Interoceptive Accuracy Did Not Affect Moral Decision-Making, but Affect Regret Rating for One's Moral Choices.

Kaho Tamura,Yoshinari Kobayashi,Hideki Ohira

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.746897

Abstract

Previous studies have revealed the effect of interoceptive accuracy (IAcc), a behavioral measure of the ability to feel physiological states and regulation for that, which origin emotion on decision-making such as gambling. Given that decision-making in moral dilemma situations is affected by emotion, it seems that IAcc also affects moral decision-making. The present study preliminarily investigates whether IAcc affects decision-making and emotional ratings such as regret for one’s own choices in moral dilemma situations. IAcc did not affect moral choice (deontological or utilitarian option), but affected regret ratings for one’s moral choice in portions of dilemma scenarios. Moreover, people with higher IAcc make deontological choices more rapidly than those with lower IAcc in self-related dilemma scenarios. These results suggest that people with higher IAcc feel stronger emotional conflicts about utilitarian choices but weaker conflicts about deontological choices than people with lower IAcc depending on the moral dilemma scenario.

Highlights

People with alexithymia, who have difficulty feeling emotion, report lower interoceptive accuracy (IAcc) (Shah et al, 2016). These results suggest that higher IAcc relates to sensitivity and lower IAcc relates to insensitivity to emotional experience
Linear regression analysis was used to reveal the relation between IAcc and the general tendency to make deontological choices
Logistic regression analyses revealed that IAcc and SCR had no significant effect on moral choice for any of the dilemma scenarios

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Moral dilemma studies have been conducted in a broad range of areas, such as psychology, neuroscience, philosophy and ethics. In light of dual process theory in moral dilemmas (Greene and Haidt, 2002), people with lower IAcc, who might be insensitive to negative emotions in response to sacrificing innocent people, can choose utilitarian options without hesitation because they feel little conflict between alternatives, in personal moral dilemmas. People with higher IAcc who are sensitive to emotions might feel strong negative emotions in response to utilitarian action and be averse to taking such actions in personal moral dilemmas. Given that IAcc contributes to the intensity of emotional experiences (Barrett et al, 2004), we predict that people with higher IAcc regret their harmful actions resulting from their utilitarian choices more intensely than those with lower IAcc

Participants

RESULTS

DISCUSSION

ETHICS STATEMENT