Moral foundations in autistic people and people with systemizing minds

BACKGROUND

Do autistic people share the same moral foundations as typical people? Here we built on two prominent theories in psychology, moral foundations theory and the empathizing-systemizing (E-S) theory, to observe the nature of morality in autistic people and systemizers.

METHODS

In dataset 1, we measured five foundations of moral judgements (Care, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity) measured by the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ) in autistic (n = 307) and typical people (n = 415) along with their scores on the Empathy Quotient (EQ) and Systemizing Quotient (SQ). In dataset 2, we measured these same five foundations along with E-S cognitive types (previously referred to as "brain types") in a large sample of typical people (N = 7595).

RESULTS

Autistic people scored the same on Care (i.e., concern for others) as typical people (h1). Their affective empathy (but not their cognitive empathy) scores were positively correlated with Care. Autistic people were more likely to endorse Fairness (i.e., giving people what they are owed, and treating them with justice) over Care (h2). Their systemizing scores were positively correlated with Fairness. Autistic people or those with a systemizing cognitive profile had lower scores on binding foundations: Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity (h3). Systemizing in typical people was positively correlated with Liberty (i.e., hypervigilance against oppression), which is a sixth moral foundation (h4). Although the majority of people in all five E-S cognitive types self-identified as liberal, with a skew towards empathizing (h5), the percentage of libertarians was highest in systemizing cognitive types (h6). E-S cognitive types accounted for 2 to 3 times more variance for Care than did sex.

LIMITATIONS

Our study is limited by its reliance on self-report measures and a focus on moral judgements rather than behavior or decision-making. Further, only dataset 2 measured political identification, therefore we were unable to assess politics in autistic people.

CONCLUSIONS

We conclude that some moral foundations in autistic people are similar to those in typical people (despite the difficulties in social interaction that are part of autism), and some are subtly different. These subtle differences vary depending on empathizing and systemizing cognitive types.

Prosocial motives underlie scientific censorship by scientists: A perspective and research agenda

Science is among humanity's greatest achievements, yet scientific censorship is rarely studied empirically. We explore the social, psychological, and institutional causes and consequences of scientific censorship (defined as actions aimed at obstructing particular scientific ideas from reaching an audience for reasons other than low scientific quality). Popular narratives suggest that scientific censorship is driven by authoritarian officials with dark motives, such as dogmatism and intolerance. Our analysis suggests that scientific censorship is often driven by scientists, who are primarily motivated by self-protection, benevolence toward peer scholars, and prosocial concerns for the well-being of human social groups. This perspective helps explain both recent findings on scientific censorship and recent changes to scientific institutions, such as the use of harm-based criteria to evaluate research. We discuss unknowns surrounding the consequences of censorship and provide recommendations for improving transparency and accountability in scientific decision-making to enable the exploration of these unknowns. The benefits of censorship may sometimes outweigh costs. However, until costs and benefits are examined empirically, scholars on opposing sides of ongoing debates are left to quarrel based on competing values, assumptions, and intuitions.

Moral Decision-Making in Trolley Problems and Variants: How Do Participants' Perspectives, Borderline Personality Traits, and Empathy Predict Choices?

The aim of the present study was to demonstrate and extend the causal effect of participants' perspectives on moral decision-making using trolley problems and variants. Additionally, we investigated whether empathy and borderline (BDL) personality traits predicted participants' choices in these scenarios. We used both a classical trolley problem (a causing harm scenario) and an everyday trolley-like problem (a causing inconvenience scenario). Participants (N = 427, women: 54%) completed BDL traits and empathy questionnaires and, randomly, the two types of trolley problems, presenting both three different perspectives. Our study provided strong evidence that the perspective from which participants were enrolled in the trolley problem caused significant changes in their moral decision-making. Furthermore, we found that affective empathy and BDL traits significantly predicted participants' decisions in the causing inconvenience scenario, while only BDL traits predicted choices in the causing harm scenario. This study was original in providing new experimental materials, causal results, and highlighting the significant influence of BDL traits and affective empathy on moral decision-making. These findings raised fundamental questions, which are further developed in the discussion section.

Exploring cultural and gender differences in moral judgment: A cross-cultural study based on the CNI model

Recently, researchers have proposed a polynomial model called the "consequences, norms, generalized inaction" (CNI) model for researching moral judgment. However, it is unclear whether the model can be used to explore cultural differences in moral judgment. In this study, we investigated the applicability of the CNI model of moral judgment to East Asian groups, and subsequently explored cultural and gender differences in moral judgment between East Asian (i.e., Japan, n = 211; China, n = 200) and Western (i.e., USA, n = 201) groups. The CNI model was proposed by Gawronski et al., and it can quantify individuals' sensitivity to moral consequence, sensitivity to moral norms, and their general preference for inaction or action in moral dilemmas. Our results indicate that the CNI model fits well for Japanese and Chinese individuals. Both East Asian women and Western women were significantly more sensitive to moral norms than men in their respective countries. In the international comparison, Westerners were more sensitive to moral norms. The Japanese groups, for both men and women, were most biased towards inaction. Regarding sensitivity towards consequences, no differences were observed in the comparison between Eastern and Western male groups, whereas poor sensitivity was observed among women. By using this new model, this study provides new insights into the differences of cultural and gender in moral judgment.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-023-04662-6.

Verification of the Japanese Version of Greene’s Moral Dilemma Task’s Validity and Reliability

The moral dilemma task developed by Greene et al., which comprises personal and impersonal moral dilemmas, is useful for clarifying people’s moral judgments. This study develops and validates a Japanese version of this questionnaire. Ten new questions were added to the Japanese version using back-translation, and its internal validity was tested. A second survey was conducted among the same participants one month after the first survey (n = 231). The intraclass correlation coefficient through retesting was found to be 0.781. Test-retest, internal consistency, and criterion-related validity were confirmed by retesting the Japanese version of the moral dilemma task. Moral judgments differed in gender, with women and men tending to be more utilitarian in situations where emotions were less and more likely to be involved, respectively. The association between age and deontological moral judgments was also observed.

Don't Shoot the Messenger? A Morality- and Gender-Based Model of Reactions to Negative Workplace Gossip

We conducted three studies to examine how the recipients of negative workplace gossip judge the gossip sender's morality and how they respond behaviorally. Study 1 provided experimental evidence that gossip recipients perceive senders as low in morality, with female recipients rating the sender's morality more negatively than male recipients. In a follow-up experiment (Study 2), we further found that perceived low morality translates into behavioral responses in the form of career-related sanctions by the recipient on the gossip sender. A critical incident study (Study 3) enhanced the external validity and extended the moderated mediation model by showing that gossip recipients also penalize senders with social exclusion. We discuss the implications for practice and research on negative workplace gossip, gender differences in attributions of morality, and gossip recipients' behavioral responses.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10551-023-05355-7.

Students’ judgments on different cyberbullying incidents: the relationship between moral philosophy and intention to engage

This article draws on moral theory to explore how 415 adolescents made decisions when confronted with cyberbullying events and further examines whether adolescents with different individual factors (i.e., gender and educational level) have differences in moral philosophy and cyberbullying intention. A scenario-type questionnaire including three cyberbullying events (harassment, denigration and exclusion) was employed to investigate how students apply five moral philosophies in different cyberbullying cases and their engagement intentions in these activities. The results indicated that adolescents adopted a mixed moral philosophy to evaluate cyberbullying events. Females were more inclined to adopt stricter moral equity and relativism to evaluate cyberbullying incidents, while males possessed stronger cyberbullying intention in all scenarios. Junior high school participants tended to believe that all types of cyberbullying are less beneficial to them than university participants. In addition, five moral philosophies can conjointly forecast intentions in three scenarios, accounting for 42 to 57% of the variance. Among them, moral equity is a common predictor. Based on the results, recommendations are provided to reduce the possibility of cyberbullying occurrence by strengthening the content of moral education.

Effects of Primary and Secondary Psychopathy on Deontological and Utilitarian Response Tendencies: The Mediator Role of Alexithymia

(1) Background: The purpose of this study is to provide more nuanced insights into the effects of sub-dimensional levels of psychopathy on moral dilemma judgments. To this end, this study examined the effects of primary and secondary psychopathy on utilitarian and deontological response tendencies. Moreover, this study also explored the mediating role of alexithymia as well as the moderating role of gender in these effects. (2) Methods: A total of 1227 participants were recruited through the online questionnaire service wjx.cn. After deleting unfinished questionnaires, the remaining 1170 participants were included in the final data analysis. Each participant completed a demographic information questionnaire, the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale, the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20, and six pairs of moral dilemmas. Descriptive and correlational analyses of study variables were conducted in SPSS 22.0. Mediation and gender difference analyses were conducted in AMOS 23.0. (3) Results: Primary psychopathy was negatively correlated with deontological response tendencies and uncorrelated with utilitarian response tendencies. By contrast, secondary psychopathy also correlated negatively with deontological response tendencies, but it correlated positively with utilitarian response tendencies. Mediation analysis revealed that alexithymia only mediated the relationship between secondary psychopathy and deontological response tendencies. Multi-group analysis revealed that there was no difference between females and males in the indirect effect model. (4) Conclusions: People with high primary psychopathy are less likely to reject harm in moral dilemmas. By contrast, people with high secondary psychopathy have high alexithymia, which causes them to be less concerned about avoiding harm, and they are more likely to maximize outcomes in moral dilemmas. These findings shed new light on the moral dilemma judgments of individuals with primary and secondary psychopathy.

The Role of Contextual Information in a Virtual Trolly Problem: A Psychophysiological Investigation

Trolley problems have persisted as a popular method to examine moral decision-making in the face of many criticisms. One such criticism is that thought experiments provide unrealistically abundant contextual information, leading to mental simulation. Recent work utilizing virtual reality technology has reduced contextual information with mixed results. However, this work has not departed entirely from the thought experiment tradition, often providing written or verbal descriptions of the trolley problem before or during the simulation. This approach may still allow for mental simulation prior to decision-making. The goal of the current study is to examine whether or not this criticism is relevant for the classic version of the trolley problem. One hundred and nineteen participants were randomly assigned to either receive prior contextual information about the trolley problem or receive no information. All participants then entered a virtual reality simulation of the classic trolley problem. We examined decision-making from an affective and autonomic nervous system perspective. We found no effect on any measure in response to the reduction of contextual information. There were, however, surprising gender differences in decision-making and autonomic response. Further, we discuss how these findings relate to competing dual-process models of moral decision-making.

Moral judgment and hormones: A systematic literature review

This systematic review of the literature aims to evaluate possible associations between moral judgment and hormones. The electronic databases PsycINFO, PubMed, Scielo, Web of Science, Scopus, and LILACS were used. Twenty studies with different methodological designs were reviewed, covering the hormones cortisol, oxytocin, and testosterone, assessing aspects related to polymorphisms in receptor genes, endogenous levels, and exogenous administration. Taken together, the reviewed studies showed a trend towards an association between hormones and moral judgment, with important specificities involving biological, environmental, and individual aspects. Endogenous levels of cortisol, released under stress, showed negative associations with altruistic and utilitarian decisions only in highly emotionally charged dilemmas. Oxytocin receptor gene polymorphisms (rs2268498, rs237889, and rs2254298) and acute administration of this hormone were associated with variability in moral judgment, with sex as an important moderating variable. Testosterone studies have tended to show a positive association with utilitarian moral judgments, particularly in female and in individuals with low prenatal exposure to this hormone. Knowing how hormones influence moral judgment may help expand our understanding of the plurality of human behavior. However, this area of research is new and still little explored, which does not allow for conclusions with a high level of evidence. Subsequent research will benefit from methodological improvements to extend current findings.

Individual and Environmental Correlates of Adolescents' Moral Decision-Making in Moral Dilemmas

While extensive research has been conducted on adults' judgments in moral sacrificial dilemmas, there is little research on adolescents. The present study aimed at: (1) adding further empirical evidence about adolescents' moral decisions (deontological vs. utilitarian) in sacrificial moral dilemmas and (2) investigating how these moral decisions relate with gender, school grade, emotional traits (callous-unemotional traits), context-related experiences (perceived parental rejection and community violence exposure), and moral-related factors (moral disengagement and universalism value). A sample of 755 Italian adolescents (54.7% females; Mean age=16.45, SD=1.61) attending the second and the fifth year of secondary school took part in the study. Two sacrificial trolley-type dilemmas (where harmful actions promote the greater good) were presented. In the "switch" scenario (impersonal sacrificial dilemma), the choice is whether to hit a switch to save five people killing only one person. In the "footbridge" scenario (personal sacrificial dilemma), the choice is whether to push a large man off a footbridge saving five persons. For each scenario, participants had to indicate whether the proposed action was "morally acceptable" or not. Data were analyzed performing generalized linear mixed models. Our results showed that: (1) Adolescents were more likely to indicate as admissible to hit the switch rather than to push the large man; (2) male adolescents, compared to females, were more likely to say it was morally acceptable to intervene in the footbridge dilemma, whereas younger adolescents said it was morally acceptable both in the switch and the footbridge situations; and (3) higher levels of callous-unemotional traits, perceived parental rejection, and moral disengagement, on the one hand, and lower levels of universalism, on the other hand, were associated to higher admissibility to intervene in the footbridge scenario. Higher community violence exposure was associated with a lower propensity to intervene in the switch scenario. Overall, the present study expands the research on sacrificial dilemmas involving a sample of adolescents. The findings support previous studies concerning the role of emotions in making moral decisions but, at the same, open new perspectives regarding the role of contextual experiences and moral-related factors.

Contingencies of self-worth and the strength of deontological and utilitarian inclinations

Many studies have tried to understand what makes people adopt deontological or utilitarian inclinations when forming moral judgments or making moral choices. The present research examined the impact of motivational factors: contingencies of people's self-worth on the strength of deontological and utilitarian inclinations. Study 1 found positive correlations between two contingencies of self-worth: basing one's self-worth on being a virtuous, moral person (Virtue) and outperforming others (Competition), and the strength of deontological inclinations and utilitarian inclinations respectively. Studies 2 and 3 found that increasing saliency of Virtue as a source of one's self-worth selectively increased the strength of deontological inclinations, leaving utilitarian inclinations unchanged, while the opposite was true for increasing saliency of Competition as a source of self-worth and the strength of utilitarian inclinations: such priming increased utilitarian inclinations while deontological inclinations remained unchanged.

Modulating the Activity of the VMPFC With tDCS Alters the Social Framing Effect

Numerous experimental studies have replicated the social framing effect-the observation that people’s decisions related to economic benefits and feelings depend on the method of presentation. Previous neuroimaging studies have shown that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) plays a part in the influence of framing and how individuals think about the feelings of others. Based on this, we used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to modulate neuronal activity in the VMPFC to determine the likelihood of a direct association between VMPFC activity and the social framing effect. Subsequently, in three stimulation treatments, we assessed the presence of the social framing effect, as demonstrated by a disparity between harm degree and help degree. The findings revealed a social framing effect in the participants in the control group and the sham treatment but no social framing effect in the participants in the anodal or cathodal treatments. Furthermore, sex differences were observed in the sham treatment’s social framing effect, whereas no sex differences were observed in the anodal or cathodal treatments. The participants tended to harm the victim after receiving anodal or cathodal tDCS over the VMPFC and did not change their helping behaviour in any stimulations. Consequently, a clear causal link between the behaviour of the VMPFC and the social framing effect was found in the present research.

Development and validation of the good and evil character traits (GECT) scale

The present study describes the development and validation of the good and evil character traits (GECT) scale. A set of 3,614 good and evil moral character descriptors (i.e., moral and immoral character traits) was selected from a dictionary of contemporary Chinese language and daily life expressions and ultimately condensed into 55 items. Then, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and parallel analysis (PA) were conducted to explore the structure and final items of the GECT with sample 1 (n = 350), resulting in 21 good items and 32 evil items. After that, in confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with sample 2 (n = 350), the resulting factor structure was confirmed for the 53-item scale (Study 1). Additionally, evidence of validity based on correlations with Honesty-Humility and Dirty Dozen was demonstrated (Study 2). The implications of our findings for the assessment of good and evil characters and further theoretical exploration are discussed.

Hunger Bias or Gut Instinct? Responses to Judgments of Harm Depending on Visceral State Versus Intuitive Decision-Making

Empirical investigation into the emotional and physiological processes that shape moral decision-making is vast and growing. Yet, relatively less attention has been paid to measures of interoception in morality research despite its centrality in both emotional and physiological processes. Hunger and thirst represent two everyday interoceptive states, and hunger, in particular, has been shown to be influential for moral decision-making in numerous studies. It is possible that a tendency to focus on internal sensations interoceptive sensibility (IS), as well as the emotional and physiological states associated with visceral states, could be important in the relationships between hunger, thirst, and moral judgments. This cross-sectional online research (n = 154) explored whether IS, hunger, thirst, and emotional state influenced appropriateness and acceptability judgments of harm. The moral dilemma stimuli used allowed the independent calculation of (1) people's tendency to avoid harmful action at all costs and (2) people's tendency to maximize outcomes that benefit the greater good. The Cognitive Reflection Task (CRT) was implemented to determine whether an ability to override intuitive responses to counterintuitive problems predicted harm-based moral judgments, as found previously. Hunger bias, independent of IS and emotional state, was influential for non-profitable acceptability judgments of harmful actions. Contrary to dual-process perspectives, a novel finding was that more intuitive responses on the CRT predicted a reduced aversion to harmful actions that was indirectly associated with IS. We suggest that IS may indicate people's vulnerability to cognitive miserliness on the CRT task and reduced deliberation of moral dilemma stimuli. The framing of moral dilemmatic questions to encourage allocentric (acceptability questions) versus egocentric perspectives (appropriateness questions) could explain the divergence between hunger bias and intuitive decision-making for predicting these judgments, respectively. The findings are discussed in relation to dual-process accounts of harm-based moral judgments and evidence linking visceral experiences to harm aversion and moral decision-making.

Effects of Instrumentality and Personal Force on Deontological and Utilitarian Inclinations in Harm-Related Moral Dilemmas

Moral dilemmas often concern actions that involve causing harm to others in the attempt to prevent greater harm. But not all actions of this kind are equal in terms of their moral evaluation. In particular, a harm-causing preventive action is typically regarded as less acceptable if the harm is a means to achieve the goal of preventing greater harm than if it is a foreseen but unintended side-effect of the action. Likewise, a harm-causing preventive action is typically deemed less acceptable if it directly produces the harm than if it merely initiates a process that brings about the harmful consequence by its own dynamics. We report three experiments that investigated to which degree these two variables, the instrumentality of the harm (harm as means vs. side-effect; Experiments 1, 2, and 3) and personal force (personal vs. impersonal dilemmas; Experiments 2 and 3) influence deontological (harm-rejection) and utilitarian (outcome-maximization) inclinations that have been hypothesized to underly moral judgments in harm-related moral dilemmas. To measure these moral inclinations, the process dissociation procedure was used. The results suggest that the instrumentality of the harm and personal force affect both inclinations, but in opposite ways. Personal dilemmas and dilemmas characterized by harm as a means evoked higher deontological tendencies and lower utilitarian tendencies, than impersonal dilemmas and dilemmas where the harm was a side-effect. These distinct influences of the two dilemma conceptualization variables went undetected if the conventional measure of moral inclinations, the proportion of harm-accepting judgments, was analyzed. Furthermore, although deontological and utilitarian inclinations were found to be largely independent overall, there was some evidence that their correlation depended on the experimental conditions.

Using the CNI Model to Investigate Individual Differences in Moral Dilemma Judgments

Typical moral dilemmas pitting the consequences of a given action against the action’s consistency with moral norms confound several determinants of moral judgments. Dissociating these determinants, the CNI model allows researchers to quantify sensitivity to consequences, sensitivity to norms, and general preference for inaction over action regardless of consequences and norms. However, with the currently available set of dilemmas for research using the CNI model, the model is not suitable for studies with individual-difference designs. To overcome this limitation, the current research investigated the suitability of an extended dilemma battery to make the CNI model amenable for individual-difference research, examining relations of its parameters with psychopathy, empathic concern, need for cognition, self-reported utilitarianism, behavioral activation/inhibition, moral identity, and religiosity. The results support the suitability of the CNI model for individual-difference research with the extended dilemma battery, providing more nuanced insights into the underpinnings of individual differences in moral dilemma judgments.

Translation and validation of the Moral Foundations Vignettes (MFVs) for the Portuguese language in a Brazilian sample

The Moral Foundations Vignettes (MFVs) – a recently developed set of brief scenarios depicting violations of various moral foundations – enables investigators to directly examine differences in moral judgments about different topics. In the present study, we adapt the MFV instrument for use in the Portuguese language. To this end, the following steps were performed: 1) Translation of the MFV instrument from English to Portuguese language in Brazil; 2) Synthesis of translated versions; 3) Evaluation of the synthesis by expert judges; 4) Evaluation of the MFV instrument by university students from Sao Paulo City; 5) Back translation; and lastly, 6) Validation study, which used a sample of 494 (385f) university students from Sao Paulo city and a set of 68 vignettes, subdivided into seven factors. Exploratory analyses show that the relationships between the moral foundations and political ideology are similar to those found in previous studies, but the severity of moral judgment on individualizing foundations tended to be significantly higher in the Sao Paulo sample, compared to a sample from the USA. Overall, the present study provides a Portuguese version of the MFV that performs similarly to the original English version, enabling a broader examination of how the moral foundations operate.

Chronic Stress and Moral Decision-Making: An Exploration With the CNI Model

Stress is prevalent in our daily life, and people often make moral decision-making in a stressful state. Several studies indicated the influence of acute stress on moral decision-making and behavior. The present study extended the investigation to chronic stress, and employed a new approach, the CNI model, to add new insights regarding the mechanism underlying the association between chronic stress and moral decision-making. A total of 197 undergraduates completed the Perceived Stress Scale and made moral decision-making on a series of deliberately designed moral dilemmas. The results indicated that higher chronic stress was related to more deontological moral choices. The process-dissociation analyses revealed that chronic stress was marginally significantly associated with deontological inclinations but not with utilitarian inclinations. And the CNI model analyses suggested that the high-stress group (above the median) showed a stronger general preference for inaction than the low-stress group (below the median) did, but there were no significant differences in sensitivity to consequences or sensitivity to moral norms between the two groups. Finally, the implications of the findings were discussed.