Morality and the Brain Flashcards
Milgram Experiment
67% complied with administration of shocks. Degree of obedience was influenced by physical proximity of authority figure, status of authority figure, lack of role models for defiance, depersonalization of victim
Zimbardo Prison Experience
Expectations did not match behavior. Guards were assured that they would not be held responsible. Conforming to the roles of guard and prisoner - de-individuation and conformity. Lower accountability leads to mob behavior/loosening of moral restraints.
Brain areas that are involved in moral choice
dlPFC - executive function/top-down control
Temporal Parietal Junction - theory of mind
Anterior Cingulate Cortex - conflict
vmPFC - emotional moral stilmuli
Posterior Cingulate Cortex - integrating emotions/imagery in coherent narratives
Amygdala - key for real emotionally laden moral choices
Definition of Morality
Philosophical: what “ought” to be moral behavior/the ideal standard of altruistic behavior.
Psychological: observe behavior and label moral - context and culture can change definitions
Harm principle
Harming another is the most fundamental breach of social living. Aversion to harm others transcends cultures and even species. Many rhesus monkeys refrain from eating if they know securing food would administer electric shock to another - one refrained from food for 12 days. Rats show empathy to trapped cage mates, even at the cost of chocolate.
Moral emotions
Emotions that are linked to interest or welfare of other people or society as a whole - guilt , shame, empathy.
Basic emotions
Emotions shared by most mammals - fear, sadness, disgust, anger…
Can be recognized from facial expressions, gaze direction, voice intonation, body postures.
Blunted emotions
Populations with dysfunction in emotion processing exhibit reduced ability to emotionally respond to distress in others. Frontal lobe patients and psychopathy.
Frontal Lobe Patients and morality
Frontal lobe damage leads to blunted emotions, irrational responses to minor provocation, irritable, angry, and abusive behavior. Phineas Gage (1850) - bar through head, and behavior changed in startling ways. Little concern for others’ emotions. EVR (1985) - a “pillar of society”; when tumor in orbitalfrontal removed, IQ and memory were intact but social conduct changed in a negative way.
Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex
Critical for harnessing emotional responsivity to highly aversive stimuli, evaluating motivational/emotional states, integrating this information. vmPFC patients judge moral violations more acceptable and fail to generate arousal response before approving harmful, immoral actions. Lack of anticipatory autonomic responses -> behavior that is insensitive to future consequences.
Psychopathy
Absence of moral behavior but intact intellect. Behavior: antisocial, deceptive, selfish. Lack of empathy, guilt, remorse (important emotions for interpersonal dynamics and norm compliance). Smaller amygdala volume in psychopaths who kill.
Empathy
Ability to feel this is thought to be greatest motivation to helping others. Comprehension of another’s emotional state. Process: feeling of concern, affect sharing (distress), cognitive perspective-taking, fantasy and imagination. Empathic states ->altruistic behavior.
Emotional signaling
Individuals asked to imagine how a person feels show strong physiological reactions to when the person suffers. Empathic response - increased heart rate and perspiration when somebody suffers.
Somatic marker hypothesis
With complex and conflicting choices, people cannot decide solely with cognition. In these cases, emotional responses/somatic markers help direct behavior by signaling aversive event. Process involves vmPFC.
Iowa Gambling Task
Good decks and bad decks: bad decks with large rewards and large penalty, with net loss. Healthy subjects anticipate the badness of a deck after awhile and experience a skin conductance/negative emotional response. However, vmPFC patients do not experience the physiological change and continue to play bad decks. Decision making aided by somatic markers which signal aversive event.
Trolley dilemma
Testing how morally acceptable it is to sacrifice one in favor of five lives. More morally acceptable in trolley dilemma than in footbridge dilemma, as emotional response is differently engaged depending on situation. Highly personal scenarios involve more activation of posterior cingulate cortex and medial PFC.
Areas associated with emotion and theory of mind
Temporalparietal junction and superior temporal sulcus (TPJ/STS). Understanding that others have beliefs etc. different from ones’ own - diff perspectives.
Moral > Unpleasant contrast
Indignation and compassion activate anterior PFC more than disgust or fear.
Framework limitations
Moral decisions are tied to real environment. Also we approach moral challenges differently depending on whether we are the deciding agent or observing others. Moral decisions are social, yet we study morality in social vacuum.
$128 test
Tries to get real-world moral challenge. Monetary benefit vs helping another. Subjects given $128 and could anonymously donate to or oppose real charitable organizations. Warm glow of giving: decisions to donate and keep money activated ventral tegmental area (VTA) and ventral striatum (VS). But decisions to donate activated sgACC more.
How much to spend to stop shocks?
People overwhelmingly kept more money in the real-world situation than in the hypothetical. However, less when shocks were more severe.
Neural signature for altruistic decisions?
dlPFC for executive functioning and anterior cingulate cortex activated in moral dilemmas.
Network of neural regions
Stable network activated in moral phenomena. Occurs across paradigm types (passive, hypothetical, active), across perspective, across moral challenge
