The impact of the Extraversion-Introversion personality traits and emotions in a moral decision-making task

Abstract

Behavioural studies have previously examined the fundamental psychological processes behind two moral dilemma types (e.g., impersonal vs. personal dilemmas) across conditions (e.g., emotion or cognition, etc.). However, it is unknown how individual personality traits influence moral decisions by inducing emotions. The goal of the present study was to examine whether different personality traits interact with different types of moral dilemmas by inducing emotions in moral decisions. 100 participants performed a moral decision-making task and data were analyzed using mixed-model ANOVA. The result revealed that when faced with personal moral dilemmas, introverted individuals will make more utilitarian decisions when experiencing induced negative emotion, supporting the hypothesis that moral types, emotional valence, and personality traits can play an essential role in moral decision-making.