Contemplation of moral dilemmas eliminates sex differences on the Iowa gambling task

Men outperform women on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT; A. Bechara, H. Damasio, D. Tranel, & A. R. Damasio, 1997). In this study, the authors show that sex differences are not due to differences in general emotional arousal or the abilities to calculate or reverse responses. Imaging studies have shown that, during the IGT, men increase activity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) and lateral orbital PFC, whereas women increase activity in the left medial orbital PFC. Deliberation of personal moral (PM) dilemmas also increases activity in medial and lateral dorsal PFC, whereas deliberation of moral impersonal (MI) dilemmas increases activity in lateral dorsal PFC. In the present study, men and women performed the IGT during PM, MI, or control deliberations. Deliberation of only PM dilemmas increased women's IGT performance to the level of men.