Disgust as embodied moral judgment.

How, and for whom, does disgust influence moral judgment? In four experiments participants made moral judgments while experiencing extraneous feelings of disgust. Disgust was induced in Experiment 1 by exposure to a bad smell, in Experiment 2 by working in a disgusting room, in Experiment 3 by recalling a physically disgusting experience, and in Experiment 4 through a video induction. In each case, the results showed that disgust can increase the severity of moral judgments relative to controls. Experiment 4 found that disgust had a different effect on moral judgment than did sadness. In addition, Experiments 2-4 showed that the role of disgust in severity of moral judgments depends on participants' sensitivity to their own bodily sensations. Taken together, these data indicate the importance-and specificity-of gut feelings in moral judgments

Are All Types of Morality Compromised in Psychopathy

A long-standing puzzle for moral philosophers and psychologists alike is the concept of psychopathy, a personality disorder marked by tendencies to defy moral norms despite cognitive knowledge about right and wrong. Previously, discussions of the moral deficits of psychopathy have focused on willingness to harm and cheat others as well as reasoning about rule-based transgressions. Yet recent research in moral psychology has begun to more clearly define the domains of morality, en- compassing issues of harm, fairness, loyalty, authority, and spiritual purity. Clinical descriptions and theories of psychopathy suggest that deficits may exist primarily in the areas of harm and fairness, although quantitative evidence is scarce. Within a broad sample of participants, we found that scores on a measure of psychopathy predicted sharply lower scores on the harm and fairness subscales of a measure of moral concern, but showed no relationship with authority, and very small relationships with ingroup and purity. On a measure of willingness to violate moral standards for money, psychopathy scores predicted greater willingness to violate moral concerns of any type. Results are further explored via potential mediators and analyses of the two factors of psychopathy

Neural evidence for "intuitive prosecution": The use of mental state information for negative moral verdicts

Moral judgment depends critically on theory of mind (ToM), reasoning about mental states such as beliefs and intentions. People assign blame for failed attempts to harm and offer forgiveness in the case of accidents. Here we use fMRI to investigate the role of ToM in moral judgment of harmful vs. helpful actions. Is ToM deployed differently for judgments of blame vs. praise? Participants evaluated agents who produced a harmful, helpful, or neutral outcome, based on a harmful, helpful, or neutral intention; participants made blame and praise judgments. In the right temporo-parietal junction (right TPJ), and, to a lesser extent, the left TPJ and medial prefrontal cortex, the neural response reflected an interaction between belief and outcome factors, for both blame and praise judgments: The response in these regions was highest when participants delivered a negative moral judgment, i.e., assigned blame or withheld praise, based solely on the agent's intent (attempted harm, accidental help). These results show enhanced attention to mental states for negative moral verdicts based exclusively on mental state information.Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical ImagingSimons FoundationNational Science Foundation (U.S.)John Merck Scholars Progra

Las redes sociales, ¿debilitan la democracia?

Las redes sociales alimentan el miedo, el escarnio y la autocensura -afirma Haidt-. Para paliar el daño propone templar las instituciones democráticas para que puedan soportar la ira y la desconfianza crónicas; reformar las redes para que se vuelvan menos corrosivas socialmente; y preparar mejor a la siguiente generación para la ciudadanía democrática en esta nueva era

The moral mind: How 5 sets of innate moral intuitions guide the development of many culturespecific virtues, and perhaps even modules

Este artículo trata acerca de cómo la moral podría ser parcialmente innata, con lo que simplemente queremos decir que está organizada, hasta cierto punto, antes de la experiencia (Marcus 2004). Comenzamos defendiendo una concepción más amplia de la moral y sugiriendo que la mayor parte de la discusión sobre lo innato hasta la fecha no ha sido sobre la moral per se; sino que se ha focalizado, más bien, en si la psicología del daño y de la justicia podría ser innata. Una vez que hayamos presentado nuestra posición de que la moralidad involucra cinco dominios, no dos, dirigiremos nuestra atención a las formas en que esta diversa colección de motivos y conceptos podría ser innata. Consideraremos cinco hipótesis sobre los ;orígenes del conocimiento y el valor moral, y respaldaremos una de ellas (una forma flexible y generativa de modularidad) como la mejor candidata. Luego, desarrollaremos esta versión de la moral modular, describiendo cómo el "primer borrador" de la moral innata se modifica durante el desarrollo.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació

La mimada mente americana

Este artículo analiza desde el punto de vista de la psicología las consecuencias de la sobreprotección en los estudiantes universitarios norteamericanos y los efectos negativos de los nuevos medios de censura