Moral transgressions corrupt neural representations of value
Molly J Crockett1,2, Jenifer Z Siegel1, Zeb Kurth-Nelson3,4
1Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Nature Neuroscience
|May 2, 2017
Summary
Most people avoid harming others for profit, showing moral preferences. Brain scans reveal that stronger moral choices reduce reward signals in the brain when profiting from harm.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Moral Psychology
- Decision Science
Background:
- Moral systems universally prohibit harming others for personal gain.
- Understanding the neural basis of moral behavior is crucial.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between moral behavior and neural representations of profit and pain.
- To explore how the brain processes financial costs associated with harming others versus oneself.
Main Methods:
- A task assessing the financial cost participants ascribe to harming others versus themselves.
- Neuroimaging techniques to probe neural representations of profit and pain.
- Analysis of functional connectivity between brain regions.
Main Results:
- Most participants exhibited moral preferences, assigning a higher cost to harming others than themselves.
- Stronger moral preferences correlated with reduced dorsal striatal responses to profit gained from harming others.
- Lateral prefrontal cortex encoded profit from harming others and tracked blameworthiness, modulating connectivity with the dorsal striatum.
Conclusions:
- Moral behavior in this task is associated with a neural devaluation of reward derived from harming others.
- Prefrontal cortex activity modulates striatal value representations during moral decision-making.
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