Re-examining Kohlberg's conception of morality in schizophrenia

McGuire, Jonathan; Barbanel, Linda; Brüne, Martin; Langdon, Robyn

doi:10.1080/13546805.2015.1042966

Cited by 11 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…1,10 Moreover, people with schizophrenia exhibit many deficits in social cognition, including ToM, 6,7,11,12 which are related to the processes of moral cognition and together form an integral aspect of social functioning. [13][14][15] Research indicates that moral judgment is a complex socio-cognitive process that requires ToM skills. 16 For instance, neurocognitive studies among children show that the observer's knowledge about the mental state of another person (actor) is integrated with their knowledge about the outcome of the actor's behavior.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Blindness of intentions and metacognitive deficits during moral judgements in schizophrenia

Cyrkot,

Ramsey,

Wójta-Kempa

et al. 2024

Adv Clin Exp Med

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Blindness of intentions and metacognitive deficits during moral judgements in schizophrenia

Cyrkot,

Ramsey,

Wójta-Kempa

et al. 2024

Adv Clin Exp Med

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“…Behavioral studies reveal mixed results, showing fragile effects that often depend on question probe and perspective [14,[17][18][19]. Furthermore, common tasks such as Kohlberg's Moral Judgment Interview require verbal abilities ( [20][21][22]) and abstract reasoning, both of which are impaired in SSD [20][21][22]. In general, psychiatric research on moral cognition is not yet conclusive.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Second, the comparability of published studies is limited since not all experiments examine the same dimension of morality, which is assumed to consist of a) the moral decision itself, b) the moral judgment about how appropriate the action is and c) the moral inference describing how a person is perceived based on his/her action and additional information about the person [23]. Studies on SSD revealed evidence for impaired [13,14,17,22] as well as intact moral decision-making [13,[17][18][19]). There is some evidence for impaired moral judgment in SSD [14,24,25], however, a more recent examination merely found prolonged but otherwise intact moral judgments in patients [14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preserved intention understanding during moral judgments in schizophrenia

et al. 2021

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Introduction Although there is convincing evidence for socio-cognitive impairments in schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD), little evidence is found for deficient moral cognition. We investigated whether patients with SSD showed altered moral judgments in a story task where the protagonist either had a neutral or malicious intention towards another person. This paradigm examined whether SSD relates to altered moral cognition in general or specifically to impaired integration of prior information (such as beliefs) in moral judgments. Methods 23 patients and 32 healthy controls read vignettes created in a 2 x 2 design. The protagonist in each story either had a neutral or negative intention towards another person which, as a result, either died (negative outcome) or did not die (neutral outcome). Participants rated the moral permissibility of the protagonist’s action. Standard null hypothesis significance testing and equivalent Bayes analyses are reported. Results Schizophrenia patients did not differ significantly in permissibility ratings from healthy controls. This finding was supported by the Bayes analyses which favoured the null hypothesis. Task performance was not related to symptom severity or medication. Conclusions The current findings do not support the notion that moral judgments are deficient in schizophrenia. Furthermore, the current study shows that patients do not have observable difficulties in integrating the protagonist’s belief in the rating of the moral permissibility of the action-outcome.

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“…In a more recent search for an explanation for these early findings on moral reasoning using the MJI, it has been argued that these studies might have underestimated confounding factors like social cognitive deficits and psychopathic personality traits and thus led to a skewed view on moral cognition in schizophrenia (11). This interpretation is supported by evidence suggesting that social cognitive deficits seemed to partially account for patients' poor performance in the MJI (12). In other recent work on moral judgment, rather than moral reasoning, patients with schizophrenia have also been found to employ more utilitarian (or outcome-focused) decisionmaking than healthy controls when asked to judge whether it is morally appropriate for an agent in a moral dilemma scenario to harm one to serve the greater good (13).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recognition of Social Rule Violation in “Deficit Syndrome” Schizophrenia: A Study Using Economic Games

2020

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Aberrant social behavior is a frequent clinical feature of schizophrenia and seems related to the duration and chronicity of the disorder. However, there is a paucity of research into the relationship between social behavior and social cognition in patients with severe chronic courses of schizophrenia. Accordingly, the present study sought to examine the appreciation of social rules and norms such as fairness and cooperation in schizophrenia patients who fulfilled the criteria for "deficit syndrome". To this end, we utilized a so-called Ultimatum Game, and a Dictator Game, in which participants had the option to punish others' unfair behavior. In addition, "theory of mind", the ability to appreciate others' mental states, was also examined using the Mental State Attribution Task (MSAT). Symptom severity was determined using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. While patients with deficit schizophrenia responded to varying levels of fairness in similar ways to controls, the patients accepted fewer fair offers and engaged less in third-party punishment. Impaired theory of mind in patients reduced the latter, but not the former, group difference to non-significance. No significant correlations emerged between symptom severity and task performance. Together, these findings suggest that the understanding of others' minds partly contributes to the appreciation of social rules and norms in patients with severe chronic courses of schizophrenia.

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Re-examining Kohlberg's conception of morality in schizophrenia

Abstract: These results indicate that performance deficits on moral judgement tasks are not a universal feature of schizophrenia, but rather due to associated difficulties such as those in social cognition.

Cited by 11 publications

References 17 publications

Blindness of intentions and metacognitive deficits during moral judgements in schizophrenia

Blindness of intentions and metacognitive deficits during moral judgements in schizophrenia

Preserved intention understanding during moral judgments in schizophrenia

Recognition of Social Rule Violation in “Deficit Syndrome” Schizophrenia: A Study Using Economic Games

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