Are 'logical' moral choices driven by coldness or calculation?
People who make counterintuitive utilitarian moral choices often do so because of a reduced emotional aversion to harming others, rather than increased logical deliberation.
Source
Cold or calculating? Reduced activity in the subgenual cingulate cortex reflects decreased emotional aversion to harming in counterintuitive utilitarian judgment
What they did
The researchers scanned sixteen healthy participants using functional magnetic resonance imaging while they evaluated various moral dilemmas. This included eight scenarios where avoiding harm was the intuitive choice, and ten scenarios where the utilitarian option was more intuitive. Participants rated how hard each decision was on a scale ranging from zero to one hundred, and their personality traits were assessed using standard questionnaires.
What they found
Individuals scoring higher in psychoticism made more utilitarian choices, and this pattern was associated with reduced activation in the subgenual cingulate cortex. The frequency of making these choices was positively correlated with psychoticism (r = 0.58) and with need for cognition (r = 0.51). However, only those with a high need for cognition showed a trend toward finding these difficult choices more mentally effortful.
The limits
What it doesn't show
Because the study utilized a very small sample of only sixteen individuals, the findings may not generalize well to larger populations and the imaging analysis has limited statistical power. The correlational design prevents researchers from concluding whether diminished brain activity causes utilitarian decisions or if both are caused by a third factor. Additionally, relying on self-reported difficulty ratings might not accurately reflect the actual cognitive processes occurring during decision-making.
Key terms
- Subgenual cingulate cortex (SCC)
- A brain region involved in processing negative social emotions, such as sadness, guilt, and empathy.
- Utilitarian judgment
- A moral decision aimed at maximizing the overall well-being or saving the greatest number of lives, even if it requires causing direct harm.
- Deontological judgment
- A moral decision based on rules and duties, such as the absolute prohibition against directly harming another person.
- Psychoticism
- A personality dimension characterized by traits like impulsivity, coldness, reduced empathy, aggression, and disregard for social norms.
- Need for cognition
- A psychological trait describing an individual's intrinsic motivation to engage in and enjoy effortful, complex thinking.
- Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)
- A brain region associated with executive functions, working memory, and deliberate, logical reasoning.
Flashcards
Want these cards to stick?
Save the deck to NoteFren and study it with spaced repetition.
Quiz yourself
According to the traditional dual-process explanation of moral decision-making, what cognitive mechanism leads to utilitarian judgments in difficult moral dilemmas?
Common questions
Does this study mean that all people who make logical moral decisions are psychopaths?
No, the study shows there are multiple pathways to utilitarian choices; some people make them due to a colder, less empathetic emotional style (linked to psychoticism), while others do so because they enjoy effortful cognitive problem-solving (linked to need for cognition).
Why did the researchers focus on the subgenual cingulate cortex?
This specific brain region is heavily involved in processing social emotions like guilt and empathy, which typically deter people from choosing to harm someone for the greater good.
Did participants who scored high on need for cognition show different brain activity?
Unlike those high in psychoticism, participants high in need for cognition did not show decreased activity in the subgenual cingulate cortex, suggesting their decisions did not stem from a lack of moral emotions.
How did the researchers measure the intuitiveness of the moral dilemmas?
They used independent judges to establish which moral choices were intuitive, defining an intuitive choice as one agreed upon by a significant majority of those judges.
More on Moral psychology