Moral identity and empathy promote prosocial behavior only toward blameless AIDS patients

Guo, Yakang; Guo, Qingke; Liu, Zhen; Liu, Hui

doi:10.1111/sjop.12786

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…Recently, a growing number of research works have focused on how objects’ moral level affects participants’ empathy for them. Compared with self-inflicted AIDS patients, people will show stronger empathy and willingness to donate to innocent AIDS patients ( Guo et al, 2022 ); a fair person in pain causes increased activation of a brain region involved in empathy in the observer compared to an unfair person, for example, individuals have stronger P3 empathy responses to individuals who appear to be trustworthy, and even have negligible empathy responses to individuals who appear to be untrustworthy ( Sessa and Meconi, 2015 ). Thus, moral judgments can facilitate the selection of appropriate social subjects to avoid social losses such as betrayal and deception by engaging with higher moral objects.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of doctor–patient news-induced moral judgments on pain empathy for doctors and patients in China

Zhang

Yang

et al. 2022

Front. Neurosci.

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ObjectivePain empathy’s preferential nature tends to trigger prejudice and intergroup conflicts. Given the current degree of proliferation of doctor–patient conflict news in China, this study aims to determine whether readers of doctor–patient news-initiated moral judgments prefer pain empathy for doctors or patients.Materials and methodsThis study utilized localized doctor–patient news with high or low moral performance (based on morality ratings of patients’ behaviors) as moral-judgment-eliciting materials, and painful pictures as pain empathy-eliciting materials. The event-related potential (ERP) technique was utilized to assess moral judgment’s effect on the cognitive empathy component and to investigate electroencephalogram signals’ accuracy in classifying four brain response patterns when facing doctor or patient is experiencing or not experiencing pain.ResultsUnder low moral text material, participants exhibited smaller mean wave amplitude of positive 300 (P3) and late positive potential (LPP) to painful pictures than non-painful pictures when facing patients; under high moral text material, participants exhibited larger mean wave amplitude of P3 and LPP to painful pictures than non-painful pictures when facing doctors. Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals’ classification accuracy was significant in 0–1,000 ms in both high and low moral judgments, but the classification accuracy was higher in low moral judgments in some cognitive empathy stages (0.51, 0.53–0.55, 0.66–0.79, and 0.88–1 s).ConclusionUnder low moral judgment, individuals pay less attention to the patient’s (perpetrator’s) pain; under high moral judgment, individuals empathize with the doctor (the person praised), showing that news-induced moral judgment can sway readers’ empathy for different social groups. In cognitive empathy, individuals’ brain representations are more discriminatory under low than high moral judgments when confronted with pain by doctors and patients, which provides insight into objectively recognizing group bias.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of doctor–patient news-induced moral judgments on pain empathy for doctors and patients in China

Zhang

Yang

et al. 2022

Front. Neurosci.

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“…This is not a purely theoretical question, as it can elucidate and influence the way we deal with suffering and stigmas in today’s societies. Blame attribution determines, for instance, how healthcare professionals engage with patients (Guo et al, 2022; Philip et al, 2014) and the reaction to victims of cyberbullying (Weber et al, 2013). Our very systems of justice are built upon views of punishment that depend on the relation between attribution, morality, and help (Goodman, 2009, ch.…”

Section: Forms Of Compassion and The Weight Of Moral Judgmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ready to help, no matter what you did: Responsibility attribution does not influence compassion in expert Buddhist practitioners.

Fucci,

Abdoun,

Baquedano

et al. 2024

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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Within western social psychology and neuroscience, compassion is described as being conditioned by costbenefit appraisals, such as the attribution of responsibility for the causes of suffering. Buddhist traditions maintain the possibility of cultivating and embodying unconditioned and universal forms of compassion. Whereas a growing body of empirical literature suggests that Buddhist-inspired compassion-based programs foster prosociality and well-being in healthy and clinical populations, there is no evidence that such compassionate disposition toward others can become unconditioned from moral judgment. To address this question, we collected and integrated self-report and behavioral data from expert Buddhist practitioners and trained novices using a previously validated within-subject experiment that manipulates contextual information to influence moral judgment toward suffering others and a newly designed approach-avoidance task. We found that context manipulation impacted responsibility and blame attribution in both groups and that experts' reported willingness to help was higher and less influenced by context, compared to novices. Partial correlation networks highlighted a negative relationship between blame attribution and willingness to help in novices, but not in expert practitioners. Self-reported willingness to help was correlated to reaction times when approaching suffering stimuli. Approach behavior was modulated by context in novice, but not in experts. This study provides initial evidence of a dissociation between moral attributions and prosocial attitude in expert Buddhist practitioners and challenges established evolutionary accounts of compassion in western psychology. Public Significance StatementThis study provides initial evidence for a dissociation between moral judgment and prosocial attitude in expert Buddhist practitioners. Findings are in line with Buddhist theories on compassion and contemplative training and expand established theories in social psychology.

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“…This is not a purely theoretical question, as it can elucidate and influence the way we deal with suffering and stigmas in today's societies. Blame attribution determines, for instance, how healthcare professionals engage with patients (Guo et al, 2021;Philip et al, 2014) and the reaction to victims of cyberbullying (Weber et al, 2013).…”

Section: Forms Of Compassion and The Weight Of Moral Judgementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ready to help, no matter what you did: responsibility attribution does not influence compassion in expert Buddhist practitioners

Fucci¹,

Abdoun²,

Baquedano³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Within western social psychology and neuroscience, compassion is described as being conditioned by cost-benefit appraisals, such as the attribution of responsibility for the causes of suffering. Buddhist traditions maintain the possibility of cultivating and embodying unconditioned and universal forms of compassion. Whereas a growing body of empirical literature suggest that Buddhist-inspired compassion-based programs foster prosociality and well-being in healthy and clinical populations, there is no evidence that such compassionate disposition toward others can become unconditioned from moral judgement. To address this question, we collected and integrated self-report and behavioural data from expert Buddhist practitioners and trained novices using a previously validated within-subject experiment that manipulates contextual information to influence moral judgement towards suffering scenarios, and a newly designed approach-avoidance task. We found that context manipulation impacted responsibility and blame attribution in both groups and that experts’ reported willingness to help was higher and less influenced by context, compared to novices. Partial correlation networks highlighted a negative relationship between blame attribution and willingness to help in novices, but not in expert practitioners. Self-reported willingness to help was correlated to reaction times when approaching suffering stimuli. Approach behaviour was modulated by context in novice, but not in experts. This study provides initial evidence of a dissociation between moral attributions and prosocial attitude in expert Buddhist practitioners and challenges established evolutionary accounts of compassion in western psychology.

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Moral identity and empathy promote prosocial behavior only toward blameless AIDS patients

Cited by 6 publications

References 53 publications

Effect of doctor–patient news-induced moral judgments on pain empathy for doctors and patients in China

Effect of doctor–patient news-induced moral judgments on pain empathy for doctors and patients in China

Ready to help, no matter what you did: Responsibility attribution does not influence compassion in expert Buddhist practitioners.

Ready to help, no matter what you did: responsibility attribution does not influence compassion in expert Buddhist practitioners

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