Neuroanatomical correlates of forgiving unintentional harms

Indrajeet Patil,Federico Fornasier,Giorgia Silani,Marta Calò,Liane Young

doi:10.1038/srep45967

Abstract

Mature moral judgments rely on the consideration of a perpetrator’s mental state as well as harmfulness of the outcomes produced. Prior work has focused primarily on the functional correlates of how intent information is neurally represented for moral judgments, but few studies have investigated whether individual differences in neuroanatomy can also explain variation in moral judgments. In the current study, we conducted voxel-based morphometry analyses to address this question. We found that local grey matter volume in the left anterior superior temporal sulcus, a region in the functionally defined theory of mind or mentalizing network, was associated with the degree to which participants relied on information about innocent intentions to forgive accidental harms. Our findings provide further support for the key role of mentalizing in the forgiveness of accidental harms and contribute preliminary evidence for the neuroanatomical basis of individual differences in moral judgments.

Highlights

Mature moral judgments rely on the consideration of a perpetrator’s mental state as well as harmfulness of the outcomes produced
Prior work has focused primarily on the functional correlates of how intent information is neurally represented for moral judgments, but few studies have investigated whether individual differences in neuroanatomy can explain variation in moral judgments
We found that local grey matter volume in the left anterior superior temporal sulcus, a region in the functionally defined theory of mind or mentalizing network, was associated with the degree to which participants relied on information about innocent intentions to forgive accidental harms

Summary

Introduction

Mature moral judgments rely on the consideration of a perpetrator’s mental state as well as harmfulness of the outcomes produced. Representations of others’ mental states are constructed by Theory of Mind (ToM) or mentalizing, the process of inferring representational content (e.g., beliefs, desires, knowledge, intentions) from observing others’ in order to explain and predict their behavior[4,5] This capacity is neurally implemented in a specific network consisting primarily of the bilateral temporoparietal junction (TPJ), ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), temporal poles (TP), superior temporal sulcus (STS), and precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex (PC/PCC)[4]. This work shows that neural activity in the ToM network, in general, is involved in encoding and integrating the information about mental states of actors involved in moral situations This network thereby underpins cognitive basis of how people forgive[21,22] accidents based on innocent intentions and condemn attempted harms based on malicious intentions. This study found correlation patterns for accidental harm in regions typically associated with ToM, namely PC, vmPFC, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), no claim about their functional properties was made in this work

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