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      Low Levels of Empathic Concern Predict Utilitarian Moral Judgment

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          Abstract

          Is it permissible to harm one to save many? Classic moral dilemmas are often defined by the conflict between a putatively rational response to maximize aggregate welfare (i.e., the utilitarian judgment) and an emotional aversion to harm (i.e., the non-utilitarian judgment). Here, we address two questions. First, what specific aspect of emotional responding is relevant for these judgments? Second, is this aspect of emotional responding selectively reduced in utilitarians or enhanced in non-utilitarians? The results reveal a key relationship between moral judgment and empathic concern in particular (i.e., feelings of warmth and compassion in response to someone in distress). Utilitarian participants showed significantly reduced empathic concern on an independent empathy measure. These findings therefore reveal diminished empathic concern in utilitarian moral judges.

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          Most cited references31

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          Understanding and using the implicit association test: I. An improved scoring algorithm.

          In reporting Implicit Association Test (IAT) results, researchers have most often used scoring conventions described in the first publication of the IAT (A.G. Greenwald, D.E. McGhee, & J.L.K. Schwartz, 1998). Demonstration IATs available on the Internet have produced large data sets that were used in the current article to evaluate alternative scoring procedures. Candidate new algorithms were examined in terms of their (a) correlations with parallel self-report measures, (b) resistance to an artifact associated with speed of responding, (c) internal consistency, (d) sensitivity to known influences on IAT measures, and (e) resistance to known procedural influences. The best-performing measure incorporates data from the IAT's practice trials, uses a metric that is calibrated by each respondent's latency variability, and includes a latency penalty for errors. This new algorithm strongly outperforms the earlier (conventional) procedure.
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            The neural substrate of human empathy: effects of perspective-taking and cognitive appraisal.

            Whether observation of distress in others leads to empathic concern and altruistic motivation, or to personal distress and egoistic motivation, seems to depend upon the capacity for self-other differentiation and cognitive appraisal. In this experiment, behavioral measures and event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging were used to investigate the effects of perspective-taking and cognitive appraisal while participants observed the facial expression of pain resulting from medical treatment. Video clips showing the faces of patients were presented either with the instruction to imagine the feelings of the patient ("imagine other") or to imagine oneself to be in the patient's situation ("imagine self"). Cognitive appraisal was manipulated by providing information that the medical treatment had or had not been successful. Behavioral measures demonstrated that perspective-taking and treatment effectiveness instructions affected participants' affective responses to the observed pain. Hemodynamic changes were detected in the insular cortices, anterior medial cingulate cortex (aMCC), amygdala, and in visual areas including the fusiform gyrus. Graded responses related to the perspective-taking instructions were observed in middle insula, aMCC, medial and lateral premotor areas, and selectively in left and right parietal cortices. Treatment effectiveness resulted in signal changes in the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex, in the ventromedial orbito-frontal cortex, in the right lateral middle frontal gyrus, and in the cerebellum. These findings support the view that humans' responses to the pain of others can be modulated by cognitive and motivational processes, which influence whether observing a conspecific in need of help will result in empathic concern, an important instigator for helping behavior.
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              Cognitive load selectively interferes with utilitarian moral judgment.

              Traditional theories of moral development emphasize the role of controlled cognition in mature moral judgment, while a more recent trend emphasizes intuitive and emotional processes. Here we test a dual-process theory synthesizing these perspectives. More specifically, our theory associates utilitarian moral judgment (approving of harmful actions that maximize good consequences) with controlled cognitive processes and associates non-utilitarian moral judgment with automatic emotional responses. Consistent with this theory, we find that a cognitive load manipulation selectively interferes with utilitarian judgment. This interference effect provides direct evidence for the influence of controlled cognitive processes in moral judgment, and utilitarian moral judgment more specifically.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                PLoS ONE
                plos
                plosone
                PLoS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, USA )
                1932-6203
                2013
                4 April 2013
                : 8
                : 4
                : e60418
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Institute of Cognitive Neurology (INECO), Buenos Aires, Argentina
                [2 ]Psychology Department, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States of America
                [3 ]Institute of Neurosciences, Favaloro University, Buenos Aires, Argentina
                [4 ]Laboratory of Neurosciences, Diego Portales University, Santiago, Chile
                The University of Queensland, Australia
                Author notes

                Competing Interests: Liane Young is a PLOS ONE Editorial Board member. This does not alter the authors‚ adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

                Conceived and designed the experiments: EG. Performed the experiments: EG. Analyzed the data: EG LY. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: EG LY. Wrote the paper: EG LY.

                Article
                PONE-D-13-02168
                10.1371/journal.pone.0060418
                3617220
                23593213
                ab773a61-30d2-4dd7-b998-4c2bb3c13887
                Copyright @ 2013

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 11 January 2013
                : 18 February 2013
                Page count
                Pages: 9
                Funding
                EG received a grant from the Institute of Cognitive Neurology (INECO) Foundation. LY received a grant from The Sloan Foundation. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
                Categories
                Research Article
                Medicine
                Mental Health
                Psychology
                Behavior
                Emotions
                Experimental Psychology
                Personality
                Social Psychology
                Social and Behavioral Sciences
                Psychology
                Behavior
                Emotions
                Experimental Psychology
                Personality
                Social Psychology

                Uncategorized
                Uncategorized

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