Why (and how) should we study the interplay between emotional arousal, Theory of Mind, and inhibitory control to understand moral cognition?

Abstract

Findings in the field of experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience have shed new light on our understanding of the psychological and biological bases of morality. Although a lot of attention has been devoted to understanding the processes that underlie complex moral dilemmas, attempts to represent the way in which individuals generate moral judgments when processing basic harmful actions are rare. Here, we will outline a model of morality which proposes that the evaluation of basic harmful actions relies on complex interactions between emotional arousal, Theory of Mind (ToM) capacities, and inhibitory control resources. This model makes clear predictions regarding the cognitive processes underlying the development of and ability to generate moral judgments. We draw on data from developmental and cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and psychopathology research to evaluate the model and propose several conceptual and methodological improvements that are needed to further advance our understanding of moral cognition and its development.

Moral Judgments Depend on Information Presentation: Evidence for Recency and Transfer Effects

“…The transfer effect was not significant for attempted harm (although there was a trend in the expected direction) but it was highly significant for accidental harm. Several studies in the literature have highlighted that the conflict between intention and outcome is larger for accidental than attempted harm (Buon, Seara-Cardoso, & Viding, 2016; Cushman, Sheketoff, Wharton, & Carey, 2013). It has been proposed that in accidental harm scenarios, the processing of the harmful outcome triggers a negative emotional response which gives more weight to the analysis of the outcome and its causes.…”

“…Such analysis competes with the processing of the mitigating circumstances associated with the absence of intention to harm. In the case of attempted harm scenarios, the absence of a harmful outcome does not trigger such fine-grained outcome analysis and moral judgement is made more easily on the basis of intention (Buon et al, 2016; Cushman et al, 2013). The stronger transfer effect for accidental harm can thus be explained by this stronger conflict.…”

The development of intention-based morality: The influence of intention salience and recency, negligence, and outcome on children’s and adults’ judgments.

“…An alternative explanation is that children are able to make intention-based moral judgments from an early age, but lack the cognitive resources (e.g., memory, executive functions, theory of mind) required to remember, understand and integrate intention information in their judgments, at least when told stories such as those of Helwig et al and Zelazo et al In particular, the salience of outcomes might be greater than that of intentions such that young children forget or fail to notice agents' intentions, or are unable to inhibit their emotional or intuitive responses to the outcomes (e.g., Buon, Seara-Cardoso, & Viding, 2016;Margoni & Surian, 2016). This problem of outcomes being more salient than intentions is common in this area of research, not least because outcomes (e.g., a victim's pleasure or pain; a desired gift or broken possession) are typically tangible and explicit, whereas intentions are less easily perceived and understood.…”

Autism and Moral Responsibility: Executive Function, Reasons Responsiveness, and Reasons Blockage

“…This inhibition is expected under the Bdual process model^of moral judgement. [29] Isolating the involvement of various EFs is further complicated by data suggesting that inhibition ability and ToM skills are actually correlated. [30].…”