Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 17, 2026

Exploring the Role of Deontic Reasoning and World Knowledge in Wason´s Selection Task
Published on: July 22, 2025
Why People with More Emotion Regulation Difficulties Made a More Deontological Judgment: The Role of Deontological
Lisong Zhang1,2, Zhongquan Li1, Xiaoyuan Wu1
1School of Social and Behavior Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
Abstract:
Previous studies have demonstrated the key role of emotion in moral judgment, and explored the relationship between emotion regulation and moral judgment. The present study investigated the influence of individual differences in emotion regulation difficulties on moral judgment. Study 1 examined whether individuals with high emotion regulation difficulties made a more deontological judgment. Study 2 explored the underlying mechanism using a process-dissociation approach, examining whether deontological inclinations and utilitarian inclinations separately or jointly accounted for the association. The results indicated that individuals with high emotion regulation difficulties rated the utilitarian actions less morally appropriate, and one's deontological inclinations mediated the association between emotion regulation difficulties and moral judgment.
Related Concept Videos
The Influence of Cognition on Affect
Decision Making
Automatic decision-making is fast, intuitive, and relies on gut feelings...
Self-Regulation
Self-Discrepancy Theory
Reason and Intuition
Labeling Emotion

