Moral Concepts Set Decision Strategies to Abstract Values

Abstract

Persons have different value preferences. Neuroimaging studies where value-based decisions in actual conflict situations were investigated suggest an important role of prefrontal and cingulate brain regions. General preferences, however, reflect a superordinate moral concept independent of actual situations as proposed in psychological and socioeconomic research. Here, the specific brain response would be influenced by abstract value systems and moral concepts. The neurobiological mechanisms underlying such responses are largely unknown. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with a forced-choice paradigm on word pairs representing abstract values, we show that the brain handles such decisions depending on the person's superordinate moral concept. Persons with a predominant collectivistic (altruistic) value system applied a “balancing and weighing” strategy, recruiting brain regions of rostral inferior and intraparietal, and midcingulate and frontal cortex. Conversely, subjects with mainly individualistic (egocentric) value preferences applied a “fight-and-flight” strategy by recruiting the left amygdala. Finally, if subjects experience a value conflict when rejecting an alternative congruent to their own predominant value preference, comparable brain regions are activated as found in actual moral dilemma situations, i.e., midcingulate and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Our results demonstrate that superordinate moral concepts influence the strategy and the neural mechanisms in decision processes, independent of actual situations, showing that decisions are based on general neural principles. These findings provide a novel perspective to future sociological and economic research as well as to the analysis of social relations by focusing on abstract value systems as triggers of specific brain responses.

Neural evidence of motivational conflict between social values

“…Moreover, and consistent with our results, Caspers et al (2011) found increased DLFPC activation during value-related conflicts when participants had to reject a value that was congruent with their own value orientation. Similarly, neural correlates of norm compliance, which involved the requirement to curb immediate self-interest in order to obey a fairness norm under the threat of punishment, included activation of the DLPFC, and VLPFC (Spitzer, Fischbacher, Herrnberger, Grön, & Fehr, 2007).…”

“…Choices between values should reveal heightened activity in brain regions implicated in conflict resolution, but more so when the choices involve two motivationally compatible rather than opposing values. The present study tested whether Schwartz's (1992) circular model of values is capable of identifying the value choices that lead to more activation in regions that have been linked to processing conflict (e.g., Caspers et al, 2011;Christensen et al, 2014;Fedota et al, 2014;Rae et al, 2014). Supporting the model, choosing between values that it identifies as serving congruent motives led to more The SMA is involved in situations of response conflict, like motor response inhibition in the go/no-go and stop-signal tasks (Fedota et al, 2014;Rae et al, 2014).…”

“…For instance, a distinctive pattern of prefrontal activation was found in a study in which value-based decisions in conflict situations were investigated in individuals with either a predominant collectivistic (altruistic) or individualistic (egocentric) value system (Caspers et al, 2011). Both collectivists and individualists recruited the DLPFC equally strongly, yet individualists additionally activated the medial superior frontal cortex, while collectivists showed increased engagement of the middle cingulate cortex.…”

Processes of believing — a review and conceptual account

“…The ventral medial frontal cortex computes the expected value, reward outcome, and experienced pleasure for different stimuli on a common value scale (Grabenhorst and Rolls , 2011 ). The anterior medial frontal cortex encodes stable representations related to the subjective perspective of social events, abstract categories, person concepts, and selfschemata Seitz et al , 2009 ;Caspers et al , 2011 ). When it comes to behavioral decisions, the medial frontal cortex becomes engaged in a differential manner.…”

Resting-state EEG power predicts conflict-related brain activity in internally guided but not in externally guided decision-making

“…Such decisions are usually made in the context of preference judgment (Johnson et al, 2005;Knutson et al, 2008;Nakao et al, 2009aNakao et al, , 2010aNakao et al, ,2010bSommer et al, 2010) as well as in the context of moral decision-making (Caspers et al, 2011;Greene et al, 2004;Kahane et al, 2012;Moll et al, 2006), where the answer depends on the subject's own, i.e., internal, preferences rather than on external, i.e. circumstantial, criteria.…”