Deconfounding the effects of acute stress on abstract moral dilemma judgment

Abstract

People often make moral judgments under acute stress. Increasing studies have investigated the influence of acute stress on moral judgment, but the findings are quite divergent. This study attempted to address the inconsistency by employing a new approach, the CNI model, which disentangles the effect of three determinants of moral decision-making, sensitivity to consequences (C), sensitivity to moral norms (N), or general preference for inaction (I). Seventy-eight undergraduates (45 females and 33 males) were randomly assigned to the stress group or the control group. All participants made judgments on a set of 24 moral dilemmas. Responses to self-reported questionnaires and heart rate were recorded for assessing the levels of stress. The traditional dilemma analysis indicated that acutely stressed participants made more deontological judgments than participants in the control group. The process dissociation analysis showed that the stress group had higher deontological inclinations than the control group. Moreover, the CNI model analysis revealed that the stress group showed a stronger sensitivity to moral norms and a higher general preference for inaction than the control group. In sum, our findings resolved interpretational ambiguities of traditional analysis and extended our understanding regarding the mechanism underlying the association between acute stress and moral judgment.