Moral Cognition Research Articles

Transhumanism, Human Moral Enhancement, and Virtues

Moral transhumanism is a project that aims to enhance human beings by using modern technology in a morally beneficial way. This article discusses the problems and ethical dilemmas raised by transhumanism, notably whether (moral) virtues may be enhanced in the proposed manner. To achieve this end, moral transhumanism primarily proposes the use of genetic technology and pharmacology. Regarding moral virtues, the article suggests that sensitivity to reasons is a fundamental feature of human moral cognition. Enhancing moral virtues would diminish this sensitivity or assign it a superfluous role while jeopardizing the person’s autonomy and self-determination.

Resource-rational contractualism: A triple theory of moral cognition.

It is widely agreed upon that morality guides people with conflicting interests towards agreements of mutual benefit. We therefore might expect numerous proposals for organizing human moral cognition around the logic of bargaining, negotiation, and agreement. Yet, while "contractualist" ideas play an important role in moral philosophy, they are starkly underrepresented in the field of moral psychology. From a contractualist perspective, ideal moral judgments are those that would be agreed to by rational bargaining agents-an idea with wide-spread support in philosophy, psychology, economics, biology, and cultural evolution. As a practical matter, however, investing time and effort in negotiating every interpersonal interaction is unfeasible. Instead, we propose, people use abstractions and heuristics to efficiently identify mutually beneficial arrangements. We argue that many well-studied elements of our moral minds, such as reasoning about others' utilities ("consequentialist" reasoning) or evaluating intrinsic ethical properties of certain actions ("deontological" reasoning), can be naturally understood as resource-rational approximations of a contractualist ideal. Moreover, this view explains the flexibility of our moral minds-how our moral rules and standards get created, updated and overridden and how we deal with novel cases we have never seen before. Thus, the apparently fragmentary nature of our moral psychology-commonly described in terms of systems in conflict-can be largely unified around the principle of finding mutually beneficial agreements under resource constraint. Our resulting "triple theory" of moral cognition naturally integrates contractualist, consequentialist and deontological concerns.

Moral judgment is sensitive to bargaining power.

For contractualist accounts of morality, actions are moral if they correspond to what rational or reasonable agents would agree to do, were they to negotiate explicitly. This, in turn, often depends on each party's bargaining power, which varies with each party's stakes in the potential agreement and available alternatives in case of disagreement. If there is an asymmetry, with one party enjoying higher bargaining power than another, this party can usually get a better deal, as often happens in real negotiations. A strong test of contractualist accounts of morality, then, is whether moral judgments do take bargaining power into account. We explore this in five preregistered experiments (n = 3,025; U.S.-based Prolific participants). We construct scenarios depicting everyday social interactions between two parties in which one of them can perform a mutually beneficial but unpleasant action. We find that the same actions (asking the other to perform the unpleasant action or explicitly refusing to do it) are perceived as less morally appropriate when performed by the party with lower bargaining power, as compared to the party with higher bargaining power. In other words, participants tend to give more moral leeway to parties with better bargaining positions and to hold disadvantaged parties to stricter moral standards. This effect appears to depend only on the relative bargaining power of each party but not on the magnitude of the bargaining power asymmetry between them. We discuss implications for contractualist theories of moral cognition and the emergence and persistence of unfair norms and inequality. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Morality in Our Mind and Across Cultures and Politics.

Moral judgments differ across cultures and politics, but they share a common theme in our minds: perceptions of harm. Both cultural ethnographies on moral values and psychological research on moral cognition highlight this shared focus on harm. Perceptions of harm are constructed from universal cognitive elements-including intention, causation, and suffering-but depend on the cultural context, allowing many values to arise from a common moral mind. This review traces the concept of harm across philosophy, cultural anthropology, and psychology, then discusses how different values (e.g., purity) across various taxonomies are grounded in perceived harm. We then explore two theories connecting culture to cognition-modularity and constructionism-before outlining how pluralism across human moral judgment is explained by the constructed nature of perceived harm. We conclude by showing how different perceptions of harm help drive political disagreements and reveal how sharing stories of harm can help bridge moral divides.

The mediating role of ESG: Managers' moral cognition can improve corporate performance

The mediating role of <scp>ESG</scp>: Managers' moral cognition can improve corporate performance

Language mediation training and the foreign‑language effect in moral decision‑making*

Abstract Moral cognition is an emerging field investigating the cognitive underpinnings of moral judgement and moral decision-making. Of particular interest for Cognitive Translation and Interpreting Studies (CTIS) is the impact of the use of a foreign language on the cognitive processes associated with moral decision making, what has been labeled “Foreign Language Effect” (FLE). Using a second language has been reported to reduce decision-making biases, doing away with framing effects in risk aversion settings. At the same time, moral dilemmas posed in a second language prompt more utilitarian responses than when presented in the subjects’ native tongues. These results beg the following question for the CTIS scholar: does language mediation training mitigate the FLE? This paper reports on an exploratory study investigating the impact of language mediation training on the FLE. Drawing from Costa et al. (2014), 1st and 4th year, bilingual students in a Translation and Interpreting degree are presented with the trolley dilemma both in their L1, L2, and L3. Initial results seem to indicate that language mediation training might have an impact on the FLE. However, the limitations of the study suggest the need for further exploration of the intersection between language mediation training and the FLE.

Moral reasoning in a digital age: blaming artificial intelligence for incorrect high-risk decisions

AbstractThe increasing involvement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in moral decision situations raises the possibility of users attributing blame to AI-based systems for negative outcomes. In two experimental studies with a total of $$N = 911$$ participants, we explored the attribution of blame and underlying moral reasoning. Participants had to classify mushrooms in pictures as edible or poisonous with support of an AI-based app. Afterwards, participants read a fictitious scenario in which a misclassification due to an erroneous AI recommendation led to the poisoning of a person. In the first study, increased system transparency through explainable AI techniques reduced blaming of AI. A follow-up study showed that attribution of blame to each actor in the scenario depends on their perceived obligation and capacity to prevent such an event. Thus, blaming AI is indirectly associated with mind attribution and blaming oneself is associated with the capability to recognize a wrong classification. We discuss implications for future research on moral cognition in the context of human–AI interaction.

Exploring the Influence of Artificial Intelligence Usage on Ethical Decision Making Among Public Sector Employees: Insights into Moral Identity and Service Motivation

This study constructs a moderating mediation model to link public sector employees’ Artificial Intelligence (AI) usage with employees’ moral norms and ethical decision-making behaviors. Based on the theory of public service motivation, this study hypothesizes that the impact of AI usage on employees’ ethical decision-making behaviors acts through the mediating effects of employees’ service motivation, employees’ moral norms, and employees’ ethical perceptions and that the relationship between AI usage and employees’ service motivation, employees’ ethical norms, and employees’ ethical perceptions is moderated by the culture of the public organization. The selected data from 417 public sector employees in China supported most of the research hypotheses. The findings show that employee service motivation, employee moral norms, and employee moral cognition mediate the relationship between AI usage and employee ethical decision-making behavior. Public organization culture moderated the relationship between AI usage and employee service motivation, as well as AI usage and employee ethics. This study reveals the complex mediating and moderating relationships between AI usage and employees’ ethical decision-making behaviors in the public sector. It provides important theoretical and practical insights for further understanding and promoting public sector employees’ ethical behaviors in the era of AI.

The effect of childhood trauma on moral cognition in patients with schizophrenia.

The aim of this study was to investigate whether a potential moral cognitive impairment (failure in understanding moral rules) exists in patients with schizophrenia (SCZ) and to explore the effect of childhood trauma (CT) on moral cognition in a group of patients with SCZ. A total of 99 patients with SCZ and 102 healthy controls (HCs) were included in this study. The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form (CTQ) was administered to assess childhood trauma experiences in both groups, while the Moral Identity Measure (MIM) and the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ) were applied for a comparative evaluation of moral cognition across the two groups. The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) was administered to assess the psychopathology. Patients with schizophrenia had significantly greater CTQ scores than HCs (42.77 ± 13.50 vs. 29.11 ± 4.25, t=9.697, p<0.001). The prevalence of childhood trauma (χ 2 = 58.452, p<0.001) and history of aggressive behaviors (χ 2 = 23.565, p=0.001) among patients with SCZ were greater than that among HCs. In addition, the scores of moral cognition (MIM: 61.82 ± 15.12 vs. 70.88 ± 8.87, p=0.001; MFQ: 87.24 ± 22.30 vs. 112.62 ± 23.42, p=0.045) in the SCZ group was lower than that in the HC group after controlling for the influence of CT covariates. The MFQ score was negatively correlated with the CTQ score, the emotional abuse (EA) score, the physical abuse (PA) score and the physical neglect (PN) score in SCZ patients. Among HCs, the MFQ score was positively correlated with the CTQ score, as well as with the dimensions of physical abuse (PA) and emotional Neglect (EN). Multiple linear regression analyses revealed that impaired moral cognition performance was significantly predicted by the CTQ score (beta=-0.235, p=0.034, 95% CI -0.743 to -0.031) in patients with SCZ but was significantly predicted by years of education (beta=-0.392, p<0.001, 95% CI -4.783 to -1.876), alcohol use (beta=0.210, p=0.023, 95% CI 2.191 to 29.399) and the CTQ score (beta=0.184, p=0.046, 95% CI 0.019 to 1.928) in HCs. CTQ moderated the effect of SCZ on MFQ (B = 0.516); Simple tests revealed that the group effect on the MFQ was B=12.306 at the lower level(-1SD) and B = 54.089 at the higher level(+1SD) of the CTQ scores. SCZ patients exhibit impaired moral cognition. The contribution of CT to the presence of moral cognitive impairments seems to be independent of psychopathology.

Ethics Education, Moral Attentiveness and Consumer Wisdom: Exploring the Relationships

Ethics education has recently garnered a great deal of attention; it has been viewed as a remedy against a plague of diverse forms of immoral practices carried out by businesses and consumers. Markedly, ethics education has proved its effectiveness in influencing students’ moral cognition and behavior as future business practitioners. However, the effect of being exposed to ethics courses on students as consumers has not been investigated yet. Thus, a post-only quasi-experimental design was conducted to examine such an influence on the dimensions of moral attentiveness and consumer wisdom; as cognitive and behavioral constructs respectively. Results revealed that ethics education had a positive influence on students’ reflective moral attentiveness as well as two dimensions of consumer wisdom, which are purpose and perspective. Finally, the research provides theoretical and practical implications as well as directions of the available research avenues for future researchers.

Socioemotional dysfunction and the greater good: a case study

ABSTRACT Moral cognition has largely been studied via dilemmas in which making a utilitarian choice causes instrumental harm (negative dimension). Studies of utilitarianism link this behavior with socioemotional unresponsiveness. However, there is a positive dimension of utilitarianism in which one sacrifices the good of oneself or close others for the overall welfare. We measured utilitarian choices multidimensionally in a patient with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), incorporating dilemmas accounting for negative and positive dimensions. Despite socioemotional deficits our patient was highly utilitarian in the positive, dimension of utilitarianism. This case study challenges the tendency to automatically associate bvFTD with antisocial tendencies.

Responsible leadership and deceptive knowledge hiding: the mediating role of moral reflectiveness and the moderating role of leader-follower value congruence

Purpose The key to preventing employees from engaging in deceptive knowledge hiding is fostering a responsible environment. Drawing on social cognitive theory, this study aims to explore the factors that inhibit deceptive knowledge hiding and to construct potential pathways for enhancing individual moral cognition. This study further analyzes the moderating effect of leader–follower value congruence on these relationships. Design/methodology/approach Using data from 341 full-time employees in various service industries in China, this study conducted path analysis, the product-of-coefficients method and bootstrapping to test the hypotheses through a three-stage, time-lagged survey. Findings The empirical results show that responsible leadership is negatively associated with employees’ deceptive knowledge hiding. Employee moral reflectiveness mediates this relationship, whereas leader–follower value congruence moderates the indirect effect of responsible leadership on deceptive knowledge hiding through moral reflectiveness. Originality/value First, this study extends field research by introducing positive leadership factors to reduce deceptive knowledge hiding, whereas prior studies focused mainly on negative leadership antecedents. Second, this study sheds light on the underlying moral cognitive mechanisms and explains how responsible leadership can prevent implicit unethical behavior. Third, it reveals how leader–follower value congruence can enhance the impact of responsible leadership on moral reflectiveness, offering novel insights into the role of value-based fit in reducing deceptive knowledge hiding.

Do future actions matter more than past deeds? Temporal moral attribution in U.S. and Chinese school-age children.

This study examines how children attribute moral responsibilities to their past and future actions and what role culture plays in children's temporal moral attribution. A total of 346 U.S. and Chinese 6-7 and 8- to 9-year-old children were randomly assigned to a past or future condition, in which they answered questions about their moral/immoral actions in hypothetical scenarios described as occurring in the last week or the next week. Whereas U.S. 8- to 9-year-olds favored more praise and reward for their future good deeds than past ones, Chinese 8- to 9-year-olds favored more praise and reward for their past good deeds than future ones. Chinese children also moralized their actions to a greater extent than U.S. children, and children reasoned about their moral/immoral actions in line with their cultural beliefs. Interesting age differences also emerged, suggesting the continuing development of mental time travel and moral cognition across middle childhood. The findings shed new light on the important role of time in moral judgment that is constrained by development progressions in mental time travel and specific to the cultural context. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Studies on Moral Judgment and Cognition Involving Cryptocurrencies and Tax Evasion

Although new digital monetary instruments (e.g., cryptocurrencies) have emerged and proliferated, there is little academic research concerning consumer perspectives on these instruments or the effects of these instruments on consumers’ moral judgments. The present research addressed this gap in the literature by addressing the following research question: Is the morality of tax evasion judged differently when tax evasion is undertaken with cryptocurrency vs. traditional financial instruments (e.g., stocks)? In two online experiments, we exposed participants to a tax evasion scenario with either cryptocurrency or stock trading. The results of Study 1 showed that tax evasion is perceived as being less wrong when it is carried out with cryptocurrency trading rather than stock trading. Study 2 replicated Study 1 and tested an explanatory mediating mechanism hypothesized to underlie the main effect. A mediation analysis showed that the effect of cryptocurrency (vs. stock trading) on the perceived wrongness of tax evasion is partially mediated by the observer's positive (vs. negative) affective evaluation of the person committing tax evasion. This paper also discusses the theoretical, practical, and societal implications of the present results, including the likelihood that people's attitudes toward moral transgressions and crimes will be more lenient when these acts are conducted with new, innovative, and exciting instruments.

Does Caring Breed Contempt? Examining the Hypothesis That Activation of a “Parental” Mindset Causes Harsher Moral Judgments

Prior research (most of which is correlational) has suggested that activation of the parental care motivational system may lead people to make harsher moral judgments of social norm violators. We tested this hypothesis in 8 studies (total N = 1790). Seven of the studies were true experiments in which participants made moral judgments after being randomly assigned to either conditions designed to temporarily activate the parental care system or to a control condition. In one of these experiments, participants viewed photographs of either cute animals or furniture and in 6 additional experiments, participants engaged in an autobiographical writing task in which they recalled and wrote about a time they either cared for a child or—in the control conditions that varied across these experiments—had a different experience. In the final non-experimental study, women were recruited in public places and made moral judgments, the harshness of these judgments was compared between those accompanied by a young child versus not accompanied by a young child. The effects (and non-effects) of these procedures on moral judgments were inconsistent across the 8 studies and an internal meta-analysis of the 7 true experiments provided no compelling evidence that the experimental manipulations influenced moral judgments. We hope that these results offer some guidance to future researchers on what methods might—and might not—be effective in activating the parental care system and can support future work on the influence of parental care on moral cognition.

Naturalization of Philosophical Concepts Underlying Interculturality and Proposal of the Neurocognitive Model 'Elemental Intercultural Imprint'

Objective: The study proposes an exploration of dyads (philosophy-cognitive neuroscience) that constitute the basis of interculturality, leading to the postulation of the Elemental Intercultural Imprint as a neurocognitive model that impacts the ontological notion of 'interculturality,' viewed under the naturalizing project. Methodology: An analytical conceptual methodology was implemented, aiming to demonstrate the modes of naturalization of philosophical concepts descriptively and critically. The following hypothesis is maintained: the progressive naturalization of consciousness, self-control, identity, social mind, alterity, and morality can reveal the neurocognitive mechanisms of interculturality in individuals. To this end, thenaturalization of consciousness as attention, identity as self-reference memory, self-control as self-regulation, mind (social) as Theory of Mind, alterity as empathy, and morality as moral cognition are analyzed. Results: The conceptual analysis in the reviewed studies found that partial epistemological transposition and methodologicalsymmetry are the most common mechanisms of naturalization of the components of interculturality, and that its neurocognitive architecture allows for the incorporation of other components. Conclusions: It is concluded that the proposed neurocognitive basis is indispensable for the empirical study of interculturality.

Functional Connectivity of Moral Cognition and Traits of Psychopathy in Youth: An Analysis of the Scientific Literature

The aim of the study is to analyze the scientific literature and evidence on the mechanisms of functional connectivity involved in moral cognition processes in youth with psychopathy traits. Scientometric methods of citation networks based on graph theory were used. Bibliometrix, Sci2 Tool, and Gephi were used for the analysis. It was found that the dorsal and ventral regions of the prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, angular gyrus, anterior cingulate and temporal cortex evidence functional alterations in young people with psychopathic traits. It was also reported that graymatter concentration in the left posterior and right anterior cingulate are possible endophenotypes of psychopathic traits. The theoretical, empirical, and legal implications of a moral neural perspective of psychopathy andantisocial behavior are discussed. The results demonstrated that psychopathic traits, which occasionally lead to criminal and violent behaviors, have a neurobiological basis related to moral cognition processes. However, a neuronal moral model has theoretical and practical limitations, as well as legal implications for free will and moral agency capacity.

Understanding the moral cognition of aggression: Longitudinal serial effects of personal relative deprivation and hostility on within-person changes in civic moral disengagement.

Moral disengagement is an important aggressive and moral cognition. The mechanisms of changes in moral disengagement remain unclear, especially at the within-person level. We attempted to clarify this by exploring the serial effects of personal relative deprivation and hostility on civic moral disengagement. We conducted a three-wave longitudinal survey with 1058 undergraduates (63.61% women; mean age = 20.97). The results of the random intercept cross-lagged panel model showed that personal relative deprivation at Wave 1 and hostility at Wave 2 formed a serial effect on the within-person changes in civic moral disengagement at Wave 3, and the longitudinal indirect effect test showed that the within-person dynamics in hostility at Wave 2 acted as a mediator. The results of multiple group analysis across genders further showed that the longitudinal indirect role of hostility at Wave 2 was only observed for men, but not for women, which indicates the moderating effect of gender. These findings facilitate an understanding of the mechanisms of aggressive cognitions at the within-person level and offer implications for the prevention and intervention of aggression from the perspective of moral cognition.

Multidimensional assessment of social cognition using non-immersive virtual reality in dementia with Lewy bodies and Alzheimer’s disease: an exploratory study

ABSTRACT Introduction Few studies have focused on social cognition in dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), even though some brain structures being well known as underlying social cognitive processes are directly impacted in this disease. Furthermore, social cognition processes have been mostly studied independently using evaluations with poor ecological validity. We aimed at studying the ability of a new naturalistic and multidimensional social cognition task to reveal impairments in DLB patients. We chose to compare the profile of these patients with that of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients, for which social cognition is better preserved. Method Fifteen patients (DLB: n = 7; AD: n = 8) and 28 healthy controls underwent the REALSoCog task. They encountered several social situations (e.g. control versus transgressions) in a non-immersive virtual city environment allowing the assessment of moral cognition, cognitive and affective theory of mind (ToM), emotional empathy and behavioral intentions. Results The main results showed (i) a lower ability to detect transgressions in DLB patients, particularly conventional ones, whereas moral cognition seemed better preserved in AD patients; (ii) a cognitive ToM impairment in both DLB and AD patients, while affective ToM is impaired only in DLB patients; (iii) a decreased emotional empathy specifically observed in DLB patients; (iv) more inappropriate behavioral intentions, mainly in DLB patients, but also in some AD patients. Conclusions This study suggests the feasibility and potential interest of the REALSoCog task in revealing social cognition deficits, particularly for DLB patients by showing different social patterns as compared to AD patients. These results offer interesting clinical perspectives to develop more naturalistic tasks in such populations and for clinical differential diagnosis. Limitations and future perspectives are discussed.

Intuitive Theories and the Cultural Evolution of Morality

We explore the role of intuitive theories in the cultural evolution of moral cognition, integrating recent work across subfields of psychology and suggesting directions for future research. Focusing on intuitive theories in the moral domain concerning how people judge the moral value of actions and make inferences about moral character, we review evidence that the specific forms these theories take vary across individuals and can change via social learning. We propose that cultural selection can operate over the intuitive theories people apply in the moral domain, in which particular variants of intuitive moral theories can be more “successful” to the extent that they are cognitively efficient or provide reputational benefits. Finally, we explore some implications of considering moral cognition as a kind of cultural technology that can be innovated, considering whether intuitive moral theories help or hinder our ability to improve our collective moral norms or practices.