Brain Power Leads To Level-Headedness When
Faced With Moral Dilemmas
June 11, 2008
Should a sergeant sacrifice a wounded private on the battlefield in order to
save the rest of his troops? Is euthanasia acceptable if it prevents needless
suffering? Many of us will have to face some sort of extreme moral choice such
as these at least once in our life. And we are also surrounded by less dramatic
moral choices everyday: Do I buy the hybrid? Do I vote for a particular
presidential candidate? Unfortunately, very little is known beyond philosophical
speculation about how people understand morality and make decisions on moral
issues.
Past research suggests that moral dilemmas can evoke strong emotions in people
and tend to override thoughtful deliberation and reasoning. However, more recent
neuroimaging research has discovered that sometimes people are capable of
voluntarily suppressing these emotional reactions, allowing for decisions based
on reasoning and careful deliberation of the consequences of one's actions.
A new study appearing in the June issue of Psychological Science, a
journal of the Association for Psychological Science, appears to support this
neuroimaging evidence. Adam Moore of Princeton University and his colleagues
Brian Clark and Michael Kane of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro
tested this notion by measuring individuals' working memory capacity --
essentially their ability to mentally juggle multiple pieces of information. The
idea was that people who could best juggle information would be able to control
their emotion and engage in "deliberative processing."
The researchers then asked participants to make decisions in emotionally
provocative situations. One example:
"A runaway trolley hurtles toward five unaware workmen; the only way to
save them is to push a heavy man (standing nearby on a footbridge) onto the
track where he will die in stopping the trolley."
In these emotion laden scenarios, people with high working memory capacity were
not only more consistent in their judgments but their answers indicated that
they were considering the consequences of their choices in a way that the other
participants were not.
"This suggests that emotional reactions to moral issues can drive our
judgments and motivate action but can also blind us to the consequences of our
decisions in some cases," write the authors. Ultimately, people with higher
working memory can be relied upon to make more consistent decisions and are able
to more deeply consider consequences in these highly charged instances.
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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Author Contact: Adam B. Moore
Psychological Science is ranked among the top 10 general psychology
journals for impact by the Institute for Scientific Information. Article
"Who Shalt Not Kill? Individual Differences in Working Memory Capacity,
Executive Control, and Moral Judgment" .
Source: Catherine West
Association
for Psychological Science
Medical News Today: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com
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