shek, Daniel T. L.; Law, Ben

2012-01-01

Prosocial norms like reciprocity, social responsibility, altruism, and volunteerism are ethical standards and beliefs that youth development programs often want to promote. This paper reviews evolutionary, social-cognitive, and developmental theories of prosocial development and analyzes how young people learn and adopt prosocial norms. The paper showed that very few current theories explicitly address the issue of how prosocial norms, in form of feelings of moral obligations, may be challenged by a norm of self-interest and social circumstances when prosocial acts are needed. It is necessary to develop theories which put prosocial norms as a central construct, and a new social cognitive theory of norm activation has the potential to help us understand how prosocial norms may be applied. This paper also highlights how little we know about young people perceiving and receiving prosocial norms and how influential of school policies and peer influence on the prosocial development. Lastly, while training of interpersonal competence (e.g., empathy, moral reasoning, etc.) was commonly used in the youth development, their effectiveness was not systematically evaluated. It will also be interesting to examine how computer and information technology or video games may be used in e-learning of prosocial norms. PMID:22666157

Prosocial norms as a positive youth development construct: conceptual bases and implications for curriculum development.

PubMed

Siu, Andrew M H; Cheng, Howard C H; Leung, Mana C M

2006-01-01

Prosocial norms are clear, healthy, ethical standards, beliefs, and behavior guidelines that promote prosocial behavior and minimize health risks. The promotion of prosocial norms like altruism, solidarity, and volunteerism is an important aspect of positive youth development programs. From the literature, it is evident that a prosocial orientation is encouraged in traditional Chinese philosophy. Longitudinal studies have shown that prosocial behavior increases gradually over adolescence, and that the development of prosocial behavior is closely linked to the development of moral reasoning, perspective taking, and regulation of personal distress. It is noteworthy that females have a higher prosocial orientation than males, and peer influence could be a major mediating factor of interventions to foster prosocial norms and behavior during adolescence. This review also analyzes the mechanism underlying prosocial behavior using the cost-reward model, social cognitive theory, and stages of moral development. Role modeling, social reinforcements and evaluations, discussion of moral dilemmas, empathy skills training, and foot-in-the-door procedures are identified as useful strategies for fostering prosocial norms and behavior.

Morality and the religious mind: why theists and nontheists differ.

PubMed

Shariff, Azim F; Piazza, Jared; Kramer, Stephanie R

2014-09-01

Religions have come to be intimately tied to morality and much recent research has shown that theists and nontheists differ in their moral behavior and decision making along several dimensions. Here we discuss how these empirical trends can be explained by fundamental differences in group commitment, motivations for prosociality, cognitive styles, and meta-ethics. We conclude by elucidating key areas of moral congruence. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Moral character in the workplace.

PubMed

Cohen, Taya R; Panter, A T; Turan, Nazli; Morse, Lily; Kim, Yeonjeong

2014-11-01

Using two 3-month diary studies and a large cross-sectional survey, we identified distinguishing features of adults with low versus high levels of moral character. Adults with high levels of moral character tend to: consider the needs and interests of others and how their actions affect other people (e.g., they have high levels of Honesty-Humility, empathic concern, guilt proneness); regulate their behavior effectively, specifically with reference to behaviors that have positive short-term consequences but negative long-term consequences (e.g., they have high levels of Conscientiousness, self-control, consideration of future consequences); and value being moral (e.g., they have high levels of moral identity-internalization). Cognitive moral development, Emotionality, and social value orientation were found to be relatively undiagnostic of moral character. Studies 1 and 2 revealed that employees with low moral character committed harmful work behaviors more frequently and helpful work behaviors less frequently than did employees with high moral character, according to their own admissions and coworkers' observations. Study 3 revealed that adults with low moral character committed more delinquent behavior and had more lenient attitudes toward unethical negotiation tactics than did adults with high moral character. By showing that individual differences have consistent, meaningful effects on employees' behaviors, after controlling for demographic variables (e.g., gender, age, income) and basic attributes of the work setting (e.g., enforcement of an ethics code), our results contest situationist perspectives that deemphasize the importance of personality. Moral people can be identified by self-reports in surveys, and these self-reports predict consequential behaviors months after the initial assessment.

Socio-Sexual Education: A Practical Study in Formal Thinking and Teachable Moments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wagner, Paul A.

2011-01-01

Sex education is almost as sensitive a topic in public schooling as is the imposition of high-stakes testing. Both typically claim to be value-free contributions to the development of the student's cognitive, psychological and sometimes even moral maturity. Ironically each seems to short-change students in all three areas of development. The focus…

Are the Competent the Morally Good? Perspective Taking and Moral Motivation of Children Involved in Bullying

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gasser, Luciano; Keller, Monika

2009-01-01

The present study tested the hypothesis of the cognitively competent but morally insensitive bully. On the basis of teacher and peer ratings, 212 young elementary school children were selected and categorized as bullies, bully-victims, victims, and prosocial children. Children's perspective-taking skills were assessed using theory-of-mind tasks,…

Can Ethics Be Taught? A Quasi-Experimental Study of the Impact of Class Size on the Cognitive Moral Reasoning of Freshmen Business Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sullivan, Ethan A.

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of a business ethics course on the cognitive moral reasoning of freshmen business students. The sample consisted of 268 college students enrolled in a required business ethics course. The students took Rest's Defining Issues Test--Version 2 (DIT2) as a pre-test and then post-test (upon…

Immunoendocrine alterations following Marine Corps Martial Arts training are associated with changes in moral cognitive processes.

PubMed

Siedlik, Jacob A; Deckert, Jake A; Clopton, Aaron W; Gigliotti, Nicole; Chan, Marcia A; Benedict, Stephen H; Herda, Trent J; Gallagher, Philip M; Vardiman, John P

2016-02-01

Combined physical and psychological stress events have been associated with exacerbated endocrine responses and increased alterations in immune cell trafficking when compared to exercise stress alone. Military training programs are rigorous in nature and often purposefully delivered in environments combining high levels of both physical and mental stress. The objective of this study was to assess physiological and cognitive changes following U.S. Marine Corps Martial Arts training. Seven active-duty, male Marines were observed during a typical Marine Corps Martial Arts training session. Immune parameters, including immunomodulatory cytokines, and hormone concentrations were determined from blood samples obtained at baseline, immediately post training (IP) and at 15min intervals post-training to 1h (R15, R30, R45, R60). Assessments of cognitive moral functioning (moral judgment and intent) were recorded at intervals during recovery. There were significant fluctuations in immunoendocrine parameters. Peak endocrine measures were observed within the IP-R15 time interval. Distributions of circulating immune cells were significantly altered with neutrophils and all lymphocyte subsets elevated at IP. IFN-γ and IL-17a exhibited small, non-significant, parallel increases over the recovery period. Moral functioning was informed by different social identities during the recovery resulting in changes in moral decision-making. These data demonstrate that the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program induces significant alterations in lymphocyte and leukocyte distributions, but does not shift the balance of Th1/Th2 cytokines or induce a systemic inflammatory response. The program does, however, induce alterations in moral decision-making ability associated with the observed endocrine responses, even suggesting a potential interaction between one's social identities and endocrine responses upon moral decision-making. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Inc.

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.

Deontological and utilitarian inclinations in moral decision making: a process dissociation approach.

PubMed

Conway, Paul; Gawronski, Bertram

2013-02-01

Dual-process theories of moral judgment suggest that responses to moral dilemmas are guided by two moral principles: the principle of deontology states that the morality of an action depends on the intrinsic nature of the action (e.g., harming others is wrong regardless of its consequences); the principle of utilitarianism implies that the morality of an action is determined by its consequences (e.g., harming others is acceptable if it increases the well-being of a greater number of people). Despite the proposed independence of the moral inclinations reflecting these principles, previous work has relied on operationalizations in which stronger inclinations of one kind imply weaker inclinations of the other kind. The current research applied Jacoby's (1991) process dissociation procedure to independently quantify the strength of deontological and utilitarian inclinations within individuals. Study 1 confirmed the usefulness of process dissociation for capturing individual differences in deontological and utilitarian inclinations, revealing positive correlations of both inclinations to moral identity. Moreover, deontological inclinations were uniquely related to empathic concern, perspective-taking, and religiosity, whereas utilitarian inclinations were uniquely related to need for cognition. Study 2 demonstrated that cognitive load selectively reduced utilitarian inclinations, with deontological inclinations being unaffected. In Study 3, a manipulation designed to enhance empathy increased deontological inclinations, with utilitarian inclinations being unaffected. These findings provide evidence for the independent contributions of deontological and utilitarian inclinations to moral judgments, resolving many theoretical ambiguities implied by previous research. (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

The contribution of emotion and cognition to moral sensitivity: a neurodevelopmental study.

PubMed

Decety, Jean; Michalska, Kalina J; Kinzler, Katherine D

2012-01-01

Whether emotion is a source of moral judgments remains controversial. This study combined neurophysiological measures, including functional magnetic resonance imaging, eye-tracking, and pupillary response with behavioral measures assessing affective and moral judgments across age. One hundred and twenty-six participants aged between 4 and 37 years viewed scenarios depicting intentional versus accidental actions that caused harm/damage to people and objects. Morally, salient scenarios evoked stronger empathic sadness in young participants and were associated with enhanced activity in the amygdala, insula, and temporal poles. While intentional harm was evaluated as equally wrong across all participants, ratings of deserved punishments and malevolent intent gradually became more differentiated with age. Furthermore, age-related increase in activity was detected in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex in response to intentional harm to people, as well as increased functional connectivity between this region and the amygdala. Our study provides evidence that moral reasoning involves a complex integration between affective and cognitive processes that gradually changes with age and can be viewed in dynamic transaction across the course of ontogenesis. The findings support the view that negative emotion alerts the individual to the moral salience of a situation by bringing discomfort and thus can serve as an antecedent to moral judgment.

The unique predisposition to criminal violations in frontotemporal dementia.

PubMed

Mendez, Mario F

2010-01-01

Brain disorders can lead to criminal violations. Patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) are particularly prone to sociopathic behavior while retaining knowledge of their acts and of moral and conventional rules. This report describes four FTD patients who committed criminal violations in the presence of clear consciousness and sufficiently intact cognition. They understood the nature of their acts and the potential consequences, but did not feel sufficiently concerned to be deterred. FTD involves a unique pathologic combination affecting the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, with altered moral feelings, right anterior temporal loss of emotional empathy, and orbitofrontal changes with disinhibited, compulsive behavior. These case histories and the literature indicate that those with right temporal FTD retain the capacity to tell right from wrong but have the slow and insidious loss of the capacity for moral rationality. Patients with early FTD present a challenge to the criminal justice system to consider alterations in moral cognition before ascribing criminal responsibility.

Omissions and Byproducts across Moral Domains

PubMed Central

DeScioli, Peter; Asao, Kelly; Kurzban, Robert

2012-01-01

Research indicates that moral violations are judged less wrong when the violation results from omission as opposed to commission, and when the violation is a byproduct as opposed to a means to an end. Previous work examined these effects mainly for violent offenses such as killing. Here we investigate the generality of these effects across a range of moral violations including sexuality, food, property, and group loyalty. In Experiment 1, we observed omission effects in wrongness ratings for all of the twelve offenses investigated. In Experiments 2 and 3, we observed byproduct effects in wrongness ratings for seven and eight offenses (out of twelve), respectively, and we observed byproduct effects in forced-choice responses for all twelve offenses. Our results address an ongoing debate about whether different cognitive systems compute moral wrongness for different types of behaviors (surrounding violence, sexuality, food, etc.), or, alternatively, a common cognitive architecture computes wrongness for a variety of behaviors. PMID:23071678

Developmental Outcomes after Early Prefrontal Cortex Damage

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eslinger, Paul J.; Flaherty-Craig, Claire V.; Benton, Arthur L.

2004-01-01

The neuropsychological bases of cognitive, social, and moral development are minimally understood, with a seemingly wide chasm between developmental theories and brain maturation models. As one approach to bridging ideas in these areas, we review 10 cases of early prefrontal cortex damage from the clinical literature, highlighting overall clinical…

Effects of the College Admission Process on Adolescent Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kovacs, Patty Rust

2008-01-01

By definition, adolescence begins with the onset of puberty (often starting earlier now) and ends when adult responsibilities are assumed (often starting later). This is a very long period of enormous change and rapid growth, physically, socially, sexually, cognitively, emotionally, motivationally, and morally. Adolescents are moving from…

Bridging a Cultural Divide with Literature about Arabs and Arab Americans

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Al-Hazza, Tami Craft; Bucher, Katherine T.

2010-01-01

Middle school is a time of many changes for young adolescents. They are "searching for individual identity, struggling with society's norms, and grappling with moral issues." They are changing and maturing physically, cognitively, socially, and psychologically as they develop their identities; establish, maintain, and end friendships and social…

A Comparison of Transpersonal, Wholistic, and Other Major Counseling Theories.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Peterson, J. Vincent; Nisenholz, Bernard

Transpersonal Counseling and Wholistic Counseling are two relatively new approaches to psychotherapy. Transpersonal counseling is based on the work of transpersonal psychologists who believe that there are potential cognitive, moral, and motivational stages of development beyond those reached by most adults. It suggests a "fourth force"…

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.

The neural correlates of internal and external comparisons: an fMRI study.

PubMed

Wen, Xue; Xiang, Yanhui; Cant, Jonathan S; Wang, Tingting; Cupchik, Gerald; Huang, Ruiwang; Mo, Lei

2017-01-01

Many previous studies have suggested that various comparisons rely on the same cognitive and neural mechanisms. However, little attention has been paid to exploring the commonalities and differences between the internal comparison based on concepts or rules and the external comparison based on perception. In the present experiment, moral beauty comparison and facial beauty comparison were selected as the representatives of internal comparison and external comparison, respectively. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to record brain activity while participants compared the level of moral beauty of two scene drawings containing moral acts or the level of facial beauty of two face photos. In addition, a physical size comparison task with the same stimuli as the beauty comparison was included. We observed that both the internal moral beauty comparison and external facial beauty comparison obeyed a typical distance effect and this behavioral effect recruited a common frontoparietal network involved in comparisons of simple physical magnitudes such as size. In addition, compared to external facial beauty comparison, internal moral beauty comparison induced greater activity in more advanced and complex cortical regions, such as the bilateral middle temporal gyrus and middle occipital gyrus, but weaker activity in the putamen, a subcortical region. Our results provide novel neural evidence for the comparative process and suggest that different comparisons may rely on both common cognitive processes as well as distinct and specific cognitive components.

Morality constrains the default representation of what is possible.

PubMed

Phillips, Jonathan; Cushman, Fiery

2017-05-02

The capacity for representing and reasoning over sets of possibilities, or modal cognition, supports diverse kinds of high-level judgments: causal reasoning, moral judgment, language comprehension, and more. Prior research on modal cognition asks how humans explicitly and deliberatively reason about what is possible but has not investigated whether or how people have a default, implicit representation of which events are possible. We present three studies that characterize the role of implicit representations of possibility in cognition. Collectively, these studies differentiate explicit reasoning about possibilities from default implicit representations, demonstrate that human adults often default to treating immoral and irrational events as impossible, and provide a case study of high-level cognitive judgments relying on default implicit representations of possibility rather than explicit deliberation.

Affective Cognition and its Disruption in Mood Disorders

PubMed Central

Elliott, Rebecca; Zahn, Roland; Deakin, J F William; Anderson, Ian M

2011-01-01

In this review, we consider affective cognition, responses to emotional stimuli occurring in the context of cognitive evaluation. In particular, we discuss emotion categorization, biasing of memory and attention, as well as social/moral emotion. We discuss limited neuropsychological evidence suggesting that affective cognition depends critically on the amygdala, ventromedial frontal cortex, and the connections between them. We then consider neuroimaging studies of affective cognition in healthy volunteers, which have led to the development of more sophisticated neural models of these processes. Disturbances of affective cognition are a core and specific feature of mood disorders, and we discuss the evidence supporting this claim, both from behavioral and neuroimaging perspectives. Serotonin is considered to be a key neurotransmitter involved in depression, and there is a considerable body of research exploring whether serotonin may mediate disturbances of affective cognition. The final section presents an overview of this literature and considers implications for understanding the pathophysiology of mood disorder as well as developing and evaluating new treatment strategies. PMID:20571485

Near or far? It depends on my impression: moral information and spatial behavior in virtual interactions.

PubMed

Iachini, Tina; Pagliaro, Stefano; Ruggiero, Gennaro

2015-10-01

Near body distance is a key component of action and social interaction. Recent research has shown that peripersonal space (reachability-distance for acting with objects) and interpersonal space (comfort-distance for interacting with people) share common mechanisms and reflect the social valence of stimuli. The social psychological literature has demonstrated that information about morality is crucial because it affects impression formation and the intention to approach-avoid others. Here we explore whether peripersonal/interpersonal spaces are modulated by moral information. Thirty-six participants interacted with male/female virtual confederates described by moral/immoral/neutral sentences. The modulation of body space was measured by reachability-distance and comfort-distance while participants stood still or walked toward virtual confederates. Results showed that distance expanded with immorally described confederates and contracted with morally described confederates. This pattern was present in both spaces, although it was stronger in comfort-distance. Consistent with an embodied cognition approach, the findings suggest that high-level socio-cognitive processes are linked to sensorimotor-spatial processes. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier B.V.

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.

Joint influences of individual and work unit abusive supervision on ethical intentions and behaviors: a moderated mediation model.

PubMed

Hannah, Sean T; Schaubroeck, John M; Peng, Ann C; Lord, Robert G; Trevino, Linda K; Kozlowski, Steve W J; Avolio, Bruce J; Dimotakis, Nikolaos; Doty, Joseph

2013-07-01

We develop and test a model based on social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1991) that links abusive supervision to followers' ethical intentions and behaviors. Results from a sample of 2,572 military members show that abusive supervision was negatively related to followers' moral courage and their identification with the organization's core values. In addition, work unit contexts with varying degrees of abusive supervision, reflected by the average level of abusive supervision reported by unit members, moderated relationships between the level of abusive supervision personally experienced by individuals and both their moral courage and their identification with organizational values. Moral courage and identification with organizational values accounted for the relationship between abusive supervision and followers' ethical intentions and unethical behaviors. These findings suggest that abusive supervision may undermine moral agency and that being personally abused is not required for abusive supervision to negatively influence ethical outcomes. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

The Roles of Parental Inductions, Moral Emotions, and Moral Cognitions in Prosocial Tendencies among Mexican American and European American Early Adolescents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carlo, Gustavo; Knight, George P.; McGinley, Meredith; Hayes, Rachel

2011-01-01

This study examined the relationships between parental inductions, sympathy, prosocial moral reasoning, and prosocial behaviors. A total of 207 early adolescents who self-identified as Mexican American (girls, n = 105; mean age = 10.91 years) and 108 who identified as European American (girls, n = 54; mean age = 11.07 years) completed measures of…

The Nature of the Association between Moral Neutralization and Aggression: A Systematic Test of Causality in Early Adolescence

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ribeaud, Denis; Eisner, Manuel

2015-01-01

This article examines possible causal linkages between moral neutralization--a generic term for the related concepts of neutralization techniques, moral disengagement, and self-serving cognitive distortions--and aggressive behavior by using a set of repeated measures in a culturally diverse urban sample at ages 11.4 and 13.7 (N = 1,032). First,…

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…

Thought-shape fusion in anorexia nervosa: an experimental investigation.

PubMed

Radomsky, Adam S; de Silva, Padmal; Todd, Gillian; Treasure, Janet; Murphy, Tara

2002-10-01

Cognitive biases and cognitive distortions have been implicated as important factors in the development and maintenance of many disorders. The concept of thought-shape fusion (TSF) in eating disorders was developed by Shafran, Teachman, Kerry, and Rachman (British Journal of Clinical Psychology 38 (1999) 167) as a variant of thought-action fusion, described by Shafran, Thordarson and Rachman (Journal of Anxiety Disorders 10 (1996) 379). TSF occurs when thinking about eating certain types of food increases a person's estimate of their shape and/or weight, elicits a perception of moral wrongdoing, and/or makes the person feel fat. Shafran et al. (1999) examined both the psychometric and experimental properties of TSF in an undergraduate sample. This paper reports an extension of this work to a clinical group (N=20) of patients with anorexia nervosa. After completing a set of relevant questionnaires, participants were asked to think about a food which they considered extremely fattening. They were then asked to write out the sentence, "I am eating--.", inserting the name of the fattening food in the blank. After being asked to rate their anxiety, guilt, feelings about their weight, morality, etc., participants were given the opportunity to neutralize their statement in any way they chose. The majority of the participants neutralized in ways consistent with the findings of Shafran et al. (1999). The results are discussed in terms of cognitive-behavioural formulations of eating disorders, and of the influence of cognitive biases and cognitive distortions on the processing of information relevant to food, weight and shape in anorexia nervosa.

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

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.

The Ethics of Belief, Cognition, and Climate Change Pseudoskepticism: Implications for Public Discourse.

PubMed

Torcello, Lawrence

2016-01-01

The relationship between knowledge, belief, and ethics is an inaugural theme in philosophy; more recently, under the title "ethics of belief" philosophers have worked to develop the appropriate methodology for studying the nexus of epistemology, ethics, and psychology. The title "ethics of belief" comes from a 19th-century paper written by British philosopher and mathematician W.K. Clifford. Clifford argues that we are morally responsible for our beliefs because (a) each belief that we form creates the cognitive circumstances for related beliefs to follow, and (b) we inevitably influence each other through those beliefs. This study argues that recent cognitive research supports Cliffordian insights regarding patterns of belief formation and social influence. From the confirmation offered by such research, it follows that informational accuracy holds serious ethical significance in public discourse. Although scientific and epistemological matters are not always thought to be linked to normative morality, this study builds on Clifford's initial insights to show their linkage is fundamental to inquiry itself. In turn, Clifford's ethical and epistemic outline can inform a framework grounded in "public reason" under which seemingly opposed science communication strategies (e.g., "information deficit" and "cultural cognition" models) are philosophically united. With public discourse on climate change as the key example, empirically informed and grounded strategies for science communication in the public sphere are considered. Copyright © 2016 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Cognitive, emotional and social markers of serial murdering.

PubMed

Angrilli, Alessandro; Sartori, Giuseppe; Donzella, Giovanna

2013-01-01

Although criminal psychopathy is starting to be relatively well described, our knowledge of the characteristics and scientific markers of serial murdering is still very poor. A serial killer who murdered more than five people, KT, was administered a battery of standardized tests aimed at measuring neuropsychological impairment and social/emotional cognition deficits. KT exhibited a striking dissociation between a high level of emotional detachment and a low score on the antisocial behavior scale on the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 showed a normal pattern with the psychotic triad at borderline level. KT had a high intelligence score and showed almost no impairment in cognitive tests sensitive to frontal lobe dysfunction (Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Theory of Mind, Tower of London, this latter evidenced a mild impairment in planning performance). In the tests on moral, emotional and social cognition, his patterns of response differed from matched controls and from past reports on criminal psychopaths as, unlike these individuals, KT exhibited normal recognition of fear and a relatively intact knowledge of moral rules but he was impaired in the recognition of anger, embarrassment and conventional social rules. The overall picture of KT suggests that serial killing may be closer to normality than psychopathy defined according to either the DSM IV or the PCL-R, and it would be characterized by a relatively spared moral cognition and selective deficits in social and emotional cognition domains.

The moral foundations of illusory correlation

PubMed Central

Barberia, Itxaso

2017-01-01

Previous research has studied the relationship between political ideology and cognitive biases, such as the tendency of conservatives to form stronger illusory correlations between negative infrequent behaviors and minority groups. We further explored these findings by studying the relation between illusory correlation and moral values. According to the moral foundations theory, liberals and conservatives differ in the relevance they concede to different moral dimensions: Care, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority, and Purity. Whereas liberals consistently endorse the Care and Fairness foundations more than the Loyalty, Authority and Purity foundations, conservatives tend to adhere to the five foundations alike. In the present study, a group of participants took part in a standard illusory correlation task in which they were presented with randomly ordered descriptions of either desirable or undesirable behaviors attributed to individuals belonging to numerically different majority and minority groups. Although the proportion of desirable and undesirable behaviors was the same in the two groups, participants attributed a higher frequency of undesirable behaviors to the minority group, thus showing the expected illusory correlation effect. Moreover, this effect was specifically associated to our participants’ scores in the Loyalty subscale of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire. These results emphasize the role of the Loyalty moral foundation in the formation of attitudes towards minorities among conservatives. Our study points out the moral system as a useful fine-grained framework to explore the complex interaction between basic cognitive processes and ideology. PMID:28972990

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

Problem-Based Learning in Engineering Ethics Courses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kirkman, Robert

2016-01-01

I describe the first stages of a process of design research in which I employ problem-based learning in a course in engineering ethics, which fulfills a requirement for students in engineering degree programs. The aim of the course is to foster development of particular cognitive skills contributing to moral imagination, a capacity to notice,…

Classes of Legitimate Evidence for Identifying Effective Teaching.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wagner, Paul A.

A criterion for selecting sources of evidence to evaluate effective teaching is described. It is suggested that teaching effectiveness is not measured solely in terms of cognitive change in students but in the extent to which academics practice teaching in accordance with the moral dictates of the profession. In developing a teacher effectiveness…

Teacher Preparation Practices in Kenya and the 21st Century Learning: A Moral Obligation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kafwa, Nabwire Opata; Gaudience, Obondo; Kisaka, Sella Terrie

2015-01-01

Teacher preparation practices are indices used to measure quality teacher besides other variables. Whereas the current teacher preparation is test scores based inclining to cognitive knowledge, a good teacher preparation practices is a holistic development in nature oriented towards character, skills and knowledge. To embed teacher preparation in…

Learning from moral inconsistency.

PubMed

Campbell, Richmond

2017-10-01

Moral inconsistency is an understudied phenomenon in cognitive moral psychology and deserves in depth empirical study. Moral inconsistency, as understood here, is not formal inconsistency but inconsistency in moral emotion and belief in response to particular cases. It occurs when persons treat cases as morally different that are really morally the same, even from their moral perspective. Learning to recognize and avoid such moral inconsistency in non-trivial but is a form of moral learning that complements and enhances other psychological and social mechanisms through which persons learn how to apply shared moral norms when their applications are uncertain and threaten to lapse into moral inconsistency. The same psychological process also can function to revise current moral norms when their straightforward applications are morally inconsistent with more basic moral commitments. Through this moral learning and related kinds, people can learn how to identify issues of moral priority when moral norms conflict and, when necessary, how to revise their moral norms. The recent revolution in dominant moral norms around gay sex and gay marriage in Europe and North America provides a possible illustration. When coupled with other modes of moral learning in the context of ambiguous but deeply rooted moral norms, such as those of sanctity and authority, reflection on moral inconsistency can help to justify this large-scale moral change, even among those who find gay sex, by its nature, morally repugnant. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Classroom relationship qualities and social-cognitive correlates of defending and passive bystanding in school bullying in Sweden: A multilevel analysis.

PubMed

Thornberg, Robert; Wänström, Linda; Hong, Jun Sung; Espelage, Dorothy L

2017-08-01

Using the social-ecological and social cognitive theories as integrated guiding frameworks, the present study examined whether moral disengagement and defender self-efficacy at the individual level, and moral disengagement, quality of teacher-student relationships and quality of student-student relationships at the classroom level were associated with passive bystanding and defending in bullying situations. Participants were 900 Swedish students from 43 classrooms, ranging in age from 9 to 13years. Multilevel regression analyses revealed that passive reactions by bystanders were associated with greater moral disengagement and less defender self-efficacy. Defending, in turn, was associated with less moral disengagement and greater defender self-efficacy and classroom student-student relationship quality. Furthermore, students who scored high in moral disengagement were even less prone to defend victims when the classroom student-student relationship quality was low, but more prone to act as defenders when the classroom student-student relationship quality was high. In addition, the negative association between defender self-efficacy and passive bystanding was stronger both in classrooms with higher student-student relationship quality and in those with lower class moral disengagement. Implications for prevention are discussed. Copyright © 2017 Society for the Study of School Psychology. All rights reserved.

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.

A moral house divided: How idealized family models impact political cognition.

PubMed

Feinberg, Matthew; Wehling, Elisabeth

2018-01-01

People's political attitudes tend to fall into two groups: progressive and conservative. Moral Politics Theory asserts that this ideological divide is the product of two contrasting moral worldviews, which are conceptually anchored in individuals' cognitive models about ideal parenting and family life. These models, here labeled the strict and nurturant models, serve as conceptual templates for how society should function, and dictate whether one will endorse more conservative or progressive positions. According to Moral Politics Theory, individuals map their parenting ideals onto the societal domain by engaging the nation-as-family metaphor, which facilitates reasoning about the abstract social world (the nation) in terms of more concrete world experience (family life). In the present research, we conduct an empirical examination of these core assertions of Moral Politics Theory. In Studies 1-3, we experimentally test whether family ideals directly map onto political attitudes while ruling out alternative explanations. In Studies 4-5, we use both correlational and experimental methods to examine the nation-as-family metaphor's role in facilitating the translation of family beliefs into societal beliefs and, ultimately, political attitudes. Overall, we found consistent support for Moral Politics Theory's assertions that family ideals directly impact political judgment, and that the nation-as-family metaphor serves a mediating role in this phenomenon.

A moral house divided: How idealized family models impact political cognition

PubMed Central

Feinberg, Matthew; Wehling, Elisabeth

2018-01-01

People’s political attitudes tend to fall into two groups: progressive and conservative. Moral Politics Theory asserts that this ideological divide is the product of two contrasting moral worldviews, which are conceptually anchored in individuals’ cognitive models about ideal parenting and family life. These models, here labeled the strict and nurturant models, serve as conceptual templates for how society should function, and dictate whether one will endorse more conservative or progressive positions. According to Moral Politics Theory, individuals map their parenting ideals onto the societal domain by engaging the nation-as-family metaphor, which facilitates reasoning about the abstract social world (the nation) in terms of more concrete world experience (family life). In the present research, we conduct an empirical examination of these core assertions of Moral Politics Theory. In Studies 1–3, we experimentally test whether family ideals directly map onto political attitudes while ruling out alternative explanations. In Studies 4–5, we use both correlational and experimental methods to examine the nation-as-family metaphor’s role in facilitating the translation of family beliefs into societal beliefs and, ultimately, political attitudes. Overall, we found consistent support for Moral Politics Theory’s assertions that family ideals directly impact political judgment, and that the nation-as-family metaphor serves a mediating role in this phenomenon. PMID:29641618

Analyzing the history of Cognition using Topic Models.

PubMed

Cohen Priva, Uriel; Austerweil, Joseph L

2015-02-01

Very few articles have analyzed how cognitive science as a field has changed over the last six decades. We explore how Cognition changed over the last four decades using Topic Models. Topic Models assume that every word in every document is generated by one of a limited number of topics. Words that are likely to co-occur are likely to be generated by a single topic. We find a number of significant historical trends: the rise of moral cognition, eyetracking methods, and action, the fall of sentence processing, and the stability of development. We introduce the notion of framing topics, which frame content, rather than present the content itself. These framing topics suggest that over time Cognition turned from abstract theorizing to more experimental approaches. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Judging the morality of utilitarian actions: How poor utilitarian accessibility makes judges irrational.

PubMed

Kusev, Petko; van Schaik, Paul; Alzahrani, Shrooq; Lonigro, Samantha; Purser, Harry

2016-12-01

Is it acceptable and moral to sacrifice a few people's lives to save many others? Research on moral dilemmas in psychology, experimental philosophy, and neuropsychology has shown that respondents judge utilitarian personal moral actions (footbridge dilemma) as less appropriate than equivalent utilitarian impersonal moral actions (trolley dilemma). Accordingly, theorists (e.g., Greene et al., 2001) have argued that judgments of appropriateness in personal moral dilemmas are more emotionally salient and cognitively demanding (taking more time to be rational) than impersonal moral dilemmas. Our novel findings show an effect of psychological accessibility (driven by partial contextual information; Kahneman, 2003) on utilitarian moral behavior and response time for rational choices. Enhanced accessibility of utilitarian outcomes through comprehensive information about moral actions and consequences boosted utility maximization in moral choices, with rational choices taking less time. Moreover, our result suggests that previous results indicating emotional interference, with rational choices taking more time to make, may have been artifacts of presenting partial information.

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 use of supernatural entities in moral conversations as a cultural-psychological attractor.

PubMed

Tófalvy, Tamás; Viciana, Hugo

2009-06-01

Social behavior in most human societies is characterized by the following of moral rules explicitly justified by religious belief systems. These systems constitute the diverse domain of human sacred values. Supernatural entities as founders or warranty of moral principles may be seen as a form of "conversation stoppers," considerations that can be dropped into a moral decision process in order to prevent endlessly reconsidering and endlessly asking for further justification. In this article we offer a general naturalistic framework toward answering the question of why supernatural entities are so attractive in moral argumentation. We present an explanatory model based on the phenomena of multiple channels of moral reasoning, the suspension of epistemic vigilance, and relevance assumptions through the attractiveness of the sacred, moral dumbfounding, and the expression of social coalitionary commitment. Thus, in light of much of current cognitive theory, sacred values make sense as basins in the evolutionary landscape of human morality.

Moral processing deficit in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia is associated with facial emotion recognition and brain changes in default mode and salience network areas.

PubMed

Van den Stock, Jan; Stam, Daphne; De Winter, François-Laurent; Mantini, Dante; Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt; Van Laere, Koen; Vandenberghe, Rik; Vandenbulcke, Mathieu

2017-12-01

Behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) is associated with abnormal emotion recognition and moral processing. We assessed emotion detection, discrimination, matching, selection, and categorization as well as judgments of nonmoral, moral impersonal, moral personal low- and high-conflict scenarios. bvFTD patients gave more utilitarian responses on low-conflict personal moral dilemmas. There was a significant correlation between a facial emotion processing measure derived through principal component analysis and utilitarian responses on low-conflict personal scenarios in the bvFTD group (controlling for MMSE-score and syntactic abilities). Voxel-based morphometric multiple regression analysis in the bvFTD group revealed a significant association between the proportion of utilitarian responses on personal low-conflict dilemmas and gray matter volume in ventromedial prefrontal areas ( p height  < .0001). In addition, there was a correlation between utilitarian responses on low-conflict personal scenarios in the bvFTD group and resting-state fractional Amplitude of Low Frequency Fluctuations (fALFF) in the anterior insula ( p height  < .005). The results underscore the importance of emotions in moral cognition and suggest a common basis for deficits in both abilities, possibly related to reduced experience of emotional sensations. At the neural level abnormal moral cognition in bvFTD is related to structural integrity of the medial prefrontal cortex and functional characteristics of the anterior insula. The present findings provide a common basis for emotion recognition and moral reasoning and link them with areas in the default mode and salience network.

Who Waits for the White Knight?: Training in "Nice."

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McDonald, Linda; Rogers, Linda

This study (part of a larger study of 104 boys and girls) examined the moral and cognitive development of 37 female elementary school students in an independent college preparatory day school in the midwestern United States. Six students (two each in kindergarten, grade 2, and grade 4) were interviewed for the study, which found that the girls in…

The Role of Moral Beliefs, Memories, and Preferences in Representations of Identity.

PubMed

Heiphetz, Larisa; Strohminger, Nina; Young, Liane L

2017-04-01

People perceive that if their memories and moral beliefs changed, they would change. We investigated why individuals respond this way. In Study 1, participants judged that identity would change more after changes to memories and widely shared moral beliefs (e.g., about murder) versus preferences and controversial moral beliefs (e.g., about abortion). The extent to which participants judged that changes would affect their relationships predicted identity change (Study 2) and mediated the relationship between type of moral belief and perceived identity change (Study 3). We discuss the role that social relationships play in judgments of identity and highlight implications for psychology and philosophy. Copyright © 2016 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Neuroscience and morality.

PubMed

Allison, T

2001-10-01

Humans are social animals who use specialized brain mechanisms to assess the actions of others. This system for social cognition can be studied by imaging techniques, and its damage can lead to inappropriate social and moral behavior. Neuroscience can thus enrich our understanding of behaviors traditionally thought to be outside the province of science.

Michael Slote and "Sentimentalist Moral Education"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wren, Thomas

2010-01-01

Although I think most of what Michael Slote asserts in his article "Sentimentalist moral education" is correct, I worry about three important ideas that are conspicuous by their absence. The first is the possibility that human emotions and feelings are inherently cognitive, which is never considered in his psychological account of empathy. The…

Character: A Multifaceted Developmental System

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nucci, Larry

2017-01-01

Character is a developmental system embedded within the self-system. This Relational Developmental Systems (RDS) view is in juxtaposition with virtue theory and accounts of character in terms of moral identity. The character system includes 4 components 3 of which: basic moral cognition (as described within domain theory); other regarding; and…

Discoursive Humanity as a Transcendental Basis for Cognitive (Dis)Ability Ethics and Policies.

PubMed

Häyry, Matti

2016-04-01

This article explicates two approaches to the basis of moral worth and status: Eva Kittay's relational view and Jeff McMahan's psychological personhood view. It is argued that these theories alone do not provide adequate support for the conclusions Kittay and McMahan want to draw concerning individuals whose entitlement to fundamental protections can be challenged-infants with severe cognitive disabilities and infants without the support of their families and social environments. The real justification can in each case be found in deeply held convictions regarding entities that must and entities that must not be included in the core community of moral equals. Philosophical discussions about these convictions would be more useful for the advancement of our moral thinking than vain attempts to show that the absolute truth lies on either side of the ongoing debate.

The desired moral attitude of the physician: (III) care.

PubMed

Gelhaus, Petra

2013-05-01

In professional medical ethics, the physician traditionally is obliged to fulfil specific duties as well as to embody a responsible and trustworthy personality. In the public discussion, different concepts are suggested to describe the desired moral attitude of physicians. In a series of three articles, three of the discussed concepts are presented in an interpretation that is meant to characterise the morally emotional part of this attitude: "empathy", "compassion" and "care". In the first article of the series, "empathy" has been developed as a mainly cognitive and morally neutral capacity of understanding. In the second article, the emotional and virtuous core of the desired professional attitude-compassion-has been presented. Compassion as a professional attitude has been distinguished from a spontaneous feeling of compassion, and has been related to a general idea of man as vulnerable and solidary being. Thus, the dignity of the patient is safeguarded in spite of the asymmetry of compassion. In this article, the third concept of the triad-"care"-is presented. Care is conceived as an attitude as well as an activity which can be directed to different objects: if it is directed to another sentient being, it is regarded as intrinsically morally valuable; implying (1) the acceptance of being addressed, (2) a benevolent inclination to help and to foster, and (3) activity to realize this. There are different forms of benevolence that can underlie caring. With regard to the professional physician's ethos, the attitude of empathic compassion as developed in the two previous articles is proposed to be the adequate underlying attitude of care which demands the right balance between closeness and professionalism and the right form of attention to the person of the patient. 'Empathic compassionate care' does not, however, describe the whole of the desired attitude of a physician, but focuses on the morally-emotive aspects. In order to get also the cognitive and practical aspects of biomedicine into the picture, 'empathic compassionate care' has to be combined with an attitude of responsibility that is more directed to decision-making and outcome than a caring attitude alone can be. The reconstruction of the desired professional attitude in terms of "empathic compassionate care" and "responsibility" is certainly not the only possible description, but it is a detailed proposal in order to give an impulse for the discussion about the inner tacit values and the meaning of medicine and clinical healthcare professions.

Are creative individuals bad apples? A dual pathway model of unethical behavior.

PubMed

Keem, Sejin; Shalley, Christina E; Kim, Eugene; Jeong, Inseong

2018-04-01

Research has been inconsistent in its quest to discover whether dispositional creativity is associated with more or less unethical behavior. Drawing on social cognitive theory, we propose that moral disengagement and moral imagination are 2 parallel mechanisms that encourage or inhibit unethical behavior, and that which of these mediation processes occur depends on moral identity. Study 1, a 3-wave study of a food service organization, shows that employees high on both dispositional creativity and moral identity are less likely to be morally disengaged and behave less unethically. The results of Study 2 replicate Study 1's findings in a scenario-based study of college students, and further show that individuals who are high on both dispositional creativity and moral identity are more likely to be morally imaginative and to behave less unethically. Theoretical and practical implications of our model are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Are You Morally Modified?

PubMed Central

Levy, Neil; Douglas, Thomas; Kahane, Guy; Terbeck, Sylvia; Cowen, Philip J.; Hewstone, Miles; Savulescu, Julian

2015-01-01

A number of concerns have been raised about the possible future use of pharmaceuticals designed to enhance cognitive, affective, and motivational processes, particularly where the aim is to produce morally better decisions or behavior. In this article, we draw attention to what is arguably a more worrying possibility: that pharmaceuticals currently in widespread therapeutic use are already having unintended effects on these processes, and thus on moral decision making and morally significant behavior. We review current evidence on the moral effects of three widely used drugs or drug types: (i) propranolol, (ii) selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and (iii) drugs that effect oxytocin physiology. This evidence suggests that the alterations to moral decision making and behavior caused by these agents may have important and difficult-to-evaluate consequences, at least at the population level. We argue that the moral effects of these and other widely used pharmaceuticals warrant further empirical research and ethical analysis. PMID:25892904

"It was only harmless banter!" The development and preliminary validation of the moral disengagement in sexual harassment scale.

PubMed

Page, Thomas E; Pina, Afroditi; Giner-Sorolla, Roger

2016-01-01

Sexual harassment represents aggressive behavior that is often enacted instrumentally, in response to a threatened sense of masculinity and male identity. To date, however, theoretical attention to the social cognitive processes that regulate workplace harassment is scant. This article presents the development and preliminary validation of the Moral Disengagement in Sexual Harassment Scale (MDiSH); a self-report measure of moral disengagement in the context of hostile work environment harassment. Three studies (total n = 797) document the excellent psychometric properties of this new scale. Male U.K. university students (Study 1: n = 322) and U.S. working males (Studies 2 and 3: n = 475) completed the MDiSH and an array of measures for construct validation. The MDiSH exhibited positive correlations with sexual harassment myth acceptance, male gender identification, and hostile sexism. In Study 3, participants were exposed to a fictitious case of hostile work environment harassment. The MDiSH attenuated moral judgment, negative emotions (guilt, shame, and anger), sympathy, and endorsement of prosocial behavioral intentions (support for restitution) associated with the harassment case. Conversely, the MDiSH increased positive affect (happiness) about the harassment and attribution of blame to the female complainant. Implications for practice and future research avenues are discussed. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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 disengagement in ethical decision making: a study of antecedents and outcomes.

PubMed

Detert, James R; Treviño, Linda Klebe; Sweitzer, Vicki L

2008-03-01

This article advances understanding of the antecedents and outcomes of moral disengagement by testing hypotheses with 3 waves of survey data from 307 business and education undergraduate students. The authors theorize that 6 individual differences will either increase or decrease moral disengagement, defined as a set of cognitive mechanisms that deactivate moral self-regulatory processes and thereby help to explain why individuals often make unethical decisions without apparent guilt or self-censure (Bandura, 1986). Results support 4 individual difference hypotheses, specifically, that empathy and moral identity are negatively related to moral disengagement, while trait cynicism and chance locus of control orientation are positively related to moral disengagement. Two additional locus of control orientations are not significantly related to moral disengagement. The authors also hypothesize and find that moral disengagement is positively related to unethical decision making. Finally, the authors hypothesize that moral disengagement plays a mediating role between the individual differences they studied and unethical decisions. Their results offer partial support for these mediating hypotheses. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for future research and for practice. Copyright 2008 APA

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 assume their agency in dilemmas involving the infliction of direct physical harm. Decreased likelihood of utilitarian action approval by the PTSD sample was driven by significantly enhanced endorsement of guilt and shame as consequences of such actions. Endorsement of guilt and shame in moral dilemmas was related to increased severity of current clinical symptoms of guilt. PMID:27837580

Task Performance and Meta-Cognitive Outcomes When Using Activity Workstations and Traditional Desks

PubMed Central

Pilcher, June J.; Baker, Victoria C.

2016-01-01

The purpose of the current study is to compare the effects of light physical activity to sedentary behavior on cognitive task performance and meta-cognitive responses. Thirty-eight undergraduate students participated in the study. The participants used a stationary bicycle with a desk top and a traditional desk while completing two complex cognitive tasks and measures of affect, motivation, morale, and engagement. The participants pedaled the stationary bicycle at a slow pace (similar in exertion to a normal walking pace) while working. The results indicated that cognitive task performance did not change between the two workstations. However, positive affect, motivation, and morale improved when using the stationary bicycle. These results suggest that activity workstations could be implemented in the work place and in educational settings to help decrease sedentary behavior without negatively affecting performance. Furthermore, individuals could experience a positive emotional response when working on activity workstations which in turn could help encourage individuals to choose to be more physical active during daily activities. PMID:27445921

Spiritual Development for Strategic Leadership in the Air Force

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-03-01

millionaire civilian pilot who had grown close to senior Air Force officials and the Thunderbirds.”8 The Thunderbirds are the Air Force’s high...integrated with the other well- known streams of development: cognitive, social , emotional, and moral. The name commonly given is spiritual...and socialize the Air Force core values of “Integrity First, Service Before Self, and Excellence in All We Do,” adopted in 1997. This document states

A Different Kind of Kid, a Different Kind of Teacher Education: Middle Grades Teachers Reflect on Their Preparation to Teach Young Adolescents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ochanji, Moses K.; Chen, Rong-Ji; Daniels, Erika; Deringer, Marlene L.; McDaniel, Janet; Stowell, Laurie; Cambra-Adamson, Christina

2016-01-01

Good teaching at the middle grades comes out of a deep understanding of the unique cognitive, physical, social, emotional, and moral needs of young adolescents. Specialized preparation therefore is necessary to help teacher candidates understand how to operationalize the intersection of young adolescent development and the effective pedagogy that…

Developmental Benefits of Pets for Young Children. Final Report for the Delta Society.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Poresky, Robert H.; And Others

An exploratory study examined the premise that pets provide developmental benefits for young children. Four hypotheses were derived from prior research: (1) children who have a bond with a dog or cat show more maturity in their cognitive, moral, and emotional development than children who do not have such pets; (2) children who have a more…

Disrupting the right prefrontal cortex alters moral judgement.

PubMed

Tassy, Sébastien; Oullier, Olivier; Duclos, Yann; Coulon, Olivier; Mancini, Julien; Deruelle, Christine; Attarian, Sharam; Felician, Olivier; Wicker, Bruno

2012-03-01

Humans daily face social situations involving conflicts between competing moral decision. Despite a substantial amount of studies published over the past 10 years, the respective role of emotions and reason, their possible interaction, and their behavioural expression during moral evaluation remains an unresolved issue. A dualistic approach to moral evaluation proposes that the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFc) controls emotional impulses. However, recent findings raise the possibility that the right DLPFc processes emotional information during moral decision making. We used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to transiently disrupt rDLPFc activity before measuring decision making in the context of moral dilemmas. Results reveal an increase of the probability of utilitarian responses during objective evaluation of moral dilemmas in the rTMS group (compared to a SHAM one). This suggests that the right DLPFc function not only participates to a rational cognitive control process, but also integrates emotions generated by contextual information appraisal, which are decisive for response selection in moral judgements. © The Author (2011). Published by Oxford University Press.

The Misfortunes of Moral Enhancement.

PubMed

Azevedo, Marco Antonio

2016-10-01

In Unfit for the Future, Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu present a sophisticated argument in defense of the imperative of moral enhancement. They claim that without moral enhancement, the future of humanity is seriously compromised. The possibility of ultimate harm, caused by a dreadful terrorist attack or by a final unpreventable escalation of the present environmental crisis aggravated by the availability of cognitive enhancement, makes moral enhancement a top priority. It may be considered optimistic to think that our present moral capabilities can be successfully improved by means of moral education, moral persuasion, and fear of punishment. So, without moral enhancement, drastic restrictions on human freedom would become the only alternative to prevent those dramatic potential outcomes. In this article, I will try to show that we still have reason to be less pessimistic and that Persson & Savulescu's arguments are fortunately unconvincing. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Disrupting the right prefrontal cortex alters moral judgement

PubMed Central

Tassy, Sébastien; Oullier, Olivier; Duclos, Yann; Coulon, Olivier; Mancini, Julien; Deruelle, Christine; Attarian, Sharam; Felician, Olivier

2012-01-01

Humans daily face social situations involving conflicts between competing moral decision. Despite a substantial amount of studies published over the past 10 years, the respective role of emotions and reason, their possible interaction, and their behavioural expression during moral evaluation remains an unresolved issue. A dualistic approach to moral evaluation proposes that the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFc) controls emotional impulses. However, recent findings raise the possibility that the right DLPFc processes emotional information during moral decision making. We used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to transiently disrupt rDLPFc activity before measuring decision making in the context of moral dilemmas. Results reveal an increase of the probability of utilitarian responses during objective evaluation of moral dilemmas in the rTMS group (compared to a SHAM one). This suggests that the right DLPFc function not only participates to a rational cognitive control process, but also integrates emotions generated by contextual information appraisal, which are decisive for response selection in moral judgements. PMID:21515641

Abusive supervision, leader-member exchange and moral disengagement: a moderated-mediation model of organizational deviance.

PubMed

Valle, Matthew; Kacmar, K Michele; Zivnuska, Suzanne; Harting, Troy

2018-04-20

This paper draws from social exchange theory and social cognitive theory to explore moral disengagement as a potential mediator of the relationship between abusive supervision and organizational deviance. We also explore the moderating effect of leader-member exchange (LMX) on this mediated relationship. Results indicate that employees with abusive supervisors engaged in moral disengagement strategies and subsequently in organizational deviance behaviors. Additionally, this relationship was stronger for those higher in LMX. Important implications for management research and practice are discussed.

ACED IT: A Tool for Improved Ethical and Moral Decision-Making

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kreitler, Crystal Mata; Stenmark, Cheryl K.; Rodarte, Allen M.; Piñón DuMond, Rebecca

2014-01-01

Numerous examples of unethical organizational decision-making highlighted in the media have led many to question the general moral perception and ethical judgments of individuals. The present study examined two forms of a straightforward ethical decision-making (EDM) tool (ACED IT cognitive map) that could be a relatively simple instrument for…

Improving Moral Reasoning among College Students: A Game-Based Learning Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huang, Wenyeh; Ho, Jonathan C.

2018-01-01

Considering a company's limited time and resources, an effective training method that improves employees' ability to make ethical decision is needed. Based on social cognitive theory, this study proposes that employing games in an ethics training program can help improve moral reasoning through actively engaging learners. The experimental design…

Mental Models: Understanding the Impact of Fantasy Violence on Children's Moral Reasoning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Krcmar, Marina; Curtis, Stephen

2003-01-01

Tests the efficacy of mental models in understanding the effect of exposure to fantasy violence on children's responses to and reasoning about moral dilemmas involving aggression. Offers a possible extension to mental models that is consistent with current theory in cognitive science. Suggests that the activation of mental models regarding…

Divergent Effects of Different Positive Emotions on Moral Judgment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

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

2011-01-01

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…

Toward a More Pragmatic Approach to Morality: A Critical Evaluation of Kohlberg's Model

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Krebs, Dennis L.; Denton, Kathy

2005-01-01

In this article, the authors evaluate L. Kohlberg's (1984) cognitive-developmental approach to morality, find it wanting, and introduce a more pragmatic approach. They review research designed to evaluate Kohlberg's model, describe how they revised the model to accommodate discrepant findings, and explain why they concluded that it is poorly…

Developmental issues in school-based aggression prevention from a social-cognitive perspective.

PubMed

Boxer, Paul; Goldstein, Sara E; Musher-Eizenman, Dara; Dubow, Eric F; Heretick, Donna

2005-09-01

Contemporary research on the development and prevention of aggressive behavior in childhood and adolescence emphasizes the importance of social-cognitive factors such as perceptual biases, problem-solving skills, and social-moral beliefs in the maintenance of aggression. Indeed, school-based social-cognitive intervention approaches have been identified as best practices by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, because child age is an important covariate of both intervention effectiveness and social-cognitive ability, school-based prevention program designers should keep in mind a number of issues identified through developmental research. In this paper, we review the social-cognitive model of aggressive behavior development as applied to prevention programming. We then discuss some of the ways in which the broader developmental research base can inform the design of aggression prevention programs. EDITORS' STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS: Educational administrators and policy makers will find evidence in this review that school-based programs that employ a social-cognitive model represent a strategy that works for preventing violence. Prevention researchers will also benefit from the authors' insights regarding theoretical mediating processes and the importance of a developmental view.

Spanning our differences: moral psychology, physician beliefs, and the practice of medicine

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Moral pluralism is the norm in contemporary society. Even the best philosophical arguments rarely persuade moral opponents who differ at a foundational level. This has been vividly illustrated in contemporary debates in bioethics surrounding contentious issues such as abortion and euthanasia. It is readily apparent that bioethics discourse lacks an empirical explanation for the broad differences about various topics in bioethics and health policy. In recent years, social and cognitive psychology has generated novel approaches for defining basic differences in moral intuitions generally. We propose that if empirical research using social intuitionist theory explains why people disagree with one another over moral issues, then the results of such research might help people debate their moral differences in a more constructive and civil manner. We illustrate the utility of social intuitionism with data from a national physician survey. PMID:25366256

Listening for Identity beyond the Speech Event

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wortham, Stanton

2010-01-01

Background: A typical account of listening focuses on cognition, describing how a listener understands and reacts to the cognitive contents of a speaker's utterance. The articles in this issue move beyond a cognitive view, arguing that listening also involves moral, aesthetic, and political aspects. Focus of Study: This article attends to all four…

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.

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.

Primary empathy deficits in frontotemporal dementia.

PubMed

Baez, Sandra; Manes, Facundo; Huepe, David; Torralva, Teresa; Fiorentino, Natalia; Richter, Fabian; Huepe-Artigas, Daniela; Ferrari, Jesica; Montañes, Patricia; Reyes, Pablo; Matallana, Diana; Vigliecca, Nora S; Decety, Jean; Ibanez, Agustin

2014-01-01

Loss of empathy is an early central symptom and diagnostic criterion of the behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). Although changes in empathy are evident and strongly affect the social functioning of bvFTD patients, few studies have directly investigated this issue by means of experimental paradigms. The current study assessed multiple components of empathy (affective, cognitive and moral) in bvFTD patients. We also explored whether the loss of empathy constitutes a primary deficit of bvFTD or whether it is explained by impairments in executive functions (EF) or other social cognition domains. Thirty-seven bvFTD patients with early/mild stages of the disease and 30 healthy control participants were assessed with a task that involves the perception of intentional and accidental harm. Participants were also evaluated on emotion recognition, theory of mind (ToM), social norms knowledge and several EF domains. BvFTD patients presented deficits in affective, cognitive and moral aspects of empathy. However, empathic concern was the only aspect primarily affected in bvFTD that was neither related nor explained by deficits in EF or other social cognition domains. Deficits in the cognitive and moral aspects of empathy seem to depend on EF, emotion recognition and ToM. Our findings highlight the importance of using tasks depicting real-life social scenarios because of their greater sensitivity in the assessment of bvFTD. Moreover, our results contribute to the understanding of primary and intrinsic empathy deficits of bvFTD and have important theoretical and clinical implications.

Primary empathy deficits in frontotemporal dementia

PubMed Central

Baez, Sandra; Manes, Facundo; Huepe, David; Torralva, Teresa; Fiorentino, Natalia; Richter, Fabian; Huepe-Artigas, Daniela; Ferrari, Jesica; Montañes, Patricia; Reyes, Pablo; Matallana, Diana; Vigliecca, Nora S.; Decety, Jean; Ibanez, Agustin

2014-01-01

Loss of empathy is an early central symptom and diagnostic criterion of the behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). Although changes in empathy are evident and strongly affect the social functioning of bvFTD patients, few studies have directly investigated this issue by means of experimental paradigms. The current study assessed multiple components of empathy (affective, cognitive and moral) in bvFTD patients. We also explored whether the loss of empathy constitutes a primary deficit of bvFTD or whether it is explained by impairments in executive functions (EF) or other social cognition domains. Thirty-seven bvFTD patients with early/mild stages of the disease and 30 healthy control participants were assessed with a task that involves the perception of intentional and accidental harm. Participants were also evaluated on emotion recognition, theory of mind (ToM), social norms knowledge and several EF domains. BvFTD patients presented deficits in affective, cognitive and moral aspects of empathy. However, empathic concern was the only aspect primarily affected in bvFTD that was neither related nor explained by deficits in EF or other social cognition domains. Deficits in the cognitive and moral aspects of empathy seem to depend on EF, emotion recognition and ToM. Our findings highlight the importance of using tasks depicting real-life social scenarios because of their greater sensitivity in the assessment of bvFTD. Moreover, our results contribute to the understanding of primary and intrinsic empathy deficits of bvFTD and have important theoretical and clinical implications. PMID:25346685

[An evaluation of some of the relationships between thought-action fusion, attributional styles, and depressive and obsessive-compulsive symptoms].

PubMed

Piri, Serap; Kabakçi, Elif

2007-01-01

Thought-action fusion (TAF) is a cognitive bias presumed to underlie the development of obsessional problems. Two domains of TAF have been identified. The first, TAF-moral, is characterized by the belief that having morally unacceptable thoughts is as bad as actually carrying them out. The second, TAF-likelihood, refers to the belief that certain thoughts cause particular events. The event can be related to one's self (likelihood-self) or to someone else (likelihood-others). The other cognitive variable of the study is attributional style. The theory of attributional styles, in terms of the causes of good and bad events, is taken into account especially in the context of depression and has four dimensions: internality-externality, stability-instability, globality-specifity, and importance-unimportance. The first objective of the present study was to investigate the relationships between TAF, and attributional style, and depressive and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. The second objective was to determine the predictors of TAF when the effects of depressive and obsessive-compulsive symptoms are statistically controlled. The sample consisted of 312 students randomly selected from different departments at Hacettepe University. The Thought-Action Fusion Scale (TAFS), Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ), Maudsley Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory (MOCI), and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) were administered to these students. The correlations among all the subtypes of TAF (TAF-moral, likelihood-self, and likelihood-others), and the global attributions for bad events, BDI, and MOCI were significant. In addition, the correlation between TAF-moral and the importance of the attribution for bad events was significant. TAF-likelihood-others and TAF-likelihood-self were predicted by global attributions for bad events and TAF-moral was predicted by the importance of the attributions for bad events. TAF, and attributional styles, and depressive and obsessive-compulsive symptoms may be related to each other. The results also suggest a possible effect of other variables not controlled in this study, both on TAF and the dimensions of attributional styles.

Philosophy and nursing.

PubMed

Griffin, A P

1980-05-01

It is claimed that philosophy has a distinctive contribution to make to the education of nurses and their teachers, as well as to the development of nursing theory and research. After a brief characterization of philosophy and philosophy of education, stressing its relationship with thinking processes, and the development of personal values, the above claim is supported in the body of the article by discussion of four central concerns in nursing. First the concept of caring where cognitive, moral and attitudinal aspects are examined and secondly, the importance of gaining a moral and political consciousness of assumptions underlying a nurse's work. Thirdly, a discussion of some ethical and other implications in adopting a systems approach to the nursing process. Finally an anlysis of nursing theory and research which draws attention to the value of non-empirical work, and reiterates criticisms of the objectives approach as a research tool.

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.

Moral Learning: Conceptual foundations and normative relevance.

PubMed

Railton, Peter

2017-10-01

What is distinctive about a bringing a learning perspective to moral psychology? Part of the answer lies in the remarkable transformations that have taken place in learning theory over the past two decades, which have revealed how powerful experience-based learning can be in the acquisition of abstract causal and evaluative representations, including generative models capable of attuning perception, cognition, affect, and action to the physical and social environment. When conjoined with developments in neuroscience, these advances in learning theory permit a rethinking of fundamental questions about the acquisition of moral understanding and its role in the guidance of behavior. For example, recent research indicates that spatial learning and navigation involve the formation of non-perspectival as well as ego-centric models of the physical environment, and that spatial representations are combined with learned information about risk and reward to guide choice and potentiate further learning. Research on infants provides evidence that they form non-perspectival expected-value representations of agents and actions as well, which help them to navigate the human environment. Such representations can be formed by highly-general mental processes such as causal and empathic simulation, and thus afford a foundation for spontaneous moral learning and action that requires no innate moral faculty and can exhibit substantial autonomy with respect to community norms. If moral learning is indeed integral with the acquisition and updating of casual and evaluative models, this affords a new way of understanding well-known but seemingly puzzling patterns in intuitive moral judgment-including the notorious "trolley problems." Copyright © 2016 The Author. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Cognitive Context of Historical Change: Assimilation, Accommodation, and the Segmentation of Competence.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Edelstein, Wolfgang

1999-01-01

Notes that change in the moral and cognitive realms is a long-term historical process that includes progression and regression. Reconstructs the cognitive correlates of historical progress, using as examples the emergence of invariant numbers in Mesopotamia, the growth of logic and perspectivism in the early Middle Ages, and the rise of public…

The part of cognitive science that is philosophy.

PubMed

Dennett, Daniel C

2009-04-01

There is much good work for philosophers to do in cognitive science if they adopt the constructive attitude that prevails in science, work toward testable hypotheses, and take on the task of clarifying the relationship between the scientific concepts and the everyday concepts with which we conduct our moral lives. Copyright © 2009 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

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

A Social-Cognitive Analysis of How Young Men Become Involved in Male Escorting

PubMed Central

Smith, Michael D.; Grov, Christian; Seal, David W.; McCall, Peter

2017-01-01

This study employed a social-cognitive theoretical perspective to assess the interactions of behavioral, cognitive, and situational factors to understand better how young male sex workers (MSWs) entered the sex trade industry. As part of a larger project examining male escorts working for a single agency, MSWs (n = 38) were interviewed about their work and personal lives. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed thematically. As predicted by a social-cognitive perspective, results supported reciprocal influences of behavior and environment, environment and cognition, and behavior and cognition. MSWs developed more self-efficacy around sex work behaviors and more positive outcome expectations with experience; moral conflict and lack of attraction to clients limited MSWs’ self-efficacy. Key variables for sex work appeared to be cognitive in nature—mostly represented by a decreased commitment to normative social-sexual values, the specific nature of which may have varied by sexual orientation. Findings support the contention that social-cognitive theory can effectively model entry of young men into sex work. Social-cognitive theory provides a broad umbrella underneath which various explanations for male sex work can be gathered. PMID:22880726

Outcome-focused judgements of moral dilemmas in schizophrenia.

PubMed

McGuire, Jonathan; Brüne, Martin; Langdon, Robyn

2017-07-01

Previous research on moral judgement in healthy adults suggests a complex interplay of automatic, emotional and deliberative processing. We aimed to advance understanding of these processes by examining moral judgement in individuals with schizophrenia, a population characterised by social-cognitive deficits and interpersonal difficulties. Forty-five patients with schizophrenia and 27 healthy controls judged high-conflict moral dilemmas in response to 3rd-person (i.e. "Is it morally okay to [perform X]?") and 1st-person (i.e. "Would you [perform X]?") probes. Controls were less utilitarian for 3rd-person than 1st-person probes, while this discrepancy did not hold for patients. Utilitarianism in patients correlated with higher levels of interpersonal conflict. Findings suggest that people with schizophrenia focus equally on outcomes across moral-judgement conditions that ought normally to elicit an outcome-action discrepancy, suggesting that they are less influenced by an automatic aversive response to harmful acts in dilemma scenarios, consistent with a dual-process model of moral judgement. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Inc.

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.

Deontological coherence: A framework for commonsense moral reasoning.

PubMed

Holyoak, Keith J; Powell, Derek

2016-11-01

We review a broad range of work, primarily in cognitive and social psychology, that provides insight into the processes of moral judgment. In particular, we consider research on pragmatic reasoning about regulations and on coherence in decision making, both areas in which psychological theories have been guided by work in legal philosophy. Armed with these essential prerequisites, we sketch a psychological framework for how ordinary people make judgments about moral issues. Based on a literature review, we show how the framework of deontological coherence unifies findings in moral psychology that have often been explained in terms of a grab-bag of heuristics and biases. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Promoting postconventional morality: the adequacy of Kohlberg's aim.

PubMed

Wonderly, D M; Kupfersmid, J H

1980-01-01

Lawrence Kohlberg has advocated the implementation of programs in the public schools designed to raise the general level of moral reasoning. His contention is that the attainment of Postconventional moral reasoning is associated with optimal personal and social adjustment. Growing concern about the violence and disintegration of American society has led to public and private support for such programs. Because intervention into the moral education of children in a democratic society raises serious social/political questions, it seems appropriate to consider the relevance of the Kohlberg hypothesis. In this paper, the twin issues of philosophic adequacy and empirical evidence are examined. In neither respect does the cognitive-developmentalist position find the support essential to a recommendation for its use.

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

Moral judgment reloaded: a moral dilemma validation study

PubMed Central

Christensen, Julia F.; Flexas, Albert; Calabrese, Margareta; Gut, Nadine K.; Gomila, Antoni

2014-01-01

We propose a revised set of moral dilemmas for studies on moral judgment. We selected a total of 46 moral dilemmas available in the literature and fine-tuned them in terms of four conceptual factors (Personal Force, Benefit Recipient, Evitability, and Intention) and methodological aspects of the dilemma formulation (word count, expression style, question formats) that have been shown to influence moral judgment. Second, we obtained normative codings of arousal and valence for each dilemma showing that emotional arousal in response to moral dilemmas depends crucially on the factors Personal Force, Benefit Recipient, and Intentionality. Third, we validated the dilemma set confirming that people's moral judgment is sensitive to all four conceptual factors, and to their interactions. Results are discussed in the context of this field of research, outlining also the relevance of our RT effects for the Dual Process account of moral judgment. Finally, we suggest tentative theoretical avenues for future testing, particularly stressing the importance of the factor Intentionality in moral judgment. Additionally, due to the importance of cross-cultural studies in the quest for universals in human moral cognition, we provide the new set dilemmas in six languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Catalan, and Danish). The norming values provided here refer to the Spanish dilemma set. PMID:25071621

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.

Biasing moral decisions by exploiting the dynamics of eye gaze.

PubMed

Pärnamets, Philip; Johansson, Petter; Hall, Lars; Balkenius, Christian; Spivey, Michael J; Richardson, Daniel C

2015-03-31

Eye gaze is a window onto cognitive processing in tasks such as spatial memory, linguistic processing, and decision making. We present evidence that information derived from eye gaze can be used to change the course of individuals' decisions, even when they are reasoning about high-level, moral issues. Previous studies have shown that when an experimenter actively controls what an individual sees the experimenter can affect simple decisions with alternatives of almost equal valence. Here we show that if an experimenter passively knows when individuals move their eyes the experimenter can change complex moral decisions. This causal effect is achieved by simply adjusting the timing of the decisions. We monitored participants' eye movements during a two-alternative forced-choice task with moral questions. One option was randomly predetermined as a target. At the moment participants had fixated the target option for a set amount of time we terminated their deliberation and prompted them to choose between the two alternatives. Although participants were unaware of this gaze-contingent manipulation, their choices were systematically biased toward the target option. We conclude that even abstract moral cognition is partly constituted by interactions with the immediate environment and is likely supported by gaze-dependent decision processes. By tracking the interplay between individuals, their sensorimotor systems, and the environment, we can influence the outcome of a decision without directly manipulating the content of the information available to them.

Why (School) Teachers Should Be Trusted. Review of "Professionalism and Ethics in Teaching" by David Carr.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McPherson, Ian

2002-01-01

This book offers ways to answer questions about public trust in teachers. Discourses on teachers as transmitters of moral and cognitive virtues and on the unsatisfactory nature of competing models of theory-practice relationships are grounded in an interpretation of Aristotle's Phronesis as moral wisdom. Education is only one of the purposes of…

The means/side-effect distinction in moral cognition: A meta-analysis.

PubMed

Feltz, Adam; May, Joshua

2017-09-01

Experimental research suggests that people draw a moral distinction between bad outcomes brought about as a means versus a side effect (or byproduct). Such findings have informed multiple psychological and philosophical debates about moral cognition, including its computational structure, its sensitivity to the famous Doctrine of Double Effect, its reliability, and its status as a universal and innate mental module akin to universal grammar. But some studies have failed to replicate the means/byproduct effect especially in the absence of other factors, such as personal contact. So we aimed to determine how robust the means/byproduct effect is by conducting a meta-analysis of both published and unpublished studies (k=101; 24,058 participants). We found that while there is an overall small difference between moral judgments of means and byproducts (standardized mean difference=0.87, 95% CI 0.67-1.06; standardized mean change=0.57, 95% CI 0.44-0.69; log odds ratio=1.59, 95% CI 1.15-2.02), the mean effect size is primarily moderated by whether the outcome is brought about by personal contact, which typically involves the use of personal force. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Tackling psychosocial risk factors for adolescent cyberbullying: Evidence from a school-based intervention.

PubMed

Barkoukis, Vassilis; Lazuras, Lambros; Ourda, Despoina; Tsorbatzoudis, Haralambos

2016-01-01

Cyberbullying is an emerging form of bullying that takes place through contemporary information and communication technologies. Building on past research on the psychosocial risk factors for cyberbullying in this age group, the present study assessed a theory-driven, school-based preventive intervention that targeted moral disengagement, empathy and social cognitive predictors of cyberbullying. Adolescents (N = 355) aged between 16 and 18 years were randomly assigned into the intervention and the control group. Both groups completed anonymous structured questionnaires about demographics, empathy, moral disengagement and cyberbullying-related social cognitive variables (attitudes, actor prototypes, social norms, and behavioral expectations) before the intervention, post-intervention and 6 months after the intervention. The intervention included awareness-raising and interactive discussions about cyberbullying with intervention group students. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) showed that, after controlling for baseline measurements, there were significant differences at post-intervention measures in moral disengagement scores, and in favorability of actor prototypes. Further analysis on the specific mechanisms of moral disengagement showed that significant differences were observed in distortion of consequences and attribution of blame. The implications of the intervention are discussed, and guidelines for future school-based interventions against cyberbullying are provided. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Cognition from life: the two modes of cognition that underlie moral behavior.

PubMed

Andringa, Tjeerd C; Bosch, Kirsten A Van Den; Wijermans, Nanda

2015-01-01

We argue that the capacity to live life to the benefit of self and others originates in the defining properties of life. These lead to two modes of cognition; the coping mode that is preoccupied with the satisfaction of pressing needs and the co-creation mode that aims at the realization of a world where pressing needs occur less frequently. We have used the Rule of Conservative Changes - stating that new functions can only scaffold on evolutionary older, yet highly stable functions - to predict that the interplay of these two modes define a number of core functions in psychology associated with moral behavior. We explore this prediction with five examples reflecting different theoretical approaches to human cognition and action selection. We conclude the paper with the observation that science is currently dominated by the coping mode and that the benefits of the co-creation mode may be necessary to generate realistic prospects for a modern synthesis in the sciences of the mind.

Cognition from life: the two modes of cognition that underlie moral behavior

PubMed Central

Andringa, Tjeerd C.; Bosch, Kirsten A. Van Den; Wijermans, Nanda

2015-01-01

We argue that the capacity to live life to the benefit of self and others originates in the defining properties of life. These lead to two modes of cognition; the coping mode that is preoccupied with the satisfaction of pressing needs and the co-creation mode that aims at the realization of a world where pressing needs occur less frequently. We have used the Rule of Conservative Changes – stating that new functions can only scaffold on evolutionary older, yet highly stable functions – to predict that the interplay of these two modes define a number of core functions in psychology associated with moral behavior. We explore this prediction with five examples reflecting different theoretical approaches to human cognition and action selection. We conclude the paper with the observation that science is currently dominated by the coping mode and that the benefits of the co-creation mode may be necessary to generate realistic prospects for a modern synthesis in the sciences of the mind. PMID:25954212

A healthy aging program for older adults: effects on self-efficacy and morale.

PubMed

Scult, Matthew; Haime, Vivian; Jacquart, Jolene; Takahashi, Jonathan; Moscowitz, Barbara; Webster, Ann; Denninger, John W; Mehta, Darshan H

2015-01-01

As of 2012, 810 million people worldwide were older than 60 y, accounting for 11% of the population. That number is expected to rise to 2 billion by 2050 or to 22% of the overall population. As a result, a growing need exists to understand the factors that promote mental and physical health in older populations. The purpose of this study was to develop a healthy aging program for older adults and to measure the changes from baseline to the end of the program in participants' relevant psychosocial outcomes (ie, self-efficacy and morale). The study's healthy aging mind-body intervention (MBI) was adapted from the Relaxation Response Resiliency Program (3RP) at the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine, which incorporates elements from the fields of stress management, cognitive behavioral therapy, and positive psychology. That program was modified with examples and exercises targeted to an older population and evaluated in the current single-arm pilot study. The program took place at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). The 9-wk healthy aging MBI was developed for participants aged 65 y and older. Fifty-one older adults from the surrounding community participated in the study's groups. A new intervention group began the program every 3 mo, with a maximum of 12 individuals per group. For each group, the MBI consisted of weekly 90-min sessions for 9 consecutive wk, directed by a psychologist. The program included sessions that taught participants (1) a variety of methods to elicit the relaxation response (RR), (2) the practice of adaptive coping and cognitions, (3) behaviors necessary to create a healthy lifestyle, and (4) methods of building social support. The research team chose to focus on 2 psychological variables of interest for aging populations: morale and self-efficacy. The study used 2 questionnaires to measure those outcomes, the Philadelphia Geriatric Center Morale Scale (PGCMS), a multidimensional measure of the psychological state of older people, and the Coping Self-efficacy Scale (CSES), a measure that addresses the multiple dimensions of self-efficacy. Data from 5 intervention groups were combined for the current analysis. Forty-six participants enrolled and completed questionnaires. Of those participants, 41 attended at least 7 of the 9 sessions. Significant increases in self-efficacy and morale were observed for program completers. After a highly conservative sensitivity analysis, the change for the measure of self-efficacy remained significant, and the change for the measure of morale trended toward significance. The study's healthy aging program appears to be a feasible intervention for older adults, with the potential to increase levels of self-efficacy and morale in participants. Further research is warranted to determine its effects on other psychosocial outcomes and health care utilization in aging populations.

Leader social accounts of subordinates' unethical behavior: Examining observer reactions to leader social accounts with moral disengagement language.

PubMed

Dang, Carolyn T; Umphress, Elizabeth E; Mitchell, Marie S

2017-10-01

When providing social accounts (Sitkin & Bies, 1993) for the unethical conduct of subordinates, leaders may use language consistent with cognitive strategies described by Bandura (1991, 1999) in his work on moral disengagement. That is, leader's social accounts may reframe or reconstrue subordinates' unethical conduct such that it appears less reprehensible. We predict observers will respond negatively to leaders when they use moral disengagement language within social accounts and, specifically, observers will ostracize these leaders. In addition, we predict that observer moral disengagement propensity moderates this effect, such that the relationship between leaders' use of moral disengagement language within a social account and ostracism is stronger when observer moral disengagement propensity is lower versus higher. Finally, we predict that the reason why observers ostracize the leader is because observers perceive the leader's social account with moral disengagement language as unethical. Thus, perceived leader social account ethicality is predicted to mediate the interaction effect of leader's use of moral disengagement language within social accounts and observer moral disengagement propensity on ostracism. Results from an experiment and field study support our predictions. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Moral dimensions of human-wildlife conflict.

PubMed

Lute, Michelle L; Navarrete, Carlos David; Nelson, Michael Paul; Gore, Meredith L

2016-12-01

Despite increasing support for conservation globally, controversy over specific conservation policies persists among diverse stakeholders. Investigating the links between morals in relation to conservation can help increase understanding about why humans support or oppose policy, especially related to human-wildlife conflict or human conflict over wildlife. Yet the moral dimension of human-wildlife conflict has mostly gone unconsidered and unmeasured; thus, policy and programmatic efforts to reduce controversy may be missing a key part of the equation. We conducted a web-based survey (n = 1239 respondents) in Michigan (U.S.A.) to investigate cognitive and emotional influences on the value-behavior relationship. Respondents were identified by their interest and involvement in Michigan wolf management. The survey consisted of questions about values, emotions, cognitions, and behaviors relative to wolves in Michigan. We used path analysis to explore whether emotions and cognitions mediated the relationship between value and behavior. Most respondents attributed intrinsic value to wolves (n = 734) and all life (n = 773) and engaged in behaviors that benefited wolf populations and ecosystems regardless of stakeholder group (e.g., environmentalist, farmer). Attributing intrinsic value to wolves was positively related to favorable emotions toward wolves and cognitive assessments that hunting and trapping of wolves is unacceptable. Despite similarities in attribution of intrinsic value, groups differed in emotions and cognitions about wolf hunting. These differences provide a useful way to predict stakeholder behavior. Our findings may inform interventions aimed at increasing support for wolf management policies and positive interactions among stakeholders and wildlife. Leveraging agreement over intrinsic value may foster cooperation among stakeholders and garner support for controversial conservation policy. © 2016 Society for Conservation Biology.

Ethical issues in child and adolescent psychiatry.

PubMed Central

Green, J; Stewart, A

1987-01-01

This paper concerns the special ethical problems in child and adolescent psychiatry which relate to the child as a developing being. Two themes are discussed--the sense of responsibility in the child, and the therapist's responsibility towards the child. As a background to understanding the former, ideas on moral and cognitive development are reviewed. The therapist's responsibility is discussed in relation to different styles of therapy and the ethical issues they raise. The article concludes with a number of suggested ethical principles. PMID:3572994

Bullying and defending behavior: The role of explicit and implicit moral cognition.

PubMed

Pozzoli, Tiziana; Gini, Gianluca; Thornberg, Robert

2016-12-01

Research on bullying has highlighted the role of morality in explaining the different behavior of students during bullying episodes. However, the research has been limited to the analysis of explicit measures of moral characteristics and moral reasoning, whereas implicit measures have yet to be fully considered. To overcome this limitation, this study investigated the association between bullying and defending, on one hand, and both explicit (moral disengagement, self-importance of moral values) and implicit (immediate affect toward moral stimuli [IAMS]) moral components, on the other hand. Young adolescents (N=279, mean age=11years, 9months, 44.4% girls) completed a series of self-report scales and individually performed a computer task investigating the IAMS. Two hierarchical regressions (bootstrapping method) were performed. Results showed that moral disengagement was associated with bullying and defending behavior at high levels of IAMS, however not when IAMS was low. In contrast, self-importance of moral values was not significantly associated to the two behaviors when IAMS was high whereas both associations were significant at low levels of IAMS. These results significantly expand previous knowledge about the role of morality in bullying and defending behavior. In particular, they highlight the role of the interaction between explicit and implicit moral dimensions in predicting bullying and defending behaviors. Copyright © 2016 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Influence of the cortical midline structures on moral emotion and motivation in moral decision-making.

PubMed

Han, Hyemin; Chen, Jingyuan; Jeong, Changwoo; Glover, Gary H

2016-04-01

The present study aims to examine the relationship between the cortical midline structures (CMS), which have been regarded to be associated with selfhood, and moral decision making processes at the neural level. Traditional moral psychological studies have suggested the role of moral self as the moderator of moral cognition, so activity of moral self would present at the neural level. The present study examined the interaction between the CMS and other moral-related regions by conducting psycho-physiological interaction analysis of functional images acquired while 16 subjects were solving moral dilemmas. Furthermore, we performed Granger causality analysis to demonstrate the direction of influences between activities in the regions in moral decision-making. We first demonstrate there are significant positive interactions between two central CMS seed regions-i.e., the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)-and brain regions associated with moral functioning including the cerebellum, brainstem, midbrain, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex and anterior insula (AI); on the other hand, the posterior insula (PI) showed significant negative interaction with the seed regions. Second, several significant Granger causality was found from CMS to insula regions particularly under the moral-personal condition. Furthermore, significant dominant influence from the AI to PI was reported. Moral psychological implications of these findings are discussed. The present study demonstrated the significant interaction and influence between the CMS and morality-related regions while subject were solving moral dilemmas. Given that, activity in the CMS is significantly involved in human moral functioning. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Reduced Default Mode Connectivity in Adolescents With Conduct Disorder.

PubMed

Broulidakis, M John; Fairchild, Graeme; Sully, Kate; Blumensath, Thomas; Darekar, Angela; Sonuga-Barke, Edmund J S

2016-09-01

Conduct disorder (CD) is characterized by impulsive, aggressive, and antisocial behaviors that might be related to deficits in empathy and moral reasoning. The brain's default mode network (DMN) has been implicated in self-referential cognitive processes of this kind. This study examined connectivity between key nodes of the DMN in 29 adolescent boys with CD and 29 age- and sex-matched typically developing adolescent boys. The authors ensured that group differences in DMN connectivity were not explained by comorbidity with other disorders by systematically controlling for the effects of substance use disorders (SUDs), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms, psychopathic traits, and other common mental health problems. Only after adjusting for co-occurring ADHD symptoms, the group with CD showed hypoconnectivity between core DMN regions compared with typically developing controls. ADHD symptoms were associated with DMN hyperconnectivity. There was no effect of psychopathic traits on DMN connectivity in the group with CD, and the key results were unchanged when controlling for SUDs and other common mental health problems. Future research should directly investigate the possibility that the aberrant DMN connectivity observed in the present study contributes to CD-related deficits in empathy and moral reasoning and examine self-referential cognitive processes in CD more generally. Copyright © 2016 American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. All rights reserved.

Subjective Criticism: From Cognition to Morality.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goldberg, Marilyn K.

Reflecting on the contributions to individual education that literature study should make, this paper synthesizes some major directions taken by contemporary literary critics, examines the cognitive requirements for real learning, and puts these considerations into perspective as a goal for the teaching of literature. The major theories of…

Exploring social cognition in patients with apathy following acquired brain damage.

PubMed

Njomboro, Progress; Humphreys, Glyn W; Deb, Shoumitro

2014-01-23

Research on cognition in apathy has largely focused on executive functions. To the best of our knowledge, no studies have investigated the relationship between apathy symptoms and processes involved in social cognition. Apathy symptoms include attenuated emotional behaviour, low social engagement and social withdrawal, all of which may be linked to underlying socio-cognitive deficits. We compared patients with brain damage who also had apathy symptoms against similar patients with brain damage but without apathy symptoms. Both patient groups were also compared against normal controls on key socio-cognitive measures involving moral reasoning, social awareness related to making judgements between normative and non-normative behaviour, Theory of Mind processing, and the perception of facial expressions of emotion. We also controlled for the likely effects of executive deficits and depressive symptoms on these comparisons. Our results indicated that patients with apathy were distinctively impaired in making moral reasoning decisions and in judging the social appropriateness of behaviour. Deficits in Theory of Mind and perception of facial expressions of emotion did not distinguish patients with apathy from those without apathy. Our findings point to a possible socio-cognitive profile for apathy symptoms and provide initial insights into how socio-cognitive deficits in patients with apathy may affect social functioning.

The Everyday Moral Judge - Autobiographical Recollections of Moral Emotions.

PubMed

Körner, André; Tscharaktschiew, Nadine; Schindler, Rose; Schulz, Katrin; Rudolph, Udo

2016-01-01

Moral emotions are typically elicited in everyday social interactions and regulate social behavior. Previous research in the field of attribution theory identified ought (the moral standard of a given situation or intended goal), goal-attainment (a goal can be attained vs. not attained) and effort (high vs. low effort expenditure) as cognitive antecedents of moral emotions. In contrast to earlier studies, mainly relying on thought experiments, we investigated autobiographical recollections of N = 312 participants by means of an online study. We analyzed a diverse range of moral emotions, i.e., admiration, anger, contempt, indignation, pride, respect, schadenfreude, and sympathy, by using a mixed-method approach. Qualitative and quantitative methods clearly corroborate the important role of ought, goal-attainment, and effort as eliciting conditions of moral emotions. Furthermore, we built categorical systems based on our participants' descriptions of real-life situations, allowing for more fine-grained distinctions between seemingly similar moral emotions. We thus identify additional prerequisites explaining more subtle differences between moral emotion clusters as they emerge from our analyses (i.e., cluster 1: admiration, pride, and respect; cluster 2: anger, contempt, and indignation; cluster 3: schadenfreude and sympathy). Results are discussed in the light of attributional theories of moral emotions, and implications for future research are derived.

Illuminating the conceptual structure of the space of moral violations with searchlight representational similarity analysis.

PubMed

Wasserman, E A; Chakroff, A; Saxe, R; Young, L

2017-10-01

Characterizing how representations of moral violations are organized, cognitively and neurally, is central to understanding how people conceive and judge them. Past work has identified brain regions that represent morally relevant features and distinguish moral domains, but has not yet advanced a broader account of where and on what basis neural representations of moral violations are organized. With searchlight representational similarity analysis, we investigate where category membership drives similarity in neural patterns during moral judgment of violations from two key moral domains: Harm and Purity. Representations converge across domains in a network of regions resembling the mentalizing network. However, Harm and Purity violation representations respectively converge in different regions: precuneus (PC) and left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG). Examining substructure within moral domains, Harm violations converge in PC regardless of subdomain (physical harms, psychological harms), while Purity subdomains (pathogen-related violations, sex-related violations) converge in distinct sets of regions - mirroring a dissociation observed in principal-component analysis of behavioral data. Further, we find initial evidence for representation of morally relevant features within these two domain-encoding regions. The present analyses offer a case study for understanding how organization within the complex conceptual space of moral violations is reflected in the organization of neural patterns across the cortex. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Everyday Moral Judge – Autobiographical Recollections of Moral Emotions

PubMed Central

Tscharaktschiew, Nadine; Schindler, Rose; Schulz, Katrin; Rudolph, Udo

2016-01-01

Moral emotions are typically elicited in everyday social interactions and regulate social behavior. Previous research in the field of attribution theory identified ought (the moral standard of a given situation or intended goal), goal-attainment (a goal can be attained vs. not attained) and effort (high vs. low effort expenditure) as cognitive antecedents of moral emotions. In contrast to earlier studies, mainly relying on thought experiments, we investigated autobiographical recollections of N = 312 participants by means of an online study. We analyzed a diverse range of moral emotions, i.e., admiration, anger, contempt, indignation, pride, respect, schadenfreude, and sympathy, by using a mixed-method approach. Qualitative and quantitative methods clearly corroborate the important role of ought, goal-attainment, and effort as eliciting conditions of moral emotions. Furthermore, we built categorical systems based on our participants’ descriptions of real-life situations, allowing for more fine-grained distinctions between seemingly similar moral emotions. We thus identify additional prerequisites explaining more subtle differences between moral emotion clusters as they emerge from our analyses (i.e., cluster 1: admiration, pride, and respect; cluster 2: anger, contempt, and indignation; cluster 3: schadenfreude and sympathy). Results are discussed in the light of attributional theories of moral emotions, and implications for future research are derived. PMID:27977699

[Empathy and moral judgements in the elderly population].

PubMed

Ortega, Helga; Cacho, Raúl; López-Goñi, José J; Tirapu-Ustárroz, Javier

2014-08-01

Social cognition refers to mental processes that operate in situations of social interaction and facilitate adjustment and functioning in such scenarios. To study the empathic response in two groups of older people and their relationship to emotional intelligence and moral judgment. We enrolled 60 subjects divided into two groups of 30 subjects each completed a battery of tests: TMMS-24, DEX, IRI and moral dilemmas. RESULTS. In the dimension of the IRI perspective taking older group scored significantly less than the middle age group (U = 279; p < 0.05). In all other variables, no statistically significant differences were found. The results show the absence of a generalized deficit in social cognition in the elderly sample evaluated. However, differences were observed based on age on empathy and executive performance: over time a progressive impairment in theory of mind and a decline in the general empathic capacity occur. With regard to emotional intelligence, the elderly evaluated show a correct perception and understanding of their emotions even report a poorer ability to manage and regulate their emotions.

Understanding disgust.

PubMed

Chapman, Hanah A; Anderson, Adam K

2012-03-01

Disgust is characterized by a remarkably diverse set of stimulus triggers, ranging from extremely concrete (bad tastes and disease vectors) to extremely abstract (moral transgressions and those who commit them). This diversity may reflect an expansion of the role of disgust over evolutionary time, from an origin in defending the body against toxicity and disease, through defense against other threats to biological fitness (e.g., incest), to involvement in the selection of suitable interaction partners, by motivating the rejection of individuals who violate social and moral norms. The anterior insula, and to a lesser extent the basal ganglia, are implicated in toxicity- and disease-related forms of disgust, although we argue that insular activation is not exclusive to disgust. It remains unclear whether moral disgust is associated with insular activity. Disgust offers cognitive neuroscientists a unique opportunity to study how an evolutionarily ancient response rooted in the chemical senses has expanded into a uniquely human social cognitive domain; many interesting research avenues remain to be explored. © 2012 New York Academy of Sciences.

Moral bioenhancement and agential risks: Good and bad outcomes.

PubMed

Torres, Phil

2017-11-01

In Unfit for the Future, Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu argue that our collective existetial predicment is unprecedentedly dangerous due to climate change and terrorism. Given these global risks to human prosperity and survival, Persson and Savulescu argue that we should explore the radical possibility of moral bioenhancement in addition to cognitive enhancement. In this article, I argue that moral bioenhancements could nontrivially exacerbate the threat posed by certain kinds of malicious agents, while reducing the threat of other kinds. This introduces a previously undiscussed complication to Persson and Savulescu's proposal. In the final section, I present a novel argument for why moral bioenhancement should either be compulsory or not be made available to the public at all. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Narcissism and Toxic Leaders

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-02-01

Action: A Social Cognition Theory (Englewood Cliffs, NH: Prentice Hall, 1986). 9. Bandura , “Moral Disengagement in the Perpetration of Inhumanities... socialization aspect to emotional intelligence.14 In short, emotional intelligence can be taught and learned . Focus on the Self In each of the practical...Psychology 36, (1978): 635-42; Albert Bandura , “Moral Disengagement in the Perpetration of Inhumanities,” Personality and Social Psychology Review, (3)3

Natural Tendency towards Beauty in Humans: Evidence from Binocular Rivalry.

PubMed

Mo, Ce; Xia, Tiansheng; Qin, Kaixin; Mo, Lei

2016-01-01

Although human preference for beauty is common and compelling in daily life, it remains unknown whether such preference is essentially subserved by social cognitive demands or natural tendency towards beauty encoded in the human mind intrinsically. Here we demonstrate experimentally that humans automatically exhibit preference for visual and moral beauty without explicit cognitive efforts. Using a binocular rivalry paradigm, we identified enhanced gender-independent perceptual dominance for physically attractive persons, and the results suggested universal preference for visual beauty based on perceivable forms. Moreover, we also identified perceptual dominance enhancement for characters associated with virtuous descriptions after controlling for facial attractiveness and vigilance-related attention effects, which suggested a similar implicit preference for moral beauty conveyed in prosocial behaviours. Our findings show that behavioural preference for beauty is driven by an inherent natural tendency towards beauty in humans rather than explicit social cognitive processes.

Natural Tendency towards Beauty in Humans: Evidence from Binocular Rivalry

PubMed Central

Mo, Lei

2016-01-01

Although human preference for beauty is common and compelling in daily life, it remains unknown whether such preference is essentially subserved by social cognitive demands or natural tendency towards beauty encoded in the human mind intrinsically. Here we demonstrate experimentally that humans automatically exhibit preference for visual and moral beauty without explicit cognitive efforts. Using a binocular rivalry paradigm, we identified enhanced gender-independent perceptual dominance for physically attractive persons, and the results suggested universal preference for visual beauty based on perceivable forms. Moreover, we also identified perceptual dominance enhancement for characters associated with virtuous descriptions after controlling for facial attractiveness and vigilance-related attention effects, which suggested a similar implicit preference for moral beauty conveyed in prosocial behaviours. Our findings show that behavioural preference for beauty is driven by an inherent natural tendency towards beauty in humans rather than explicit social cognitive processes. PMID:26930202

Nurse moral distress: A survey identifying predictors and potential interventions.

PubMed

Rathert, Cheryl; May, Douglas R; Chung, Hye Sook

2016-01-01

Ethical dilemmas and conflicts are inherent in today's health care organizations and may lead to moral distress, which is often associated with physical and psychological symptoms. Although the existence of moral distress has been observed by scholars for decades, most of the research has been descriptive and has examined what types of health care conflicts lead to distress. This study tested a comprehensive model, underpinned by Social Cognitive Theory, that examined work environment and intrapersonal variables that may influence moral distress. We surveyed nursing staff employed in a U.S. acute care hospital (response rate=45%; n=290). More than half of the respondents reported they experience ethical dilemmas and conflicts from several times a month to daily, and nearly half reported they experience moral distress at least several times a month. Structural equation modeling analysis simultaneously examined the effects of five independent variables on moral distress and moral voice: (a) frequency of ethical dilemmas and conflicts; (b) moral efficacy; (c) ethics communication; (d) ethical environment; and (e) organizational ethics support. Results revealed significant independent effects of the frequency of ethics issues and organizational ethics support on moral distress. Bootstrapping analysis indicated that voice fully mediated the relationship between moral efficacy and moral distress, and partially mediated the relationship between organizational ethics support and distress. Supplemental analysis revealed that organizational ethics support moderated the moral efficacy-voice-moral distress relationship such that when organizational support was low, moral efficacy was negatively related to moral distress via voice. Although it may be impossible to eliminate all ethical dilemmas and conflicts, leaders and organizations may wish to help improve nurses' moral efficacy, which appears to give rise to voice, and reduced moral distress. Increasing organizational ethics support may be a key approach. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Promoting tolerance and moral engagement through peer modeling.

PubMed

McAlister, A L; Ama, E; Barroso, C; Peters, R J; Kelder, S

2000-11-01

Behavioral journalism influences audiences by presenting peer modeling for cognitive processes that lead to behavior change. This technique was used in student newsletters promoting intergroup tolerance and moral engagement in a Houston high school with a diverse ethnic composition. Pretest (N = 393) and posttest (N = 363) cross-sectional comparisons of the student population in that school provided evidence of short-term (6 month) communication effects on attitudes and behavior. Tolerance and moral engagement increased among students in the school where behavioral journalism newsletters were distributed, and there was a corresponding reduction in hostile behavioral intentions and in reports of verbal aggression.

Peer and cyber aggression in secondary school students: the role of moral disengagement, hostile attribution bias, and outcome expectancies.

PubMed

Pornari, Chrisa D; Wood, Jane

2010-01-01

This study investigated the relationship between cognitive mechanisms, applied by people to rationalize and justify harmful acts, and engagement in traditional peer and cyber aggression among school children. We examined the contribution of moral disengagement (MD), hostile attribution bias, and outcome expectancies, and we further explored the individual contribution of each MD mechanism. Our aim was to identify shared and unique cognitive factors of the two forms of aggression. Three hundred and thirty-nine secondary school children completed self-report measures that assessed MD, hostile attribution bias, outcome expectancies, and their roles and involvement in traditional and cyber aggression. We found that the MD total score positively related to both forms of peer-directed aggression. Furthermore, traditional peer aggression positively related to children's moral justification, euphemistic language, displacement of responsibility and outcome expectancies, and negatively associated with hostile attribution bias. Moral justification also related positively to cyber aggression. Cyber aggression and cyber victimization were associated with high levels of traditional peer aggression and victimization, respectively. The results suggest that MD is a common feature of both traditional and cyber peer aggression, but it seems that traditional forms of aggression demand a higher level of rationalization or justification. Moreover, the data suggest that the expectation of positive outcomes from harmful behavior facilitates engagement in traditional peer aggression. The differential contribution of specific cognitive mechanisms indicates the need for future research to elaborate on the current findings, in order to advance theory and inform existing and future school interventions tackling aggression and bullying. (c) 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

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).

Daytime REM sleep affects emotional experience but not decision choices in moral dilemmas.

PubMed

Cellini, Nicola; Lotto, Lorella; Pletti, Carolina; Sarlo, Michela

2017-09-11

Moral decision-making depends on the interaction between automatic emotional responses and rational cognitive control. A natural emotional regulator state seems to be sleep, in particular rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. We tested the impact of daytime sleep, either with or without REM, on moral decision. Sixty participants were presented with 12 sacrificial (6 Footbridge- and 6 Trolley-type) and 8 everyday-type moral dilemmas at 9 AM and at 5 PM. In sacrificial dilemmas, participants had to decide whether or not to kill one person to save more people (utilitarian choice), and to judge how morally acceptable the proposed choice was. In everyday-type dilemmas, participants had to decide whether to endorse moral violations involving dishonest behavior. At 12 PM, 40 participants took a 120-min nap (17 with REM and 23 with NREM only) while 20 participants remained awake. Mixed-model analysis revealed that participants judged the utilitarian choice as less morally acceptable in the afternoon, irrespective of sleep. We also observed a negative association between theta activity during REM and increased self-rated unpleasantness during moral decisions. Nevertheless, moral decision did not change across the day and between groups. These results suggest that although both time and REM sleep may affect the evaluation of a moral situation, these factors did not ultimately impact the individual moral choices.

Moral Psychology for the Twenty-First Century

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Haidt, Jonathan

2013-01-01

Lawrence Kohlberg slayed the two dragons of twentieth-century psychology--behaviorism and psychoanalysis. His victory was a part of the larger cognitive revolution that shaped the world in which all of us study psychology and education today. But the cognitive revolution itself was modified by later waves of change, particularly an "affective…

Teaching School Science within the Cognitive and Affective Domains

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tan, Kok Siang; Heng, Chong Yong; Tan, Shuhui

2013-01-01

In classrooms, science is usually taught within the cognitive domain while the psychomotor learning domain is achieved through performing science experiments in the laboratory. Although students attend civic and moral education and pastoral care classes where values and life skills are often taught directly, learning experiences in most school…

An Education in Narratives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gallagher, Shaun

2014-01-01

I argue for a broad education in narratives as a way to address several problems found in moral psychology and social cognition. First, an education in narratives will address a common problem of narrowness or lack of diversity, shared by virtue ethics and the simulation theory of social cognition. Secondly, it also solves the "starting…

Pro-Recreational Sex Morality, Religiosity, and Causal Attribution of Homosexual Attitudes.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Embree, Robert A.

Homosexual cognitive victimization is a term which emphasizes social evaluation of sexual behaviors judged in terms of sexual preference. Individual differences in cognitive victimization of homosexuals were examined in two studies. In the first study, undergraduate students (N=78) completed Likert-type rating scales measuring homosexual cognitive…

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

How attitude strength and information influence moral decision making: Evidence from event-related potentials.

PubMed

Hundrieser, Manuela; Stahl, Jutta

2016-05-01

Moral judgments are based on complex processing. This study aimed to investigate neural correlates of moral decisions. Participants (N = 32) were asked to express their opinion on various moral issues while ERPs were recorded. After reading texts containing either confirming or contradicting arguments regarding the issues, participants were asked to express their opinion again. A higher N400 amplitude and a higher amplitude of the late positive potential for value-incongruent words compared to value-congruent words could be observed. Furthermore, after participants had read conflicting arguments, slower responses and larger N400 differences (value-incongruent minus value-congruent) were observed. These results showed that language processing for a moral context is influenced by the subjective value system, and it can be assumed that a demanding cognitive elaboration contributed to the observed RT and N400 priming effects. This is the first ERP study comparing moral judgments before and after reading confirming or conflicting information; it revealed that evaluative reasoning can influence neural processing for moral decisions. © 2016 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

Friends or foes: Is empathy necessary for moral behavior?

PubMed Central

Decety, Jean; Cowell, Jason M.

2014-01-01

The past decade has witnessed a flurry of empirical and theoretical research on morality and empathy, as well as increased interest and usage in the media and the public arena. At times, in both popular and academia, morality and empathy are used interchangeably, and quite often the latter is considered to play a foundational role for the former. In this article, we argue that, while there is a relationship between morality and empathy, it is not as straightforward as apparent at first glance. Moreover, it is critical to distinguish between the different facets of empathy (emotional sharing, empathic concern, and perspective taking), as each uniquely influences moral cognition and predicts differential outcomes in moral behavior. Empirical evidence and theories from evolutionary biology, developmental, behavioral, and affective and social neuroscience are comprehensively integrated in support of this argument. The wealth of findings illustrates a complex and equivocal relationship between morality and empathy. The key to understanding such relations is to be more precise on the concepts being used, and perhaps abandoning the muddy concept of empathy. PMID:25429304

Moral disengagement in the perpetration of inhumanities.

PubMed

Bandura, A

1999-01-01

Moral agency is manifested in both the power to refrain from behaving inhumanely and the proactive power to behave humanely. Moral agency is embedded in a broader sociocognitive self theory encompassing self-organizing, proactive, self-reflective, and self-regulatory mechanisms rooted in personal standards linked to self-sanctions. The self-regulatory mechanisms governing moral conduct do not come into play unless they are activated, and there are many psychosocial maneuvers by which moral self-sanctions are selectively disengaged from inhumane conduct. The moral disengagement may center on the cognitive restructuring of inhumane conduct into a benign or worthy one by moral justification, sanitizing language, and advantageous comparison; disavowal of a sense of personal agency by diffusion or displacement of responsibility; disregarding or minimizing the injurious effects of one's actions; and attribution of blame to, and dehumanization of, those who are victimized. Many inhumanities operate through a supportive network of legitimate enterprises run by otherwise considerate people who contribute to destructive activities by disconnected subdivision of functions and diffusion of responsibility. Given the many mechanisms for disengaging moral control, civilized life requires, in addition to humane personal standards, safeguards built into social systems that uphold compassionate behavior and renounce cruelty.

The theory of multiple stupidities: education, technology and organisation in Arabia.

PubMed

Al Lily, Abdulrahman Essa; Alhazmi, Ahmed Ali; Alzahrani, Saleh

2017-11-01

Traditional perspectives have envisaged intelligence as one entity dominated by a single set of abilities (i.e. cognitive abilities), whereas modern perspectives have defined intelligence in various shapes (e.g. linguistic, musical and interpersonal intelligences). By the same token, traditional perspectives have examined stupidity as one set of inabilities (i.e. cognitive inabilities). However, it is not clear whether modern perspectives have discussed whether stupidity exists in various forms-in the same way as they have envisaged intelligence. To address this limitation, 257 university members were asked to share what they perceived as being stupid educational and technological practices in their institutions. Analysis of the data suggested three concepts were important to the members: moral, spatial and administrative stupidities. That is, stupidity is perceived to come in the form of failing to meet certain moral, spatial and administrative values. This implies that modern perspectives may conceptualise stupidity differently from traditional perspectives, seeing it as going beyond cognitive inabilities and viewing it as existing in various forms (e.g. moral, spatial and administrative stupidities). Thus, there are multiple stupidities as there are multiple forms of intelligence. A strength of this research is that it views stupidity through an organisational and qualitative lens, although some may traditionally expect such a topic to be examined quantitatively through psychometric and biological approaches.

Moral principles or consumer preferences? Alternative framings of the trolley problem.

PubMed

Rai, Tage S; Holyoak, Keith J

2010-03-01

We created paired moral dilemmas with minimal contrasts in wording, a research strategy that has been advocated as a way to empirically establish principles operative in a domain-specific moral psychology. However, the candidate "principles" we tested were not derived from work in moral philosophy, but rather from work in the areas of consumer choice and risk perception. Participants were paradoxically less likely to choose an action that sacrifices one life to save others when they were asked to provide more reasons for doing so (Experiment 1), and their willingness to sacrifice lives depended not only on how many lives would be saved, but on the number of lives at risk (Experiment 2). The latter effect was also found in a within-subjects design (Experiment 3). These findings suggest caution in the use of artificial dilemmas as a key testbed for revealing principled bases for moral judgment. Copyright © 2009 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Examining overlap in behavioral and neural representations of morals, facts, and preferences.

PubMed

Theriault, Jordan; Waytz, Adam; Heiphetz, Larisa; Young, Liane

2017-11-01

Metaethical judgments refer to judgments about the information expressed by moral claims. Moral objectivists generally believe that moral claims are akin to facts, whereas moral subjectivists generally believe that moral claims are more akin to preferences. Evidence from developmental and social psychology has generally favored an objectivist view; however, this work has typically relied on few examples, and analyses have disallowed statistical generalizations beyond these few stimuli. The present work addresses whether morals are represented as fact-like or preference-like, using behavioral and neuroimaging methods, in combination with statistical techniques that can (a) generalize beyond our sample stimuli, and (b) test whether particular item features are associated with neural activity. Behaviorally, and contrary to prior work, morals were perceived as more preference-like than fact-like. Neurally, morals and preferences elicited common magnitudes and spatial patterns of activity, particularly within the dorsal-medial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC), a critical region for social cognition. This common DMPFC activity for morals and preferences was present across whole-brain conjunctions, and in individually localized functional regions of interest (targeting the theory of mind network). By contrast, morals and facts did not elicit any neural activity in common. Follow-up item analyses suggested that the activity elicited in common by morals and preferences was explained by their shared tendency to evoke representations of mental states. We conclude that morals are represented as far more subjective than prior work has suggested. This conclusion is consistent with recent theoretical research, which has argued that morality is fundamentally about regulating social relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Perceptions of the Influence of Black Greek Affiliation on Involvement, Engagement, and Persistence on Black Male Student Success: Differences between a Historically Black University and a Predominantly White Institution

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Flowers, Eric D.

2015-01-01

While there is research on the impact of Greek Letter Organization membership on college student engagement and success, the focus is primarily on the experiences of White students with mixed results. The findings in these studies include lower moral and cognitive development and less concern for social issues than their non-Greek counterparts.…

Transcranial Electrical Stimulation to Enhance Cognitive Performance of Healthy Minors: A Complex Governance Challenge

PubMed Central

Schuijer, Jantien W.; de Jong, Irja M.; Kupper, Frank; van Atteveldt, Nienke M.

2017-01-01

An increasing number of healthy adolescents are consuming products that can enhance their cognitive performance in educational settings. Currently, the use of pharmaceuticals is the most widely discussed enhancement method in the literature, but new evidence suggests that other methods based on Transcranial Electrical Stimulation (tES) also have potential as cognitive enhancer. Just like pharmaceutical enhancers, the availability and education-related use of tES-devices raise a broad range of ethical, legal, and societal issues that need to be addressed by policy-makers. Few studies, however, have specifically explored these issues in relation to child wellbeing. In this narrative review with systematic search, we describe the issues for child wellbeing that could arise from the availability and education-related use of tES-based enhancers by healthy minors. We demonstrate that the issues form a complex web of uncertainties and concerns, which are mainly incited by two factors. First is the high level of factual uncertainty due to gaps in empirical evidence about the exact working mechanisms and efficacy of tES. Moreover, a lack of insight into the technique’s (long-term) effects on healthy developing brains, and uncertainties about potential cognitive trade-offs have fueled concerns about the technique’s safety and impact. The second factor that contributes to the complexity of issues is the presence of moral diversity in our society. Different opinions exist on whether a certain enhancement effect would be desirable and whether potential risks would be acceptable. These opinions depend on one’s moral perspective, and the way one interprets and weights values such as the child’s autonomy and authenticity. The challenge for proper governance resides in the design of an appropriate framework that is capable of balancing the different moral perspectives in society, while recognizing the uncertainties that still exist. We therefore argue for a responsible innovation approach, which encourages an adaptive attitude toward emerging knowledge and dynamic societal values, to deal with the identified issues regarding tES-based enhancement appropriately. PMID:28396631

To change or not to change - translating and culturally adapting the paediatric version of the Moral Distress Scale-Revised (MDS-R).

PubMed

Af Sandeberg, Margareta; Wenemark, Marika; Bartholdson, Cecilia; Lützén, Kim; Pergert, Pernilla

2017-02-20

Paediatric cancer care poses ethically difficult situations that can lead to value conflicts about what is best for the child, possibly resulting in moral distress. Research on moral distress is lacking in paediatric cancer care in Sweden and most questionnaires are developed in English. The Moral Distress Scale-Revised (MDS-R) is a questionnaire that measures moral distress in specific situations; respondents are asked to indicate both the frequency and the level of disturbance when the situation arises. The aims of this study were to translate and culturally adapt the questionnaire to the context of Swedish paediatric cancer care. In doing so we endeavoured to keep the content in the Swedish version as equivalent to the original as possible but to introduce modifications that improve the functional level and increase respondent satisfaction. The procedure included linguistic translation and cultural adaptation of MDS-R's paediatric versions for Physicians, Nurses and Other Healthcare Providers to the context of Swedish paediatric cancer care. The process of adjustment included: preparation, translation procedure and respondent validation. The latter included focus group and cognitive interviews with healthcare professionals in paediatric cancer care. To achieve a Swedish version with a good functional level and high trustworthiness, some adjustments were made concerning design, language, cultural matters and content. Cognitive interviews revealed problems with stating the level of disturbance hypothetically and items with negations caused even more problems, after having stated that the situation never happens. Translation and cultural adaptation require the involvement of various types of specialist. It is difficult to combine the intention to keep the content as equivalent to the original as possible with the need for modifications that improve the functional level and increase respondent satisfaction. The translated and culturally adapted Swedish MDS-R seems to have equivalent content as well as improved functional level and respondent satisfaction. The adjustments were made to fit paediatric cancer care but it could be argued that the changes are relevant for most areas of paediatric care of seriously ill patients.

Refining moral agency: Insights from moral psychology and moral philosophy.

PubMed

Milliken, Aimee

2018-01-01

Research in moral psychology has recently raised questions about the impact of context and the environment on the way the human mind works. In a 2012 call to action, Paley wrote: "If some of the conclusions arrived at by moral psychologists are true, they are directly relevant to the way nurses think about moral problems, and present serious challenges to favoured concepts in nursing ethics, such as the ethics of care, virtue, and the unity of the person" (p. 80). He urges nurse ethicists and scholars to evaluate the impact these findings may have for moral theory. In this paper, I review some of Paley's (Nursing Philosophy, 13, 2012, 80) critique, focusing on the argument that theories of nursing ethics have failed to account for the role of context; both in terms of its impact on the way nurses make moral judgements and in terms of the environment's influence on the way the mind works. I then examine nursing literature on moral agency, and focus on the role of the environment and context play within existing theory. I argue that theories of moral agency have often accounted for the role of context on the way nurses make decisions; however, less attention has been paid to its impact on the mind. With this background, I use insights from the fields of moral philosophy and moral psychology to refine the conceptualization of nurse moral agency in a way that is reflective of current cognitive, philosophical and nursing practice-based science. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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.

Social-cognitive deficits in normal aging

PubMed Central

Moran, Joseph M.; Jolly, Eshin; Mitchell, Jason P.

2012-01-01

A sizeable number of studies have implicated the default network (e.g., medial prefrontal and parietal cortices) in tasks that require participants to infer the mental states of others—that is, to mentalize. Parallel research has demonstrated that default network function declines over the lifespan, suggesting that older adults may show impairments in social-cognitive tasks that require mentalizing. Older and younger human adults were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while performing three different social-cognitive tasks. Across three mentalizing paradigms, younger and older adults viewed animated shapes in brief social vignettes, stories about a person's moral actions and false belief stories. Consistent with predictions, older adults responded less accurately to stories about others' false beliefs and made less use of actors' intentions to judge the moral permissibility of behavior. These impairments in performance during social-cognitive tasks were accompanied by age-related decreases across all three paradigms in the BOLD response of a single brain region—dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. These findings suggest specific, task-independent age-related deficits in mentalizing that are localizeable to changes in circumscribed subregions of the default network. PMID:22514317

Rational hypocrisy: a Bayesian analysis based on informal argumentation and slippery slopes.

PubMed

Rai, Tage S; Holyoak, Keith J

2014-01-01

Moral hypocrisy is typically viewed as an ethical accusation: Someone is applying different moral standards to essentially identical cases, dishonestly claiming that one action is acceptable while otherwise equivalent actions are not. We suggest that in some instances the apparent logical inconsistency stems from different evaluations of a weak argument, rather than dishonesty per se. Extending Corner, Hahn, and Oaksford's (2006) analysis of slippery slope arguments, we develop a Bayesian framework in which accusations of hypocrisy depend on inferences of shared category membership between proposed actions and previous standards, based on prior probabilities that inform the strength of competing hypotheses. Across three experiments, we demonstrate that inferences of hypocrisy increase as perceptions of the likelihood of shared category membership between precedent cases and current cases increase, that these inferences follow established principles of category induction, and that the presence of self-serving motives increases inferences of hypocrisy independent of changes in the actions themselves. Taken together, these results demonstrate that Bayesian analyses of weak arguments may have implications for assessing moral reasoning. © 2014 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

The effect of aging on the (mis)perception of intentionality - an ERP study.

PubMed

Pasion, R; Fernandes, C; Gonçalves, A R; Ferreira-Santos, F; Páscoa, R; Barbosa, F; Marques-Teixeira, J

2018-01-23

Despite the accumulated knowledge on moral decision-making in the early stages of development, empirical evidence is still limited in the old-aged adults. The current study contributes to unveil the neural correlates of judgments of moral transgressions as a function of aging, by examining the temporal dynamics of neural activation elicited by intentional and accidental harmful actions in three groups of healthy participants: young adults (18-35), adults (40-55), and older adults (60-75). Older adults were slower and less accurate in rating intentionality, compared to the younger groups. In ERP analysis, the older group showed increased P2 amplitude, which was predicted by poorer performance on neuropsychological tests. Reduced amplitudes were found on critical ERP components to moral cognition (N2 and LPP), namely while processing intentional harmful scenarios. Older adults seem to allocate more attentional resources (P2) to the task, probably to compensate the age-related decline in executive functioning, while younger groups show a pronounced negativity while detecting harm (N2) and increased neural activation to encode the intentions behind the acts (LPP).

Differential effects of MDMA and methylphenidate on social cognition.

PubMed

Schmid, Yasmin; Hysek, Cédric M; Simmler, Linda D; Crockett, Molly J; Quednow, Boris B; Liechti, Matthias E

2014-09-01

Social cognition is important in everyday-life social interactions. The social cognitive effects of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, 'ecstasy') and methylphenidate (both used for neuroenhancement and as party drugs) are largely unknown. We investigated the acute effects of MDMA (75 mg), methylphenidate (40 mg) and placebo using the Facial Emotion Recognition Task, Multifaceted Empathy Test, Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition, Social Value Orientation Test and the Moral Judgment Task in a cross-over study in 30 healthy subjects. Additionally, subjective, autonomic, pharmacokinetic, endocrine and adverse drug effects were measured. MDMA enhanced emotional empathy for positive emotionally charged situations in the MET and tended to reduce the recognition of sad faces in the Facial Emotion Recognition Task. MDMA had no effects on cognitive empathy in the Multifaceted Empathy Test or social cognitive inferences in the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition. MDMA produced subjective 'empathogenic' effects, such as drug liking, closeness to others, openness and trust. In contrast, methylphenidate lacked such subjective effects and did not alter emotional processing, empathy or mental perspective-taking. MDMA but not methylphenidate increased the plasma levels of oxytocin and prolactin. None of the drugs influenced moral judgment. Effects on emotion recognition and emotional empathy were evident at a low dose of MDMA and likely contribute to the popularity of the drug. © The Author(s) 2014.

Body measures: phenomenological considerations of corporeal ethics.

PubMed

Fielding, H A

1998-08-01

The development of bioethics primarily at the cognitive level further perpetuates the tendency to construe all aspects of our lives, including our bodies, as technical systems. For example, if we consider the moral issue of organ sales without taking our embodiment into account there appear to be no sound arguments for opposing such sales. However, it is important to consider the aspects of the phenomenal body that challenge rational deliberation by exploring an embodied approach to the ethical dilemma produced by a proposed kidney exchange as presented in one of Krzysztof Kieślowski's Dekalog films. What is sought is a description of a body-measure that would serve as a critique of strictly cognitive bioethical deliberations.

Abnormal fronto-limbic engagement in incarcerated stimulant users during moral processing.

PubMed

Fede, Samantha J; Harenski, Carla L; Schaich Borg, Jana; Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter; Rao, Vikram; Caldwell, Brendan M; Nyalakanti, Prashanth K; Koenigs, Michael R; Decety, Jean; Calhoun, Vince D; Kiehl, Kent A

2016-09-01

Stimulant use is a significant and prevalent problem, particularly in criminal populations. Previous studies found that cocaine and methamphetamine use is related to impairment in identifying emotions and empathy. Stimulant users also have abnormal neural structure and function of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), amygdala, and anterior (ACC) and posterior cingulate (PCC), regions implicated in moral decision-making. However, no research has studied the neural correlates of stimulant use and explicit moral processing in an incarcerated population. Here, we examine how stimulant use affects sociomoral processing that might contribute to antisocial behavior. We predicted that vmPFC, amygdala, PCC, and ACC would show abnormal neural response during a moral processing task in incarcerated methamphetamine and cocaine users. Incarcerated adult males (N = 211) were scanned with a mobile MRI system while completing a moral decision-making task. Lifetime drug use was assessed. Neural responses during moral processing were compared between users and non-users. The relationship between duration of use and neural function was also examined. Incarcerated stimulant users showed less amygdala engagement than non-users during moral processing. Duration of stimulant use was negatively associated with activity in ACC and positively associated with vmPFC response during moral processing. These results suggest a dynamic pattern of fronto-limbic moral processing related to stimulant use with deficits in both central motive and cognitive integration elements of biological moral processes theory. This increases our understanding of how drug use relates to moral processing in the brain in an ultra-high-risk population.

[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, and paradoxical results regarding punishment and empathy. This should be studied in greater detail, but these results can contribute to a deeper understanding of the complex Colombian social context. Copyright © 2016 Asociación Colombiana de Psiquiatría. Publicado por Elsevier España. All rights reserved.

Impairment of social and moral behavior related to early damage in human prefrontal cortex.

PubMed

Anderson, S W; Bechara, A; Damasio, H; Tranel, D; Damasio, A R

1999-11-01

The long-term consequences of early prefrontal cortex lesions occurring before 16 months were investigated in two adults. As is the case when such damage occurs in adulthood, the two early-onset patients had severely impaired social behavior despite normal basic cognitive abilities, and showed insensitivity to future consequences of decisions, defective autonomic responses to punishment contingencies and failure to respond to behavioral interventions. Unlike adult-onset patients, however, the two patients had defective social and moral reasoning, suggesting that the acquisition of complex social conventions and moral rules had been impaired. Thus early-onset prefrontal damage resulted in a syndrome resembling psychopathy.

A Healthy Aging Program for Older Adults: Effects on Self-Efficacy and Morale

PubMed Central

Scult, Matthew; Haime, Vivian; Jacquart, Jolene; Takahashi, Jonathan; Moscowitz, Barbara; Webster, Ann; Denninger, John W.; Mehta, Darshan H.

2015-01-01

Context As of 2012, 810 million people were over the age of 60 worldwide, accounting for 11 percent of the population. That number is expected to rise to 2 billion by 2050 or to 22 percent of the overall population. As a result, a growing need exists to understand the factors that promote mental and physical health in older populations. Objectives The purpose of this study was to develop a healthy aging program for older adults and to measure the changes from baseline to the end of the program in participants’ relevant psychosocial outcomes; ie, self-efficacy and morale. Design The study’s Healthy Aging Mind Body Intervention (MBI) was adapted from the Relaxation Response Resiliency Program (3RP) at the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine (BHI), which incorporates elements from the fields of stress management, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and positive psychology. That program was modified with examples and exercises targeted to an older population, and evaluated in the current, single-arm, pilot study. Setting The program took place at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Participants The 9-week Healthy Aging MBI was developed for participants aged 65 and over. Fifty-one older adults from the surrounding community participated in the study’s groups. Intervention A new intervention group began the program every 3 months, with a maximum of 12 individuals per group. For each group, the MBI consisted of weekly, 90-minute sessions for 9 consecutive weeks, directed by a psychologist. The program included sessions that taught participants: (1) a variety of methods to elicit the relaxation response (RR), (2) the practice of adaptive coping and cognitions, (3) behaviors necessary to create a healthy lifestyle, and (4) methods of building social support. Outcome Measures The research team chose to focus on 2 psychological variables of interest for aging populations: morale and self-efficacy. The study used 2 questionnaires to measure those outcomes, the Philadelphia Geriatric Center Morale Scale (PGCMS), a multidimensional measure of the psychological state of older people, and the Coping Self-Efficacy Scale (CSES), a measure that addresses the multiple dimensions of self-efficacy. Results Data from 5 intervention groups were combined for the current analysis. Forty-six participants enrolled and completed questionnaires. Of those participants, 41 attended at least 7 out of the 9 sessions. Significant increases in self-efficacy and morale were observed for program completers. After a highly conservative sensitivity analysis, the change for the measure of self-efficacy remained significant, and the change for the measure of morale trended toward significance. Conclusions The study’s healthy aging program appears to be a feasible intervention for older adults, with the potential to increase levels of self-efficacy and morale in participants. Further research is warranted to determine its effects on other psychosocial outcomes and healthcare utilization in aging populations. PMID:25607120

Reasoning, cognitive control, and moral intuition

PubMed Central

Patterson, Richard; Rothstein, Jared; Barbey, Aron K.

2012-01-01

Recent Social Intuitionist work suggests that moral judgments are intuitive (not based on conscious deliberation or any significant chain of inference), and that the reasons we produce to explain or justify our judgments and actions are for the most part post hoc rationalizations rather than the actual source of those judgments. This is consistent with work on judgment and explanation in other domains, and it correctly challenges one-sidedly rationalistic accounts. We suggest that in fact reasoning has a great deal of influence on moral judgments and on intuitive judgments in general. This influence is not apparent from study of judgments simply in their immediate context, but it is crucial for the question of how cognition can help us avoid deleterious effects and enhance potentially beneficial effects of affect on judgment, action, and cognition itself. We begin with established work on several reactive strategies for cognitive control of affect (e.g., suppression, reappraisal), then give special attention to more complex sorts of conflict (“extended deliberation”) involving multiple interacting factors, both affective and reflective. These situations are especially difficult to study in a controlled way, but we propose some possible experimental approaches. We then review proactive strategies for control, including avoidance of temptation and mindfulness meditation (Froeliger et al., 2012, this issue). We give special attention to the role of slow or “cool” cognitive processes (e.g., deliberation, planning, and executive control) in the inculcation of long-term dispositions, traits, intuitions, skills, or habits. The latter are critical because they in turn give rise to a great many of our fast, intuitive judgments. The reasoning processes involved here are distinct from post hoc rationalizations and have a very real impact on countless intuitive judgments in concrete situations. This calls for a substantial enlargement of research on cognitive control, drawing on work in developmental psychology, automatization, educational theory, and other fields. PMID:23264763

Social, moral, and temporal qualities: Pre-service teachers' considerations of evolution and creation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hahn, Deirdre

The introduction of the theories of evolution into public education has created a history of misinterpretation and uncertainty about its application to understanding deep time and human origins. Conceptions about negative social and moral outcomes of evolution itself along with cognitive temporal constraints may be difficult for many individuals to uncouple from the scientific theory, serving to provoke the ongoing debate about the treatment of evolution in science education. This debate about teaching evolution is strongly influenced by groups who strive to add creationism to the science curriculum for a balanced treatment of human origins and to mediate implied negative social and moral outcomes of evolution. Individual conceptualization of evolution and creation may influence the choice of college students to teach science. This study is designed to examine if pre-service teachers' conceptualize an evolutionary and creationist process of human development using certain social, moral or temporal patterns; and if the patterns follow a negative conceptual theme. The pilot study explored 21 pre-service teachers' conceptual representation of an evolutionary process through personal narratives. Participants tended to link evolutionary changes with negative social and moral consequences and seemed to have difficulty envisioning change over time. The pilot study was expanded to include a quantitative examination of attribute patterns of an evolutionary and creationist developmental process. Seventy-three pre-service teachers participated in the second experiment and tended to fall evenly along a continuum of creationist and evolutionist beliefs about life. Using a chi-square and principle components analysis, participants were found to map concepts of evolution and creation onto each other using troubling attributes of development to distinguish negative change over time. A strong negative social and moral pattern of human development was found in the creation condition, though only a vague negative human developmental process was found for the evolution condition. Based on these results, pre-service teachers may not use evolution as a viable explanation of human origins, which may serve to contribute to evolution theory debates and discourage pre-service teachers' choice of being science instructors.

A four-part working bibliography of neuroethics: part 1: overview and reviews--defining and describing the field and its practices.

PubMed

Buniak, Liana; Darragh, Martina; Giordano, James

2014-05-16

Neuroethics entails investigations of neurocognitive mechanisms of morality and ethics; and studies and address of the ethical issues spawned by the use of neuroscience and its technologies to investigate cognition, emotion and actions. These two principal emphases, or what have been called "traditions" of neuroethics both mirror traditional bioethical discussions (such as debates about the safety of technological and pharmaceutical advances and ethical implications of new scientific and technological discoveries), and engage discourse about neuroscientific investigations of (proto-moral and moral) cognition, emotions and behaviors, and what such findings may mean for human beliefs and conduct - from the individual to the political levels.Given the growth, range, and rapid maturation of the field of neuroethics we provide an iterative, four-part document that affords a repository of international papers, books, and chapters that address the field in overview, and present discussion(s) of more particular aspects and topics of neuroethics. This first installment lists reviews and overviews of the discipline, and broad summaries of basic developments and issues of the field. To systematically survey the neuroethics literature, searches were performed by accessing 11 databases, 8 additional literature depositories, and 4 individual journal searches using indexing language for National Library of Medicine (NLM) Medical Subject Heading databases. Searches and assurance against overlapping coverage were conducted using the RefWorks citation management program. Overview, review and reflections upon the history and multicultural perspectives of neuroethics were obtained and relevant listings from international journals, books, and book chapters are provided. Part I will be followed by three installments that will address a): the neuroscience of morality and ethics, including discussions of free will, and personal autonomy; b) "second tradition neuroethics", to include specific ethical issues in neuroscience; clinical neuroethics; and c) neuroethics education/training; neuroethics and society; neuroethics and law; neuroethics and policy; and international neuroethics.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE, MORAL, ETHICS, BIO-ETHICS AND WHAT IS IN BETWEEN.

PubMed

Keidar, Daniella; Yagoda, Arie

2014-10-01

In recent years, the study of emotions has broadened its scope and established its standing as a new scientific discipline. Humanity has become increasingly conscious of the seminal role played by the emotional components in both intrapersonal and interpersonal behavior. A deeply rooted and inherent correlation exists between emotional intelligence (E.I. - Emotional Intelligence) and positive social results: social adaptation, quality social relationships, the capacity for healthy social behaviors, caring, altruism, empathy, enlightened communication and the efficacy and personal coherence essential to moral and ethical behavior, including its manifestation in the sphere of bio-ethics. The importance of the personal relationship between the doctor and the patient is especially fundamental in the current era of immense and accelerated scientific-technological development, forcing doctors to cope with an increasingly complicated technical environment. Precisely because of this reality, it is essential that a doctor's actions and interpersonal relationship with the patient proceed from an ethical base, grounded in both professional and emotional responsibility. Emotional responsibility is one of the central elements underlying bioethical conduct and is the element that provides the guideposts for the treatment of others. The symbiotic connection between emotional intelligence and the sphere of ethics and morals is what delineates human beings. Human beings, by definition and in essence, bear responsibility for their actions. The beginning of ethics is in the human being's consciousness of choice in relation to self and to others. An individual's choices integrate emotion and cognition. That ability to integrate alongside the capacity for choice enables the human race to act in accordance with ethical and moral codes. At work, on a daily basis, a doctor is positioned opposite to the physical, emotional, cognitive and ethical entirety of the patient. Beyond the doctor's technical ability to heal, there also exists his capacity to create within the patient the desire to heal.

A four-part working bibliography of neuroethics: part 1: overview and reviews – defining and describing the field and its practices

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background Neuroethics entails investigations of neurocognitive mechanisms of morality and ethics; and studies and address of the ethical issues spawned by the use of neuroscience and its technologies to investigate cognition, emotion and actions. These two principal emphases, or what have been called “traditions” of neuroethics both mirror traditional bioethical discussions (such as debates about the safety of technological and pharmaceutical advances and ethical implications of new scientific and technological discoveries), and engage discourse about neuroscientific investigations of (proto-moral and moral) cognition, emotions and behaviors, and what such findings may mean for human beliefs and conduct - from the individual to the political levels. Given the growth, range, and rapid maturation of the field of neuroethics we provide an iterative, four-part document that affords a repository of international papers, books, and chapters that address the field in overview, and present discussion(s) of more particular aspects and topics of neuroethics. This first installment lists reviews and overviews of the discipline, and broad summaries of basic developments and issues of the field. Methods To systematically survey the neuroethics literature, searches were performed by accessing 11 databases, 8 additional literature depositories, and 4 individual journal searches using indexing language for National Library of Medicine (NLM) Medical Subject Heading databases. Searches and assurance against overlapping coverage were conducted using the RefWorks citation management program. Results Overview, review and reflections upon the history and multicultural perspectives of neuroethics were obtained and relevant listings from international journals, books, and book chapters are provided. Part I will be followed by three installments that will address a): the neuroscience of morality and ethics, including discussions of free will, and personal autonomy; b) “second tradition neuroethics”, to include specific ethical issues in neuroscience; clinical neuroethics; and c) neuroethics education/training; neuroethics and society; neuroethics and law; neuroethics and policy; and international neuroethics. PMID:24885037

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.

Alleviation of moral disgust, shame, and guilt in posttraumatic stress reactions: an evaluation of comprehensive distancing.

PubMed

Ojserkis, Rachel; McKay, Dean; Badour, Christal L; Feldner, Matthew T; Arocho, Justin; Dutton, Courtney

2014-11-01

Research suggests that moral disgust, shame, and guilt are present in posttraumatic psychopathology. However, it is unclear that these emotional states are responsive to empirically supported interventions for posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS). This study explored the relations among moral disgust, shame, guilt, and PTSS, and examined comprehensive distancing (CD) as a novel intervention for these emotional states in undergraduates with elevated PTSS. Participants were randomly assigned to use a CD or a cognitive challenge task in response to personalized scripts of a traumatic event. Both interventions were associated with decreases in disgust, moral disgust, shame, and guilt. Contrary to predictions, there were no significant differences between the exercises in the reduction of negative emotions. In addition, PTSS severity was correlated with trauma-related guilt as well as state guilt and shame, but not trait or state measures of disgust or moral disgust. This proof of concept project sets the stage for further research examining CD as an alternative or adjunctive intervention for posttraumatic stress reactions with strong features of moral disgust, shame, and guilt. © The Author(s) 2014.

Moral competence and brain connectivity: A resting-state fMRI study.

PubMed

Jung, Wi Hoon; Prehn, Kristin; Fang, Zhuo; Korczykowski, Marc; Kable, Joseph W; Rao, Hengyi; Robertson, Diana C

2016-11-01

Moral competence (MC) refers to the ability to apply certain moral orientations in a consistent and differentiated manner when judging moral issues. People greatly differ in terms of MC, however, little is known about how these differences are implemented in the brain. To investigate this question, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging and examined resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) in n=31 individuals with MC scores in the highest 15% of the population and n=33 individuals with MC scores in the lowest 15%, selected from a large sample of 730 Master of Business Administration (MBA) students. Compared to individuals with lower MC, individuals with higher MC showed greater amygdala-ventromedial prefrontal connectivity, which may reflect better ability to cope with emotional conflicts elicited by moral dilemmas. Moreover, individuals with higher MC showed less inter-network connectivity between the amygdalar and fronto-parietal networks, suggesting a more independent operation of these networks. Our findings provide novel insights into how individual differences in moral judgment are associated with RSFC in brain circuits related to emotion processing and cognitive control. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Moral competence and brain connectivity: a resting-state fMRI study

PubMed Central

Jung, Wi Hoon; Prehn, Kristin; Fang, Zhuo; Korczykowski, Marc; Kable, Joseph W.; Rao, Hengyi; Robertson, Diana C.

2016-01-01

Moral competence (MC) refers to the ability to apply certain moral orientations in a consistent and differentiated manner when judging moral issues. People greatly differ in terms of MC, however, little is known about how these differences are implemented in the brain. To investigate this question, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging and examined resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) in n=31 individuals with MC scores in the highest 15% of the population and n=33 individuals with MC scores in the lowest 15%, selected from a large sample of 730 Master of Business Administration (MBA) students. Compared to individuals with lower MC, individuals with higher MC showed greater amygdala-ventromedial prefrontal connectivity, which may reflect better ability to cope with emotional conflicts elicited by moral dilemmas. Moreover, individuals with higher MC showed less inter-network connectivity between the amygdalar and fronto-parietal networks, suggesting a more independent operation of these networks. Our findings provide novel insights into how individual differences in moral judgment are associated with RSFC in brain circuits related to emotion processing and cognitive control. PMID:27456537

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

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, indicating that bilateral TPJ may have little influence over moral judgments in moral dilemmas.

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, indicating that bilateral TPJ may have little influence over moral judgments in moral dilemmas. PMID:29632472

Peer influences on moral disengagement in late childhood and early adolescence.

PubMed

Caravita, Simona C S; Sijtsema, Jelle J; Rambaran, J Ashwin; Gini, Gianluca

2014-02-01

Moral disengagement processes are cognitive self-justification processes of transgressive actions that have been hypothesized to be learned and socialized within social contexts. The current study aimed at investigating socialization of moral disengagement by friends in two developmentally different age groups, namely late childhood (age: 9-10 years; n = 133, 42.9% girls) and early adolescence (age: 11-14 years; n = 236, 40.6% girls) over a 1-year period. Specifically, the current study examined whether similarity in moral disengagement between friends was the result of friends' influence or friend selection. Moreover, gender (42% girls), individual bullying behavior, and perceived popularity status were examined as potential moderators of socialization for moral disengagement within friendship networks. Self-report measures were used to assess moral disengagement, sociometric questions and a peer-nomination scale for friendship networks and bullying behavior, respectively. Longitudinal social network analysis (RSiena) was used to study change of moral disengagement in friendship networks during a 1-year interval. In early adolescence, friends were more likely to be similar to each other over time and this was explained only by influence processes and not by selection processes. Gender, bullying, and perceived popularity did not moderate the friends' influence on moral disengagement over time. Results indicate that self-justification processes change over time already in late childhood, but only in early adolescence this change is likely to be dependent upon peers' moral disengagement.

Contemplating the ultimate sacrifice: identity fusion channels pro-group affect, cognition, and moral decision making.

PubMed

Swann, William B; Gómez, Angel; Buhrmester, Michael D; López-Rodríguez, Lucía; Jiménez, Juan; Vázquez, Alexandra

2014-05-01

Although most people acknowledge the moral virtue in sacrificing oneself to save others, few actually endorse self-sacrifice. Seven experiments explored the cognitive and emotional mechanisms that underlie such endorsements. Participants responded to 1 of 2 moral dilemmas in which they could save 5 members of their country only by sacrificing themselves. Over 90% of participants acknowledged that the moral course of action was to sacrifice oneself to save others (Experiment 1), yet only those who were strongly fused with the group preferentially endorsed self-sacrifice (Experiments 2-7). The presence of a concern with saving group members rather than the absence of a concern with self-preservation motivated strongly fused participants to endorse sacrificing themselves for the group (Experiment 3). Analyses of think aloud protocols suggested that saving others was motivated by emotional engagement with the group among strongly fused participants but by utilitarian concerns among weakly fused participants (Experiment 4). Hurrying participants' responses increased self-sacrifice among strongly fused participants but decreased self-sacrifice among weakly fused participants (Experiment 5). Priming the personal self increased endorsement of self-sacrifice among strongly fused participants but further reduced endorsement of self-sacrifice among weakly fused participants (Experiment 6). Strongly fused participants ignored utilitarian considerations, but weakly fused persons endorsed self-sacrifice more when it would save more people (Experiment 7). Apparently, the emotional engagement with the group experienced by strongly fused persons overrides the desire for self-preservation and compels them to translate their moral beliefs into self-sacrificial behavior.

Developing and Testing a Scale of Moral Thinking and Communication (MTC) Functioning: A Preliminary Study and Its Implications for Moral Development and Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Chi-Ming Angela; Thoma, Stephen J.

2018-01-01

The purpose of this study was to develop and test a scale assessing students' moral thinking and communication (MTC) functioning as well as to explore the implications for moral development and education. The rationale of MTC functioning, including interaction of four independent competencies: moral awareness, moral judgement, moral discourse, and…

Distilling the Antecedents and Enabling Dynamics of Leader Moral Courage: A Framework to Guide Action.

PubMed

Hutchinson, Marie; Jackson, Debra; Daly, John; Usher, Kim

2015-05-01

Intelligent, robust and courageous nursing leadership is essential in all areas of nursing, including mental health. However, in the nursing leadership literature, the theoretical discourse regarding how leaders recognise the need for action and make the choice to act with moral purpose is currently limited. Little has been written about the cognitions, capabilities and contextual factors that enable leader courage. In particular, the interplay between leader values and actions that are characterised as good or moral remains underexplored in the nursing leadership literature. In this article, through a discursive literature synthesis we seek to distill a more detailed understanding of leader moral courage; specifically, what factors contribute to leaders' ability to act with moral courage, what factors impede such action, and what factors do leaders need to foster within themselves and others to enable action that is driven by moral courage. From the analysis, we distilled a multi-level framework that identifies a range of individual characteristics and capabilities, and enabling contextual factors that underpin leader moral courage. The framework suggests leader moral courage is more complex than often posited in theories of leadership, as it comprises elements that shape moral thought and conduct. Given the complexity and challenges of nursing work, the framework for moral action derived from our analysis provides insight and suggestions for strengthening individual and group capacity to assist nurse leaders and mental health nurses to act with integrity and courage.

Activating analytic thinking enhances the value given to individualizing moral foundations.

PubMed

Yilmaz, Onurcan; Saribay, S Adil

2017-08-01

Two central debates within Moral Foundations Theory concern (1) which moral foundations are core and (2) how conflict between ideological camps stemming from valuing different moral foundations can be resolved. Previous studies have attempted to answer the first question by imposing cognitive load on participants to direct them toward intuitive and automatic thought. However, this method has limitations and has produced mixed findings. In the present research, in two experiments, instead of directing participants toward intuitive thought, we tested the effects of activating high-effort, analytic thought on participants' moral foundations. In both experiments, analytic thought activation caused participants to value individualizing foundations greater than the control condition. This effect was not qualified by participants' political orientation. No effect was observed on binding foundations. The results are consistent with the idea that upholding individualizing foundations requires mental effort and may provide the basis for reconciliation between different ideological camps. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In search of the moral-psychological and neuroevolutionary basis of political partisanship

PubMed Central

Haase, Vitor Geraldi; Starling-Alves, Isabella

2017-01-01

In many countries, a radical political divide brings several socially relevant decisions to a standstill. Could cognitive, affective and social (CAS) neuroscience help better understand these questions? The present article reviews the moral-psychological and neuroevolutionary basis of the political partisanship divide. A non-systematic literature review and a conceptual analysis were conducted. Three main points are identified and discussed: 1) Political partisan behavior rests upon deep moral emotions. It is automatically processed and impervious to contradiction. The moral motifs characterizing political partisanship are epigenetically set across different cultures; 2) partisanship is linked to personality traits, whose neural foundations are associated with moral feelings and judgement; 3) Self-deception is a major characteristic of political partisanship that probably evolved as an evolutionary adaptive strategy to deal with the intragroup-extragroup dynamics of human evolution. CAS neuroscience evidence may not resolve the political divide, but can contribute to a better understanding of its biological foundations. PMID:29213489

It's a two-way street: Automatic and controlled processes in children's emotional responses to moral transgressions.

PubMed

Dys, Sebastian P; Malti, Tina

2016-12-01

This study examined children's automatic, spontaneous emotional reactions to everyday moral transgressions and their relations with self-reported emotions, which are more complex and infused with controlled cognition. We presented children ​(N=242 4-, 8-, and 12-year-olds) with six everyday moral transgression scenarios in an experimental setting, and both their spontaneous facial emotional reactions and self-reported emotions in the role of the transgressor were recorded. We found that across age self-reported guilt was positively associated with spontaneous fear, and self-reported anger was positively related to spontaneous sadness. In addition, we found a developmental increase in spontaneous sadness and decrease in spontaneous happiness. These results support the importance of automatic and controlled processes in evoking children's emotional responses to everyday moral transgressions. We conclude by providing potential explanations for how automatic and controlled processes function in children's everyday moral experiences and how these processes may change with age. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Comparing the cognitive, personality and moral characteristics of high school and graduate medical entrants to the Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Iran.

PubMed

Nedjat, Saharnaz; Bore, Miles; Majdzadeh, Reza; Rashidian, Arash; Munro, Don; Powis, David; Karbakhsh, Mojgan; Keshavarz, Hossein

2013-12-01

Tehran University of Medical Sciences has two streams of medical student admission: an established high school entry (HSE) route and an experimental graduate entry (GE) route. To compare the cognitive skills, personality traits and moral characteristics of HSE and GE students admitted to this university. The personal qualities assessment tool (PQA; www.pqa.net.au ) was translated from English to Persian and then back-translated. Afterwards 35 individuals from the GE and 109 individuals from the 2007 to 2008 HSE completed the test. The results were compared by t-test and Chi-square. The HSE students showed significantly higher ability in the cognitive skills tests (p < 0.001). They were also more libertarian (p = 0.022), but had lower ability to confront stress and unpleasant events (p < 0.001), and had lower self-awareness and self-control (p < 0.001). On the basis of their personal qualities, the GE students had more self-control and strength when coping with stress than the HSE students, but the latter had superior cognitive abilities. Hence it may be useful to include cognitive tests in GE students' entry exam and include tests of personal qualities to exclude those with unsuitable characteristics.

Moral decision-making and theory of mind in patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease.

PubMed

Rosen, Jan B; Brand, Matthias; Polzer, Christin; Ebersbach, Georg; Kalbe, Elke

2013-09-01

Cognitive impairments in theory of mind (ToM), executive processing, and decision-making are frequent and highly relevant symptoms in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). These functions have been related to moral decision-making. Their association to moral decision-making in PD, however, has not been studied yet. It was hypothesized that moral decisions in patients with PD differ from those in healthy control participants, and that more egoistic decisions are related to ToM as well as executive dysfunctions in patients with PD. Nineteen patients with PD and 20 healthy control participants were examined with an everyday moral decision-making task, comprised of 10 low and 10 high emotional forced-choice moral dilemma short stories with egoistic and altruistic options. All participants received an elaborate neuropsychological test battery. Electrodermal skin conductance responses were recorded to examine possible unconscious emotional reactions during moral decision-making. The groups performed comparably in total scores of moral decision-making. Although ToM did not differ between groups, it was inversely related to altruistic moral decisions in the healthy control group, but not in patients with PD. Executive functions were not related to moral decision-making. No differences were found for skin conductance responses, yet they differed from zero in both groups. Our findings indicate that moral decisions do not differ between patients with PD and healthy control participants. However, different underlying processes in both groups can be presumed. While healthy control participants seem to apply ToM to permit egoistic moral decisions in low emotional dilemmas, patients with PD seem to decide independently from ToM. These mechanisms as well as neuropsychological and neurophysiological correlates are discussed.

The minds of gods: a comparative study of supernatural agency.

PubMed

Purzycki, Benjamin Grant

2013-10-01

The present work is the first study to systematically compare the minds of gods by examining some of the intuitive processes that guide how people reason about them. By examining the Christian god and the spirit-masters of the Tyva Republic, it first confirms that the consensus view of the Christian god's mind is one of omniscience with acute concern for interpersonal social behavior (i.e., moral behaviors) and that Tyvan spirit-masters are not as readily attributed with knowledge or concern of moral information. Then, it reports evidence of a moralization bias of gods' minds; American Christians who believe that God is omniscient rate God as more knowledgeable of moral behaviors than nonmoral information. Additionally, Tyvans who do not readily report pro- or antisocial behavior among the things that spirit-masters care about will nevertheless rate spirit-masters' knowledge and concern of moral information higher than nonmoral information. However, this knowledge is distributed spatially; the farther away from spirits' place of governance a moral behavior takes place, the less they know and care about it. Finally, the wider the breadth of knowledge Tyvans attribute to spirit-masters, the more they attribute moral concern for behaviors that transpire beyond their jurisdiction. These results further demonstrate that there is a significant gulf between expressed beliefs and intuitive religious cognition and provides evidence for a moralization bias of gods' minds. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The neural correlates of reciprocity are sensitive to prior experience of reciprocity.

PubMed

Cáceda, Ricardo; Prendes-Alvarez, Stefania; Hsu, Jung-Jiin; Tripathi, Shanti P; Kilts, Clint D; James, G Andrew

2017-08-14

Reciprocity is central to human relationships and is strongly influenced by multiple factors including the nature of social exchanges and their attendant emotional reactions. Despite recent advances in the field, the neural processes involved in this modulation of reciprocal behavior by ongoing social interaction are poorly understood. We hypothesized that activity within a discrete set of neural networks including a putative moral cognitive neural network is associated with reciprocity behavior. Nineteen healthy adults underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning while playing the trustee role in the Trust Game. Personality traits and moral development were assessed. Independent component analysis was used to identify task-related functional brain networks and assess their relationship to behavior. The saliency network (insula and anterior cingulate) was positively correlated with reciprocity behavior. A consistent array of brain regions supports the engagement of emotional, self-referential and planning processes during social reciprocity behavior. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Does Watching a Play about the Teenage Brain Affect Attitudes toward Young Offenders?

PubMed Central

Blakey, Robert

2017-01-01

Neuroscience is increasingly used to infer the cognitive capacities of offenders from the activity and volume of different brain regions, with the resultant findings receiving great interest in the public eye. This field experiment tested the effects of public engagement in neuroscience on attitudes toward offenders. Brainstorm is a play about teenage brain development. Either before or after watching this play, 728 participants responded to four questions about the age of criminal responsibility, and the moral responsibility and dangerousness of a hypothetical young or adult offender. After watching the play, participants perceived the young offender as less likely to reoffend than the adult offender and the young, but not adult, offender as less morally responsible for his actions, especially on the first offense. Therefore, public engagement in the newest arrival to the criminological scene – neuroscience – may shift support for different youth justice responses. PMID:28649215

Effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors on thought-action fusion, metacognitions, and thought suppression in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

PubMed

Besiroglu, Lutfullah; Çetinkaya, Nuralay; Selvi, Yavuz; Atli, Abdullah

2011-01-01

We aimed to assess whether cognitive processes change over time in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) receiving selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors without cognitive behavioral therapy and to investigate the factors associated with probable cognitive changes. During the 16 weeks of the study, 55 patients who met the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, criteria for OCD received open-label treatment with sertraline (100-200 mg/d) or fluoxetine (40-80 mg/d) and were assessed using the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Thought-Action Fusion Scale (TAFS), Metacognitions Questionnaire (MCQ-30), and White Bear Suppression Inventory (WBSI). The Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (P < .001), BDI (P < .001), TAFS morality (P < .005), MCQ-30 (P < .01), and WBSI (P < .005) scores at follow-up were significantly lower than baseline scores. When we excluded OCD patients with depressive disorder (n = 12), statistical significance in paired comparisons for MCQ and WBSI disappeared. Similarly, when OCD patients with religious obsessions (n = 16) were excluded, paired comparisons for MCQ and TAF morality were not statistically significant. Changes in BDI, TAFS morality, MCQ-30, and WBSI (P < .005) were significantly correlated with changes in severity of obsessions, but not that of compulsions. After controlling for the change in depression severity, significant correlations between changes in obsessive and cognitive scales did not continue to have statistical significance. The BDI changes (P < .05) significantly explained the changes in symptom severity in a linear regression model. Our findings suggest that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors can change appraisals of obsessive intrusions via their effects on negative emotions. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Brain damage and the moral significance of consciousness.

PubMed

Kahane, Guy; Savulescu, Julian

2009-02-01

Neuroimaging studies of brain-damaged patients diagnosed as in the vegetative state suggest that the patients might be conscious. This might seem to raise no new ethical questions given that in related disputes both sides agree that evidence for consciousness gives strong reason to preserve life. We question this assumption. We clarify the widely held but obscure principle that consciousness is morally significant. It is hard to apply this principle to difficult cases given that philosophers of mind distinguish between a range of notions of consciousness and that is unclear which of these is assumed by the principle. We suggest that the morally relevant notion is that of phenomenal consciousness and then use our analysis to interpret cases of brain damage. We argue that enjoyment of consciousness might actually give stronger moral reasons not to preserve a patient's life and, indeed, that these might be stronger when patients retain significant cognitive function.

An indecent proposal: the dual functions of indirect speech.

PubMed

Chakroff, Aleksandr; Thomas, Kyle A; Haque, Omar S; Young, Liane

2015-01-01

People often use indirect speech, for example, when trying to bribe a police officer by asking whether there might be "a way to take care of things without all the paperwork." Recent game theoretic accounts suggest that a speaker uses indirect speech to reduce public accountability for socially risky behaviors. The present studies examine a secondary function of indirect speech use: increasing the perceived moral permissibility of an action. Participants report that indirect speech is associated with reduced accountability for unethical behavior, as well as increased moral permissibility and increased likelihood of unethical behavior. Importantly, moral permissibility was a stronger mediator of the effect of indirect speech on likelihood of action, for judgments of one's own versus others' unethical action. In sum, the motorist who bribes the police officer with winks and nudges may not only avoid public punishment but also maintain the sense that his actions are morally permissible. Copyright © 2014 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Comparison of elicitation methods for moral and affective beliefs in the theory of planned behaviour.

PubMed

Dean, M; Arvola, A; Vassallo, M; Lähteenmäki, L; Raats, M M; Saba, A; Shepherd, R

2006-09-01

Although the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) has been applied successfully in the area of food choice, it has been criticized for its pure utilitarian approach to the factors determining behaviour. Despite the increase in predictive power of the model with added components such as affective attitude and moral and ethical concerns, in most studies the elicitation process still only addresses people's utilitarian beliefs about the behaviour with little attention paid to other aspects. This study compares the traditional method of elicitation of advantages and disadvantages with two other methods (word association and open-ended) in the elicitations of beliefs, attitudes and moral concerns in relation to the consumption of organic foods. Results show the traditional method to be best for eliciting cognitive beliefs, open-ended emotion task for eliciting emotional beliefs and open-ended beliefs task best for moral concerns. The advantages and disadvantages of each method are discussed.

Interpretive understanding, sympathy, and moral emotion attribution in oppositional defiant disorder symptomatology.

PubMed

Dinolfo, Caterina; Malti, Tina

2013-10-01

This study examined the relations between interpretive understanding, sympathy, and moral emotion attribution (MEA) in the prediction of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) symptomatology in an ethnically diverse sample of 128 4- and 8-year-old children (49 % girls). Caregivers rated the children's ODD symptoms. Interpretive understanding was assessed using an advanced theory-of-mind task. Sympathy was measured via caregiver- and child-report. Strength of MEA was assessed utilizing the children's responses to six hypothetical moral transgressions. Results revealed that interpretive understanding, sympathy, and strength of MEA in the exclusion domain predicted ODD symptoms negatively. Caregiver-reported sympathy partially mediated and moderated the relation between interpretive understanding and ODD symptoms. Strength of MEA in the rule violation domain moderated the relation between interpretive understanding and ODD symptoms. The findings shed light on the importance of social-cognitive and affective-moral antecedents of ODD symptoms.

Relaxing moral reasoning to win: How organizational identification relates to unethical pro-organizational behavior.

PubMed

Chen, Mo; Chen, Chao C; Sheldon, Oliver J

2016-08-01

Drawing on social identity theory and social-cognitive theory, we hypothesize that organizational identification predicts unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) through the mediation of moral disengagement. We further propose that competitive interorganizational relations enhance the hypothesized relationships. Three studies conducted in China and the United States using both survey and vignette methodologies provided convergent support for our model. Study 1 revealed that higher organizational identifiers engaged in more UPB, and that this effect was mediated by moral disengagement. Study 2 found that organizational identification once again predicted UPB through the mediation of moral disengagement, and that the mediation relationship was stronger when employees perceived a higher level of industry competition. Finally, Study 3 replicated the above findings using a vignette experiment to provide stronger evidence of causality. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

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.

The paradox of moral focus.

PubMed

Young, Liane; Phillips, Jonathan

2011-05-01

When we evaluate moral agents, we consider many factors, including whether the agent acted freely, or under duress or coercion. In turn, moral evaluations have been shown to influence our (non-moral) evaluations of these same factors. For example, when we judge an agent to have acted immorally, we are subsequently more likely to judge the agent to have acted freely, not under force. Here, we investigate the cognitive signatures of this effect in interpersonal situations, in which one agent ("forcer") forces another agent ("forcee") to act either immorally or morally. The structure of this relationship allowed us to ask questions about both the "forcer" and the "forcee." Paradoxically, participants judged that the "forcer" forced the "forcee" to act immorally (i.e. X forced Y), but that the "forcee" was not forced to act immorally (i.e. Y was not forced by X). This pattern obtained only for human agents who acted intentionally. Directly changing participants' focus from one agent to another (forcer versus forcee) also changed the target of moral evaluation and therefore force attributions. The full pattern of judgments may provide a window into motivated moral reasoning and focusing bias more generally; participants may have been motivated to attribute greater force to the immoral forcer and greater freedom to the immoral forcee. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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.

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.

If it makes you feel bad, don't do it! Egoistic rather than altruistic empathy modulates neural and behavioral responses in moral dilemmas.

PubMed

Sarlo, Michela; Lotto, Lorella; Rumiati, Rino; Palomba, Daniela

2014-05-10

According to Greene et al.'s dual-process theory, the differential involvement of emotional processes would explain the different patterns of moral judgments people typically produce when faced with Trolley- and Footbridge-type dilemmas. As a relevant factor, dispositional empathy is known to motivate prosocial behaviors, thus playing a central role in moral judgment and behavior. The present study was aimed at investigating how behavioral and neural correlates of moral decision-making are modulated by the cognitive and affective dimensions of empathy. Thirty-seven participants were presented with 30 Footbridge-type and 30 Trolley-type dilemmas. Participants were required to decide between two options: letting some people die (non-utilitarian) vs. killing one person to save more people (utilitarian). Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded stimulus-locked to a "decision slide". Response choices and ratings of valence and arousal were also collected. Trait empathy was measured through the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), assessing both the cognitive and affective dimensions. Scores on the Empathic Concern affective subscale of the IRI positively predicted unpleasantness experienced during decision-making for all dilemmas. On the other hand, for Footbridge-type dilemmas only, scores on the Personal Distress affective subscale predicted negatively the mean percentages of utilitarian choices and positively the mean amplitudes of the P260, an ERP component reflecting an immediate emotional reaction during decision-making. It is concluded that "self-oriented" feelings of anxiety and unease, rather than "other-oriented" feelings of concern, affect behavioral choices and emotion-related cortical activity in Footbridge-type moral dilemmas. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Effects of perceived descriptive norms on corrupt intention: The mediating role of moral disengagement.

PubMed

Zhao, Huanhuan; Zhang, Heyun; Xu, Yan

2017-01-31

The present study attempts to examine the effect of perceived descriptive norms on corrupt intention (e.g., bribe-taking intention) and then further explore the psychological mechanism underlying this effect. Based on social cognitive theory, we established a mediation model in which moral disengagement partially mediated the link between perceived descriptive norms and corrupt intention. In Study 1, participants (N = 690) completed a series of questionnaires, and the results demonstrated that, while perceived descriptive norms were positively associated with corrupt intention, it was partially mediated by moral disengagement. In Study 2, we conducted a priming experiment (N = 161) to test the causal relationship and psychological mechanism between perceived descriptive norms and corrupt intention. The results revealed that perceived descriptive norms triggered the propensity of individuals to morally disengage, which in turn, partially increased their corrupt intention. This study not only extends previous research by providing evidence that moral disengagement may be one of the reasons why perceived descriptive norms facilitate corrupt intention, but also suggests that reshaping normative beliefs and preventing the moral disengagement of individuals may be the effective ways to curb corrupt behaviours. © 2017 International Union of Psychological Science.

Online processing of moral transgressions: ERP evidence for spontaneous evaluation

PubMed Central

Kunkel, Angelika; Mackenzie, Ian G.; Filik, Ruth

2015-01-01

Experimental studies using fictional moral dilemmas indicate that both automatic emotional processes and controlled cognitive processes contribute to moral judgments. However, not much is known about how people process socio-normative violations that are more common to their everyday life nor the time-course of these processes. Thus, we recorded participants’ electrical brain activity while they were reading vignettes that either contained morally acceptable vs unacceptable information or text materials that contained information which was either consistent or inconsistent with their general world knowledge. A first event-related brain potential (ERP) positivity peaking at ∼200 ms after critical word onset (P200) was larger when this word involved a socio-normative or knowledge-based violation. Subsequently, knowledge-inconsistent words triggered a larger centroparietal ERP negativity at ∼320 ms (N400), indicating an influence on meaning construction. In contrast, a larger ERP positivity (larger late positivity), which also started at ∼320 ms after critical word onset, was elicited by morally unacceptable compared with acceptable words. We take this ERP positivity to reflect an implicit evaluative (good–bad) categorization process that is engaged during the online processing of moral transgressions. PMID:25556210

Moral Development at the Crossroads: New Trends and Possible Futures

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lapsley, Daniel; Carlo, Gustavo

2014-01-01

This article introduces a special section on moral development. We claim that the field is now undergoing a resurgence of theoretical and methodological innovation after the eclipse of paradigmatic moral stage theory. Although research on prosocial development, moral emotions, and social domain theory has sustained interest in moral development,…

[Dimensions of work ethic as predictors of strategies to cope with stress].

PubMed

Grabowski, Damian; Pollak, Anita; Czerw, Agnieszka

2017-10-17

The article presents the mutual relations between the components of work ethic and the strategies of coping with stress used by employees of different branches. Work ethic was presented as a syndrome of the following attitudes: perceiving work as a moral value, treating work as a central value in life, and the belief in the importance of hard work that leads to success. This ethic also consists of the following components: unwillingness to waste time, disapproval of spare time (anti-leisure), willingness to delay gratification, willingness to act honestly at work (morality/ethic), and being independent (self-reliance). Coping strategies were presented as 3 dimensions (obtained by application of factor analysis of the questionnaire scales COPE (Coping Orientations to Problems Experienced)): proactive cognitive operations, avoidance of action and seeking support. The study conducted on 360 employees of different branches shows that the dimensions of the work ethic are moderately related to strategies emphasizing proactive cognitive operations and poorly related to seeking support and avoidance of action. At the same time, the relations between work ethic and avoidance of action are negative (higher work ethic is linked with lower tendency to avoid action). Predictors of proactive cognitive operations are unwillingness to waste time, treating work as a central value in life, willingness to act honestly at work (morality/ethic) and being independent (self-reliance). Med Pr 2017;68(6):711-724. This work is available in Open Access model and licensed under a CC BY-NC 3.0 PL license.

Conceptualizing Couples’ Decision Making in PGD: Emerging Cognitive, Emotional, and Moral Dimensions

PubMed Central

Hershberger, Patricia E.; Pierce, Penny F.

2009-01-01

Objective To illuminate and synthesize what is known about the underlying decision making processes surrounding couples’ preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) use or disuse and to formulate an initial conceptual framework that can guide future research and practice. Methods This systematic review targeted empirical studies published in English from 1990 to 2008 that examined the decision making process of couples or individual partners that had used, were eligible for, or had contemplated PGD. Sixteen studies met the eligibility requirements. To provide a more comprehensive review, empirical studies that examined healthcare professionals’ perceptions of couples’ decision making surrounding PGD use and key publications from a variety of disciplines supplemented the analysis. Results The conceptual framework formulated from the review demonstrates that couples’ PGD decision making is composed of three iterative and dynamic dimensions: cognitive appraisals, emotional responses, and moral judgments. Conclusion Couples think critically about uncertain and probabilistic information, grapple with conflicting emotions and incorporate moral perspectives into their decision making about whether or not to use PGD. Practice Implications The quality of care and decisional support for couples who are contemplating PGD use can be improved by incorporating focused questions and discussion from each of the dimensions into counseling sessions. PMID:20060677

The effect of ethics training on students recognizing ethical violations and developing moral sensitivity.

PubMed

Baykara, Zehra Gocmen; Demir, Sevil Guler; Yaman, Sengul

2015-09-01

Moral sensitivity is a life-long cognitive ability. It is expected that nurses who work in a professional purpose at "curing human beings" should have a highly developed moral sensitivity. The general opinion is that ethics education plays a significant role in this sense to enhance the moral sensitivity in terms of nurses' professional behaviors and distinguish ethical violations. This study was conducted as intervention research for the purpose of determining the effect of the ethics training on fourth-year students of the nursing department recognizing ethical violations experienced in the hospital and developing ethical sensitivity. The study was conducted with 50 students, with 25 students each in the experiment and control groups. Students in the experiment group were provided ethics training and consultancy services. The data were collected through the data collection form, which consists of questions on the socio-demographic characteristics and ethical sensitivity of the students, Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire, and the observation form on ethical principle violations/protection in the clinic environment. The data were digitized on the computer with the SPSS for Windows 13.0 program. The data were evaluated utilizing number, percentile calculation, paired samples t-test, Wilcoxon test, and the McNemar test. The total Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire pre-test score averages of students in the experiment group were determined to be 93.88 ± 13.57, and their total post-test score averages were determined to be 89.24 ± 15.90. The total pre-test score averages of students in the control group were determined to be 91.48 ± 17.59, and their total post-test score averages were determined to be 97.72 ± 19.91. In the study, it was determined that the post-training ethical sensitivity of students in the experiment group increased; however, this was statistically not significant. Furthermore, it was determined that the number of ethical principle protection/violation observations and correct examples provided by students in the experiment group were higher than the control group and the difference was statistically significant. Written permission and ethical approval were obtained from the university where the study was conducted. Written consent was received from students accepting to participate in the study. As a result, ethics education given to students enables them to distinguish ethical violations in a hospital and make a proper observation in this issue. © The Author(s) 2014.

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.

Maternal Talk in Cognitive Development: Relations between Psychological Lexicon, Semantic Development, Empathy, and Temperament

PubMed Central

Rollo, Dolores; Sulla, Francesco

2016-01-01

In this study, we investigated the relationship between mothers' psychological lexicon and children's cognitive and socio-emotive development as assessed through conceptual and semantic understanding tasks, in addition to the traditional tasks of theory of mind. Currently, there is considerable evidence to suggest that the frequency of mothers' mental state words used in mother-child picture-book reading is linked with children's theory of mind skills. Furthermore, mothers' use of cognitive terms is more strongly related to children's theory of mind performances than the mothers' references to other mental states, such as desires or emotions (Rollo and Buttiglieri, 2009). Current literature has established that early maternal input is related to later child mental state understanding; however it has not yet clarified which maternal terms are most useful for the socio-emotional and cognitive development of the child, and which aspect of the cognitive development benefits from the mother-child interaction. The present study addresses this issue and focuses on the relationship between mothers' mental state talk and children's behavior in conceptual and semantic tasks, and in a theory of mind task. In this study fifty pairs consisting of mothers and their 3 to 6-year-old children participated in two sessions: (1) The mothers read a picture book to their children. To assess the maternal psychological lexicon, their narrative was codified according to the categories of mental state references used in literature: perceptual, emotional, volitional, cognitive, moral, and communicative. (2) After a few days, the conceptual and semantic skills of the children (tasks of contextualization and classification, memory, and definition of words) and their psychological lexicon were assessed. The results suggest close links between the frequency and variety of mothers' mental state words and some semantic and conceptual skills of children. PMID:27047421

Maternal Talk in Cognitive Development: Relations between Psychological Lexicon, Semantic Development, Empathy, and Temperament.

PubMed

Rollo, Dolores; Sulla, Francesco

2016-01-01

In this study, we investigated the relationship between mothers' psychological lexicon and children's cognitive and socio-emotive development as assessed through conceptual and semantic understanding tasks, in addition to the traditional tasks of theory of mind. Currently, there is considerable evidence to suggest that the frequency of mothers' mental state words used in mother-child picture-book reading is linked with children's theory of mind skills. Furthermore, mothers' use of cognitive terms is more strongly related to children's theory of mind performances than the mothers' references to other mental states, such as desires or emotions (Rollo and Buttiglieri, 2009). Current literature has established that early maternal input is related to later child mental state understanding; however it has not yet clarified which maternal terms are most useful for the socio-emotional and cognitive development of the child, and which aspect of the cognitive development benefits from the mother-child interaction. The present study addresses this issue and focuses on the relationship between mothers' mental state talk and children's behavior in conceptual and semantic tasks, and in a theory of mind task. In this study fifty pairs consisting of mothers and their 3 to 6-year-old children participated in two sessions: (1) The mothers read a picture book to their children. To assess the maternal psychological lexicon, their narrative was codified according to the categories of mental state references used in literature: perceptual, emotional, volitional, cognitive, moral, and communicative. (2) After a few days, the conceptual and semantic skills of the children (tasks of contextualization and classification, memory, and definition of words) and their psychological lexicon were assessed. The results suggest close links between the frequency and variety of mothers' mental state words and some semantic and conceptual skills of children.

Moral Development: The Association between Maltreatment and Young Children's Prosocial Behaviors and Moral Transgressions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Koenig, Amy L.; Cicchetti, Dante; Rogosch, Fred A.

2004-01-01

In this investigation, the moral development of physically abused (N = 28), neglected (N = 26), and nonmaltreated (N = 28) five-year-old children from low socioeconomic backgrounds was examined through observational measures of prosocial behaviors, moral transgressions, and emotions associated with moral development. Findings showed that…

Liberia: National Security Interests in Transformational Development

DTIC Science & Technology

2008-03-25

can take advantage of their needy and impressionable stage of development. Lawrence Kohlberg advanced the theory that moral development and moral... Kohlberg , Essays on Moral Development: Vol. 2. The Philosophy of Moral Development (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984). 47 For more information on

Individual Differences in Moral Development: Does Intelligence Really Affect Children's Moral Reasoning and Moral Emotions?

PubMed

Beißert, Hanna M; Hasselhorn, Marcus

2016-01-01

This study investigates the relationship between intelligence and individual differences in children's moral development across a range of different moral transgressions. Taking up prior research that showed morality and intelligence to be related in adolescents and adults, the current study wants to test if these findings can be extended to younger children. The study was designed to address some of the shortcomings in prior research by examining young children aged between 6 years; 4 months and 8 years; 10 months, using a broad concept of moral development including emotional aspects and applying an approach that is closely connected to children's daily lives. Participants ( N = 129) completed a standardized intelligence test and were presented four moral transgression stories to assess moral development. Results demonstrated that findings from prior research with adolescents or adults cannot simply be extended to younger participants. No significant correlations of moral development and intelligence were found for any of the presented stories. This provides first evidence that - at least in middle childhood - moral developmental status seems to be independent from children's general intelligence assessed by figural inductive reasoning tests.

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

Conceptual and practical problems of moral enhancement.

PubMed

Beck, Birgit

2015-05-01

Recently, the debate on human enhancement has shifted from familiar topics like cognitive enhancement and mood enhancement to a new and - to no one's surprise - controversial subject, namely moral enhancement. Some proponents from the transhumanist camp allude to the 'urgent need' of improving the moral conduct of humankind in the face of ever growing technological progress and the substantial dangers entailed in this enterprise. Other thinkers express more sceptical views about this proposal. As the debate has revealed so far, there is no shared opinion among philosophers (or scientists) about the meaning, prospects, and ethical evaluation of moral enhancement. In this article I will address several conceptual and practical problems of this issue, in order to encourage discussion about the prospects of (thinking about) moral enhancement in the future. My assumption is that (i) for the short term, there is little chance of arriving at an agreement on the proper understanding of morality and the appropriateness of one single (meta-)ethical theory; (ii) apart from this, there are further philosophical puzzles loosely referred to in the debate which add to theoretical confusion; and (iii) even if these conceptual problems could be solved, there are still practical problems to be smoothed out if moral enhancement is ever to gain relevance apart from merely theoretical interest. My tentative conclusion, therefore, will be that moral enhancement is not very likely to be made sense of - let alone realized - in the medium-term future. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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.

A development perspective on adolescent drug abuse.

PubMed

Baumrind, D; Moselle, K A

1985-01-01

Adolescent drug use is placed in an historical and developmental perspective. Existing evidence concerning causes and consequences of adolescent drug use is inconclusive. In the absence of conclusive empirical evidence and cogent theories, we present a prima facie case against early adolescent drug use by defending six propositions which posit specific cognitive, conative, and affective negative consequences including impairment of attention and memory; developmental lag imposing categorical limitations on the level of maximum functioning available to the user in cognitive, moral and psychosocial domains; amotivational syndrome; consolidation of diffuse or negative identity; and social alienation and estrangement. We call for a program of research which could provide credible evidence to support or rebut these propositions, and thus address the factual claims underlying the sociomoral concerns of social policy planners.

The Relation of Moral Judgment Development and Educational Experience to Recall of Moral Narratives and Expository Texts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Narvaez, Darcia; Gleason, Tracy

2007-01-01

Moral text processing was used as an ecologically valid method for assessing implicit and explicit moral understanding and development. The authors tested undergraduates, seminarians, and graduate students in political science and philosophy for recall of moral narratives and moral expository texts. Multivariate analyses of covariance using…

Reframing bioethics education for non-professionals: lessons from cognitive anthropology and education theory.

PubMed

Emmerich, Nathan

2014-01-01

It is increasingly common for universities to provide cross-curricular education in bioethics as part of contemporary attempts to produce 'global citizens.' In this article I examine three perspectives drawn from research into pedagogy that has been conducted from the perspective of cognitive anthropology and consider its relevance to bioethics education. I focus on: two metaphors of learning, participation and acquisition, identified by Sfard; the psychological notion of moral development; and the distinction between socialization and enculturation. Two of these perspectives have been particularly fruitful in understanding the processes of teaching and learning in a variety of domains. The third perspective has been developed in relation to the formal ethical education of medical students. I examine their relevance for 'non-professional' bioethics education suggesting that if we take seriously the idea that it is part of 'educating for citizenship' then the distinction between 'ethics' and 'politics' is blurred as such programmes aim at the development of student's political subjectivity.

Perceiving the agency of harmful agents: A test of dehumanization versus moral typecasting accounts.

PubMed

Khamitov, Mansur; Rotman, Jeff D; Piazza, Jared

2016-01-01

It is clear that harmful agents are targets of severe condemnation, but it is much less clear how perceivers conceptualize the agency of harmful agents. The current studies tested two competing predictions made by moral typecasting theory and the dehumanization literature. Across six studies, harmful agents were perceived to possess less agency than neutral (non-offending) and benevolent agents, consistent with a dehumanization perspective but inconsistent with the assumptions of moral typecasting theory. This was observed for human targets (Studies 1-2b and 4-5) and corporations (Study 3), and across various gradations of harmfulness (Studies 3 and 4). Importantly, denial of agency to harmful agents occurred even when controlling for perceptions of the agent's likeability (Studies 2a and 2b) and while using two different operationalizations of agency (Study 2a). Study 5 showed that harmful agents are denied agency primarily through an inferential process, and less through motivations to see the agent punished. Across all six studies, harmful agents were deemed less worthy of moral standing as a consequence of their harmful conduct and this reduction in moral standing was mediated through reductions in agency. Our findings clarify a current tension in the moral cognition literature, which have direct implications for the moral typecasting framework. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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 limitations of neuroscientific techniques and technologies. PMID:24742205

The Emotional Stress Reaction Questionnaire (ESRQ): Measurement of Stress Reaction Level in Field Conditions in 60 Seconds

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-04-01

of coherence, secondary appraisal , cognitive emotion-focused coping , self-rated performance, self-rated health and a low moral stress reaction. The...1989). Personality, appraisal and cognitive coping processes, and performance during various conditions of stress . Military Psychology, 1, 167-182...Psychology, 2, 63-78. Larsson, G., Kempe, S., & Starrin, B. (1988). Appraisal and coping processes in acute, time-limited stressful situations: A

The Cognition of Severe Moral Failure: A Novel Approach to the Perception of Evil

PubMed Central

Govrin, Aner

2018-01-01

I describe the perception of evil as a categorization judgment, based on a prototype, with extensive feedback loops and top-down influences. Based on the attachment approach to moral judgment (Govrin, 2014, 2018), I suggest that the perception of evil consists of four salient features: Extreme asymmetry between victim and perpetrator; a specific perceived attitude of the perpetrator toward the victim's vulnerability; the observer's inability to understand the perpetrator's perspective; and insuperable differences between the observer and perpetrator's judgment following the incident which shake the observer no less than the event itself. I then show that the perception of evil involves a cognitive bias: The observer is almost always mistaken in his attributions of a certain state of mind to the perpetrator. The philosophical and evolutionary significance of this bias is discussed as well as suggestions for future testing of the prototype model of evil. PMID:29731732

Not Just "Study Drugs" for the Rich: Stimulants as Moral Tools for Creating Opportunities for Socially Disadvantaged Students.

PubMed

Ray, Keisha Shantel

2016-06-01

An argument in the cognitive enhancement literature is that using stimulants in populations of healthy but socially disadvantaged individuals mistakenly attributes pathology to nonpathological individuals who experience social inequalities. As the argument goes, using stimulants as cognitive-enhancing drugs to solve the social problem of poorly educated students in inadequate schools misattributes the problem as an individual medical problem, when it is really a collective sociopolitical problem. I challenge this argument on the grounds that not all types of enhancement have to be explained in medical terms, but rather at least one conception of enhancement can be explained in social terms-opportunity maintenance. Therefore, I propose that as a moral requirement we ought to explore whether stimulants could be a means of remedying underprivileged children's experiences of social inequalities that are borne from inadequate schools for the sake of increasing their chances for opportunities and well-being.

Cognitive neuroenhancement: false assumptions in the ethical debate.

PubMed

Heinz, Andreas; Kipke, Roland; Heimann, Hannah; Wiesing, Urban

2012-06-01

The present work critically examines two assumptions frequently stated by supporters of cognitive neuroenhancement. The first, explicitly methodological, assumption is the supposition of effective and side effect-free neuroenhancers. However, there is an evidence-based concern that the most promising drugs currently used for cognitive enhancement can be addictive. Furthermore, this work describes why the neuronal correlates of key cognitive concepts, such as learning and memory, are so deeply connected with mechanisms implicated in the development and maintenance of addictive behaviour so that modification of these systems may inevitably run the risk of addiction to the enhancing drugs. Such a potential risk of addiction could only be falsified by in-depth empirical research. The second, implicit, assumption is that research on neuroenhancement does not pose a serious moral problem. However, the potential for addiction, along with arguments related to research ethics and the potential social impact of neuroenhancement, could invalidate this assumption. It is suggested that ethical evaluation needs to consider the empirical data as well as the question of whether and how such empirical knowledge can be obtained.

Reading and Moral Development: "From a Feminine Perspective."

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kazemek, Francis E.

Literature can be used in an elementary school curriculum to provide sound moral models for children. Through the exploration of moral problems and the adoption of the perspectives of others, children may begin to develop and refine their own morality. A male and a female morality may be identified in literature. The male morality--based on the…

Moral Development Theory: A Critique of Its Kantian Presuppositions.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Campbell, Robert L.; Christopher, John Chambers

1996-01-01

Claims that contemporary moral development theory follows pathways laid down by Kant. Defines formalists and altruists, claiming that both interpret the moral domain too narrowly. Proposes a character-based redefinition that reintegrates moral development with the development of the self (Eudaimonism, or "human flourishing") and of…

The dual moral self: moral centrality and internal moral motivation.

PubMed

Krettenauer, Tobias

2011-01-01

In this study, the relationship between two aspects of the moral self, moral centrality and internal moral motivation, was analyzed. It is argued that these 2 aspects are conceptually distinct but nonetheless empirically related. Based on a cross-sectional study of 205 adolescents (M age = 14.83 years, SD = 2.21 years) it was found that moral centrality and internal moral motivation, even though substantially correlated, interacted in predicting moral emotion expectancies. Even though moral centrality was unrelated to adolescents' age it predicted a longitudinal increase in internal moral motivation over a 1-year interval. Overall, the findings call for a differentiation of moral centrality and internal moral motivation as 2 distinct but interrelated aspects of moral self-development that follow different developmental trajectories and are differentially related to age. At the same time, the study points out that adolescence may be less important for the development of the moral self than commonly assumed.

Dehumanization increases instrumental violence, but not moral violence.

PubMed

Rai, Tage S; Valdesolo, Piercarlo; Graham, Jesse

2017-08-08

Across five experiments, we show that dehumanization-the act of perceiving victims as not completely human-increases instrumental, but not moral, violence. In attitude surveys, ascribing reduced capacities for cognitive, experiential, and emotional states to victims predicted support for practices where victims are harmed to achieve instrumental goals, including sweatshop labor, animal experimentation, and drone strikes that result in civilian casualties, but not practices where harm is perceived as morally righteous, including capital punishment, killing in war, and drone strikes that kill terrorists. In vignette experiments, using dehumanizing compared with humanizing language increased participants' willingness to harm strangers for money, but not participants' willingness to harm strangers for their immoral behavior. Participants also spontaneously dehumanized strangers when they imagined harming them for money, but not when they imagined harming them for their immoral behavior. Finally, participants humanized strangers who were low in humanity if they imagined harming them for immoral behavior, but not money, suggesting that morally motivated perpetrators may humanize victims to justify violence against them. Our findings indicate that dehumanization enables violence that perpetrators see as unethical, but instrumentally beneficial. In contrast, dehumanization does not contribute to moral violence because morally motivated perpetrators wish to harm complete human beings who are capable of deserving blame, experiencing suffering, and understanding its meaning.

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.

Dehumanization increases instrumental violence, but not moral violence

PubMed Central

Rai, Tage S.; Valdesolo, Piercarlo; Graham, Jesse

2017-01-01

Across five experiments, we show that dehumanization—the act of perceiving victims as not completely human—increases instrumental, but not moral, violence. In attitude surveys, ascribing reduced capacities for cognitive, experiential, and emotional states to victims predicted support for practices where victims are harmed to achieve instrumental goals, including sweatshop labor, animal experimentation, and drone strikes that result in civilian casualties, but not practices where harm is perceived as morally righteous, including capital punishment, killing in war, and drone strikes that kill terrorists. In vignette experiments, using dehumanizing compared with humanizing language increased participants’ willingness to harm strangers for money, but not participants’ willingness to harm strangers for their immoral behavior. Participants also spontaneously dehumanized strangers when they imagined harming them for money, but not when they imagined harming them for their immoral behavior. Finally, participants humanized strangers who were low in humanity if they imagined harming them for immoral behavior, but not money, suggesting that morally motivated perpetrators may humanize victims to justify violence against them. Our findings indicate that dehumanization enables violence that perpetrators see as unethical, but instrumentally beneficial. In contrast, dehumanization does not contribute to moral violence because morally motivated perpetrators wish to harm complete human beings who are capable of deserving blame, experiencing suffering, and understanding its meaning. PMID:28739935

Online processing of moral transgressions: ERP evidence for spontaneous evaluation.

PubMed

Leuthold, Hartmut; Kunkel, Angelika; Mackenzie, Ian G; Filik, Ruth

2015-08-01

Experimental studies using fictional moral dilemmas indicate that both automatic emotional processes and controlled cognitive processes contribute to moral judgments. However, not much is known about how people process socio-normative violations that are more common to their everyday life nor the time-course of these processes. Thus, we recorded participants' electrical brain activity while they were reading vignettes that either contained morally acceptable vs unacceptable information or text materials that contained information which was either consistent or inconsistent with their general world knowledge. A first event-related brain potential (ERP) positivity peaking at ∼200 ms after critical word onset (P200) was larger when this word involved a socio-normative or knowledge-based violation. Subsequently, knowledge-inconsistent words triggered a larger centroparietal ERP negativity at ∼320 ms (N400), indicating an influence on meaning construction. In contrast, a larger ERP positivity (larger late positivity), which also started at ∼320 ms after critical word onset, was elicited by morally unacceptable compared with acceptable words. We take this ERP positivity to reflect an implicit evaluative (good-bad) categorization process that is engaged during the online processing of moral transgressions. © The Author (2015). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Enhanced visual awareness for morality and pajamas? Perception vs. memory in 'top-down' effects.

PubMed

Firestone, Chaz; Scholl, Brian J

2015-03-01

A raft of prominent findings has revived the notion that higher-level cognitive factors such as desire, meaning, and moral relevance can directly affect what we see. For example, under conditions of brief presentation, morally relevant words reportedly "pop out" and are easier to identify than morally irrelevant words. Though such results purport to show that perception itself is sensitive to such factors, much of this research instead demonstrates effects on visual recognition--which necessarily involves not only visual processing per se, but also memory retrieval. Here we report three experiments which suggest that many alleged top-down effects of this sort are actually effects on 'back-end' memory rather than 'front-end' perception. In particular, the same methods used to demonstrate popout effects for supposedly privileged stimuli (such as morality-related words, e.g. "punishment" and "victim") also yield popout effects for unmotivated, superficial categories (such as fashion-related words, e.g. "pajamas" and "stiletto"). We conclude that such effects reduce to well-known memory processes (in this case, semantic priming) that do not involve morality, and have no implications for debates about whether higher-level factors influence perception. These case studies illustrate how it is critical to distinguish perception from memory in alleged 'top-down' effects. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Individual Differences in Moral Development: Does Intelligence Really Affect Children’s Moral Reasoning and Moral Emotions?

PubMed Central

Beißert, Hanna M.; Hasselhorn, Marcus

2016-01-01

This study investigates the relationship between intelligence and individual differences in children’s moral development across a range of different moral transgressions. Taking up prior research that showed morality and intelligence to be related in adolescents and adults, the current study wants to test if these findings can be extended to younger children. The study was designed to address some of the shortcomings in prior research by examining young children aged between 6 years; 4 months and 8 years; 10 months, using a broad concept of moral development including emotional aspects and applying an approach that is closely connected to children’s daily lives. Participants (N = 129) completed a standardized intelligence test and were presented four moral transgression stories to assess moral development. Results demonstrated that findings from prior research with adolescents or adults cannot simply be extended to younger participants. No significant correlations of moral development and intelligence were found for any of the presented stories. This provides first evidence that – at least in middle childhood – moral developmental status seems to be independent from children’s general intelligence assessed by figural inductive reasoning tests. PMID:28066287

Action Plan for the Development of Civic Morality

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chinese Education and Society, 2006

2006-01-01

This paper discusses the action plan for the development of civic morality. Here, the importance, substance, ideology and policy principles guiding the development of civic morality is elaborated. In order to strengthen the development of civic morality, it is a must to adapt to the requirements of the developing situation; seize good…

Moral development and reproductive health decisions.

PubMed

McFadden, E A

1996-01-01

This article reviews the concepts of biomedical ethics, the justice perspective, and the care perspective of moral development and moral decision making; integrates key aspects of each to women's reproductive health nursing practice; and gives examples of application of these models to use as a framework for the assessment of moral development in guiding women in making reproductive health decisions. Emphasis is placed on the need for an integrated approach to assessment of the recognition of and response to what an individual identifies as a moral dilemma. Discussion of two different perspectives, justice and caring, is presented with application to women's health concerns. Nurses are encouraged to assess their moral development and appraisal of issues that constitute moral dilemmas and their ensuing decision making processes and those of clients. Techniques for obtaining information about moral reasoning are suggested. Rather than a traditional framework for the assessment of moral development, the uniqueness of individual women's experiences as they pertain to the case context is recommended to assess the client's appraisal of the circumstances of a perceived moral situation from the client's vantage point.

How the First Year of College Influences Moral Reasoning Development for Students in Moral Consolidation and Moral Transition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mayhew, Matthew J.; Seifert, Tricia A.; Pascarella, Ernest T.

2012-01-01

Understanding the developmental issues first-time college students face is critical for scholars and educators interested in learning and development. This purpose of this study was to investigate the differential impact of first-year college experiences on the moral reasoning development of 1,469 students in moral transition versus those in moral…

Kohlberg's Moral Development Model: Cohort Influences on Validity.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bechtel, Ashleah

An overview of Kohlberg's theory of moral development is presented; three interviews regarding the theory are reported, and the author's own moral development is compared to the model; finally, a critique of the theory is addressed along with recommendations for future enhancement. Lawrence Kohlberg's model of moral development, also referred to…

Two paths to blame: Intentionality directs moral information processing along two distinct tracks.

PubMed

Monroe, Andrew E; Malle, Bertram F

2017-01-01

There is broad consensus that features such as causality, mental states, and preventability are key inputs to moral judgments of blame. What is not clear is exactly how people process these inputs to arrive at such judgments. Three studies provide evidence that early judgments of whether or not a norm violation is intentional direct information processing along 1 of 2 tracks: if the violation is deemed intentional, blame processing relies on information about the agent's reasons for committing the violation; if the violation is deemed unintentional, blame processing relies on information about how preventable the violation was. Owing to these processing commitments, when new information requires perceivers to switch tracks, they must reconfigure their judgments, which results in measurable processing costs indicated by reaction time (RT) delays. These findings offer support for a new theory of moral judgment (the Path Model of Blame) and advance the study of moral cognition as hierarchical information processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

The harm-made mind: observing victimization augments attribution of minds to vegetative patients, robots, and the dead.

PubMed

Ward, Adrian F; Olsen, Andrew S; Wegner, Daniel M

2013-08-01

People often think that something must have a mind to be part of a moral interaction. However, the present research suggests that minds do not create morality but that morality creates minds. In four experiments, we found that observing intentional harm to an unconscious entity--a vegetative patient, a robot, or a corpse--leads to augmented attribution of mind to that entity. A fifth experiment reconciled these results with extant research on dehumanization by showing that observing the victimization of conscious entities leads to reduced attribution of mind to those entities. Taken together, these experiments suggest that the effects of victimization vary according to victims' preexisting mental status and that people often make an intuitive cognitive error when unconscious entities are placed in harm's way. People assume that if apparent moral harm occurs, then there must be someone there to experience that harm-a harm-made mind. These findings have implications for political policies concerning right-to-life issues.

The dark side of going abroad: How broad foreign experiences increase immoral behavior.

PubMed

Lu, Jackson G; Quoidbach, Jordi; Gino, Francesca; Chakroff, Alek; Maddux, William W; Galinsky, Adam D

2017-01-01

Because of the unprecedented pace of globalization, foreign experiences are increasingly common and valued. Past research has focused on the benefits of foreign experiences, including enhanced creativity and reduced intergroup bias. In contrast, the present work uncovers a potential dark side of foreign experiences: increased immoral behavior. We propose that broad foreign experiences (i.e., experiences in multiple foreign countries) foster not only cognitive flexibility but also moral flexibility. Using multiple methods (longitudinal, correlational, and experimental), 8 studies (N > 2,200) establish that broad foreign experiences can lead to immoral behavior by increasing moral relativism-the belief that morality is relative rather than absolute. The relationship between broad foreign experiences and immoral behavior was robust across a variety of cultural populations (anglophone, francophone), life stages (high school students, university students, MBA students, middle-aged adults), and 7 different measures of immorality. As individuals are exposed to diverse cultures, their moral compass may lose some of its precision. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Moral Competence as a Positive Youth Development Construct: A Conceptual Review

PubMed Central

Ma, Hing Keung

2012-01-01

Moral competence refers to the affective orientation to perform altruistic behaviors and the ability to judge moral issues logically. A five-stage theory of moral development is proposed. Both western and Chinese perspectives are incorporated in the elaboration of the characteristics of each stage. A brief review of the antecedents of moral competence is presented. The relationship between moral competence and adolescent developmental outcomes is also discussed. Some practical ways to promote moral competence are suggested. School-based programs may be effective in the promotion of moral competence provided it is based on all-round or whole-person development and the length of the program should be sufficiently long. PMID:22629153

Seeking a Multi-Construct Model of Morality

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McDaniel, Brenda L.; Grice, James W.; Eason, E. Allen

2010-01-01

The present study explored a multi-construct model of moral development. Variables commonly seen in the moral development literature, such as family interactions, spiritual life, ascription to various sources of moral authority, empathy, shame, guilt and moral judgement competence, were investigated. Results from the current study support previous…

Japanese Moral Education Past and Present.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Khan, Yoshimitsu

For generations, moral development has been both a conscious aim and a formal process in Japanese education. This book investigates the history and development of Japanese moral education and analyzes and compares current moral education with the concepts of the Imperial Rescript on Education (1890) and the "shushin" moral education of…

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…

Current Research on Moral Education and Development in Europe

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ferguson, Neil

2006-01-01

The Moral and Social Action Interdisciplinary Colloquium (MOSAIC) is an international multidisciplinary network of scholars working within the fields of the philosophy, psychology and sociology of moral development, moral education and moral thought. MOSAIC runs an annual conference, traditionally in June or July. This conference attracts an…

Morality and moral development: Traditional Hindu concepts

PubMed Central

Srivastava, Chhitij; Dhingra, Vishal; Bhardwaj, Anupam; Srivastava, Alka

2013-01-01

Morality (from the Latin word moralitas that means “manner, character, proper behavior”) is the differentiation of intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good (or right) and those that are bad (or wrong). It is determined by how one's genetic makeup interacts with the environment. The development of morality has been a subject of investigation for a number of decades, and our understanding of neuro-biological and psychological mechanisms has increased manifolds in the last few decades. Development of morality has been of particular significance to psychiatric literature because of its significant contribution to the development of one's personality and it's aberration in various disorders. Cultures that have been just, equal and moral have been widely accepted and appreciated. In this review, we shall summarize the modern theories of moral development and then look into a part of our past and cultural heritage and review the traditional Hindu concepts of morality and their contribution to development of one's personality and their relevance in the current times. PMID:23858269

The moral affiliations of disgust: a functional MRI study.

PubMed

Moll, Jorge; de Oliveira-Souza, Ricardo; Moll, Fernanda Tovar; Ignácio, Fátima Azevedo; Bramati, Ivanei E; Caparelli-Dáquer, Egas M; Eslinger, Paul J

2005-03-01

Recent investigations in cognitive neuroscience have shown that ordinary human behavior is guided by emotions that are uniquely human in their experiential and interpersonal aspects. These "moral emotions" contribute importantly to human social behavior and derive from the neurobehavioral reorganization of the basic plan of emotions that pervade mammalian life. Disgust is one prototypic emotion with multiple domains that include viscerosomatic reaction patterns and subjective experiences linked to (a) the sensory properties of a class of natural stimuli, (b) a set of aversive experiences and (c) a unique mode of experiencing morality. In the current investigation, we tested the hypotheses that (a) the experience of disgust devoid of moral connotations ("pure disgust") can be subjectively and behaviorally differentiated from the experience of disgust disguised in the moral emotion of "indignation" and that (b) pure disgust and indignation may have partially overlapping neural substrates. Thirteen normal adult volunteers were investigated with functional magnetic resonance imaging as they read a series of statements depicting scenarios of pure disgust, indignation, and neutral emotion. After the scanning procedure, they assigned one basic and one moral emotion to each stimulus from an array of six basic and seven moral emotions. Results indicated that (a) emotional stimuli may evoke pure disgust with or without indignation, (b) these different aspects of the experience of disgust could be elicited by a set of written statements, and (c) pure disgust and indignation recruited both overlapping and distinct brain regions, mainly in the frontal and temporal lobes. This work underscores the importance of the prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortices in moral judgment and in the automatic attribution of morality to social events. Human disgust encompasses a variety of emotional experiences that are ingrained in frontal, temporal, and limbic networks.

Reflexive versus Reflective: Thinking Beyond the Rules of Engagement to ’Keep Our Honor Clean’

DTIC Science & Technology

2008-04-01

pursuit of ethical excellence. Lawrence Kohlberg developed a famous, though disputed model for moral development. Individuals progressed from the pre...34. 48 James T. Conway, p. 22. 49 James H. Toner, p. 94. 50 Lawrence Kohlberg , Essays on Moral Development, in Vol. I: The Philosophy of Moral...March-April 2002. Kidder, Rusworth M. Moral Courage. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers, 2005. Kohlberg , Lawrence. Essays on Moral Development, in

Moral imagination: Facilitating prosocial decision-making through scene imagery and theory of mind.

PubMed

Gaesser, Brendan; Keeler, Kerri; Young, Liane

2018-02-01

How we imagine and subjectively experience the future can inform how we make decisions in the present. Here, we examined a prosocial effect of imagining future episodes in motivating moral decisions about helping others in need, as well as the underlying cognitive mechanisms. Across three experiments we found that people are more willing to help others in specific situations after imagining helping them in those situations. Manipulating the spatial representation of imagined future episodes in particular was effective at increasing intentions to help others, suggesting that scene imagery plays an important role in the prosocial effect of episodic simulation. Path modeling analyses revealed that episodic simulation interacts with theory of mind in facilitating prosocial responses but can also operate independently. Moreover, we found that our manipulations of the imagined helping episode increased actual prosocial behavior, which also correlated with changes in reported willingness to help. Based on these findings, we propose a new model that begins to capture the multifaceted mechanisms by which episodic simulation contributes to prosocial decision-making, highlighting boundaries and promising future directions to explore. Implications for research in moral cognition, imagination, and patients with impairments in episodic simulation are discussed. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Neural correlates of gratitude.

PubMed

Fox, Glenn R; Kaplan, Jonas; Damasio, Hanna; Damasio, Antonio

2015-01-01

Gratitude is an important aspect of human sociality, and is valued by religions and moral philosophies. It has been established that gratitude leads to benefits for both mental health and interpersonal relationships. It is thus important to elucidate the neurobiological correlates of gratitude, which are only now beginning to be investigated. To this end, we conducted an experiment during which we induced gratitude in participants while they underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging. We hypothesized that gratitude ratings would correlate with activity in brain regions associated with moral cognition, value judgment and theory of mind. The stimuli used to elicit gratitude were drawn from stories of survivors of the Holocaust, as many survivors report being sheltered by strangers or receiving lifesaving food and clothing, and having strong feelings of gratitude for such gifts. The participants were asked to place themselves in the context of the Holocaust and imagine what their own experience would feel like if they received such gifts. For each gift, they rated how grateful they felt. The results revealed that ratings of gratitude correlated with brain activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex, in support of our hypotheses. The results provide a window into the brain circuitry for moral cognition and positive emotion that accompanies the experience of benefitting from the goodwill of others.

Neural correlates of gratitude

PubMed Central

Fox, Glenn R.; Kaplan, Jonas; Damasio, Hanna; Damasio, Antonio

2015-01-01

Gratitude is an important aspect of human sociality, and is valued by religions and moral philosophies. It has been established that gratitude leads to benefits for both mental health and interpersonal relationships. It is thus important to elucidate the neurobiological correlates of gratitude, which are only now beginning to be investigated. To this end, we conducted an experiment during which we induced gratitude in participants while they underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging. We hypothesized that gratitude ratings would correlate with activity in brain regions associated with moral cognition, value judgment and theory of mind. The stimuli used to elicit gratitude were drawn from stories of survivors of the Holocaust, as many survivors report being sheltered by strangers or receiving lifesaving food and clothing, and having strong feelings of gratitude for such gifts. The participants were asked to place themselves in the context of the Holocaust and imagine what their own experience would feel like if they received such gifts. For each gift, they rated how grateful they felt. The results revealed that ratings of gratitude correlated with brain activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex, in support of our hypotheses. The results provide a window into the brain circuitry for moral cognition and positive emotion that accompanies the experience of benefitting from the goodwill of others. PMID:26483740

Thinking like a scientist: innateness as a case study.

PubMed

Knobe, Joshua; Samuels, Richard

2013-01-01

The concept of innateness appears in systematic research within cognitive science, but it also appears in less systematic modes of thought that long predate the scientific study of the mind. The present studies therefore explore the relationship between the properly scientific uses of this concept and its role in ordinary folk understanding. Studies 1-4 examined the judgments of people with no specific training in cognitive science. Results showed (a) that judgments about whether a trait was innate were not affected by whether or not the trait was learned, but (b) such judgments were impacted by moral considerations. Study 5 looked at the judgments of both non-scientists and scientists, in conditions that encouraged either thinking about individual cases or thinking about certain general principles. In the case-based condition, both non-scientists and scientists showed an impact of moral considerations but little impact of learning. In the principled condition, both non-scientists and scientists showed an impact of learning but little impact of moral considerations. These results suggest that both non-scientists and scientists are drawn to a conception of innateness that differs from the one at work in contemporary scientific research but that they are also both capable of 'filtering out' their initial intuitions and using a more scientific approach. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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.

Principle of Care and Giving to Help People in Need.

PubMed

Bekkers, René; Ottoni-Wilhelm, Mark

2016-01-01

Theories of moral development posit that an internalized moral value that one should help those in need-the principle of care-evokes helping behaviour in situations where empathic concern does not. Examples of such situations are helping behaviours that involve cognitive deliberation and planning, that benefit others who are known only in the abstract, and who are out-group members. Charitable giving to help people in need is an important helping behaviour that has these characteristics. Therefore we hypothesized that the principle of care would be positively associated with charitable giving to help people in need, and that the principle of care would mediate the empathic concern-giving relationship. The two hypotheses were tested across four studies. The studies used four different samples, including three nationally representative samples from the American and Dutch populations, and included both self-reports of giving (Studies 1-3), giving observed in a survey experiment (Study 3), and giving observed in a laboratory experiment (Study 4). The evidence from these studies indicated that a moral principle to care for others was associated with charitable giving to help people in need and mediated the empathic concern-giving relationship. © 2016 The Authors. European Journal of Personality published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Association of Personality Psychology.

Neural correlates of moral reasoning in autism spectrum disorder

PubMed Central

Schneider, Karla; Pauly, Katharina D.; Gossen, Anna; Mevissen, Lea; Michel, Tanja M.; Gur, Ruben C.; Schneider, Frank

2013-01-01

In our study, we tried to clarify whether patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) reveal different moral decision patterns as compared to healthy subjects and whether common social interaction difficulties in ASD are reflected in altered brain activation during different aspects of moral reasoning. 28 patients with high-functioning ASD and 28 healthy subjects matched for gender, age and education took part in an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Participants were confronted with textual dilemma situations followed by proposed solutions to which they could agree or disagree. On a neural level, moral decision making was associated with activation in anterior medial prefrontal regions, the temporo-parietal junction and the precuneus for both groups. However, while patients and healthy controls did not exhibit significant behavioral differences, ASD patients showed decreased activation in limbic regions, particularly the amygdala, as well as increased activation in the anterior and the posterior cingulate gyrus during moral reasoning. Alterations of brain activation in patients might thus indicate specific impairments in empathy. However, activation increases in brain regions associated with the ‘default mode network’ and self-referential cognition also provide evidence for an altered way of patients’ cerebral processing with regard to decision making based on social information. PMID:22569187

The Challenge of Watergate to American Schools: Fostering the Moral Development of Children.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lickona, Thomas

This paper discusses moral development and illustrates ways that it can be fostered in children both in the home and in the classroom. Moral education is discussed in terms of four basic questions: (1) Is there a need for it? (2) If so, is it the job of the schools to teach morality? (3) What is moral development? and (4) If fostering moral…

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…

Moral and Spiritual Development in the Adolescent.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McGinnis, Jane Berndt

This review examines research in moral and spiritual development during the adolescent years, with a primary focus on Piaget's and Kohlberg's theories. It begins by presenting definitions of morality and then discusses theories of moral development set forth by Piaget, Elkind, and Kohlberg. Theories of Piaget and Kohlberg are briefly compared.…

Ethical Failure and Its Operational Cost

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-12-01

44 Appendix 1: The Kohlberg Scale of Moral Development...has a significant impact on the choices individuals make.50 Psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg looked extensively into moral reasoning and developed a...scale to discern between the different levels of moral reasoning found in individuals. The Kohlberg Scale of Moral Development51 identifies three

A framework for understanding moral distress among palliative care clinicians.

PubMed

Rushton, Cynda H; Kaszniak, Alfred W; Halifax, Joan S

2013-09-01

Palliative care clinicians confront suffering as they care for people living with life-limiting conditions. When the degree of suffering becomes unjustified, moral distress can ensue. Promising work from neuroscience and social psychology has yet to be applied to clinical practice. Our objective was to expand a social psychology model focusing on empathy and compassion in response to suffering to include an ethical dimension and to examine how the interrelationships of its proposed components can assist clinicians in understanding their responses to morally distressing situations. In the clinical context, responses to distressing events are thought to include four dimensions: empathy (emotional attunement), perspective taking (cognitive attunement), memory (personal experience), and moral sensitivity (ethical attunement). These dynamically intertwined dimensions create the preconditions for how clinicians respond to a triggering event instigated by an ethical conflict or dilemma. We postulate that if the four dimensions are highly aligned, the intensity and valence of emotional arousal will influence ethical appraisal and discernment by engaging a robust view of the ethical issues, conflicts, and possible solutions and cultivating compassionate action and resilience. In contrast, if they are not, ethical appraisal and discernment will be deficient, creating emotional disregulation and potentially leading to personal and moral distress, self-focused behaviors, unregulated moral outrage, burnout, and secondary stress. The adaptation and expansion of a conceptual framework offers a promising approach to designing interventions that help clinicians mitigate the detrimental consequences of unregulated moral distress and to build the resilience necessary to sustain themselves in clinical service.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Flood, A.M.

This study investigates the theoretical extension of moral development theory from the strictly human, anthropocentric context to the environmental or ecological context in terms of Care and Justice orientations of moral development theory. A theoretical conceptualization of moral orientation to the environment was developed, based on the framework of Lyons' conceptualization of self and morality, and designed to fit her scoring method. This allowed for the testing of moral orientations in an environmental context to determine if moral orientation would remain the same in spite of contextual differences. A new scoring method, the Flood Relative Presence Scoring Method, was developed.more » This research serves as the theoretical basis for this new scoring method, which is designed to more accurately assess the relative presence of moral orientations among subjects than previously reported methods of Predominance of Orientations or Presence of Orientations. Gender differences in moral orientation which were found in subjects' responses to Human dilemmas were also found in their responses to Environmental dilemmas. This research looked at contextual variations of moral orientations and contains strong evidence that the present view of moral development theory is incomplete, as well as unnecessarily limited to the human domain. These findings underlie the need for further research to (1) reconceptualize our models of moral development to include relationships not only to humans, but also to the environment; (2) empirically derive within a framework of moral considerations concerning the environment; (3) examine how these orientations may be related to each other within the context of environmentally responsive behavior; (4) determine whether and how the relationship between these orientations and environmental ethical behavior varies over the life cycle; (5) investigate cross-cultural differences between moral orientation and environmentally responsive behavior.« less

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 Trouble with Moral Citizens: A Response to "Moral-Character Development for Teacher Education" by Daniel Lapsley and Ryan Woodbury

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Westheimer, Joel

2016-01-01

In "Moral-Character Development for Teacher Education," Daniel Lapsley and Ryan Woodbury argue that teacher education licensure and accreditation standards largely ignore matters of values, character, and morality. "The moral-character formation of children," they note, "is the instructional objective that dare not speak…

Teaching for Moral Development in the Schools: Reason for Caution but Reason to Proceed: An Editor's Perspective.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Galbraith, Ronald E.

1979-01-01

Although in favor of developmental psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development, the author cautions about possible results of using moral reasoning discussions in the classroom. These include: (1) indoctrination, (2) moral authoritarianism, (3) relativism, (4) the "morality as medicine" syndrome, (5) and the "doing Kohlberg"…

Moral Development in Business Education--Social Conditions Influencing Moral Judgement Competence

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bienengräber, Thomas

2014-01-01

Workplace relations like any social relation first and foremost have a moral dimension. Thus, if vocational education sees one of its major goals in helping apprentices to deal with moral issues, one of the core objectives in vocational education is the support of the apprentice's development of moral judgement competence. Since Lawrence Kohlberg…

Action, outcome, and value: a dual-system framework for morality.

PubMed

Cushman, Fiery

2013-08-01

Dual-system approaches to psychology explain the fundamental properties of human judgment, decision making, and behavior across diverse domains. Yet, the appropriate characterization of each system is a source of debate. For instance, a large body of research on moral psychology makes use of the contrast between "emotional" and "rational/cognitive" processes, yet even the chief proponents of this division recognize its shortcomings. Largely independently, research in the computational neurosciences has identified a broad division between two algorithms for learning and choice derived from formal models of reinforcement learning. One assigns value to actions intrinsically based on past experience, while another derives representations of value from an internally represented causal model of the world. This division between action- and outcome-based value representation provides an ideal framework for a dual-system theory in the moral domain.

Foreign language affects the contribution of intentions and outcomes to moral judgment.

PubMed

Geipel, Janet; Hadjichristidis, Constantinos; Surian, Luca

2016-09-01

We examine whether the use of a foreign language, as opposed to the native language, influences the relative weight intentions versus outcomes carry in moral evaluations. In Study 1, participants were presented with actions that had positive outcomes but were motivated by dubious intentions, while in Study 2 with actions that had negative outcomes but were motivated by positive intentions. Participants received the materials either in their native or a foreign language. Foreign language prompted more positive moral evaluations in Study 1 and less positive evaluations in Study 2. These results show that foreign language reduces the relative weight placed on intentions versus outcomes. We discuss several theoretical accounts that are consistent with the results such as that foreign language attenuates emotions (triggered by intentions) or it depletes cognitive resources. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Animal rights, animal minds, and human mindreading.

PubMed

Mameli, M; Bortolotti, L

2006-02-01

Do non-human animals have rights? The answer to this question depends on whether animals have morally relevant mental properties. Mindreading is the human activity of ascribing mental states to other organisms. Current knowledge about the evolution and cognitive structure of mindreading indicates that human ascriptions of mental states to non-human animals are very inaccurate. The accuracy of human mindreading can be improved with the help of scientific studies of animal minds. However, the scientific studies do not by themselves solve the problem of how to map psychological similarities (and differences) between humans and animals onto a distinction between morally relevant and morally irrelevant mental properties. The current limitations of human mindreading-whether scientifically aided or not-have practical consequences for the rational justification of claims about which rights (if any) non-human animals should be accorded.

Personal Values and Moral Disengagement Promote Aggressive and Rule-Breaking Behaviours in Adolescents With Disruptive Behaviour Disorders: A Pilot Study.

PubMed

Paciello, Marinella; Muratori, Pietro; Ruglioni, Laura; Milone, Annarita; Buonanno, Carlo; Capo, Rosario; Lochman, John E; Barcaccia, Barbara

2017-01-01

The pilot study presented in this article investigated the role of moral-cognitive features in understanding aggressive and rule-breaking behaviours in adolescents with Disruptive Behaviour Disorder (DBD). We collected two samples. The community sample was composed of 85 adolescents, whereas the DBD sample was composed of 30 adolescents. Compared with a community sample, adolescents with DBD are more inclined to use moral disengagement (MD) to legitimize their aggressive and rule-breaking behaviours. Moreover, regression models showed that self-enhancement values and MD foster externalizing behaviours taking into account both gender and the group they belonged to, that is, either clinical or community sample. Instead, self-transcendence values could prevent externalizing problems by inhibiting MD. Implications of these findings for assessment and therapeutic interventions are discussed. © The Author(s) 2015.

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.

A longitudinal study on the development of moral judgement in Korean nursing students.

PubMed

Kim, Yong-Soon; Park, Jee-Won; Son, Youn-Jung; Han, Sung-Suk

2004-01-01

This longitudinal study examined the development of moral judgement in 37 nursin students attending a university in Suwon, Korea. The participants completed the Korean version of the Defining Issues Test to allow analysis of their level of moral judgement. The development of moral judgement was quantified using 'the moral development score' at each stage (i.e. the six stages detailed by Kohlberg) and the 'P(%) score' (a measure of the overall moral judgement level). The results were as follows: (1) the moral development score for stage 5A was consistently the highest across the four years of the students' course, showing significant differences in some sociodemographic factors including home, birth order and monthly income; and (2) the P(%) score was higher in fourth-year (47.47 +/- 11.21) than in first-year (46.13 +/- 9.73) students. There was no significant difference in the P(%) score according to sociodemographic factors. Further studies will examine in detail the correlation between curriculum and moral judgement development. We suggest that courses in ethics education should be made more relevant.

Precursors to morality in development as a complex interplay between neural, socioenvironmental, and behavioral facets

PubMed Central

Cowell, Jason M.; Decety, Jean

2015-01-01

The nature and underpinnings of infants’ seemingly complex, third-party, social evaluations remain highly contentious. Theoretical perspectives oscillate between rich and lean interpretations of the same expressed preferences. Although some argue that infants and toddlers possess a “moral sense” based on core knowledge of the social world, others suggest that social evaluations are hierarchical in nature and the product of an integration of rudimentary general processes such as attention allocation and approach and avoidance. Moreover, these biologically prepared minds interact in social environments that include significant variation, which are likely to impact early social evaluations and behavior. The present study examined the neural underpinnings of and precursors to moral sensitivity in infants and toddlers (n = 73, ages 12–24 mo) through a series of interwoven measures, combining multiple levels of analysis including electrophysiological, eye-tracking, behavioral, and socioenvironmental. Continuous EEG and time-locked event-related potentials (ERPs) and gaze fixation were recorded while children watched characters engaging in prosocial and antisocial actions in two different tasks. All children demonstrated a neural differentiation in both spectral EEG power density modulations and time-locked ERPs when perceiving prosocial or antisocial agents. Time-locked neural differences predicted children’s preference for prosocial characters and were influenced by parental values regarding justice and fairness. Overall, this investigation casts light on the fundamental nature of moral cognition, including its underpinnings in general processes such as attention and approach–withdrawal, providing plausible mechanisms of early change and a foundation for forward movement in the field of developmental social neuroscience. PMID:26324885

Moral Dilemmas in Pediatric Orthopedics.

PubMed

Mercuri, John J; Vigdorchik, Jonathan M; Otsuka, Norman Y

2015-12-01

All orthopedic surgeons face moral dilemmas on a regular basis; however, little has been written about the moral dilemmas that are encountered when providing orthopedic care to pediatric patients and their families. This article aims to provide surgeons with a better understanding of how bioethics and professionalism apply to the care of their pediatric patients. First, several foundational concepts of both bioethics and professionalism are summarized, and definitions are offered for 16 important terms within the disciplines. Next, some of the unique aspects of pediatric orthopedics as a subspecialty are reviewed before engaging in a discussion of 5 common moral dilemmas within the field. Those dilemmas include the following: (1) obtaining informed consent and assent for either surgery or research from pediatric patients and their families; (2) performing cosmetic surgery on pediatric patients; (3) caring for pediatric patients with cognitive or physical impairments; (4) caring for injured pediatric athletes; and (5) meeting the demand for pediatric orthopedic care in the United States. Pertinent considerations are reviewed for each of these 5 moral dilemmas, thereby better preparing surgeons for principled moral decision making in their own practices. Each of these dilemmas is inherently complex with few straightforward answers; however, orthopedic surgeons have an obligation to take the lead and better define these kinds of difficult issues within their field. The lives of pediatric patients and their families will be immeasurably improved as a result. Copyright 2015, SLACK Incorporated.

The dorsomedial prefrontal cortex mediates the interaction between moral and aesthetic valuation: a TMS study on the beauty-is-good stereotype.

PubMed

Ferrari, Chiara; Nadal, Marcos; Schiavi, Susanna; Vecchi, Tomaso; Cela-Conde, Camilo J; Cattaneo, Zaira

2017-05-01

Attractive individuals are perceived as possessing more positive personal traits than unattractive individuals. This reliance on aesthetic features to infer moral character suggests a close link between aesthetic and moral valuation. Here we aimed to investigate the neural underpinnings of the interaction between aesthetic and moral valuation by combining transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) with a priming paradigm designed to assess the Beauty-is-Good stereotype. Participants evaluated the trustworthiness of a series of faces (targets), each of which was preceded by an adjective describing desirable, undesirable, or neutral aesthetic qualities (primes). TMS was applied between prime and target to interfere with activity in two regions known to be involved in aesthetic and moral valuation: the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC, a core region in social cognition) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC, critical in decision making). Our results showed that when TMS was applied over vertex (control) and over the dlPFC, participants judged faces as more trustworthy when preceded by positive than by negative aesthetic primes (as also shown in two behavioral experiments). However, when TMS was applied over the dmPFC, primes had no effect on trustworthiness judgments. A second Experiment corroborated this finding. Our results suggest that mPFC plays a causal role linking moral and aesthetic valuation. © The Author (2017). Published by Oxford University Press.

The dorsomedial prefrontal cortex mediates the interaction between moral and aesthetic valuation: a TMS study on the beauty-is-good stereotype

PubMed Central

Ferrari, Chiara; Nadal, Marcos; Schiavi, Susanna; Vecchi, Tomaso; Cela-Conde, Camilo J.

2017-01-01

Abstract Attractive individuals are perceived as possessing more positive personal traits than unattractive individuals. This reliance on aesthetic features to infer moral character suggests a close link between aesthetic and moral valuation. Here we aimed to investigate the neural underpinnings of the interaction between aesthetic and moral valuation by combining transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) with a priming paradigm designed to assess the Beauty-is-Good stereotype. Participants evaluated the trustworthiness of a series of faces (targets), each of which was preceded by an adjective describing desirable, undesirable, or neutral aesthetic qualities (primes). TMS was applied between prime and target to interfere with activity in two regions known to be involved in aesthetic and moral valuation: the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC, a core region in social cognition) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC, critical in decision making). Our results showed that when TMS was applied over vertex (control) and over the dlPFC, participants judged faces as more trustworthy when preceded by positive than by negative aesthetic primes (as also shown in two behavioral experiments). However, when TMS was applied over the dmPFC, primes had no effect on trustworthiness judgments. A second Experiment corroborated this finding. Our results suggest that mPFC plays a causal role linking moral and aesthetic valuation. PMID:28158864

To Punish or to Leave: Distinct Cognitive Processes Underlie Partner Control and Partner Choice Behaviors

PubMed Central

Martin, Justin W.; Cushman, Fiery

2015-01-01

When a cooperative partner defects, at least two types of response are available: Punishment, aimed at modifying behavior, and ostracism, aimed at avoiding further social interaction with the partner. These options, termed partner control and partner choice, have been distinguished at behavioral and evolutionary levels. However, little work has compared their cognitive bases. Do these disparate behaviors depend on common processes of moral evaluation? Specifically, we assess whether they show identical patterns of dependence on two key dimensions of moral evaluation: A person’s intentions, and the outcomes that they cause. We address this issue in a “trembling hand” economic game. In this game, an allocator divides a monetary stake between themselves and a responder based on a stochastic mechanism. This allows for dissociations between the allocator’s intent and the actual outcome. Responders were either given the opportunity to punish or reward the allocator (partner control) or to switch to a different partner for a subsequent round of play (partner choice). Our results suggest that partner control and partner choice behaviors are supported by distinct underlying cognitive processes: Partner control exhibits greater sensitivity to the outcomes a partner causes, while partner choice is influenced almost exclusively by a partner’s intentions. This cognitive dissociation can be understood in light of the unique adaptive functions of partner control and partner choice. PMID:25915550

Sexual and moral development of Israeli female adolescents from city and kibbutz: perspectives of Kohlberg and Gilligan.

PubMed

Linn, R

1991-01-01

This paper analyzes real-life moral dilemmas of Israeli city and kibbutz adolescents. The contribution of Gilligan's theory to our knowledge of adolescent moral development as originally conceived by Kohlberg is emphasized. It is suggested that Kohlberg's view of the adolescent as a moral philosopher limits the understanding of the moral development of female adolescents, who use both care and justice in their self-descriptions within existing relationships.

Accountability that Counts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Milner, Joseph; Coker, Connie Pullum; Buchanan, Christy; Newsome, Debbie; Milner, Jonathan; Allen, Rodney; Williams, Melissa

2009-01-01

The North Carolina Governor's School offers a six-week residential summer program for four hundred academically talented rising juniors. This article measures the school's impact on these students in four fundamental areas: cognitive maturity, moral reasoning, personal learning style, and projections for the future. The results showed that…

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 previous two experiments. Therefore, the present study shows that, in addition to apparent unfairness, latent fairness exists in adults’ relationship-based moral judgments. Moral judgments involving individuals with whom adults have different relationships have different cognitive and affective bases. PMID:26696935

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].

The Social Mediation of a Moral Dilemma: Appropriating the Moral Tools of Others

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Turner, Val D.; Chambers, Elisha A.

2006-01-01

Much effort, on a philosophical and a research basis, has been applied to the subject of moral development framed within a constructivist, Piagetian stage-type format. These efforts have focused on the process of the individual's construction of a moral base and the individual's corresponding level of moral development. At this point in time,…

Sport, Moral Development, and the Role of the Teacher: Implications for Research and Moral Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arnold, Peter J.

2001-01-01

Examines the inadequacies of some purely justice or moral reasoning approaches to moral development in sport, especially when viewed from the perspective of virtue theory and Aristotelian concepts of phronesis and habituation, arguing that the latter approach provides more complete criteria for formulating a new model of the nature of the moral.…

Exploring the Use of Web 2.0 Technology to Promote Moral and Psychosocial Development: Can YouTube Work?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Koh, Caroline

2014-01-01

This paper explores the use of the video sharing site, YouTube, as a platform for enhancing moral and psychosocial development through increased awareness of moral values and models of moral behavior. The research involved a qualitative design whereby video snippets illustrating moral issues were identified from YouTube. These video snippets were…

Arrested development: early prefrontal lesions impair the maturation of moral judgement.

PubMed

Taber-Thomas, Bradley C; Asp, Erik W; Koenigs, Michael; Sutterer, Matthew; Anderson, Steven W; Tranel, Daniel

2014-04-01

Learning to make moral judgements based on considerations beyond self-interest is a fundamental aspect of moral development. A deficit in such learning is associated with poor socialization and criminal behaviour. The neural systems required for the acquisition and maturation of moral competency are not well understood. Here we show in a unique sample of neurological patients that focal lesions involving ventromedial prefrontal cortex, acquired during development, result in an abnormally egocentric pattern of moral judgement. In response to simple hypothetical moral scenarios, the patients were more likely than comparison participants to endorse self-interested actions that involved breaking moral rules or physically harming others in order to benefit themselves. This pattern (which we also found in subjects with psychopathy) differs from that of patients with adult-onset ventromedial prefrontal cortex lesions--the latter group showed normal rejection of egocentric rule violations. This novel contrast of patients with ventromedial prefrontal cortex lesions acquired during development versus during adulthood yields new evidence suggesting that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is a critical neural substrate for the acquisition and maturation of moral competency that goes beyond self-interest to consider the welfare of others. Disruption to this affective neural system early in life interrupts moral development.

Why moral philosophers are not and should not be moral experts.

PubMed

Archard, David

2011-03-01

Professional philosophers are members of bioethical committees and regulatory bodies in areas of interest to bioethicists. This suggests they possess moral expertise even if they do not exercise it directly and without constraint. Moral expertise is defined, and four arguments given in support of scepticism about their possession of such expertise are considered and rejected: the existence of extreme disagreement between moral philosophers about moral matters; the lack of a means clearly to identify moral experts; that expertise cannot be claimed in that which lacks objectivity; and that ordinary people do not follow the advice of moral experts. I offer a better reason for scepticism grounded in the relation between moral philosophy and common-sense morality: namely that modern moral philosophy views even a developed moral theory as ultimately anchored in common-sense morality, that set of basic moral precepts which ordinary individuals have command of and use to regulate their own lives. Even if moral philosophers do nevertheless have a limited moral expertise, in that they alone can fully develop a set of moral judgments, I sketch reasons - grounded in the values of autonomy and of democracy - why moral philosophers should not wish non-philosophers to defer to their putative expertise. © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Oil terrorism-militancy link: Mediating role of moral disengagement in emergency and crisis management.

PubMed

Mafimisebi, Oluwasoye Patrick; Thorne, Sara

2015-01-01

The controversial issues of terrorism and militancy have generated contemporary interests and different interpretations have emerged on how to combat and manage these dangerous events. This study widens understanding of moral disengagement mechanism application in the perpetuation of inhumanities within the context of oil terrorist and militant behaviors. The research findings and model are explicit on how people form moral evaluations of agents who are forced to make morally relevant decisions over times in context of crisis situations. Quite crucially, understanding the context of terrorism and militancy provides policymakers, emergency and crisis managers better analysis and response to such events. The research fundamental purpose was to investigate the mediating role of moral disengagement on delinquency of oil terrorism and militancy; and considered implications for emergency and crisis management practices. The study found that situational-induced crises such as oil terrorism and militancy were sufficient to account for an individual's misdeeds and unethical or inhumane decisions made under frustration and agitation may be perceived as less indicative of one's fundamental character. Findings suggest that more repugnant delinquencies could have been committed in the name of justice than in the name of injustice, avenues for future research. In context, the result of the moral disengagement scale shows that morality of delinquency (oil terrorism and militancy) is accomplished by cognitively redefining the morality of such acts. The main finding is that people in resistance movements are rational actors making rational choices. The authors argue that theorists, policymakers, and practitioners must give meaningful attention to understanding the multidimensional nature of emergency, crisis and disaster management for better strength of synthesis between theory and practice. The research is concluded by thorough examination of the implication and limitations for future research and practice.

Constructivist Early Education for Moral Development.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

DeVries, Rheta; Hildebrandt, Carolyn; Zan, Betty

2000-01-01

Examines role that constructivist teachers play in fostering moral development in young children. Traces development of perspective taking, autonomy, and self- regulation, and examines effects of different teaching and parenting practices on children's character development. Provides suggestions for teachers to promote optimal moral development by…