Gender Differences in Neural Mechanisms Underlying Moral Judgment of Disgust: A Functional MRI Study

Juan Yang,Mingming Qi,Lili Guan

doi:10.4236/jbbs.2014.45023

Abstract

Much recent research has sought to uncover the gender difference in neural mechanism of moral judgment; however, very few researches study the neural gender differences in a specific area of moral judgment. The aim of this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study was to examine possible gender difference in neural response to (sexual) disgusting pictures versus neutral pictures. Seventeen participants (9 males) were scanned while viewing pictures of tactile intimacy in same-sex and being asked to evaluate whether the behaviors between the stimulus persons in the pictures were morally appropriate or not. Both the neural responses to pictures of tactile intimacy in same-sex between male participants and female participants and the neural response to pictures of male-male tactile intimacy and to pictures of female-female tactile intimacy were examined. The results showed that significantly increased differential activations to the disgusting pictures relative to the neutral pictures were observed in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (BA 9) and amygdala. Furthermore, greater activation to the pictures of female-female tactile intimacy was observed in the left superior frontal gyrus/dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (BA 6). These results suggested a possible neural gender difference between female’s immoral behavior and male’s immoral behavior.

Highlights

The question of gender differences in moral judgment has been an issue of controversy and debate both in social psychology and in neuroscience
Some of the hypothesis was confirmed, as significantly increased differential activations to the disgusting pictures relative to the neutral pictures were observed in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex and amygdala
Greater activation to the female disgusting (FD) pictures was observed in the left superior frontal gyrus/dorsal medial prefrontal cortex

Summary

Introduction

The question of gender differences in moral judgment has been an issue of controversy and debate both in social psychology and in neuroscience. “The very traits that traditionally have defined the ‘goodness’ of women, their care for and sensitivity to the needs of others, are those that mark them as deficient in moral development” [2]. She describes two divergent modes of moral judgment: an ethic of care and an ethic of justice [3]. They typically approach moral dilemmas in a rational way, with a justice-based orientation that respects rules and obligations. Researchers further have suggested that gender-related differences only exist in personal moral dilemma (those courses of action whose endorsement involved highly emotional decisions) where men give significantly more utilitarian answers than women do [7]

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