neuroscientific and social psychological …js059jv6161/final_hhm-augmen… · a dissertation...

NEUROSCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL

INVESTIGATION ON PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF STORIES OF

MORAL EXEMPLARS

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF

EDUCATION AND THE COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE STUDIES

OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF

PHILOSOPHY

HYEMIN HAN

APRIL, 2016

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/

This dissertation is online at: http://purl.stanford.edu/js059jv6161

© 2016 by Hyemin Han. All Rights Reserved.

Re-distributed by Stanford University under license with the author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

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http://purl.stanford.edu/js059jv6161

I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequatein scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

William Damon, Primary Adviser


Gary Glover, Co-Adviser


Geoffrey Cohen

Approved for the Stanford University Committee on Graduate Studies.

Patricia J. Gumport, Vice Provost for Graduate Education

This signature page was generated electronically upon submission of this dissertation in electronic format. An original signed hard copy of the signature page is on file inUniversity Archives.

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Abstract

The stories of moral exemplars have been utilized in moral education to induce

students to emulate the moral behavior presented by the stories. Several

developmental and social psychological mechanisms, i.e., vicarious social learning,

moral elevation and upward social comparison, explain why such a presentation of

moral stories can promote moral motivation. However, recent social psychological

studies have demonstrated that the mere presentation of moral stories, particularly

those of extreme moral exemplars, may provoke negative emotional responses and

weaken motivation to emulate the presented moral behavior. Thus, this dissertation

uses research methods in neuroscience, developmental and social psychology to

propose a more effective way to apply moral stories to educational settings while

minimizing possible negative emotional and motivational outcomes. Two

neuroscientific experiments identified the psychological processes involved in moral

emotion and motivation, which are associated with moral inspiration induced by moral

stories. Furthermore, two psychological experiments examined which type of moral

stories effectively promoted moral motivation in a lab and in a school setting.

The first part of this dissertation identified the neural-level mechanism of

moral emotion and motivation. Study 1 meta-analyzed 43 previously published articles

focusing on the neural correlates of moral functioning to illuminate the common

neural foci of moral functioning in general. This study demonstrated that brain regions

associated with selfhood and autobiographical self, such as the medial prefrontal

cortex (MPFC), posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and other regions associated with the

default mode network (DMN) and cortical midline structures (CMS), were commonly

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activated in moral-task conditions. Study 2 examined the role of selfhood in moral

emotion and motivation by conducting a functional neuroimaging experiment. The

findings from this experiment showed that the seed regions, i.e., the MPFC and PCC,

associated with selfhood significantly moderated neural activity in brain regions

associated with moral emotion and motivation, particularly the insula, when

participants were solving moral problems. These neuroimaging experiments suggest

that selfhood is significantly involved in the process of moral emotion and moral

motivation, and finally may influence the effect of moral inspiration.

The second part of this dissertation described psychological interventions

designed to target and tweak the psychological process identified by the previous

neuroscientific experiments. Study 3 compared the psychological influence of

attainable and unattainable moral stories on the longitudinal change in moral

motivation, which was measured by voluntary service activity engagement. This lab-

level experiment demonstrated that attainable moral stories better promoted

motivation among college students to engage in voluntary service activity compared to

unattainable moral stories. Study 4 applied this intervention design to a school setting.

This study examined whether the stories of peer exemplars better promoted moral

motivation among middle schoolers than those of extraordinary exemplars did. The

result of an eight-week intervention session showed that students who had discussed

the moral virtue of peer exemplars were significantly more likely to engage in

voluntary service activity after the end of the session compared to those who were

presented with extraordinary exemplars. These results suggest that moral motivation

might be effectively fostered by the utilization of attainable and relevant moral stories,

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such as stories of peer moral exemplars, instead of extraordinary moral stories, such as

the stories of moral saints, in educational settings.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the enormously many people who made this dissertation

possible. Throughout my life at Stanford, I could not be able to flourish as a student

and scholar without the support of my incredible mentors. I would like to gratefully

and sincerely thank Bill Damon for his guidance, feedback, advice, wisdom, and most

importantly, his friendship. I am grateful to Gary H. Glover for his positive support

and incredible advice on how to become an independent researcher using

neuroimaging methods. Thanks to Geoff Cohen, who taught me a lot about how to

properly organize and conduct intervention studies. Thanks also to Benoit Monin and

Eamonn Callan for sharing their invaluable time and effort as oral exam committee

members.

I was really fortunate to work with awesome group members at the Stanford

Center on Adolescence and Stanford Radiological Sciences Lab. I am grateful to Anne

Colby, Bill Hurlbut, Kirsi Tirri, Heather Malin, Lisa Staton, Elissa Hirsh, Tenelle

Porter, Indra Liauw, Katie Remington, Robby Borah and Sophie von Garnier at the

COA for their invaluable support and comments on my research on moral

development. I would also like to Allyson Rosen, Jingyuan Chen, Haisam Islam, Anita

Jwa and Allie Lee at the RSL thank for their inspiration to my neuroimaging studies.

On top of Stanford collaborators, many off-campus scholars also significantly

helped my research. I would like to thank them for their support. I got many

constructive comments on my neuroimaging experiments from Mary Helen

Immordino-Yang, Josh Greene and Larry Nucci. I could not conduct my intervention

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experiment in a middle school without the help of Changwoo Jeong, Jeongmin Kim

and Hayeon Kim. Yen-Hsin Chen provided me with support while I was writing my

dissertation in Taiwan. Kristjan Kristjansson’s advice was essential for the theoretical

framework of my experiments.

To Sora Kim, thanks for supporting me while I was conducting experiments

and drafting this dissertation. Thanks to her previous experience as a moral education

teacher and expertise in ethics education, I got incredible inspiration about how to

apply ideas in neuroscience and psychology to moral education in schools from her. I

also sincerely appreciate her encouragement throughout my life at Stanford.

Finally, I would like to thank my family. Thanks to my mom, Yeon We, and

my dad, Gapsu Han, who have encouraged me to pursue my career as a scholar with

love. I also sincerely appreciate unconditional support from my grandma, Bokdeuk

Song. Lastly, thank my grandpa, Noseok Han, for his endless love and intellectual

stimulation. His memory will live forever in my heart.

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................... 1

Overview of chapters .......................................................................................... 5

Chapter 2: Integrative Moral Functioning Associated with Activity in the Default

Mode Network: A Meta-analysis ................................................................................... 8

Introduction ........................................................................................................ 8

Materials and methods ...................................................................................... 18

Study selection .............................................................................................. 18

Statistical analysis ......................................................................................... 23

Methodological limitations ........................................................................... 26

Results .............................................................................................................. 27

Discussion ......................................................................................................... 34

Conclusions ...................................................................................................... 44

Chapter 3: Influence of the Cortical Midline Structures (CMS) on Moral Emotion and

Motivation in Moral Decision-Making ........................................................................ 46

Introduction ...................................................................................................... 46

Materials and methods ...................................................................................... 54

Subjects ......................................................................................................... 54

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Dilemma task ................................................................................................ 55

Image acquisition .......................................................................................... 57

Image data analysis ....................................................................................... 58

Results .............................................................................................................. 63

Whole Brain Analyses .................................................................................. 63

PPI Analyses ................................................................................................. 66

Granger Causality Analyses .......................................................................... 78

Discussion ......................................................................................................... 80

Whole-brain T-tests ...................................................................................... 81

Interaction between CMS and other regions ................................................. 83

Granger causality between CMS and insula regions .................................... 87

Limitations and future directions .................................................................. 93

Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 96

Chapter 4: Developing Effective Moral Educational Interventions using Moral

Exemplars thorough Psychological Experiments ......................................................... 98

Experiment 1 .................................................................................................. 104

Methods....................................................................................................... 104

Results ......................................................................................................... 108

Discussion ................................................................................................... 114

Experiment 2 .................................................................................................. 115

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Methods....................................................................................................... 116

Results ......................................................................................................... 119

Discussion ................................................................................................... 123

General Discussion ......................................................................................... 126

Attainability ................................................................................................ 126

Relevance .................................................................................................... 129

Intervention design for classes .................................................................... 131

Limitations and future directions ................................................................ 133

Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 135

Chapter 5: Concluding Remarks ................................................................................ 137

References .................................................................................................................. 142

Appendix A Comparisons with the Default Mode Network (DMN) and gray matters

associated with Autobiographical Memory Processing ............................................. 170

Comparison with the DMN ............................................................................ 170

Comparison with the brain circuitry of autobiographical memory processing

.................................................................................................................................... 171

Results ............................................................................................................ 173

Comparison with the DMN ......................................................................... 173

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Comparison with the brain circuitry of autobiographical memory processing

................................................................................................................................. 174

Appendix B Presented Moral Dilemmas .................................................................... 175

Appendix C Voluntary Service Engagement Reporting Form ................................... 203

Appendix D Sample Email for Voluntary Service Activity Information ................... 204

Appendix E Voluntary Service Intention and Engagement Questionnaire ................ 205

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List of Tables

Table 1 Meta-analyzed articles ..................................................................................... 18

Table 2 Common activation foci coordinates were presented in MNI coordinate ....... 27

Table 3 Activation foci during each individual task condition (decision-making and

evaluation) including results of comparisons ................................................... 30

Table 4 Subject demographics ...................................................................................... 55

Table 5 Whole-brain t-test results ................................................................................ 64

Table 6 Regions showed significant interaction with the PCC under the moral-personal

condition. .......................................................................................................... 68

Table 7 Regions showed significant interaction with the MPFC under the moral-

personal condition. ........................................................................................... 71

Table 8 Regions showed significant interaction with the PCC under the moral-

impersonal condition ........................................................................................ 74

Table 9 Regions showed significant interaction with the MPFC under the moral-

impersonal condition ........................................................................................ 76

Table 10 Comparisons between the PPI between two conditions ................................ 77

Table 11 Granger causality analysis results under the moral-personal condition ........ 79

Table 12 Granger causality analysis results under the moral-impersonal condition .... 79

xiv

List of Figures

Figure 1 A flow chart demonstrates how the Heinz dilemma is being solved based on

the four-component model with explanations about how each component is

approaching and processing the current dilemmatic situation. ........................ 12

Figure 2 Flow diagram for literature search ................................................................. 21

Figure 3 Registered activation foci extracted from previous studies. Drawn by Sleuth.

.......................................................................................................................... 25

Figure 4 Calculated activation foci from the conjunction analysis of both moral

judgment and sensibility conditions. ................................................................ 29

Figure 5 Calculated activation foci during each condition ........................................... 32

Figure 6 Results of a whole-brain comparison of moral judgment > moral sensibility..

.......................................................................................................................... 33

Figure 7 An example of the work of moral sensibility and moral judgment based on

autobiographic self formulated by socio-cultural background and personal

experience: A real-life situation ....................................................................... 41

Figure 8. Experimental paradigm and sample dilemmas ............................................. 56

Figure 9. Whole-brain t-test results .............................................................................. 63

Figure 10 Seed regions for PPI and Granger causality analysis. ................................. 66

Figure 11 PPI analysis results ....................................................................................... 67

Figure 12 Granger causality analysis results ................................................................ 79

Figure 13. Participants’ responses to interventions in experiment 1 for manipulation

check. .............................................................................................................. 110

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Figure 14. Participants’ intention to participate in voluntary service activity measured

by behavioral responses to weekly information email correspondences in

experiment 1. .................................................................................................. 111

Figure 15. Participants’ voluntary service engagement change (hours per week) in

experiment 1. .................................................................................................. 113

Figure 16. Participants’ voluntary service engagement rate change in experiment 1.114

Figure 17. Participants’ activity products during moral education classes in experiment

2. ..................................................................................................................... 119

Figure 18. Participants’ responses to interventions in experiment 2 for manipulation

check. .............................................................................................................. 120

Figure 19. Participants’ voluntary service activity intention change in experiment 2.

........................................................................................................................ 122

Figure 20. Participants’ voluntary service activity engagement change in experiment 2.

........................................................................................................................ 122

Figure 21 The DMN from the FIND Lab Atlas ......................................................... 171

Figure 22 Activation foci of autobiographical memory processing extracted using

BrainMap ........................................................................................................ 172

Figure 23 Common activation foci of autobiographical memory processing calculated

by GingerALE ................................................................................................ 173

1

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Moral exemplars that present admirable moral virtues have been widely

utilized in moral education. Educators have introduced their stories to students and

parents read the biographies of historic moral figures to children in order to promote

their moral development. In terms of moral psychology, an admirable moral exemplar

can be defined as a person who successfully integrates moral virtue into her selfhood,

commits to and realizes a certain moral belief throughout life (Colby & Damon, 1992;

Damon & Colby, 2013). The story of this kind of admirable moral exemplar can

promote students’ prosocial and moral motivation through moral modeling associated

with vicarious social learning, moral elevation, and constructive upward social

comparison; the stories can provoke students to be morally better people by emulating

the presented exemplars (Bandura & McDonald, 1963; Bandura, 1969; Goethals &

Klein, 2000; Haidt, 2000).

According to the social learning theory, moral development in childhood and

adolescence could be significantly influenced by the presence of moral models, such

as moral exemplars in the present study (Bandura, 1969). Bandura and McDonald

(1963) showed that an exposure to moral models associated with social reinforcement

caused the development of moral judgment. In their study using the Piagetian moral

judgment developmental model and interview method (Piaget, 1948), a group of

children who watched the moral behaviors of adult models showed a more

sophisticated and autonomous moral judgment ability compared to their counterparts

in the control group. Moreover, the presence of social reinforcement (e.g. moral praise

2

or discipline) alone was insufficient to induce moral development. Participants who

received only moral praise from their teacher without the presence of moral model did

not show a significant development in the domain of moral judgment (Bandura &

McDonald, 1963). Because a moral model can provide children with information

about which type of moral judgment is more sophisticated and valid, and social

reinforcement itself does not necessarily provide them with a concrete model of moral

judgment that they should emulate, the presence of a moral model was required to

promote their moral development. The usage of moral models as sources for socio-

moral learning is therefore fundamental to the moral development. Such sources, i.e.,

moral models and exemplars, significantly promote motivation for emulation and

moral behavior, as they become sources for vicarious learning of morality.

Moreover, the concept of moral elevation can also explain the psychological

effects of the presentation of moral exemplars. Haidt (2000) defined moral elevation

as “a warm, uplifting feeling that people experience when they see unexpected acts of

human goodness, kindness, and compassion,” which are associated with moral

exemplarity. Empirical investigations of moral elevation have shown that this

emotional response promotes participants’ motivation for self-improvement, and

actual pro-social, altruistic, and caring behavioral tendency. For instance, Silvers and

Haidt (2008), by measuring the amount of lactation, showed that watching morally

elevating stories promoted mothers’ nursing and caring behaviors. Vianello, Galliani,

and Haidt (2010) reported that participants who experienced moral elevation after

watching moral stories showed enhanced fairness and altruistic leadership. Finally,

Algoe and Haidt's (2009) study showed that moral elevation was associated with

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increased prosocial, affiliative, relational, and self-improvement behaviors. In short,

the mechanism of moral elevation induced by the presentation of moral exemplarity is

inseparably associated with the promotion of moral motivation for self-improvement

and actual moral behavioral tendency in various domains of human morality from

caring to social justice.

Finally, the mechanism of upward social comparison also explains the

promotion of motivation as a result of the presentation of exemplary stories from the

perspective of social psychology. People compare themselves with the presented

moral models through upward social comparison, realize their deficiency in morality,

which is possessed by the models, and experience a desire for self-enhancement to

close the gap between themselves and the models (Suls, Martin, & Wheeler, 2002;

Wood, 1989). As a result, the motivational force for self-improvement resulting from

the upward social comparison motivates individuals to emulate the morally exemplary

behaviors of moral exemplars in order to become morally better persons possessing

the same moral virtues as the exemplars (Schnall, Roper, & Fessler, 2010). In fact,

motivation for self-improvement promoted by upward social comparisons is

associated with positive behavioral outcomes in several behavioral domains. For

instance, previous social psychological experiments have demonstrated that upward

comparison with better-performing students is significantly associated with the

enhancement of students’ scholastic achievement (Blanton, Buunk, Gibbons, &

Kuyper, 1999; Gibbons, Blanton, Gerrard, Buunk, & Eggleston, 2000; Huguet,

Dumas, Monteil, & Genestoux, 2001).

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However, merely presenting moral exemplars, in particular extraordinary

exemplars, such as historic moral figures, that do not share any similar experience or

background with students, can induce negative emotional responses, such as

resentment, and backfire in the long run (Monin, 2007). Monin (2007) argued that,

although upward social comparison in the moral domain caused by the presentation of

moral exemplars is supposed to induce positive emotional and behavioral responses,

people may feel that such comparison threatens their selfhood, particularly when the

presented exemplars are extremely different from themselves (Monin, 2007). By

comparing themselves to extraordinary moral exemplars, people can feel extreme,

insurmountable moral inferiority and, as a result, resentment. Given these accounts,

we can expect that people will experience much stronger negative emotions, such as

moral envy and resentment, as the rift grows wider between their actual moral self,

moral behavioral tendency and the presented moral ideal.

Thus, this dissertation aims to design an effective moral educational program

utilizing the stories of moral exemplars in order to promote students’ motivation to

engage in moral behavior while minimizing negative outcomes. It conducted

neuropsychological and social psychological experiments in order to achieve the

purpose. First, a meta-analysis of previously published neuroimaging articles

regarding human morality and functional neuroimaging experiment examining the

relationship between moral emotion, moral motivation and moral self were conducted

in order to identify which psychological processes are central to moral functioning.

Second, lab-level and school-level social psychological experiments were performed

to tweak the identified psychological processes; these experiments aimed to examine

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what kind of exemplary stories, other than stories of extraordinary moral exemplars

that are likely to backfire, more effectively influence the psychological processes and

ultimately motivate moral behavior among students.

Overview of chapters

The ultimate purpose of the present study is to develop a way to promote

students’ motivation to engage in moral behavior. To achieve this purpose, chapters 2

and 3 present neuroimaging experiments utilizing neuroscientific methods, i.e.,

activation likelihood estimation (ALE) for meta-analysis and functional neuroimaging

methods, to identify the core psychological processes involved in moral emotion and

moral motivation. Furthermore, chapter 4, which consists of two independent social

psychological experiments, introduces the organization of educational interventions

that I designed utilizing the stories of moral exemplars and examines the longitudinal

effects of the interventions.

In chapter 2, I conducted a meta-analysis of previous functional magnetic

resonance imaging studies examining the neural correlates of various moral functions

in order to examine the neural correlates of human morality. The present study

included 45 experiments with 959 subjects and 463 activation foci in the meta-analysis

database. These were reported in 43 published articles that investigated the neural

mechanism of moral functions by comparing neural activity between the moral-task

and non-moral-task conditions. The present study examined the common activation

foci of morality-related task conditions using the ALE method, which was invented to

extract common activation foci across fMRI experiment included in the database. In

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addition, this study compared brain activity between moral judgment and moral

sensibility conditions, which correspond to the functional components in the Neo-

Kohlbergian model of human moral functioning. In short, the present meta-analysis

illuminated the common neural circuitry of moral functioning, particularly that

connected to motivational processes, in order to identify the core psychological

processes associated with moral emotion and motivation at the neural level. It showed

that regions associated with the default mode network (DMN), which has been

regarded to be related to selfhood, significantly activated in the moral task conditions.

In chapter 3, I examined the interaction between the DMN, which has been

regarded as the brain circuitry associated with selfhood and self-related psychological

processes, and other morality-related regions by conducting psycho-physiological

interaction analysis (PPI) of functional images acquired while participants were

solving moral dilemmas. Furthermore, I performed the Granger causality analysis

(GCA) in order to demonstrate the direction of influence between activities in various

brain regions in the moral decision-making task conditions. The theoretical framework

of this experiment originated from the idea of moral self that was developed by moral

psychologists. They defined moral self as a psychological construct constituted by the

perception of a person’s self as a moral person, which originates from moral identity.

Moreover, they have suggested that moral self moderates moral emotion, moral

cognition and moral motivation in human moral functioning. The present experiment

showed that the neural circuitry associated with selfhood actually interacted with and

influenced brain regions associated with moral emotion and moral motivation as

proposed by the theory of moral self in moral psychology.

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In chapter 4, after performing interventions presenting exemplars’ stories to

participants, I examined the longitudinal change in voluntary service engagement,

which was used as a proxy for motivation to participate in moral behavior. Based on

the findings from the previous neuroimaging experiments, these intervention

experiments compared the longitudinal change in participants’ moral motivation

between one group presented with attainable-relevant exemplars and another group

presented with unattainable-irrelevant exemplars. I employed attainable-relevant

exemplars instead of extraordinary exemplars for the experimental condition because

the former exemplars were more likely to be close to participants’ selfhood compared

the latter exemplars so they were more likely to produce stronger motivational effect

given the moderating role of selfhood in moral emotion and motivation demonstrated

by the previous neuroimaging experiments. As hypothesized, intervention experiments

showed that attainable and relevant exemplars better promoted moral motivation

among participants compared to extraordinary exemplars.

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CHAPTER 2: INTEGRATIVE MORAL FUNCTIONING

ASSOCIATED WITH ACTIVITY IN THE DEFAULT MODE

NETWORK: A META-ANALYSIS

Introduction

Neuroimaging methods have been widely applied to psychological inquiries

examining the neural correlates of human moral functions. After Greene and his

colleagues’ seminal work (Greene, Sommerville, Nystrom, Darley, & Cohen, 2001),

social neuropsychologists have sought for the neural mechanisms that underlie moral

psychological processes, including moral judgment (Avram et al., 2013; Borg, Hynes,

Van Horn, Grafton, & Sinnott-Armstrong, 2006; FeldmanHall et al., 2012; Greene,

Nystrom, Engell, Darley, & Cohen, 2004; Greene et al., 2001; Han, Glover, & Jeong,

2014; Harenski, Antonenko, Shane, & Kiehl, 2008; Heekeren, Wartenburger, Schmidt,

Schwintowski, & Villringer, 2003; Prehn et al., 2008; Sommer et al., 2014, 2010;

Young, Cushman, Hauser, & Saxe, 2007), moral emotion (Harenski, Harenski, Shane,

& Kiehl, 2012; Moll, de Oliveira-Souza, Bramati, & Grafman, 2002; Moll et al., 2007;

Moll, de Oliveira-Souza, Eslinger, et al., 2002; Moll, de Oliveira-Souza, et al., 2005;

Takahashi et al., 2008) and moral admiration (Englander, Haidt, & Morris, 2012;

Immordino-Yang, McColl, Damasio, & Damasio, 2009). Previous neuroimaging

studies of moral functioning tried to reveal hidden aspects of moral behavior not

available to be seen in paper and pencil, and survey experiments. These studies also

aimed to avoid the potential interference of the social desirability bias, which have

been problematic in traditional moral psychological studies using self-reporting

9

methods (Ito & Cacioppo, 2007; Kristjánsson, 2007) and referred to “the tendency of

research subjects to give socially desirable responses instead of choosing responses

that are reflective of their true feelings (Grimm, 2010).”

However, to date, fMRI paradigms have not yet investigated morality using the

newly emergent integrative model of moral functions which blends moral reasoning

and emotion. Moral reasoning refers to “individual or collective practical reasoning

about what, morally, one ought to do (Richardson, 2013).” Moral emotions mean

“emotions that respond to moral violations or that motivate moral behavior” or

“emotions that are linked to the interests or welfare either of society as a whole or at

least of persons other than the judge or agent (Haidt, 2003).” Moral psychologists

(Gibbs, 2003; Rest, Narvaez, Bebeau, & Thoma, 1999a) and philosophers

(Kristjánsson, 2013; Punzo, 1996) who use traditional research methods have

attempted to develop integrative models of moral processes. These models encompass

both moral reasoning and moral emotion, which have been regarded as the main

theoretical elements in the fields of moral philosophy, psychology and education.

However, the experimental design of previous fMRI investigations of human morality

have not thoroughly applied the integrative model of moral functions, but have

focused on the neural correlates of each individual function.

Although the foundation laid by Kohlberg's work, which has emphasized the

importance of moral reasoning, has suited moral psychology for nearly three-decades

(Kohlberg, 1981, 1984), modern moral psychology is beginning to address some of its

shortcomings (Han, 2014). The Kohlbergian framework is limited because it does not

10

completely explain the mechanisms of moral behavior (Punzo, 1996; Rest et al.,

1999a). Thus, more recent work advances a neo-Kohlbergian viewpoint in which

morality has four components: 1. moral sensibility; 2. moral judgment; 3. moral

motivation and 4. moral personality (Bebeau, Rest, & Narvaez, 1999; Rest & Narvaez,

1994). Moral sensibility is an ability to detect any potential moral problem embedded

in a situation; it basically monitors moral and value conflicts embedded in certain

situations and evaluates others’ standpoints through empathy (Bebeau et al., 1999;

Rest & Narvaez, 1994). Moral judgment is related to an actual decision-making

process. Moral motivation is a tendency to prioritize moral value over other self-

oriented values. Moral personality is associated with a person’s tendency to sustain

moral behavior (Rest, Narvaez, Bebeau, & Thoma, 1999b; Rest & Narvaez, 1994).

This four-component model has been applied to diverse developmental studies and

moral educational programs to promote moral behavioral tendencies among students

(Bebeau, 2014; Rest & Narvaez, 1994; Schlaefli, Rest, & Thoma, 1985). Given the

current status of this four-component model, it could be considered the most

mainstream research program in the field (Han, 2014).

The present study will use an illustrative example to explain how the four

components function. We may consider the Heinz dilemma, which has been used by

Kohlbergians as well as Neo-Kohlbergians (Kohlberg, 1981; Rest et al., 1999b). In

this problem, Heinz’s wife suffers from a particular kind of cancer, and only one

pharmacist has developed a medicine. Unfortunately, the pharmacist requests that

Heinz pays an excessive amount of money, which he cannot afford; furthermore, the

pharmacist insists that no discount can be offered. In this situation, if you were Heinz,

11

would you steal the medicine? This is the main theme of the Heinz dilemma, and it

requests that people make a decision (Kohlberg, 1981).

The thought process works as follows (see Figure 1): First of all, moral

sensibility enables people to empathize with both Heinz and the pharmacist based on

perceived emotional responses to the situation. People consider stakeholders’ welfare

(e.g., the right to life of Heinz’s wife and the property of the pharmacist), which will

be influenced by their decision. As a result, moral sensibility warns that this is a

morally problematic situation and other functions must work to solve it. Once

circumstances are identified as posing a moral problem, moral judgment is activated to

make an actual decision. By considering which moral norm should be prioritized using

cognition and reasoning, people come to a decision as to whether to steal the medicine

or not. A person who prioritizes the importance of law and social order would decide

not to steal the drug. On the other hand, one who emphasizes the value of human life

would decide to steal it. Thus, through the combined activity of moral sensibility and

moral judgment, a person arrives at a resolution to the situation. Moral motivation also

affects the process by determining whether moral values or other self-centered values

should be prioritized based on a person’s belief system and identity. If self-centered

values win over moral value, the result of moral judgment cannot be implemented.

Finally, at the stage of action, moral personality enables people to continue moral

behavior. For instance, the presence of virtuous personality traits, such as moral

courage, are required to sustain a moral behavior tendency even under difficult

circumstances. As presented in this example, the functional components cooperate

with each other to reach the best solution in a given situation (Rest & Narvaez, 1994).

12

Figure 1 A flow chart demonstrates how the Heinz dilemma is being solved based on the four-

component model with explanations about how each component is approaching and processing the current

dilemmatic situation.

In fact, neuroimaging studies have investigated the neural correlates of some

functional components in the four-component model; moral sensibility (Decety,

Michalska, & Kinzler, 2011, 2012; Harenski et al., 2008; Moll, de Oliveira-Souza,

Eslinger, et al., 2002; Robertson et al., 2007) and moral judgment (Avram et al., 2014;

Borg et al., 2006; Greene et al., 2004, 2001; Han et al., 2014; Young, Camprodon,

13

Hauser, Pascual-Leone, & Saxe, 2010; Young et al., 2007; Young & Saxe, 2008) in

particular have been studied. However, such endeavors to examine and establish the

integrative model are not complete given the nature of the experimental designs of

previous fMRI studies although some neuropsychologists contend that moral

reasoning and emotion cannot be separated from each other if human morality is to be

explained properly (Cushman, Young, & Greene, 2010; Greene, 2009a). For instance,

fMRI studies comparing neural activity with response to moral and non-moral

emotional stimuli (Moll, de Oliveira-Souza, Eslinger, et al., 2002; Moll, de Oliveira-

Souza, et al., 2005) overlook the neural mechanism of moral reasoning that is closely

associated with the functional component of moral judgment. Similarly, experiments

focused on moral judgment do not fully consider moral emotion as associated with

moral sensibility (Avram et al., 2013; FeldmanHall et al., 2012; Heekeren et al., 2003;

Prehn et al., 2008). Instead, the integrative nature human moral function has mainly

been considered by review studies (Moll, de Oliveira-Souza, & Eslinger, 2003; Moll,

Zahn, De Oliveira-Souza, Krueger, & Grafman, 2005). In addition, neuroscience has

paid relatively less attention to the other two components, moral motivation and moral

personality, due to a methodological issues. Although these two functional

components can only properly be measured using long-term and real situations instead

of hypothetical dilemmas (Rest & Narvaez, 1994; Walker, 2002), the majority of the

previous studies have been conducted during a short brain scanning session and

utilized hypothetical dilemmas (Christensen & Gomila, 2012). Thus, all the four

components in the Neo-Kohlbergian model have not been completely investigated by

neuroimaging studies.

14

The present study is interested in examining the common neural-level feature

in moral functioning represented in the four-component model to investigate the

interaction and relationship between functional components. The present study

considered that the concept of moral self as an integrative center (Damon, 1984;

Hardy & Carlo, 2005a) of moral functioning can provide some useful insights to

address this research question. Moral psychologists have suggested that moral self as

the integrative self-identity in the domain of morality interacts with and organizes

moral decision-making as well as moral behavior in every aspect of human life (Colby

& Damon, 1993; Damon, 1984). This concept—moral self—can be understood as a

person’s self-identity (Blasi, 1980, 1984, 1995) that has been formulated through

his/her previous experiences and finally embedded in his/her autobiographical

memory (Bluck & Alea, 2002; Buckner & Carroll, 2007; Damasio, 2010; Watson,

2009). Therefore, the present study aims at investigating whether the moral self, which

is perhaps embedded in autobiographical memory, is associated with integrative moral

functioning at the neural level using a meta-analysis of previously published

neuroimaging papers on moral functioning.

This investigation uses meta-analysis to complement previous fMRI studies in

two main ways in terms of methodology. First, this method can amplify the overall

statistical power of an analysis even when an individual fMRI experiment lacks

power. Second, the meta-analysis can minimize statistical idiosyncrasies that might be

caused by the varying task conditions across multiple experiments. Despite the limited

statistics of any one study, a meta-analysis may produce statistically reliable findings

of the overall, common neural correlates of human morality across diverse moral

15

functions (Costafreda, 2009; Etkin & Wager, 2007; Wager, Jonides, & Reading,

2004). Thus, this present study aims to perform a meta-analysis of previous fMRI

articles that examined the neural correlates of various human moral functions.

A previous meta-analysis of fMRI studies of moral functions (Sevinc &

Spreng, 2014) compared neural activity during active and passive moral task

conditions. The findings revealed that, in both conditions, brain regions associated

with the default mode network (DMN) were significantly activated. Interestingly,

other articles focusing on the neural mechanism of moral judgment (Reniers et al.,

2012; Spreng & Grady, 2010) and the involvement of self-agency in the process of

moral emotion (Moll et al., 2007) also reported that regions in this network were

significantly activated during morality-related task conditions. Regions in the DMN

include the dorsal- and ventral-medial prefrontal cortices (MPFC), cingulate cortex,

inferior parietal lobule, lateral temporal cortex and hippocampal formation (Buckner,

Andrews-Hanna, & Schacter, 2008). The cortical midline structures (CMS) in the

DMN (which include the dorsal and orbital-MPFC, and anterior and posterior

cingulate cortices) attend to selfhood-related processes, such as self-referential stimuli,

self-evaluation and autobiographical memory (Damasio, 2010; Northoff & Bermpohl,

2004), leading researchers to suggest that self-related psychological processes are

significantly associated with moral functioning.

However, due to theoretical and/or methodological constraints, previous

neuroimaging and meta-analysis studies have usually focused on a single domain of

moral function at a time or compare the neural correlates between domains of moral

16

functions rather than examining the common neural correlates of human morality.

Moreover, they have not considered the neural-level mechanism of functional

components in the current model of moral functioning. Researchers have also not

thoroughly discussed the meaning of the findings from a moral psychology

perspective, i.e., the mainstream moral psychological perspective based on the

integrative model of moral functions (Rest et al., 1999a; Rest & Narvaez, 1994) or the

role of moral self in moral functioning (Damon, 1984).

Due to the aforementioned constraints of previous MRI studies and meta-

analyses, the present meta-analysis has chosen a different theoretical and analytic

model. Specifically, this study compares the neural activity during all moral task

conditions and a wide range of corresponding non-moral, or general, psychological

task conditions to illustrate the neural nature of morality based on the integrative four-

component model and idea of moral self, rather than the neural correlates of an

individual moral psychological function. This study hypothesized that, in case of

conjunction analysis, the activation of regions in the DMN will be greater during

morality-related task conditions as compared to non-moral, general cognitive and

affective task conditions given the findings of previous meta-analysis of moral

functioning and the theory of moral self. In moral psychology, moral self has been

regarded as the integrator of moral reasoning and moral emotion, generating the

fundamental motivational force for moral behavior (Blasi, 2005; Damon, 1984; Hardy

& Carlo, 2005a). Thus, morality-related tasks will require the involvement of self-

related processes, which will be associated with the activation of the DMN at the

neural-level. In addition, the present study conducts two additional supplementary

17

analyses to minimize the possibility of the fallacy of reverse inference (Poldrack,

2006, 2011); the present study empirically analyzes the gray matter overlap between

the common activation foci of moral functioning, which are calculated by the main

meta-analysis of the present study, the DMN and the neural correlates of self-related

processes, particularly those of autobiographical memory processing. The percent of

gray matter overlapped between these brain circuitries is calculated to properly

interpret the implications of the findings of the present meta-analysis.

Furthermore, the neural correlates of moral judgment and moral sensibility

would be associated with common activity in the DMN regions as case of the

conjunction analysis because moral psychologists have proposed that those individual

functions are working on the foundation of the selfhood. Moral self and identity

integrate and orchestrate functional components of human morality represented in the

four-component model at the conceptual level given the previous non-neuroscientific

moral psychological account (Rogers, 2002). However, despite the predicted common

activity in the DMN regions, because moral sensibility and moral judgment

components have shown significant discriminant validity (Akabayashi, Slingsby, Kai,

Nishimura, & Yamagishi, 2004; Morton, Worthley, Testerman, & Mahoney, 2006),

some regions would demonstrate significantly different activation patterns in the

whole-brain comparison. Thus, the present study also explores this difference as well

as common activation foci across those two functional components.

18

Materials and methods

Study selection

The present study included a total of 43 fMRI studies of moral functions

published after Greene et al.’s work (Greene et al., 2001). Idiosyncratic differences

across paradigms of moral functioning could potentially introduce statistical problems

for comparison across studies. Therefore, only published articles that employed

diverse task conditions, including but not limited to, moral judgment, moral emotion

and moral admiration, were selected. Additionally, only studies that examined healthy

participants with no neurological or psychiatric problems were included in the meta-

analysis. Articles were found through PubMed and SCOPUS, using keywords that

corresponded to the concept of moral functions, such as fMRI, morality and moral

function. The present study utilized these expressions: “fMRI and morality,” “fMRI

and moral function,” “functional neuroimaging and morality,” “functional

neuroimaging and moral function.” Furthermore, the present study set search criteria

to restrict results to a specific language (English) and period (since 2001). The

selection process is summarized in Figure 2. The present study included fMRI studies

that met the inclusion criteria presented below:

Table 1 Meta-analyzed articles

References Sub

ject

F

oc

i

Type

Contrast Threshold Jud

gm

ent

Sen

sibi

lity

Moll, de Oliveira-Souza,

Bramati, et al. (2002)

(PMID: 12169253)

7 3 x Moral vs. Non-moral emotions p < .001, uncorr.

Heekeren et al. (2003) 8 9 x Moral vs. Semantic judgment p < .005, uncorr.

19

(PMID: 12824762)

Heekeren et al. (2005)

(PMID: 15652323) 12 8 x Moral vs. Semantic judgment p < .001, uncorr.

Berthoz et al. (2006)

(PMID: 16490367) 12 8 x

Moral-related intentional vs.

Accidental violation judgment p < .001, uncorr.

Borg et al. (2006)

(PMID: 16768379) 24 7 x Moral vs. Non-moral harm p < .05, corr

Young et al. (2007)

(PMID: 17485679)

1 10 6 x Moral belief task vs.

Photo presentation p < .001, uncorr.

2 17 6

Harrison et al., (2008)

(PMID: 18621692) 22 8 x Moral dilemma vs. Stroop task p < .05, corr.

Harenski et al. (2008)

(PMID: 19015084) 33 16 x Moral vs. Non-moral violation p < .001, uncorr.

Young and Saxe (2008)

(PMID: 18342544) 17 6 x

Moral vs. value-neutral

judgment p < .001, uncorr.

Sommer et al. (2010)

(PMID: 20362598) 12 6 x Moral vs. Neutral conflicts p < .05, corr.

Schleim et al. (2011)

(PMID: 20194515) 40 6 x

Moral vs. value-neutral

judgment p < .005, corr.

FeldmanHall et al. (2012)

(PMID: 22711879) 14 14 x

Moral (real + hypothetical) vs.

Non-moral p < .05, corr.

Reniers et al. (2012)

(PMID: 22459338 24 6 x

Moral vs. Non-moral decision-

making p < .05, corr.

FeldmanHall et al. (2014)

(PMID: 23322890) 38 1 x Moral vs. Non-moral dilemmas p < .05, corr.

Han et al. (2014)

(PMID: 24263193) 16 11 x

Moral (personal + impersonal)

vs. Non-moral (arithmetic) p < .001, uncorr.

Shenhav and Greene (2014)

(PMID: 24672018) 35 5 x

Integrative moral vs. utilitarian

& emotional judgment p < .05, corr.

Sommer et al. (2014)

(PMID: 24971880) 32 16 x Moral vs. Neutral conflicts p < .05, corr.

Moll et al. (2001)

(PMID: 11593260) 10 10 x Moral vs. factual evaluation

p < .0001,

uncorr.

Berthoz et al. (2002)

(PMID: 12135962) 12 20 x

Socio-moral vs. Non-socio-

moral violation stories

p < .0001,

uncorr.

Moll, de Oliveira-Souza,

Eslinger, et al. (2002)

(PMID: 11923438)

7 17 x Moral vs. Non-moral pictures p < .005, uncorr.

Singer et al. (2004)

(PMID: 14980212) 11 13 x

Moral vs. Non-moral status face

watching p < .001, uncorr.

Takahashi et al. (2004)

(PMID: 15528097) 19 15 x

Moral guilt and embarrassment

vs. Neutral feeling p < .001, uncorr.

Moll, de Oliveira-Souza, et

al. (2005) 13 22 x

Moral indignation vs.

Basic disgust, neutral p < .005, uncorr.

20

(PMID: 15761278)

Finger et al. (2006)

(PMID: 16891125) 16 5 x

Moral vs. Conventional

transgression evaluation p < .05, corr.

Harenski and Hamann

(2006)

(PMID: 16249098)

10 2 x Moral vs. Non-moral violation

watching p < .001, uncorr.

Moll et al. (2007)

(PMID: 18633822) 12 31 x

Moral (Guilt, Embarrassment,

Compassion, Indignation) vs.

Neutral agency

p < .005, uncorr.

Robertson et al. (2007)

(PMID: 17174987) 16 10 x

Justice/care vs. Non-moral

strategy evaluation p < .001, uncorr.

Borg et al. (2008)

(PMID: 18345982) 50 24 x

Socio-moral vs. Pathogen

disgust feeling p < .05, corr.

Prehn et al. (2008)

(PMID: 19015093) 23 6 x

Socio-moral vs. Grammatical

errors p < .05, corr.

Takahashi et al. (2008)

(PMID: 18203696) 15 7 x

Moral beauty + depravity vs.

Emotion-neutral p < .001, uncorr.

Immordino-Yang et al.

(2009)

(PMID: 19414310)

13 8 x Moral vs. Physical admiration p < .05, corr.

Young and Saxe (2009)

(PMID: 18823250) 1 14 6 x

Moral vs. Non-moral intention

evaluation p < .001, uncorr.

2 14 6

Cope et al. (2010)

(PMID: 21344009) 100 17 x

Moral vs. Nonmoral

wrongdoing evaluation p < .05, corr.


(PMID: 19878727) 30 10 x

Moral vs. Non-moral picture

viewing p < .05, corr.

Young et al. (2010)

(PMID: 22558062) 17 5 x

Moral vs. Non-moral story

reading p < .001, uncorr.

Parkinson et al. (2011)

(PMID: 21452951) 38 2 x

Moral vs. Neutral transgression

stories p < .05, corr.

Young et al. (2011)

(PMID: 21271462) 17 6 x

Moral vs. Non-moral intuitive

verdict evaluation p < .001, uncorr.

Englander et al. (2012)

(PMID: 22745745) 10 8 x Moral vs. Physical admiration p < .05, corr.


(PMID: 22267967) 51 17 x Moral vs. Non-moral violation p < .05, corr.

Avram et al. (2013)

(PMID: 23262080) 16 8 x Moral vs. Esthetic judgment p < .05, corr.

Avram et al. (2014)

(PMID: 24742205) 16 10 x

First- and third-person moral vs.

Non-moral evaluation p < .005, uncorr.

Fourie et al. (2014)

(PMID: 24450582) 22 8 x

Moral-related prejudice vs.

neutral feeling p < .001, uncorr.

Michl et al. (2014)

(PMID: 23051901) 14 28 x

Shame and guilt vs. neutral

emotion

p < .0002,

uncorr.

Total

959 463

21

Figure 2 Flow diagram for literature search

1. Studies that examined neural activity in the whole brain were included, while studies that concentrated on brain regions in isolation were excluded.

2. Studies that compared neural activity between morality-related and non-moral conditions were included. Studies that used a control condition (i.e., non-moral) that corresponded to the nature of the moral-task condition (e.g., socio-moral error detection vs. grammatical error detection (Prehn et al., 2008)) were selected in particular.

3. Functional connectivity or structural analysis studies were excluded. Instead, this analysis only included fMRI studies that measured regional activation changes.

4. Articles that presented the coordinates of activation foci were included. The coordinates indicated regions that showed significant differences in activation between moral and non-moral conditions. For instance, although Greene et al.’s works (Greene et al., 2004,

22

2001) compared neural activity between moral and neutral task conditions, they did not report the coordinates of brain regions; therefore, they were not included in this analysis.

As a result, 45 experiments with a total of 959 participants and 463 activation

foci reported in 43 published articles were included in the meta-analysis. The selected

articles are presented in Table 1. To investigate the neural correlates of functional

components of interest, i.e., moral judgment and moral sensibility, the selected studies

were classified into two categories: moral judgment and moral sensibility (see Table

1). To examine the neural correlates of moral judgment, previous fMRI investigations

utilizing moral judgment-related tasks were selected. These moral judgment

experiments required participants to solve moral quandaries and make practical

decisions when presented with a moral dilemma or problem (Greene et al., 2004,

2001), because moral judgment in the four-component model is defined as a functional

component in determining an actual behavioral decision (Rest et al., 1999b; Rest &

Narvaez, 1994). Furthermore, to examine the neural correlates of moral sensibility, the

present analysis included fMRI studies using moral sensibility-related tasks. These

sensibility tasks requested that participants report emotional responses to or make

value evaluations about given cues. Because the main function of moral sensibility is

the detection of potentially morally problematic situations based on empathetic

awareness and monitoring of affective responses to conflicting values embedded in a

presented situation (Bebeau et al., 1999; Rest & Narvaez, 1994; You, Maeda, &

Bebeau, 2011), the nature of moral sensibility tasks is defined as a task condition

requesting subjects to detect emotional responses and/or value conflicts.

23

Compared to the previous meta-analysis (Sevinc & Spreng, 2014) that

classified included studies into two categories—i.e., active and passive—based on the

type of participants’ responses per se, the present meta-analysis differently categorized

previous experiments according to the conceptual and functional nature of the task

requirements. For instance, three studies classified as active studies in the previous

meta-analysis became sensibility tasks in the present study, although the nature of

passive tasks in the previous meta-analysis seems to be similar to that of sensibility

tasks in the present study. In fact, those three studies required participants to make a

choice regarding their emotional responses to presented tasks. In case of the previous

meta-analysis, these studies were classified as active tasks, given its nature in terms of

participants’ actions. However, because these tasks did not require any specific moral

behavioral decision making but emotional evaluation, the present study treated them

as sensibility tasks.

Statistical analysis

The present study used the ALE method, which estimates commonly activated

foci across multiple experiments (Eickhoff et al., 2009, 2011; Eickhoff, Bzdok, Laird,

Kurth, & Fox, 2012; Laird, Lancaster, & Fox, 2005a; Turkeltaub, Eden, Jones, &

Zeffiro, 2002). To conduct the meta-analysis using ALE, activation foci were first

extracted from each study and all coordinates converted into the Talairach system

(Talairach & Tournoux, 1988). MNI coordinates were converted to the Talairach

system using a conversion tool included in the Ginger ALE package (Eickhoff et al.,

2009; Laird et al., 2005a). The converted coordinates were then entered using the

Sleuth package to visualize activation foci of included previous experiments (Laird et

24

al., 2005a); the activation foci entered were drawn using the Sleuth and are presented

in Figure 3. The present study then performed the Ginger ALE to conduct meta-

analysis based on the ALE method (Eickhoff et al., 2009, 2012; Laird et al., 2005a)

and examined the common activation foci of all and each of two functional

components of moral judgment and moral sensibility. More specifically, the present

study added all 45 experiments to the model for the conjunction analysis, and repeated

same procedure for each functional domain. Finally, the present study compared the

brain activity between these two functional components of human morality.

The resulting activation foci were set at a threshold of p < .05 (false discovery

rate (FDR) corrected) and k > 95mm3 (12 voxels); the cluster size threshold was used

to minimize the possibility of potential Type II errors and increase the overall

statistical power of the analysis (Forman et al., 1995). Although it has been

recommended to utilize a more stringent threshold of p < .01, by applying the cluster

size threshold of k > 95mm3, the actual threshold applied to the present analysis

became p < .0001, satisfying a recommended threshold given a previous simulation

(Forman et al., 1995). Ginger ALE then automatically generated result img files

demonstrating significantly activated voxels at the statistical threshold. The present

study created colored brain maps displaying significantly activated regions from the

img files using the xjView toolbox (available at http://www.alivelearn.net/xjview). For

each map summarizing a whole-brain analysis (Figures 4-5), the present study utilized

a series of axial slices. In case of the comparison between two task conditions (Figure

6), the present study generated three labelled slices including an axial, coronal and

sagittal slice.

25

Figure 3 Registered activation foci extracted from previous studies. Drawn by Sleuth.

Finally, the present study examined the percent overlap between the resulted

common activation foci and the empirically as well as anatomically defined DMN.

First, the present study extracted the MNI coordinates of activated voxels resulted

from the present meta-analysis. Only the coordinate information that overlapped gray

matter voxels in the previously created gray matter atlas (Cui, Li, & Song, 2015) was

used for the calculation. Second, the present study also extracted coordinate

information of voxels constituting the DMN; similar to the previous process, the

present study only considered gray matter voxels. In this process, the present study

used an ROI atlas created by the FIND Lab at Stanford University (Shirer, Ryali,

Rykhlevskaia, Menon, & Greicius, 2012). Finally, the present study calculated the

percent overlap between those two extracted coordinate datasets (see the

26

supplementary methods and results in Appendix A). In addition, the present study also

examined whether the common activation foci of moral functioning and a brain

circuitry associated with autobiographical memory processing, which has been

regarded as the foundation of moral self, overlapped each other using the similar

method (see the supplementary methods and results in Appendix A). Using the

BrainMap Sleuth, the present study extracted 890 activation foci from 39 previously

published articles testing the neural correlates of autobiographical memory processing.

Data from 655 subjects in 137 experiments were extracted and analyzed.

Methodological limitations

There are several limitations in the methodology used in the present study.

First, although there are four components in the Neo-Kohlbergian model—i.e., moral

sensibility, moral judgment, moral motivation, moral personality—this study could

only analyze the neural correlation of moral sensibility and moral judgment. Those of

moral motivation and moral personality could not be examined due to the

methodological issue of previous fMRI studies as discussed in the introduction—i.e.,

lack of long-term longitudinal studies and dependence on hypothetical dilemmas

instead of realistic dilemmas. Second, the variability embedded in the coordinates of

activation foci in each individual experiment is problematic. Because the ALE method

treats each coordinate equally, variability may threaten the reliability of the current

findings (Leung et al., 2011). Furthermore, the nature of the included studies would

also cause a problem due to a compounding factor. Included studies utilized diverse

control task conditions corresponding to their main socio-moral task conditions. Thus,

an idiosyncrasy embedded in the diverse nature of control task conditions would work

27

as a compounding factor and threat the validity of the findings of the present study.

These problems can be solved as more fMRI studies of moral functions, which

increase the size of the data set, are conducted, and by developing realistic moral

dilemmas that are applicable to fMRI experiments. Moreover, in order to address the

issue of idiosyncrasy in particular, future control-task-matched meta-analyses should

be performed. By doing so, researchers will be able to conduct better meta-analyses

that are able to examine all four functional components with enhanced reliability and

generalizability, while not losing statistical power.

Results

The results of the ALE indicated that several brain regions showed significant

activity during moral task conditions compared to non-moral control conditions. The

DMN regions were commonly activated in diverse moral task conditions. The regions

included the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC), ventromedial prefrontal cortex

(VMPFC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), cingulate gyrus, precentral gyrus, temporal

parietal junction (TPJ), middle temporal gyrus (MTG) and connected superior

temporal sulcus (STS), temporal pole, fusiform gyrus, parahippocampal gyrus, middle

occipital gyrus (MOG) and precuneus. The coordinates and volume sizes of the

regions are presented in Table 2 and are plotted in Figure 4.

Table 2 Common activation foci coordinates were presented in MNI coordinate

Region Left/

Right BA

ALE

value

MNI coordinates Volume

(mm3)

x y z

Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex L 10 .001 -2 50 0 16208

Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex L 9 .001 -4 48 18

28

Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex L 6 .001 -2 48 36

Anterior Cingulate Cortex R 32 .001 10 42 -2


Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex L 10 .002 -10 38 -8

Temporoparietal Junction L 39 .001 -48 -58 20 7448

Posterior Cingulate Cortex L 31 .001 -2 -56 28 4360

Precuneus L 7 .001 -2 -60 34

Temporoparietal Junction R 39 .001 52 -56 24 2600

Orbitofrontal Cortex L 47 .001 -42 32 -6 2144

Temporal Pole L 38 .001 -46 20 -16

Middle Temporal Gyrus R 21 .001 50 6 -18 1400

Middle Temporal Gyrus L 21 .001 -56 -36 -4 1024

Middle Temporal Gyrus L 21 .001 -58 -38 -8

Middle Occipital Gyrus R 19 .001 46 -72 6 840

Fusiform Gyrus L 37 .001 -50 -70 2 792


Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex L 6 .001 -44 4 44 512

Cuneus R 17 .001 4 -84 8 384

Parahippocampal Gyrus L 36 .001 -24 -42 -8 184

Precuneus L 7 .001 -12 -74 50 152

Precentral Gyrus L 44 .002 -46 8 12 128

Precentral Gyrus L 44 .003 -50 6 10

Amygdala L

.002 -22 -4 -12 104

Parahippocampal Gyrus L 34 .002 -18 -8 -16

29

Figure 4 Calculated activation foci from the conjunction analysis of both moral judgment and

sensibility conditions. The DMPFC, VMPFC, OFC, TPJ, MTG, STS, MOG, cingulate gyrus, precentral

gyrus, temporal pole, fusiform gyrus, parahippocampal gyrus and precuneus were significantly activated.

All foci were thresholded at p < .05 (FDR corrected) and k > 95mm3.

In addition to the conjunction analysis, the activation foci of each experimental

type—judgment and sensibility—are reported in Table 3 and Figure 5. The results

showed that, during judgment tasks, the ventral- and dorsal-MPFC, TPJ, MTG and

connected STS, MOG, temporal pole, fusiform gyrus, inferior temporal gyrus (ITG)

and precuneus were activated. In moral sensibility condition, the ventral- and dorsal-

30

MPFC, cingulate gyrus, TPJ, OFC, MTG, MOG, fusiform gyrus, lingual gyrus,

temporal pole, ITG, precuneus, cuneus, and amygdala were activated. In a whole-brain

comparison between two conditions, activity in the TPJ and supramarginal gyrus was

significantly stronger in the moral judgment context as compared to the moral

sensibility condition (See Table 3 and Figure 6).

Table 3 Activation foci during each individual task condition (decision-making and evaluation)

including results of comparisons

Region Left/

Right BA

ALE

value

MNI coordinates Volume

(mm3) x y z

Moral Judgment > Control

Ventomedial Prefrontal Cortex L 9 .001 -4 48 18 7048



Temporoparietal Junction L 39 .001 -50 -70 18

Precuneus R 7 .001 2 -60 34 2208

Temporoparietal Junction R 39 .001 50 -56 26 2104

Middle Occipital Gyrus R 19 .001 46 -72 8 696

Temporal Pole R 38 .001 46 10 -18 544

Middle Temporal Gyrus R 21 .001 50 0 -16

Fusiform Gyrus L 37 .001 -50 -68 2 344

Middle Occipital Gyrus L 19 .001 -42 -76 28 208

Precuneus L 7 .001 -2 -62 48 176

Inferior Temporal Gyrus R 40 .001 58 -40 26 136

Moral Sensibility > Control

Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex L 10 .001 -2 50 0 10328


Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex R 9 .001 4 52 24





31

Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex R 10 .001 4 58 14


Posterior Cingulate Cortex L 31 .001 -4 -54 28 2528

Precuneus L 7 .001 -4 -60 34


Temporal Pole L 38 .001 -44 18 -16


Middle Temporal Gyrus L 21 .001 -58 -38 -8

Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex L 6 .001 -44 4 44 816


Temporal Pole R 38 .001 50 6 -20 488

Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex L 45 .001 -54 22 16 384

Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex L 9 .001 -50 20 20

Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex R 8 .001 4 40 52 320


Amygdala L

.001 -22 -4 -10 224


Lingual Gyrus R 18 .001 6 -82 -4 184

Cuneus L 18 .001 -6 -94 10 168

Fusiform Gyrus R 20 .002 54 -4 -26 136

Cuneus R 17 .001 2 -84 8 136

Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex R 10 .002 18 42 -4 128

Anterior Cingulate Cortex R 32 .003 10 42 0

Parahippocampal Gyrus L 36 .001 -24 -42 -10 120

Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex L 10 .001 -10 38 -8 104

Anterior Cingulate Cortex L 24 .001 -4 -18 36 104

Middle Occipital Gyrus L 37 .002 -50 -72 2 96

Inferior Temporal Gyrus L 19 .003 -46 -76 0

Moral Judgment > Moral Sensibility

Temporoparietal Junction R 39

(p-

value)

.003 46 -56 28

480

Supramarginal Gyrus R 40 .004 52 -50 31

Supramarginal Gyrus R 40 .004 52 -54 28

32

Figure 5 Calculated activation foci during each condition (A) Moral judgment condition. The

VMPFC, DMPFC, TPJ, MTG, STS, MOG, ITG, temporal pole, fusiform gyrus and precuneus were

significantly activated. (B) Moral sensibility condition. The VMPFC, DMPFC, VLPFC, TPJ, OFC, MTG,

MOG, ITG, cingulate gyrus, fusiform gyrus, lingual gyrus, temporal pole, precuneus, cuneus and amygdala

were significantly activated. All foci were thresholded at p < .05 (FDR corrected) and k > 95mm3.

33

Figure 6 Results of a whole-brain comparison of moral judgment > moral sensibility. The right

TPJ and supramarginal gyrus showed stronger activity during the moral judgment condition. All foci were

thresholded at p < .05 (FDR corrected) and k > 95mm3.

Finally, the present study also calculated the percent overlap between the

resulted common activation foci and the pre-defined DMN. The result of the

calculation indicated that a total of 27% of gray matters in the resulted common

activation foci overlapped the empirically defined default mode network. Furthermore,

after conducting an additional Ginger ALE analysis aiming at examining the neural

circuitry involved in autobiographical memory processing, the present study found

that 30.2% of voxels commonly activated during the moral task conditions overlapped

those associated with autobiographical memory processing.

34

Discussion

The present meta-analysis successfully demonstrated the involvement of DMN

regions in moral functioning. In addition, it was able to present novel findings

regarding the neural correlates of moral sensibility and moral judgment, which are the

core functional components in the four-component model of human morality. First, the

findings of the present study’s conjunction analysis suggest that brain regions

associated with the DMN are commonly involved in various moral functions as

previous neuroimaging studies of human morality have demonstrated. Regions in the

DMN were significantly activated when participants were in a resting state, unlike the

regions of interest in previous cognitive neuroimaging studies (Buckner et al., 2008).

Given the fact that the DMN is extensively activated when an individual is not

required to consciously concentrate on a goal-directed external task, this neural

network has been regarded as a network that is involved in self-related processes

(Northoff et al., 2006; Sheline et al., 2009). Specifically, the activity of regions in the

DMN is associated with self-evaluation (Flagan & Beer, 2013; Kelley et al., 2002;

Lou, Luber, Stanford, & Lisanby, 2010; Moran, Heatherton, & Kelley, 2009; Zhu,

Zhang, Fan, & Han, 2007), self-referencing (Kim & Johnson, 2012; Mitchell, Banaji,

& Macrae, 2005), self-reflection (Jenkins & Mitchell, 2011), and episodic and

autobiographical memory processing (Spreng & Grady, 2010). Furthermore, socio-

moral emotion and cognition are inseparably associated with selfhood-related

processes in the DMN regions, such as the MPFC and anterior and posterior cingulate

cortices (Greene et al., 2001; Han, Chen, Jeong, & Glover, 2016; Northoff &

Bermpohl, 2004). Thus, the findings of the present study suggest that morality-related

35

processes—i.e., moral reasoning and emotional processes—and self-related processes

are perhaps based on a shared brain circuitry in the DMN.

This result is in line with several previous neuroscientific articles on human

morality. For instance, neuroimaging studies reported that some parts of the DMN

showed significant activity during moral task conditions, and likewise suggested that

self-related processes were associated with moral functions (Englander et al., 2012;

Immordino-Yang et al., 2009; Moll et al., 2007). Some reviews also argued that the

DMN regions were functionally associated with morality as compared to other non-

moral aspects of human psychology (Immordino-Yang, Christodoulou, & Singh,

2012; Immordino-Yang, 2011). In addition, several studies based on meta-analysis,

have successfully shown the association between moral functioning and the activation

of the DMN (Bzdok et al., 2012; Decety & Porges, 2011; Moll et al., 2007; Reniers et

al., 2012; Sevinc & Spreng, 2014). A clinical neurological study also demonstrated

that neurodegenerative diseases, such as the frontotemporal dementia, which is closely

associated with the malfunction of regions of interest of the present study,

significantly altered the pattern of patients’ moral judgment (Mendez, Anderson, &

Shapira, 2005).

The result of this fMRI meta-analysis perhaps supports the concept of the

moral self as the agent of moral functioning and moral behavior which was proposed

by moral psychologists (Blasi, 2005; Damon, 1984). According to the theory of moral

self, although a person makes a morally valid decision with the guidance of moral

reasoning and moral emotion, if morality is not central to and is not integrated into the

36

person’s selfhood, then the moral decision cannot lead to actual moral behavior

(Bergman, 2004; Colby & Damon, 1992; Hardy & Carlo, 2005a). Indeed, self-related

processes are crucial to moral functions firstly because the retrieval and evaluation of

life narrative and autobiographical memory (which constitute self-identity and are

associated with the activity in the DMN) are essential to formulate the notion of a

“good” person and a “bad” person, and then to produce a practical moral judgment

based on this notion (Bluck & Alea, 2002; Watson, 2009). Second, the role of self-

reflection associated with self-respect and self-esteem in moral processes has been

underscored by moral psychologists (Bergman, 2002). Hoffman (2000), who

emphasized the role of emotion in morality, particularly empathy and sympathy, stated

that “one may now consider and act fairly toward others, not only because of empathy

but also as an expression of one’s internalized principles, an affirmation of one’s self

(p. 18),” and that “the self … plays a central role in empathy development theory

(p.21).” In addition, moral psychologists, such as Nucci and his colleague (Nucci &

Lee, 1993), who stressed the importance of moral reasoning, have also taken into

account the importance of moral self-related processes. They argued that “morality …

requires agents with basic psychological integrity, that is, persons with a bounded

sense of self. (p. 144).” In short, in the field of moral psychology, moral self-related

mechanisms have become crucial elements in moral functioning, which are

inseparable from and moderate both moral reasoning and moral emotion. The finding

of the present study supports this theoretical framework in moral psychology. Because

the moral tasks required participants to access their selfhoods and autobiographical

memories more intensively for moral decision-making compared to non-moral,

37

general psychological tasks, participants’ mental activities in the moral task condition

were correlated with significant neural activity in DMN regions.

Moreover, we may also consider another aspect of moral self, that is, moral

identity as self-identity, on top of autobiographical self. According to moral theorists

who proposed the importance of moral identity in moral functioning have argued that

moral identity, that is, whether or not morality is regarded to be a fundamental

constituent of self-identity, significantly moderates moral behavior (Blasi, 1993;

Hardy & Carlo, 2005a). Also, the integration between morality and selfhood during

the course of development is crucial in normative moral development from their

perspective (Bergman, 2004; Damon, 1984). A recent cognitive psychological study

also supported this aspect of moral self; it showed that people usually selected

morality-related traits as more fundamental constituents of their self-identity compared

to other mental faculty (Strohminger & Nichols, 2014). Given these previous studies,

the association between the DMN, selfhood and moral functioning demonstrated in the

present meta-analysis may be explained by this theoretical framework as follows:

moral identity embedded in self-identity moderates moral functioning in overall and it

would be revealed by the increased activity in the DMN associated with selfhood.

On the other hand, as was previously explained, the control tasks used in the

investigations did not include any morality- or value-related component. Instead, they

targeted the activation of general cognitive and emotional processes. The first type of

control task was a general problem solving task that included arithmetic problem sets

(Han et al., 2014), grammatical error or semantic anomaly detections (Heekeren et al.,

38

2003; Prehn et al., 2008), basic physical movement direction decisions (FeldmanHall

et al., 2012), non-moral intention judgments (Young et al., 2007) and aesthetic

judgments (Avram et al., 2013). The second type of control task is related to the

presentation of non-moral visual stimuli, i.e., sentences and pictures. In this category,

non-moral emotion arousing (e.g., value-neutral disgust) pictures (Moll, de Oliveira-

Souza, Bramati, et al., 2002; Moll et al., 2007; Moll, de Oliveira-Souza, Eslinger, et

al., 2002; Moll, de Oliveira-Souza, et al., 2005), emotionally neutral pictures

(Takahashi et al., 2008), and stories of non-moral virtue exemplars (Englander et al.,

2012; Immordino-Yang et al., 2009) were presented. Given the nature of these control

condition tasks, participants did not need to access their selfhood and autobiographical

memories actively while coping with the tasks because the presented tasks can be

completed simply by focusing on the current stimuli. Thus, it could be the case that

these tasks induced less interaction between current task context and selfhood and

autobiographical memory.

Furthermore, the present study identified the neural correlates of functional

components of moral sensibility and moral judgment in the four-component model,

which have not been investigated by previous studies. The findings of the present

study systematically demonstrated the neural correlates of the integrative model of

moral function, which has been the dominating research program in the field, that is,

the four-component model. More specifically, it demonstrated the neural correlates of

moral judgment, moral sensibility and the foundation of the integration of those

components by meta-analyzing a large-scale data set of previous fMRI experiments.

Findings from the present study supported the previous studies that have shown the

39

neural-level mechanism of individual functional components and proposed that the

DMN network is involved in the interaction between different functional components

(Moll, Zahn, et al., 2005; Moll et al., 2007).

Moral judgment and moral sensibility are integrated and function based on

moral values and beliefs that are recorded in the moral self as the basis of a moral

agency (Krettenauer, 2013; Rogers, 2002; Walker & Pitts, 1998). Furthermore, the

final output of the functioning of the functional components—that is, moral

behavior—is inevitably regulated and driven by the motivational force generated by

moral selfhood (Aquino & Reed, 2002; Damon, 1984; Hardy & Carlo, 2005a).

Finally, moral philosophy also argues that selfhood is a necessary condition for moral

judgment as moral judgment requires autonomous moral agency and moral self, and

these can only be formed through “mental time travel” constituted by experience and

reflection (Gerrans & Kennett, 2010), which inevitably rely on the process of

autobiographical memory and conscious selfhood (Damasio, 2010). Given these

previous studies, the present study surmises that common activation in the DMN

regions, which is associated with selfhood, across two task conditions suggests the

foundational role of moral self and self-related processes in both moral judgment and

moral sensibility.

The findings are also in line with neuropsychological and moral psychological

accounts of the role of selfhood-related processes, particularly autobiographical

memory, in human morality. Previous neuroscientific have studies proposed that

human moral functioning is based on the robust foundation of autobiographical self,

40

which has been formulated by previous experience and is associated with the DMN

(Buckner & Carroll, 2007). In the first phase of moral decision-making, a person

should perceive the dilemmatic situation as a morally problematic situation to initiate

the moral judgment to make a decision; this is the role of moral sensibility. Once a

situation is deemed to be a moral problem, the moral judgment component is initiated

and makes an actual decision (Rest & Narvaez, 1994). In these socio-moral processes,

selfhood, particularly autobiographical memory, contributes to the perception and

evaluation of the situation (Chiong et al., 2013; Jack et al., 2013; Jouen et al., 2015), in

order to make a practical decision (Croft et al., 2010; Gerrans & Kennett, 2010;

Mitchell et al., 2005). In fact, a person can evaluate which situation is morally

problematic (through moral sensibility) and which option is morally appropriate

(through moral judgment) based on his or her moral beliefs and value system

formulated by previous life history. For instance, socio-cultural background as a

fundamental element of personal experience significantly influences the domain of

moral problems, which determines what should be perceived as morally problematic

based on affective and evaluative functions (Graham et al., 2011; Haidt, 2003, 2007).

Furthermore, it also affects the norms utilized while making a moral decision (Haidt,

Koller, & Dias, 1993; Narvaez, Getz, Rest, & Thoma, 1999; Nisan, 1987). Figure 7

briefly shows how socio-cultural factors and personal experiences can influence the

functioning of moral sensibility and moral judgment while a person is solving a moral

dilemma in his/her everyday life. At the neural level, previous neuroscientific articles

have demonstrated that the influence of socio-cultural factors is significantly

associated with DMN regions (Chiao et al., 2010; Ma et al., 2014; Wang, Oyserman,

41

Liu, Li, & Han, 2013; Zhu et al., 2007). Moreover, they have proposed that these same

regions are perhaps the locus of selfhood formed under the influence of socio-cultural

factors and experience (Ames & Fiske, 2010; Han & Northoff, 2009; Northoff, 2013).

Figure 7 An example of the work of moral sensibility and moral judgment based on autobiographic

self formulated by socio-cultural background and personal experience: A real-life situation

However, the present study cannot confidently argue the involvement of

selfhood, particularly autobiographical memory, in moral functioning only with the

findings and by referring to previous neuroimaging articles demonstrating brain

regions that showed significant activity during certain socio-cognitive task conditions.

If it does so, then the present study may commit the fallacy of reverse inference

(Poldrack, 2006). Instead, another type of a more valid inference guided by a meta-

analysis of a large-scale dataset “can provide the basis for relatively largescale

generalizable reverse inference (Poldrack, 2011, p. 693).” Therefore, the present study

examined the overlap between the resulted common activation foci and previously

42

proven brain functional network—i.e., the DMN and brain circuitry associated with

autobiographical memory processing, which is the main function of interest in the

present study. In fact, the present study demonstrated that 27% of gray matter voxels

in the resulted common activation foci overlapped those in the DMN. Given a

previous study examining the overlapping gray matter voxels between two brain

functional circuitries that used 25% (Bohland, Bokil, Allen, & Mitra, 2009) as the

threshold determining whether the overlap is significant, the percent gray matter voxel

overlap between the common activation foci in the present study and DMN was

significant. Furthermore, the present study found the 30.2% of overlap between the

resulted activation foci of moral functioning and the gray matters associated with

autobiographical memory processing. Thus, the present study shall conclude that the

activation foci associated with moral functioning also significantly overlapped the

gray matter voxels associated with autobiographical memory processing, which was

regarded as the core self-related processes in moral functioning proposed in the

present study. Therefore, this evidence can at least partially or indirectly support the

argument of the present study that the moral functioning, DMN and autobiographical

memory processing are associated with each other at the neural level.

Conversely, some regions were differently activated by the two functional task

conditions. Given the significant discriminant validity (Akabayashi et al., 2004;

Morton et al., 2006), the present study in fact anticipated these differences in the brain

activation pattern between the two functional components. In case of the moral

judgment task condition, the right TPJ and connected supramarginal gyrus showed

significantly stronger activity. Moral psychologists have defined the function of moral

43

judgment as performing final decision-making procedures and their associated

cognitive processes (Bebeau, 2002; Rest & Narvaez, 1994), such as perspective taking

(Kurdek, 1978; Walker, 1980) and socio-moral information processing (Derryberry &

Thoma, 2005; Thoma & Rest, 1999b). In fact, the TPJ was correlated with

complicated moral decision-making processes in the previous neuroimaging study

(FeldmanHall et al., 2014). Moreover, other previous neuroimaging studies have

demonstrated that the activity in the regions is associated with conflict-solving ability

(Seghier, 2012) and integration of social information and processing of a counterpart’s

intention in a dilemmatic situation (Berns et al., 2005; Carter & Huettel, 2013; Decety,

Chen, Harenski, & Kiehl, 2015; Yoder & Decety, 2014) based on the theory of mind

function (Lee & McCarthy, 2014). These regions have been regarded as the nexuses of

socio-moral judgment that extract, integrate and synthesize external and contextual

information necessary for problem solving, choice deliberation and decision-making

(Carter, Bowling, Reeck, & Huettel, 2012; Schaafsma, Pfaff, Spunt, & Adolphs,

2014). Furthermore, the TPJ and supramarginal gyrus are also closely related to

overcoming egocentricity and taking others’ perspectives into account to make

unbiased socio-moral decisions (Silani, Lamm, Ruff, & Singer, 2013; Steinbeis,

Bernhardt, & Singer, 2014), which are essential in the functional component of moral

judgment (Kurdek, 1978; Walker, 1980). Given these studies, the present study

suggests that the TPJ and connected supramarginal gyrus are functionally associated

with the core processes of decision-making, such as information processing,

deliberation on available options and ultimately reaching a final decision while

considering diverse perspectives. On the other hand, these regions were significantly

44

less activated while participants were solving moral sensibility tasks. Unlike moral

judgment, moral sensibility is not directly involved in actual decision-making

processes. Thus, this nature of moral sensibility would be reflected in the weaker

activity in the TPJ and supramarginal gyrus regions in this task condition.

Conclusions

The present meta-analysis demonstrated that the circuit of the DMN is

associated with the foundation of moral functioning. The DMN-related regions

showed significant activity across two functional components of morality—i.e., moral

sensibility, moral judgment. In addition, the present study conducted two additional

meta-analyses examining the significance of the gray matter overlap between the

resulted common activation foci, DMN and gray matter voxels associated with

autobiographical memory processing; these meta-analyses supported the main findings

of the present study that the DMN and autobiographical memory processing are

closely associated with moral functioning. Furthermore, the present study was able to

show difference in the brain activity pattern across two task conditions as well.

Participants showed significantly greater activity in the right TPJ in the moral

judgment task condition compared to the moral sensibility task condition. This

significant difference supported previous moral psychological studies proposing the

functional independence between those two components at the neural level. In

conclusion, the present study was able to demonstrate the neural correlates of two core

components in the four component model of moral functioning—i.e., moral sensibility

and moral judgment—and to suggest the association between moral self based on

45

autobiographical memory processing and human moral functioning with neural-level

evidence.

46

CHAPTER 3: INFLUENCE OF THE CORTICAL MIDLINE

STRUCTURES (CMS) ON MORAL EMOTION AND

MOTIVATION IN MORAL DECISION-MAKING1

Introduction

Contemporary moral psychologists have studied the integrative model of

human morality that can well explain the mechanism of moral motivation and actual

moral behavior. Before the beginning of the 21st century, the mainstream paradigm in

moral psychology was the Kohlbergian model, which attempted to explain the

generation of moral behavioral motivation from a cognitive vantage point (Kohlberg,

1981, 1984). However, this model has been criticized by proponents of the role of

moral emotion (Hoffman, 2000) and intuition (Bargh, Schwader, Hailey, Dyer, &

Boothby, 2012; Haidt, 2001); those scholars have argued that the previous model was

not able to successfully bridge the gap between moral reasoning and moral behavior

(Rest et al., 1999a). Thus, to address this issue, contemporary moral psychologists

have proposed an integrative model of human morality, which embraces the cognitive,

affective and behavioral aspects. For instance, Neo-Kohlbergians, the contemporary

moral psychologists who proposed integrative model of moral functioning (e.g.,

Bebeau, 2002; Rest & Narvaez, 1994; Thoma & Rest, 1999)), suggested the functional

components of moral sensibility, moral motivation and moral personality on top of

1 Reprinted from Han, H., Chen, J., Jeong, C. and Glover, G.H., Influence of the Cortical

Midline Structures on Moral Emotion and Motivation in Moral Decision-Making, Behavioural Brain

Research, 302, pp. 237-251, 2016, with permission from Elsevier. Altering/modifying material not

permitted.

47

moral judgment (Rest & Narvaez, 1994). In addition, character educators, who have

sought to develop a new model of moral psychology that is suitable to educational

practice, have underscored the integration of moral cognition, emotion and behavior

(Berkowitz & Grych, 2000; Lickona, 1996).

Then, what is the core or foundation of the integrative model? Which

psychological construct does orchestrates activity of individual aspects of human

morality and regulate the generation of motivational force for moral behavior? Several

moral psychologists have suggested moral self as a candidate (Blasi, 1984; Damon,

1984; Hardy & Carlo, 2005b). According to their theory, moral self is a psychological

construct constituted by the perception of a person’s self as a moral person, which

originates from moral identity (Stets & Carter, 2011). Although a person might have

developed sophisticated moral reasoning, he/she does not necessarily implement the

result of his/her moral judgment into action if he/she does not possess a strong sense

of moral self because he/she does not prioritize moral values over other self-oriented

values (Blasi, 1984, 2005). In fact, social psychological experiments have confirmed

that the strength of moral self significantly moderated the relationship between the

result of moral judgment (Aquino & Reed, 2002; Reed, Aquino, & Levy, 2007),

perceived socio-moral emotional valence (Conway & Peetz, 2012) and actual moral

behavioral outcome. The formation and development of moral self occurs through

reflection upon and deliberation of beliefs, values and previous life experience, and

continued commitment to moral behavior (Colby & Damon, 1992). During

adolescence and even beyond, a person’s moral self is being consolidated by

48

integrating moral values into his/her self-identity (Colby & Damon, 1993; Damon,

1984).

Neuroimaging methods will facilitate this kind of research investigating the

nature of human morality (Ito & Cacioppo, 2007; Kristjánsson, 2007). Neuroimaging

studies have contributed significantly to our understanding of human morality because

they enable us to investigate the internal processes of moral functions that underlie

overt human behaviors, which have not been measured by non-biological traditional

methodologies (Kristjánsson, 2007, 2013). These studies also aim to avoid the

potential social and desirable biases of self-reporting methods that have been

problematic in traditional moral psychological studies (Ito & Cacioppo, 2007).

Based on the previous studies, the present study aims to examine the

relationship between the cortical midline structures (CMS), which have been regarded

to be associated with selfhood, and moral decision making processes at the neural

level. Previous fMRI studies in the field of cognitive and social neurosciences have

examined the neural correlates of human morality. For instance, diverse dimensions of

morality including, but not limited to, moral judgment (Greene et al., 2004, 2001),

moral sensibility (Decety et al., 2012; Moll, de Oliveira-Souza, Eslinger, et al., 2002;

Robertson et al., 2007), moral competence (Prehn et al., 2008) and moral elevation

(Englander et al., 2012; Immordino-Yang et al., 2009) have been demonstrated.

Furthermore, several social neuroscientists have proposed the presence of the co-

activation of selfhood-related regions, particularly those in the cortical midline

structures (CMS) during the processing of moral tasks. The CMS include the dorsal-

49

and ventral-medial prefrontal cortices (MPFC) and cingulate cortex, (Damasio, 2010;

Northoff & Bermpohl, 2004). Recent meta-analyses (Araujo, Kaplan, & Damasio,

2013; Qin & Northoff, 2011) and fMRI studies (Araujo, Kaplan, Damasio, &

Damasio, 2014; Sheline et al., 2009) have also demonstrated that the processing of

self-related and familiar contexts is associated with activity in the CMS regions,

including the MPFC, PCC and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). However, some

studies have shown that in certain instances, activity in the posterior medial cortices

(PMC) in the CMS was not stronger in “self” conditions compared to “others”

conditions; more specifically, the region showed significantly stronger activity in the

distant-others condition compared to the self condition in general (Araujo et al., 2013,

2014). Given these studies, it would be possible to say that the MPFC is commonly

associated with selfhood-related processes, but the PMC is particularly associated with

autobiographical memory processing rather than selfhood-related processes in general

(Araujo et al., 2014). In studies related to morality, neuroimaging studies have also

shown the relationship between the CMS regions and morality-related task conditions.

In the previous fMRI studies, activity in the CMS regions was commonly associated

with moral task conditions (Bzdok et al., 2012; Reniers et al., 2012; Sevinc & Spreng,

2014). In addition, self-agency related to moral functioning shared neural substrates

with the CMS (Moll et al., 2007). Given these previous studies, we expect that there is

significant relationship between the neural correlates of moral functioning and

selfhood-related processes. The present study uses the general linear model (GLM)

method to conduct the whole-brain tests; this method enables us to conduct “a diverse

50

interrogation of functional imaging data using statistical parametric maps (p. 202)”

and a diverse statistical analysis from a t-test to ANCOVA (Friston et al., 1995).

Given these studies in social neuroscience demonstrating the activation of the

CMS regions in morality-related task conditions, we can expect a significant overlap

between the brain circuitries associated with moral functioning and selfhood-related

psychological processes. Moreover, the nature of moral dilemmas would cause

increased activity in such regions compared to non-moral dilemmas. Usually, moral

dilemmas are regarded as problem sets that deal directly with “what we have to do” or

“what we ought to do,” while non-moral dilemmas are in the realm of fact, instead of

value (Lemmon, 1962). Particularly, moral-personal dilemmas (e.g., Footbridge

dilemma) are closely associated with the possible violation to concrete human lives;

on the other hand, moral-impersonal dilemmas (e.g., Trolley dilemma) do not directly

request subjects to make decisions affecting concrete human lives, but are similar to

mathematical calculation problems (Greene et al., 2004, 2001; Nichols & Mallon,

2006). Since moral dilemmas are more likely to urge us to deliberate upon our moral

beliefs and values, they would induce stronger activity in the CMS regions compared

to non-moral dilemmas.

Furthermore, although traditional moral psychologists did not use

neuroimaging methods, their social psychological (Aquino, Freeman, Reed, Lim, &

Felps, 2009; Aquino & Reed, 2002; Blasi, 1984; Reed et al., 2007) and developmental

psychological studies (Colby & Damon, 1992; Damon, 1984) have shown the

moderating and monitoring role of moral self in moral functioning. Thus, we may also

51

expect that brain activity in the CMS associated with selfhood moderates or even

influences that in other regions associated with moral functioning. However, the

previous studies that have shown the overlap between those two brain circuitries did

not utilize analytic methods that enable us to see the interaction between or causal

relationship between brain regions, such as the psycho-physiological interaction (PPI)

analysis (Friston et al., 1997) and Granger causality analysis (Granger, Huangb, &

Yang, 2000). The problem of reverse inference occurs if we try to interpret findings

without the application of proper experimental and analysis methods (Poldrack, 2006,

2008). Therefore, the present study aims to investigate such possible moderating and

causal relationship between the CMS and other regions associated with moral

functioning in morality-related task conditions, using the PPI analysis and GCA

methods when subjects are making moral decisions to address moral problems.

The present study hypothesizes that first, the whole-brain tests will

demonstrate that brain regions associated with emotional processes will show greater

activity in the moral-personal condition compared to the moral-impersonal condition.

This hypothesis originates from previous neuroimaging studies utilizing similar

dilemma task conditions (Greene et al., 2004, 2001; Han et al., 2014). Moral-personal

dilemmas are more likely to induce significant activity in regions associated with

emotion (e.g., MPFC, orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), superior-temporal sulcus (STS),

insula (Han et al., 2014; Harenski & Hamann, 2006; Michl et al., 2014; Moll et al.,

2007; Moll, de Oliveira-Souza, et al., 2005; Takahashi et al., 2004)) compared to

moral-impersonal dilemmas, because the former strongly induce negative immediate

emotional responses among subjects. On the other hand, previous studies have shown

52

that in the moral-impersonal condition, regions associated with cognition, such as

mental calculation (e.g., parietal lobule), will show significantly increased activity

(Chochon, Cohen, van de Moortele, & Dehaene, 1999; Greene et al., 2004, 2001; Han

et al., 2014).

Second, activity in the CMS regions significantly moderates activity in other

brain regions associated with moral emotion and motivation (e.g., midbrain including

the ventral tegmental area, ventral striatum, insula, OFC (Dambacher et al., 2014;

Schmidt, Lebreton, Cléry-Melin, Daunizeau, & Pessiglione, 2012; Schultheiss et al.,

2008; Veit et al., 2012; Xu et al., 2011)) while subjects are solving moral problems.

Given previous neuroimaging studies showing the overlap between the two regions,

and traditional moral psychological studies suggesting the role of moral self, the

present study will be able to find significant PPI between CMS and other regions

associated with morality in the moral-task condition. Particularly, the present study

focuses on the MPFC and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) in the CMS. First, the

MPFC is associated with self-referencing and self-evaluation (Chiao et al., 2009;

Flagan & Beer, 2013; Mitchell et al., 2005), which are fundamental to moral decision

making processes. These selfhood-related psychological processes enable people to

consider and reflect upon their moral belief and value and to make a decision based on

them (Colby & Damon, 1992; Damon & Colby, 2013; Damon, 1984); moral decision

making also would be moderated by these processes. Second, the present study also

focuses on the PCC, because this region is associated with the processing of

autobiographical memory, including self-referencing (Araujo et al., 2014; Damasio,

2010; Leech & Sharp, 2014; Lou et al., 2010; Maddock, Garrett, & Buonocore, 2001;

53

Svoboda, McKinnon, & Levine, 2006). Of course, although the PCC would not be

strongly associated with selfhood-related processes in general, because this region is

associated with the autobiographical memory processing (Araujo et al., 2013, 2014),

the core self-related process involved in moral decision making, the present uses this

region as a seed region. Because moral judgment cannot be independent from and is

influenced by the deliberation upon previous lifelong experience (Colby & Damon,

1992; Damon, 1984; Narvaez, 2010), autobiographical memory processes inevitably

would be involved in moral judgment, as the proponents of moral self and moral

identity suggest (Lapsley & Lasky, 2001; Monroe, 2001). Given these, the present

study focuses on the MPFC and PCC, which are closely associated with selfhood-

related psychological processes.

Third, given the role of moral self proposed by traditional moral psychologists,

the present study expects causal influence from activity in the CMS to that in other

brain regions associated with moral emotion and motivation. The GCA will

demonstrate significant causal influence from the MPFC and PCC to brain regions

associated with moral emotion and motivation. More specifically, among all brain

regions associated with morality, the present study concentrates on the insula regions,

including both the anterior (AI) and posterior insula (AI). First, previous experiments

have demonstrated that the PI is the core of the immediate processing of affective

responses and the induction of subjective feelings (Isnard, Magnin, Jung, Mauguière,

& Garcia-Larrea, 2011; Stephani, Fernandez-Baca Vaca, Maciunas, Koubeissi, &

Lüders, 2011), particularly negative emotions (e.g., pain and disgust) (Isnard et al.,

2011; Naqvi & Bechara, 2009; Pereira et al., 2010; Stephani et al., 2011; Straube &

54

Miltner, 2011), that play fundamental roles in moral cognition (Moll et al., 2007;

Moll, de Oliveira-Souza, et al., 2005). Moreover, the AI is closely associated with the

integration of cognition and emotion (Craig, 2004, 2009; Critchley, Wiens, Rotshtein,

Ohman, & Dolan, 2004; Jabbi, Bastiaansen, & Keysers, 2008; Naqvi & Bechara,

2010), conscious and interceptive awareness, monitoring of aroused emotional

responses (Decety et al., 2012; Van Snellenberg & Wager, 2009; Wager & Barrett,

2004), and finally, the modulation of motivational force (Dambacher et al., 2014;

Silvers, Wager, Weber, & Ochsner, 2015; Veit et al., 2012). Given these previous

works, the present study chooses the AI and PI as the regions of interest for the GCA.

Materials and methods

Subjects

The present study recruited sixteen subjects at a college located in Northern

California, using university mailing lists and Facebook. Only healthy right-handed

subjects were included to control for any possible compounding effect originated from

a history of physical or mental illness and handedness. Subjects’ physical and mental

health condition (e.g., allergies, kidney problems, seizures, claustrophobia) was tested

using a standard self-reporting questionnaire developed by The Richard M. Lucas

Center for Imaging at Stanford University. Subjects’ age ranged from 21 to 34 (mean

(±SD) age 28.59 ± 3.18 years). Because the present study recruited both male and

female, and Korean and American subjects, we equalized the number of each gender

and ethnicity group (4 male and 4 female subjects in each ethnicity group). All

subjects were originally born in the country of their nationality. Further details

55

regarding each subject’s demographics were presented in Table 4. We provided

subjects with a written consent form initially approved by the Institutional Review

Board. The subjects were debriefed and compensated for their participation ($60).

Table 4 Subject demographics

No. Gender Age Nationality

1 Male 27.89 Korean

2 Male 31.84 American

3 Female 26.77 Korean


5 Male 28.13 Korean

6 Male 30.62 Korean



9 Female 31.74 American



12 Male 21.35 Korean





Dilemma task

The present study utilized a set of moral dilemma questions initially developed

by Greene et al. (2004, 2001) and used by Han et al. (2014). A total of sixty dilemma

questions were included in the set. This moral dilemma set consisted of three different

types of dilemmas: moral-personal, moral-impersonal and non-moral. First, moral-

personal dilemmas were involved in serious bodily harm of a particular person or set

of person, and they were designed to provoke severe negative affective responses from

subjects (Greene et al., 2004). On the other hand, moral-impersonal dilemmas also

56

required subjects to be involved in socio-moral value judgment, but they did not evoke

any severe negative affective responses (Greene et al., 2001). Finally, non-moral

dilemmas were used for the control condition. These non-moral dilemmas were purely

arithmetic and did not require any value judgment (Greene et al., 2001). The number

of dilemmas in each category was 22, 18 and 20, respectively. The overall

experimental paradigm is presented in Figure 8.

Figure 8. Experimental paradigm and sample dilemmas

Each dilemma trial presented an option to address a given problem. For

instance, in the case of moral-personal dilemma, the subjects were asked whether or

not it is morally appropriate to push a person on a foot bridge to stop a train and save

five people. In both moral-personal and moral-impersonal categories, an “appropriate”

answer is presumed to represent a utilitarian decision, while an answer “inappropriate”

is presumed to represent a deontological decision (Greene et al., 2004, 2001). Subject

used a button box to answer dilemma questions. The subjects had 44 s to read a

57

dilemma question and make a decision for each trial; this was followed by a 16 s

fixation period. Each scan consisted of 5 trials and an inter-block interval period (a 16

s fixation period), and the whole scanning session was constituted with 12 scans (63

min 12 s). The order of dilemma presentation was randomized to prevent adaptation to

a specific type of dilemma. Each dilemma was presented in three separate slides.

Subjects were able to move to the next page of each dilemma text on their own pace

after they fully understood the meaning of the text. In fact, all subjects were able to

make decisions for at least 99.8% of all presented dilemmas within the given time

frame. In addition, there was not any significant difference in the mean response time

between two nationality groups at p < .05. Given that there was not any statistically

significant difference in the mean response rate and time between two ethnicity

groups, we assume that both Korean and American subjects equally well understood

the presented dilemma materials.

Image acquisition

Imaging data were obtained at 3T (GE Healthcare Signa 750) with an 8-

channel birdcage head coil. Subjects’ head movements were minimized using foam

paddings. First, we acquired high resolution T2-weighted fast spin echo structural

images for alignment. A total of 31 oblique axial slices were obtained parallel to the

AC-PC with 4-mm slice thickness, 1-mm inter-slice skip. Functional images were

acquired with a spiral in and out sequence (TR = 2000ms, TE = 30ms, flip angle =

90o) (Glover & Law, 2001). 31 thick axial slices were obtained with 4-mm slice

thickness and resolution of 3.75 x 3.75 mm (FOV = 240mm, 64 x 64 matrix) covering

the whole brain for a total of 157 TRs per scan. An automated high-order shimming

58

procedure using spiral scans was applied to reduce B0 heterogeneity (Kim,

Adalsteinsson, Glover, & Spielman, 2002). Finally, a high resolution volume image

(132 slices, 1.2-mm slice thickness) was acquired using 3D FSPGR sequence for T1

contrast (TR = 5.8ms, TE = 1.8ms, flip angle = 11 o) for anatomical reference.

Respiration and cardiac (pulse oximetry) responses were recorded using a respiratory

belt and pulse-ox sensor attached to a finger. Image data used in the present study

included functional images acquired by Han et al. (2014).

Image data analysis

The acquired images were analyzed using SPM 8 and MATLAB. First, we

used the RETROICOR and RVHRCOR methods to minimize artifacts related to

respiratory and cardiac activities (Chang & Glover, 2009; Glover, Li, & Ress, 2000).

Moreover, we conducted slice time correction, scan drift correction, motion

correction, co-registration, normalization (into SPM8’s standard MNI space (79 x 95 x

68, 2 x 2 x 2mm3 voxels)), and spatial smoothing (Gaussian FWHM = 8mm).

For the statistical analysis, regressors for the corresponding dilemma category

blocks were modeled as a boxcar function convolved with the canonical

Hemodynamic Response Function. For each trial, the boxcar function was defined by

the duration between the onset of the slide requesting decision-making (about 8

seconds before each response) and the response. For the first order (single-subject

level) analysis, we treated each voxel according to SPM 8’s GLM. In addition, we

conducted a second-order (group-level) analysis to identify regions showing

significantly different activity across dilemma conditions. For this analysis, a whole-

59

brain t-test was utilized. In this analysis, statistical maps of voxelwise t-statistics were

thresholded for both significance (p < .05 False Discovery Rate (FDR) corrected) and

cluster size (k ≥ 25 voxels) to minimize false positive probability while maintaining

statistical power. This cluster size was determined from the finding of a previous

simulation (Forman et al., 1995); given the simulation, a 25-voxel cluster is needed to

realize a corrected threshold of p < .01 or p < .005 for multiple comparisons with an

initial threshold p < .05 that is not family-wise error (FWE) corrected when a total of

180,000 voxel-wise comparisons are conducted. Of course, the FDR-corrected

threshold per se is more lenient than the FWE-corrected threshold and more

susceptible to a false positive problem. However, when a cluster-based thresholding is

applied, the FDR-applied threshold can become more stringent while maintaining the

relatively lower possibility of type I error (Forman et al., 1995; Genovese, Lazar, &

Nichols, 2002; Nichols, 2013). For further psychophysical interaction (PPI) and

causality analyses, we focused on these two contrasts: moral-personal versus control

and moral-impersonal versus control. Demographic variables (ethnicity, age, gender)

were included in the statistical model as covariates.

In addition to the whole-brain voxelwise t-tests, PPI analysis was performed

based on two seed regions within the CMS (4-mm-radius sphere)—i.e., the PCC and

MPFC—to investigate which other regions showed significant interaction the CMS.

The present study particularly focused on these two seed regions among various CMS

regions, because of following regions: first, these regions showed significant activity

under moral task conditions in the previous neuroimaging studies (Reniers et al., 2012;

60

Sevinc & Spreng, 2014) as well as the present study; second, these regions are

associated with self-evaluation (Buckner et al., 2008; Flagan & Beer, 2013) and

particularly autobiographical memory processing (Araujo et al., 2013, 2014) that

constitute the basis of the moral belief system, moral identity, and finally moral self

(Damasio, 2010). These seed regions were selected based on the peak voxel

coordinate information as the result of the whole-brain voxelwise t-tests (described

above) and the brain atlas obtained by previous functional connectivity studies (Chen

& Glover, 2014; Shirer et al., 2012). The main purpose of PPI analysis is to investigate

how regions possibly related to selfhood functions interact with other brain regions

during the process of moral judgment. We utilized the PPI analysis method

implemented in SPM 8 (Friston et al., 1997). This analysis examined how functional

coupling or interaction between a certain seed region and other regions changed across

different psychological factors—i.e., diverse task conditions—in this experiment. We

conducted this PPI analysis for two functional contrasts: moral-personal versus control

and moral-impersonal versus control. First, we extracted the deconvolved time series

from a 4mm radius sphere around the defined coordinates of the two seed regions for

each subject. Then, we examined the effect of the interaction term using the contrast

[1 0 0] in SPM8; the first column “1” in the contrast vector means the interaction term

in this analysis. The result represents the effect of interaction term between the time

series of the seed regions and a block vector representing the tasks of our interest

(moral-personal vs. control and moral-impersonal vs. control). The present study

identified regions that showed significant interaction with the seed regions for both

positive and negative directions. These contrast images from the first-order analysis

61

were used for the group-level analysis. We performed a series of second-order t-tests

for each task contrast. Significant clusters showing PPI-related coupling with seed

regions were identified with a threshold of p < .05 (FDR corrected) and minimal

cluster size of 25 voxels.

Finally, additional GCA focusing on a region displaying significant PPI results

was conducted using The MVGC Multivariate Granger Causality Toolbox (Barnett &

Seth, 2014). Particularly, we concentrated on the region showed mixed PPI results; we

paid attention to a certain region if its subpart showed positive PPI while another

subpart showed negative PPI. Because it is theoretically impossible to identify the

direction of influence between two regions from the result of PPI analysis per se, we

conducted this causality analysis. Furthermore, by investigating the direction of

causality, we will be able to clarify how the mixed PPI results can appear in one

region. Moreover, we considered whether candidate regions are closely associated

with motivational processes inducing behavior to make a moral decision based on

previous neuroimaging and moral psychological studies. The basic idea of this

analysis is that when a time series significantly predicts another given the result of

lagged correlational analysis, there is said to be a significant Granger causality

between those two time series and the direction of causality is thereby identified

(Granger et al., 2000). Thus, we performed this analysis to illuminate the direction of

causality between the two CMS seed regions and other target regions that showed

mixed PPI results, particularly associated with moral emotion and motivation. First,

we extracted a time series in the regions of interests for each trial; a total of 16 seconds

(7-seconds before, 2 during, and 7 after the time point of response) were selected.

62

Second, we entered the extracted time series to the MVGC tool; in this process, we

controlled for the main effects of task conditions by detrending linear element and

removing the temporal mean (Seth, 2010). Third, the MVGC tool calculated the

Granger causality value for each pair between two particular regions, and the

calculated values were entered to the second-order analysis. We tested whether the

calculated causality value between two regions was significantly greater than zero

using a t-test for each functional contrast (Sridharan, Levitin, & Menon, 2008).

However, there has been a methodological concern regarding the application of the

GCA to neuroimaging studies; this method can be utilized only when we can assume

that the Hemodynamic response functions (HRFs) remain unchanged across

conditions (Seth, Barrett, & Barnett, 2015). Given that conditions have similar

psychometric properties (i.e., similar task difficulty identified by the insignificant

difference in the reaction time between conditions (Han, Chen, Jeong, & Glover,

2015), identical structure of dilemma tasks in three conditions (Greene et al., 2004,

2001)), the present study assumed that the HRFs are not significantly different across

conditions and the GCA was applicable. A Bonferroni FWE correction was applied to

address the multiple-comparison problem; the corrected p-value applied for the tests

was .05. For an exploratory purpose, we calculated correlational coefficients between

the significant Granger causality scores and subjects’ behavioral responses—i.e., mean

response time, ratio of utilitarian decisions. The corrected p-value applied for the

correlational analyses was also .05. Furthermore, we tested whether there is significant

dominant influence from one region to another region (x y > y x) at p < .05.

63

Results

Whole Brain Analyses

We conducted whole-brain t-tests to examine whether the present experiment

replicated well previous studies that used a similar dilemma set. Two contrasts (i.e.,

moral-personal versus control and moral-impersonal versus control) applied to the

analyses. Furthermore, we also compared brain activity between those two dilemma

types. The results are summarized in Table 5 and displayed in Figure 9. These results

demonstrated that the MPFC and ACC showed significantly great activity under the

moral-personal condition, while (to a much weaker extent) the superior parietal lobule

(SPL) and inferior parietal lobule (IPL) showed significantly stronger activity under

the moral-impersonal condition compared to the counterpart.

Figure 9. Whole-brain t-test results (p < .05 FDR, k ≥ 25 voxels)

64

Table 5 Whole-brain t-test results (p < .05 FDR, k ≥ 25 voxels)

Brain region BA MNI coordinates

Voxels z score x y z

Moral-Personal > Control

Medial Frontal Gyrus

Cingulate Cortex

Caudate, Putamen

LR9, 10, 32 -8 40 10 5507 5.36

Cingulate Gyrus, Precuneus LR7, 23, 31 -2 -58 28 1006 4.57

Cingulate Gyrus LR23, 24,

31

6 -24 44 433 4.54

Cingulate Gyrus, Precuneus L5, 7, 13 -12 -32 38 283 4.57

Middle Temporal Gyrus L19, 39 -54 -74 18 251 5.35

Anterior Cingulate LR25, 34 -2 4 -16 163 4.61

Middle Temporal Gyrus R19, 21, 39 56 -66 10 98 4.51

Caudate, Putamen R 16 22 2 98 3.96

Inferior Parietal Lobule L40 -68 -32 26 76 3.76

Insula L13, 47 -28 12 -10 57 4.51

Superior Temporal Gyrus R22 68 -42 10 42 4.06

Moral-Impersonal > Control

Precuneus, Cingulate Gyrus LR5, 24, 31 2 -50 50 1035 4.48

65

Precuneus, Cingulate Gyrus

LR7, 23,

30, 31 -4 -68 32 939 4.41

Precentral Gyrus L3, 4, 6 -36 -22 50 338 4.79

Superior Frontal Gyrus L8, 9, 10 -22 36 36 253 4.13

Inferior Parietal Lobule R40 66 -38 22 216 4.09

Inferior Parietal Lobule L22, 40 -62 -28 30 155 4.24

Medial Frontal Gyrus LR10 -4 54 10 127 4.12

Superior Frontal Gyrus R8, 9 24 32 38 116 4.12

Parahippocampa Gyrus L37 -26 -44 -22 79 3.93

Insula L13, 44 -42 0 8 68 4.77

Cingulate Gyrus LR24, 32 0 30 28 56 3.81

Middle Temporal Gyrus R19, 39 46 -72 18 47 3.72

Middle Temporal Gyrus L39 -48 -72 14 35 3.80

Superior Frontal Gyrus LR9, 10 4 62 30 29 3.81

Moral-Personal > Moral-Impersonal

Medial Frontal Gyrus L10 -8 54 12 47 4.70

Moral-Impersonal > Moral-Personal

Parietal Lobule R7 30 -56 36 85 5.42

66

PPI Analyses

Based on the results of the whole-brain t-tests for each dilemma condition

(Figure 9), we extracted seed regions for both the PCC and MPFC that showed

common activity under both conditions (see Figure 10). Local peak points that

intersected with the anatomic atlas (Bressler & Menon, 2010; Chen & Glover, 2014)

as well as previous functional neuroimaging studies examining the activation foci of

autobiographical memory processing (Araujo et al., 2013; Kim, 2012; Young,

Bellgowan, Bodurka, & Drevets, 2013) were then selected. As a result, we set the

centroid of each 4 mm radius sphere-shaped seed region as follows: the PCC (MNI

[0, -54, 28]) and MPFC (MNI [0, 54, 12]). The radius of the spheres was 4mm. Two

individual PPI analyses (moral-personal versus control and moral-impersonal versus

control) were performed for each seed region (PCC and MPFC). The results are

presented in Tables 6-10 and Figure 11.

Figure 10 Seed regions for PPI and Granger causality analysis.

67

Figure 11 PPI analysis results (p < .05 FDR, k ≥ 25 voxels)

Moral-personal versus Control Condition—PCC

There were significant coupling between the seed region and the cerebellum,

brainstem, midbrain, bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLFPC) and OFC under

the contrast of moral-personal versus control conditions. In the case of the AI, only the

left AI showed positive significant interaction. Interestingly, bilateral PI showed

significant negative interaction with the PCC (See Table 6).

68

Table 6 Regions showed significant interaction with the PCC under the moral-personal condition (p < .05 FDR, k ≥ 25 voxels). PCC: Posterior Cingulate

Cortex.



Moral-Personal > Control, PCC - Positive

Lingual Gyrus, Cuneus

Cerebellum Posterior Lobe LR17, 18, 19 20 -102 4 11288 5.93

Middle Frontal Gyrus

Superior Frontal Gyrus

Inferior Frontal Gyrus

L6, 8, 9 -26 2 66 3154 5.39

Inferior Parietal Lobule L7, 40 -38 -64 52 1591 4.18

Medial Frontal Gyrus L8, 9 -12 30 42 588 4.10

Midbrain, Brainstem L -8 -34 -4 383 4.94

Angular Gyrus R40 50 -54 32 336 4.04

Precuneus L7 -6 -70 48 187 3.66

Middle Temporal Gyrus L21, 22 -58 -32 -2 173 3.83

Middle Frontal Gyrus R10 36 54 -4 132 4.13

Superior Frontal Gyrus L9 -20 52 36 127 3.76

Caudate, Thalamus L -12 12 10 118 4.31

Inferior Frontal Gyrus L47 -28 24 -6 109 3.70

Brainstem L -4 -38 -38 83 4.27

Cerebellum Anterior Lobe LR 4 -52 -32 82 4.84

Caudate R 10 12 6 61 3.84

Inferior Frontal Gyrus L10 -44 46 6 57 4.16

Medial Frontal Gyrus L9 -10 48 22 55 3.45

Inferior Frontal Gyrus R47 56 22 4 40 4.15

Midbrain LR 4 -18 -18 34 3.28

69

Inferior Frontal Gyrus R45 60 24 12 32 4.84

Superior Temporal Gyrus L22 -46 -58 14 30 3.40

Superior Frontal Gyrus L10 -24 62 -6 26 4.37

Moral-Personal > Control, PCC - Negative

Superior Temporal Gyrus, Insula R13, 22 40 -2 -18 502 -4.07

Superior Temporal Gyrus, Insula L13, 22 -44 -4 -10 484 -4.48

Postcentral Gyrus

Precentral Gyrus R3, 4 44 -26 64 410 -4.81

Medial Frontal Gyrus LR6 4 -18 66 96 -3.99

Precentral Gyrus L4 46 -14 44 78 -3.56

Paracentral Lobule R31 4 -30 44 41 -3.32

Cingulate Gyrus L32 -6 50 2 36 -3.69

Superior Occipital Gyrus L19 -38 -84 32 35 -3.59

70

Moral-personal versus Control Condition—MPFC

Similar to the case of the interaction between the PCC and other regions, the

MPFC showed significant positive interactions with the cerebellum, brainstem,

midbrain, bilateral DLPFC, OFC and AI. The bilateral PI also showed significant

negative interaction with the seed region (See Table 7).

71

Table 7 Regions showed significant interaction with the MPFC under the moral-personal condition (p < .05 FDR, k ≥ 25 voxels). MPFC: Medial Prefrontal

Cortex.



Moral-Personal > Control, MPFC - Positive

Cerebellum, Inferior Frontal Gyrus

Lingual Gyrus, Middle Frontal

Gyrus

Midbrain, Cuneus, Thalamus

LR9, 17, 18 -4 -32 -4 12944 5.73

Superior Frontal Gyrus

Medial Frontal Gyrus LR6, 8 -4 12 64 1071 4.58

Inferior Parietal Lobule

Superior Parietal Lobule L7, 40 -34 -58 50 936 4.99

Middle Frontal Gyrus R9 54 30 30 394 4.59

Middle Temporal Gyrus L21, 22 -58 -38 0 200 4.14

Inferior Frontal Gyrus R38, 47 48 20 -26 180 4.70

Middle Temporal Gyrus L21 -50 14 -32 156 4.56

Angular Gyrus R7 34 -62 50 77 4.24

Caudate R 14 4 20 65 4.19

Superior Temporal Gyrus L22 -56 -60 16 46 3.99

Thalamus R 24 -28 -2 41 4.20



Precuneus R7 8 -66 52 36 4.29

Lentiform Nucleus R 12 -2 4 35 3.99

Cerebellum Anterior Lobe LR 2 -52 -38 30 3.96

Middle Frontal Gyrus L10 -36 60 8 26 4.16

72

Moral-Personal > Control, MPFC - Negative

Insula R13 38 -14 14 2077 -4.46

Cingulate Gyrus

Medial Frontal Gyrus R6, 24 8 -24 44 1253 -4.32

Postcentral Gyrus R4 22 -30 68 143 -3.63

Insula L13 -44 2 -10 133 -4.09

Cingulate Gyrus L32 -8 30 -12 95 -3.76

Precentral Gyrus R4 46 -12 48 88 -3.41

Postcentral Gyrus R3, 4 46 -22 62 70 -4.24

Cingulate Gyrus L10, 32 -4 48 -4 33 -3.53

73

Moral-impersonal versus Control Condition—PCC

The overall result was also similar to the previous cases. The PCC showed

significant coupling with the cerebellum, brainstem, midbrain, bilateral DLPFC, OFC

and AI under this contrast. Although this seed region showed significant negative

interaction with the PI, it was lateralized in the left hemisphere (See Table 8).

74

Table 8 Regions showed significant interaction with the PCC under the moral-impersonal condition (p < .05 FDR, k ≥ 25 voxels)



Moral-Impersonal > Control, PCC - Positive

Cerebellum, Lingual Gyrus

Cuneus, Middle Occipital Gyrus LR17, 18 20 -100 4 3868 4.83

Middle Frontal Gyrus L6, 9 -44 -8 58 835 3.96



Brainstem, Midbrain L -12 -16 -12 182 4.27

Midbrain, Brainstem, Thalamus L -8 -34 -4 134 4.03


Lentiform Nucleus R 16 -4 -2 38 4.10

Angular Gyrus L40 -52 -62 38 37 3.59

Inferior Frontal Gyrus R47 42 24 -20 35 3.85

Superior Temporal Gyrus L38 -38 16 -26 32 3.77


Pons, Brainstem LR -2 -36 -32 27 3.50

Moral-Impersonal > Control, PCC - Negative

Postcentral Gyrus

Inferior Parietal Lobule R2,3, 40 62 -24 38 211 -4.41

Cingulate Gyrus R24, 31 12 -30 40 185 -4.36

Cingulate Cortex LR24, 25 0 20 -2 158 -3.91

Superior Temporal Gyrus L6, 22 -56 -4 6 115 -3.96

Paracentral Lobule L5, 31 -6 -32 48 93 -4.02

Hippocampus R 34 -10 -14 66 -4.39

Insula L13 -42 -18 6 34 -3.96

Insula L13 -38 2 8 31 -3.64

75

Moral-impersonal versus Control Condition—MPFC

Although the overall result was similar to the previous cases, we identified notable

differences in this case. The MPFC showed significant positive interaction with the

cerebellum, brainstem, midbrain, bilateral OFC and AI; however, it did not

significantly interact with the DLPFC. The bilateral PI significantly negatively

interacted with this seed region (See Table 9).

76

Table 9 Regions showed significant interaction with the MPFC under the moral-impersonal condition (p < .05 FDR, k ≥ 25 voxels)



Moral-Impersonal > Control, MPFC - Positive

Cerebellum LR -12 -72 -22 726 4.68

Insula, Inferior Frontal Gyrus

Lentiform Nucleus, Putamen L13, 47 -28 18 -6 418 4.43

Cuneus, Inferior Occipital Gyrus L18, 19 -38 -86 -12 402 3.82

Superior Frontal Gyrus L6, 8 -12 16 54 267 4.05

Cerebellum, Pons, Brainstem LR -8 -46 -30 243 3.80

Inferior Frontal Gyrus L44, 45 -46 20 8 237 3.90

Caudate, Thalamus L -24 -4 20 234 4.02

Inferior Frontal Gyrus, Putamen

Insula R13, 47 28 18 -2 181 4.88

Precuneus L7 -16 -56 42 136 3.91


Cuneus R18 10 -100 0 80 3.52


Middle Frontal Gyrus L6 -30 -12 48 70 3.63

Lingual Gyrus L19 -26 -66 -2 67 3.91


Lentiform Nucleus R13, 47 12 -2 -2 32 3.91

Moral-Impersonal > Control, MPFC - Negative

Insula R13 42 -6 -4 209 -3.61

Cingulate Gyrus R5, 31 14 -36 38 208 -4.00

Insula L13 -46 -14 8 170 -4.15

Insula L13 -40 4 -4 57 -4.20

77

Table 10 Comparisons between the PPI between two conditions (p < .05 FDR, k ≥ 25 voxels)



Moral-Personal > Moral-Impersonal - PCC

Cerebellum L -12 -78 -14 366 3.59

Inferior Frontal Gyrus L9, 45, 46 -52 20 22 110 3.94

Inferior Parietal Lobule L40 -50 -50 52 101 3.86


Superior Frontal Gyrus LR8 0 28 54 49 3.20

Medial Frontal Gyrus L9 0 36 36 38 3.31


Cerebellum L -32 -62 -32 27 3.28

Moral-Impersonal > Moral-Personal - PCC

Insula R13 38 -10 -2 40 -3.26

Moral-Personal > Moral-Impersonal - MPFC

Cerebellum LR8 34 -44 -32 2830 5.07


Inferior Frontal Gyrus L44, 45 -56 16 6 160 3.51




Cingulate Gyrus L32 -6 14 44 26 3.44

Moral-Impersonal > Moral-Personal - MPFC

Insula R13 34 -18 22 45 -3.47

78

Granger Causality Analyses

We concentrated on a region that showed mixed interactions and is closely

associated with core moral functions. Given the results of the PPI analyses, we chose

the insula cortex as it showed positive as well as negative interactions. More

specifically, the anterior part of the insula positively interacted with the CMS seed

regions, while its posterior part showed negative interactions. Thus, we selected the

local peak in each part that commonly showed significant interactions in all of four

individual PPI analyses. As a result, we defined two centroids as follows: the left AI

(MNI [-36, 18, 2]) and left PI (MNI [-44, 2, -10]). We extracted and analyzed the time

series of BOLD signal change in a 4-mm sphere around each centroid.

First, we were able to discover significant causal relations between seed and

insula regions under both conditions. Under the moral-personal condition, there are

MPFC PI and AI, PCC PI and AI, PI PCC and AI, and AI PI. In the case

of moral-impersonal condition, these are MPFC PI and AI, PCC MPFC and AI,

PI AI, and AI MPFC. Second, in the case of the dominant influence analysis,

only AI PI reported significant dominant influence under the moral-personal

condition. Under the moral-impersonal condition, there was not any significant

dominant influence reported by the present analysis. Granger causality values are

presented in Tables 11-12.

79

Figure 12 Granger causality analysis results (significant causal relations at p < .05 (Bonferroni

corrected) were presented. Dominant influences were colored with red color)

Table 11 Granger causality analysis results under the moral-personal condition (significant

relations at p < .05 (Bonferroni corrected) were colored with red color while dominant relations at p < .05

were bolded and underlined)

To / From MPFC PCC PI AI

MPFC - .036±.010 .019±.006 .042±.012

PCC .044±.012 - .027±.007 .027±.009

PI .033±.006 .035±.009 - .052±.010

AI .033±.007 .032±.008 .024±.006 -

Table 12 Granger causality analysis results under the moral-impersonal condition (significant

relations at p < .05 (Bonferroni corrected) were colored with red color while dominant relations at p < .05

were bolded and underlined)

To / From MPFC PCC PI AI

MPFC - .041±.011 .039±.010 .040±.010

PCC .072±.021 - .053±.015 .031±.013

PI .019±.006 .020±.006 - .044±.009

AI .028±.009 .020±.005 .018±.006 -

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Furthermore, there was a significant positive correlation between the mean

score of the Granger causality from the MPFC to PI and mean response time under the

moral-personal condition (r (14) = .57, p < .05, corrected). Other Granger causality

scores did not show significant correlation with other behavioral responses—i.e., mean

response time, ration of utilitarian decisions—under the moral-personal condition.

There were not any other significant correlations found under the moral-impersonal

condition.

Discussion

First, the present study compared the neural-level activity under the moral-

personal, moral-impersonal and control conditions through whole-brain t-tests. The

comparison showed that the MPFC was particularly activated under the moral-

personal condition, while the parietal lobule regions were significantly activated under

the moral-impersonal condition. These whole-brain t-tests successfully replicated

previous fMRI investigations that utilized similar moral dilemmas (Greene et al.,

2004, 2001; Han et al., 2014). Second, we conducted PPI analyses by setting two seed

regions in the CMS, i.e., the MPFC and PCC. The analyses reported that these seed

regions significantly interacted with other brain regions associated with moral emotion

and motivation (e.g., the OFC, insula, midbrain) under the moral task conditions.

Finally, the present study performed Granger Causality analyses to examine the causal

influence between activity in seed regions and other brain regions associated with

moral emotion and motivation; particularly, we focused on the anterior and posterior

insula. The results showed that the activity in the seed regions in the CMS

significantly influenced on that in the insula regions under the moral-personal

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condition. In addition, the activity in the anterior insula significantly and dominantly

influenced on that in the posterior insula under the both conditions.

Whole-brain T-tests

First, in the case of the whole-brain t-tests, the present study successfully

replicated the previous neuroimaging investigations using similar experimental

paradigms. When we compared brain activity between two conditions, we were able to

replicate previous experiments (Greene et al., 2004, 2001). In the case of the moral-

personal condition, the VMPFC and ACC were more activated compared to the moral-

impersonal condition. First, the VMPFC is associated with processes of moral

judgment associated with emotions (Blair, 2007; Decety et al., 2012; Mendez, 2009;

Moll & de Oliveira-Souza, 2007). In addition, the activity in the ACC is associated

with conflict monitoring and solving (Amodio & Frith, 2006; Etkin, Egner, Peraza,

Kandel, & Hirsch, 2006; Kerns et al., 2004) and complicated socio-moral dilemma

solution (Han et al., 2014). In fact, the moral-personal condition was basically

designed to induce strong negative and intuitive responses among subjects; thus, we

expected to see strong activity in the VMPFC while subjects were solving such

dilemmas. Furthermore, because the moral-personal dilemmas were more difficult to

solve compared to moral-impersonal dilemmas not related to concrete human life, as

reflected in the significantly longer mean response time (Greene et al., 2001; Han et

al., 2014), the ACC would be more activated under this condition.

On the other hand, the moral-impersonal dilemmas induced relatively stronger

activity in the SPL and IPL comparing to the moral-personal condition. Previous

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neuroscientific studies have shown that these regions are associated with numerical

and mathematical processing (Chochon et al., 1999; Dehaene, Spelke, Pinel, Stanescu,

& Tsivkin, 1999) and mathematical cognition (Rivera, Reiss, Eckert, & Menon, 2005;

Wu et al., 2009). Because the moral-impersonal dilemmas were more similar to simple

arithmetical problems without the involvement of emotional elements than were

moral-personal dilemmas (Greene et al., 2001), it is plausible that the activity in PL

regions were stronger under this condition.

Given these results, we conclude that we were able to successfully demonstrate

the general pattern of neural activity while subjects were solving moral philosophical

dilemmas similar to those in the previous studies. Generally, subjects showed

increased activity in the CMS, including the MPFC and PCC, in both the moral-

personal and moral-impersonal conditions. The overlap between the activated regions

in the present study and CMS regions would be interpreted by considering the nature

of the dilemma task used in the present study. Basically, moral-personal and moral-

impersonal dilemmas used in the present study required subjects to make decisions

against presented dilemmatic situations. Previous neuroimaging studies that have

demonstrated significant activity in the CMS while subjects were performing

evaluations and selfhood, particularly autobiographical memory, and evaluation

activity are inseparable from each other at the neural level (Araujo et al., 2014; Klein,

Rozendal, & Cosmides, 2002; Legrand & Ruby, 2009). Moreover, those evaluation

tasks used in the previous studies usually entailed decision making aspects similar to

the moral-personal and moral-impersonal dilemma tasks used in the present study; in

fact, these decision making tasks were inevitably related to value judgment and

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evaluation (Kahneman & Tversky, 1984; Rangel, Camerer, & Montague, 2008). Given

these, it would be difficult to disambiguate the neural circuitry of selfhood from that of

moral decision making. This aspect would be revealed by the significant overlap

between the regions showing significant activity in moral-task conditions in the

present study and CMS regions.

Interaction between CMS and other regions

The result of the PPI analysis indicated that there were significant interaction

between the PCC and MPFC, which constitute the core of the CMS, and other brain

regions associated with moral emotion, cognition and motivation. Particularly,

positive interactions were discovered between both the PCC and MPFC, and

cerebellum, midbrain, brainstem, AI, OFC and DLPFC. The overall finding was in

line with a previous neuroimaging study examining the interaction between the

MPFC, PCC and other brain regions when subjects were evaluating moral sensibility

issues associated with justice or care ethics (Cáceda, James, Ely, Snarey, & Kilts,

2011).

Previous studies have shown that cerebellum, midbrain and brainstem are

associated with various affective and emotional processes, such as moral emotional

processing (Moll, Zahn, et al., 2005; Moll et al., 2007), socio-moral motivation (Moll

et al., 2006) and attachment (Bartels & Zeki, 2004). In addition to those regions

basically associated with primary emotion (Moll, Zahn, et al., 2005), the AI is

associated with the integration of primary emotion and cognition (Decety et al., 2011;

Van Snellenberg & Wager, 2009) and motivational processes (Dambacher et al., 2014;

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Taylor et al., 2004). The OFC has been regarded as the locus of motivational processes

(Murayama, Matsumoto, Izuma, & Matsumoto, 2010; O’Doherty, Kringelbach, Rolls,

Hornak, & Andrews, 2001; Roelofs, Minelli, Mars, van Peer, & Toni, 2009; Wilson &

Rolls, 2005). Finally, previous neuroimaging studies have proven that the DLPFC is

closely associated with cognitive control under and inhibition of impulse various task

conditions related to socio-moral issues (Baumgartner, Fischbacher, Feierabend, Lutz,

& Fehr, 2009; Greene et al., 2004, 2001; Han et al., 2014; Izuma et al., 2010).

However, significant negative interaction was found between the seed regions and PI.

Unlike the case of the AI, which is associated with cognitive and interoceptive

awareness of emotions (Craig, 2004, 2009; Critchley et al., 2004; Jabbi et al., 2008;

Naqvi & Bechara, 2010) and emotional anticipation (Baumgartner et al., 2009), the PI

is specifically related to the primary and intuitive perception of negative emotions and

somatosensory pain and disgust (Isnard et al., 2011; Naqvi & Bechara, 2009; Pereira

et al., 2010; Stephani et al., 2011; Straube & Miltner, 2011).

In the context of these previous studies, the present PPI results suggest that

selfhood-related processes associated with the seed regions and other general moral

functions including moral emotion, cognition and motivation significantly interact

with each other while solving presented moral dilemmas. In fact, this interaction

would correspond to the previous moral psychological explanation regarding the

mechanism of moral self and identity. According to previous moral psychological

studies, moral self and moral identity have been regarded as psychological constructs

playing a fundamental role in the generation of moral motivation and actual moral

behavior (Blasi, 1984; Hardy & Carlo, 2005b). These studies have proven that the

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psychological constructs interact with and moderate other moral functions including

moral emotion and cognition, and finally significantly contribute to the decision of

behavioral direction and generation of motivation towards such direction (Aquino et

al., 2009; Aquino & Reed, 2002). For instance, a subject who showed strong

integration between moral beliefs and selfhood was more likely to choose the morally

appropriate behavioral option even under circumstances hindering moral behavior

comparing to his/her counterparts (Freeman, Aquino, & McFerran, 2009; Reed et al.,

2007). Thus, our result that shows positive interaction between the regions supports

the explanation of the role of moral self and moral identity proposed by previous

moral psychological studies at the neural-level.

The PI showed negative interaction with seed regions under both conditions,

and the absolute value of the strength of the interaction was significantly greater under

the moral-personal condition (refer to Table 10). In the case of the interaction with PI,

the reason for the negative interaction can be understood by considering the nature of

dilemma tasks. Previous studies have indicated that negative emotional responses,

such as disgust and pain, are functionally mapped to the PI (Isnard et al., 2011; Naqvi

& Bechara, 2009; Pereira et al., 2010; Straube & Miltner, 2011). Moral dilemmas

included in the dilemma set were designed basically to induce negative emotional

responses, such as disgust and reluctance, at the first phase of the dilemma solving

process; it was the initial intention of the inventors of the dilemma set and proved by

their experiments (Greene et al., 2004, 2001). However, because the degree of

negative emotions possibly induced by dilemmas was much stronger under the moral-

personal condition comparing to the moral-impersonal condition (Greene et al., 2004,

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2001), the negative interaction between the seed regions and PI was also stronger

under the moral-personal condition. Given the analysis and previous studies, the

present study suggests that there is significant negative association between activity in

selfhood-related processes associated with the seed regions and negative emotional

responses associated with the PI during the process of moral dilemma solving. This

negative interaction would be resulted from subjects’ effort to make a more

deliberated moral-decision while they were solving complicated moral-personal

dilemmas. Although intuitive and immediate emotional responses strongly influence

the initial phase of moral decision-making (Haidt, Björklund, & Murphy, 2000; Haidt,

2001), the final outcome of the decision-making process is also significantly affective

by the control of reasoning and deliberative processes (Paxton & Greene, 2010;

Pizarro & Bloom, 2003), particularly in case of solving complicated and high-conflict

moral dilemmas (Cushman et al., 2010; Greene, 2009b). Thus, CMS regions

associated with moral self, which would be the moderator of moral deliberation and

the monitor of moral emotion, showed negative interaction with the PI, which possibly

represents the conscious control over intuitive and negative emotional responses as a

part of efforts to make a more deliberated moral decision. Furthermore, this negative

interaction was significantly stronger under the moral-personal condition (see Table

5), because the nature of the condition is basically more complicated and conflicting,

so it would more strongly induce the involvement of deliberative and monitoring

processes. However, because the PPI method cannot determine the direction of

influence between regions, we cannot determine whether selfhood-related processes

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down-regulate control negative affective responses or vice versa. However the

Granger causality results clarified the information flow.

Granger causality between CMS and insula regions

We were able to discover several significant causal relations between seed and

insula regions from the findings of Granger causality analysis particularly under the

moral-personal condition that are coherent with our moral psychological vantage

point. The findings reported that CMS regions significantly influenced insula regions.

The CMS regions particularly the MPFC and PCC selected in the present study and

constitute the cortical midline structures, which significantly influenced insula regions,

are regarded to be the loci of selfhood, or at least the autobiographical processing that

is deemed to be the core selfhood-related process associated with moral functioning in

case of the PCC (Araujo et al., 2013, 2014), at the neural level (Damasio, 2010;

Northoff and Bermpohl, 2004). Previous neuropsychological studies have

demonstrated that the activity in the MPFC region as a part of the CMS are closely

associated with self-evaluation of a belief system and morality (Buckner et al., 2008;

Flagan & Beer, 2013; Jenkins & Mitchell, 2011; Moll et al., 2007; Moll, de Oliveira-

Souza, Eslinger, et al., 2002; Schmitz & Johnson, 2007); even socio-moral emotions

are also modulated by this self-evaluative mechanism (Northoff et al., 2006).

Furthermore, the PCC region is associated with other important self-related processes,

particularly self-referencing and autobiographical memory processing (Damasio,

2010; Leech & Sharp, 2014; Lou et al., 2010; Maddock et al., 2001; Svoboda et al.,

2006); although some recent studies have shown that this region might not be

associated with selfhood-related processes in general, it is closely associated with the

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autobiographical memory processing (Araujo et al., 2013, 2014). The influenced

regions, the PI and AI, also play important roles in moral decision-making. They

mainly deal with the processing of moral emotion and the generation for motivation

for moral decision-making. First, activity in the PI region is basically associated with

primary and somatosensory affective responses, which seem to occur intuitively and

immediately after presented task stimuli. Previous studies have proposed that the PI is

related to the initial affective responses to external stimuli and induces subjective

feeling (Isnard et al., 2011; Stephani et al., 2011). Moreover, activity in the AI is

associated with secondary, conscious and interoceptive awareness of aroused affective

responses (Craig, 2004, 2009; Critchley et al., 2004; Jabbi et al., 2008; Naqvi &

Bechara, 2010) and their modulation in motivational processes (Dambacher et al.,

2014; Silvers et al., 2015; Veit et al., 2012). This region is associated with post-

processing of aroused initial affective responses to relay the affective information to

cognitive processes, and finally produce behavioral motivation based on judgment

(Decety et al., 2012; Van Snellenberg & Wager, 2009; Wager & Barrett, 2004). This

emotional and motivational processes are also associated with socio-moral processes

(e.g., empathy), that is, the main interest of the present study (Lamm & Singer, 2010).

Particularly, the left AI, which was the ROI of this analysis in the present study, is

associated with these conscious emotional and motivational processes, especially

positive emotional and motivational processes, while the RI is more closely related to

negative arousing to the body (e.g., pain) (Craig, 2009).

Thus, we discovered at least partially the significant engagement of selfhood-

related processes in the processing of primary moral emotion and generation of

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motivation for moral-decision. More specifically, autobiographical memory

processing and self-evaluation based on a belief system influenced the processing and

integration of primary emotion and motivation generation in moral decision-making.

In fact, this neural-level evidence is consistent with the point of view of scholars

underscoring the role of moral self and identity in human morality. They have

proposed that the presence of moral self and moral identity based on personal morals

and beliefs plays a regulatory rule in moral cognition, moral emotion and finally the

generation of behavioral motivation (Aquino & Reed, 2002; Bandura, 2001; Blasi,

1984; Hardy & Carlo, 2005b). Furthermore, although the intuitive mechanism would

be initially activated, actual motivational and behavioral outcome is not directly

produced by that mechanism, but moral self, which is based on autobiographical

memory formulated by long-term experience, commitment and reflection (Damon,

1984; Pratt, Hunsberger, Pancer, & Alisat, 2003), significantly influences that

outcome (Colby & Damon, 1992; Damon & Colby, 2013). Initially aroused moral

emotions are also regulated by the moral self-related factors during the course of

moral decision-making and moral behavior. As revealed by the causal relations in the

present study, thus, moral emotion and motivational processes would be significantly

influenced by processes of selfhood and moral identity, such as referencing of

autobiographical memory as a part of moral identity and self-evaluation of moral

beliefs and value system, during moral judgment as proposed by moral psychologists.

However, because there were not any significant dominant influences from CMS to

insula regions, we should be cautious while interpreting the findings. We should be

aware of the possible presence of influences from insula regions to CMS regions,

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although these influences were not significant in our model. Future experiments with

more subjects or a meta-analysis based on accumulated data-set would possibly

improve the statistical power of causality analysis and detect more dominant

influences, which have not been proved to be significant in the present study due to

the type II error issue but would really exist.

We should take into account the fact that the significant Granger causality

from CMS to insula regions appeared only under the moral-personal condition and

that no such significant causal relation was found under the moral-impersonal

condition. This discrepancy can be well explained by the nature of each task condition.

In the case of the moral-personal condition, dilemma tasks strongly evoke subjects’

gut-level responses, because they demonstrate concrete and vivid scenes, which are

involved in potentially severe physical and mental harm to people in the dilemmatic

situations (Greene et al., 2004, 2001). As a result, psychological processes dealing

with intuitive emotional responses would be intensively activated under this condition

(Greene, 2007), so the regulatory activity associated with the self-related regions

would also be intensified while processing emotional responses and making a final

moral decision under this task condition. According to moral psychologists, moral self

is supposed to monitor and moderate moral emotion and cognition, and finally

significantly contribute to the generation of motivation for moral decision-making and

behavior (Aquino et al., 2009; Blasi, 1984, 1999; Hardy & Carlo, 2005b; Reed et al.,

2007). Thus, the significant influence from CMS regions, which are supposed to be

associated with moral self in the present study, to insula regions dealing with moral

emotion and motivation possibly under the moral-personal condition represent the

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regulation of emotional and motivational processes by moral self in moral decision-

making in complicated and conflicting situations at the neural level. Furthermore,

because the value conflicts embedded in this type of dilemmas are basically much

fiercer compared to those embedded in moral-impersonal dilemmas, they are more

likely to request subjects to refer to and reflect upon their moral beliefs and value

system based on their autobiographical self while solving dilemmas (Lapsley &

Lasky, 2001; Monroe, 2001), and it would be indicated by the increased activity in

CMS regions as demonstrated by the whole-brain comparison (Damasio, 2010;

Northoff & Bermpohl, 2004; Qin & Northoff, 2011). This process was also be

indicated by the increased interaction between CMS and other morality-related regions

under the moral-personal condition in the PPI analysis. Thus, subjects were more

likely to refer to and reflect on their moral beliefs and value system when they were

solving intensively conflicting moral-personal dilemmas, and the reflection and

reference possibly regulated the processes of moral emotion and motivation as

indicated by the significant Granger causality from CMS to insula regions under the

moral-personal condition. On the other hand, moral-impersonal dilemmas are more

similar to value-neutral mathematical or working memory tasks compared to the

moral-personal dilemmas (Greene et al., 2001), therefore the involvement of self-

related processes would become weaker. Under this condition, subjects do not have to

consider their moral beliefs and self-identity to solve problems; instead, they are only

requested to use their general cognitive skills, which are independent from selfhood-

related processes. As a result, the differences between moral-personal and moral-

impersonal conditions should result in different Granger causality in these conditions.

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Meanwhile, we discovered the dominant significant influence from the AI to

PI. Given the previous studies that have proposed that the PI is associate with primary

intuitive emotional arousal, particularly negative emotion (Isnard et al., 2011; Stephani

et al., 2011), we may conclude that the initial arousal of negative emotional responses

against moral dilemmas are regulated by activity in the AI. We may apply this

discussion to the consideration of the importance of moral deliberation and cognition

in moral decision-making. Some psychologists argue that the mechanism of intuitive

and affective processes occurring at the earliest stage of moral judgment significantly

determine further moral judgment (Bargh et al., 2012). For instance, particularly,

negative emotions, such as disgusting, are significantly in the process of further value

evaluation, and finally, motivation for a certain behavioral outcome (Haidt et al.,

2000; Haidt, 2001). However, the presence of the dominant influence from the AI to

PI can support another moral psychological vantage point that underscores the role of

conscious regulation over intuitive emotional responses in moral decision-making

particularly while solving moral problems (Blasi, 1999; Narvaez, 2010), such as moral

dilemmas in the present study, which is coherent with the view point of the proponents

of moral self and identity (Damon & Colby, 1996; Hardy & Carlo, 2005b).

In addition, the significant correlation between the causality score from the

MPFC to PI and mean response time under the moral-personal condition is also

interesting. We interpret the interaction of MPFC on PI to represent the influence of

self-evaluative processes (Flagan & Beer, 2013; Mitchell et al., 2005) on intuitive and

emotional responses (Isnard et al., 2011; Stephani et al., 2011; Straube & Miltner,

2011) to moral dilemmas. Moreover, this causal direction suggests deliberative

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processes based on the autobiographic self and moral belief system exert control over

affective processes while solving moral dilemmas. In fact, a previous study

demonstrated that activity in the PI is negatively correlated with mean response time

under the moral-personal condition (Han et al., 2014). Therefore, increased activity in

the PI, which is related to the stronger arousal of intuitive emotional responses, is

perhaps associated with faster responses towards dilemmas. Thus, the influence from

the MPFC to PI might be the indicator of the request for reflection and deliberation on

intuitive emotional responses from selfhood and might slow down the overall

decision-making process. This significant correlation was found only under the moral-

personal condition. Likewise, our general discussion about the different Granger

causality patterns between two conditions, also suggests that self-evaluative processes

were not required to influence affective processes under the moral-impersonal

condition, because dilemmas in this condition did not significantly provoke subjects’

negative emotional responses (Greene et al., 2004, 2001). This result is in line with a

previous study that has demonstrated positive correlation between the degree of the

involvement of moral deliberation and mean response time particularly when subjects

were requested to solve highly conflicting moral problems, which are similar to moral-

personal dilemmas (Suter & Hertwig, 2011).

Limitations and future directions

There are several limitations in the present study. First, the present study

utilized hypothetical dilemmas instead of real life situations (Christensen & Gomila,

2012). Due to this reason, the present study would not be able to explain the actual

psychological processes linked to moral dilemma solving and moral behavior in one’s

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everyday life. Previous non-fMRI studies of moral judgment have also been criticized

for this reason. For instance, there have been continuous controversies regarding the

gap between the moral judgment score calculated using hypothetical dilemmas and

actual moral behavioral outcome (Rest et al., 1999a, 1999b). In short, because the

hypothetical dilemmas are basically conceptual, abstract and philosophical, and cannot

completely depict situations in our real lives, they would not be appropriate to

measure subjects’ moral motivation in the real world. Second, the present study did

not use any survey or questionnaire measuring the strength of each subject’s moral

identity or moral self. Thus, it would be difficult to directly associate the brain activity

in moral task conditions and moral self solely based on the findings from the present

study. Future studies using such measurements (e.g., moral identity development

interview (Damon, 1984), self-importance of morality measure (Aquino & Reed,

2002)) should be conducted in order to clearly identify the neural-level mechanism of

moral self. Third, the relatively small sample size (N = 16) and number of trials (60

per subject) provided only modest statistical power because of the relatively subtle

difference in neural activity between socio-moral task conditions (Lieberman &

Cunningham, 2009). Because, the present study controlled for demographic variables

(i.e., ethnicity, age, gender, ethnicity) by setting them as covariates, the lack of

subjects would contribute to the further decrease of statistical power. This potentially

insufficient statistical power can result in Type II errors that hinder detection of any

subtle but true neural-level activity of interest (Desmond & Glover, 2002). Fourth,

because the present study investigated multi-cultural subjects, variances originating

from the cultural factor would matter. When we tested the effect of the cultural

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background, we were not able to discover any brain region showed the significant

cultural effect at the threshold of p < .05 (FDR) and k ≥ 25. Also, the main effect of

gender was not statistically significant. These results may imply that the moderating

role of selfhood in moral decision making processes is universal across cultures and

genders; however, due to the lack of statistical power of the present study, the validity

of this interpretation would be limited. Fifth, emotional impacts originating from

moral dilemmas would influence the subjects’ decision-making process, but the degree

of emotional arousal was not measured. Negative emotional arousal would be stronger

in the moral-personal condition and influence the decision making (Greene et al.,

2004, 2001; Han et al., 2014), but future experiments should collect emotional data to

test this prediction. Sixth, although the results showed that regions associated with

self-related processes were significantly involved in moral functioning, it is impossible

to unequivocally conclude that moral self is the only self-related process activated

under the moral task conditions in the present experiment. Instead, there might be

many other self-related processes, which are not directly associated with morality or

moral functioning, involved in the dilemma solving and it can be revealed by the

neural activity in the default mode network.

Thus, future studies should carefully consider several points to address these

limitations. First, the development of more realistic moral dilemmas is a possible way

to address the first limitation. Although the environment in MR scanners makes it

difficult to employ truly naturalistic experimental stimuli, several scholars have

suggested text-based materials using real-life socio-moral stories (Skoe, Eisenberg, &

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Cumberland, 2002; Walker, de Vries, & Trevethan, 1987) and attempted to apply

them to an fMRI experiment (FeldmanHall et al., 2012); however, the experiment did

not examine the involvement of self-related processes or CMS regions. Future fMRI

experiments would utilize the realistic moral dilemma set and investigate the

interaction and causal relation between CMS and other moral-related regions to

demonstrate the neural-level mechanism of moral self in everyday lives. Second, the

statistical power can be increased by replicating the experiment and interaction and

causality analyses in future fMRI studies, to the extent finances permit. Finally, future

studies should design more sophisticated experiments to illuminate the neural

correlates of moral self that can be distinguished from other general self-related

processes at the neural level. The studies may be able to develop dilemmas or task

conditions that are involved in moral self-related problems (e.g., reflecting upon one’s

moral beliefs) and general self-related problems (e.g., recalling previous personal

experience from autobiographical memory) and to compare brain and network activity

between these two conditions.

Conclusion

The present study demonstrates significant interactions developed between the

CMS (PCC and MPFC) and other moral-related regions including AI and PI while

subjects are solving moral dilemmas. These results can support the moral

psychological accounts regarding the role of moral self in moral decision-making

processes. Particularly, motivational processes for moral decision-making is coupled

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with activity in CMS regions, which is regarded as an indicator of the involvement of

selfhood-related processes. The findings from the Granger causality propose that

activity in CMS regions influence that in insula regions while moral decision-making.

The causality between the indicated regions supports the influence of self-evaluation

of beliefs and values based on self-referencing and autobiographical memory on the

processing of moral emotion and generation of motivation for the final decision-

making procedure (MPFC, PCC PI, AI), although the influence in that direction

were not dominant. This is consistent with the involvement of moral self and identity

in moral judgment that has been proposed by moral psychologists who have attempted

to better explain the source of moral motivation and actual moral behavior.

Furthermore, the significant dominant influence from the AI to PI under the moral-

personal condition is also interesting, because it shows us that the initially and

intuitively aroused negative emotional responses are regulated by psychological

processes associated with conscious and interoceptive awareness of emotions while

solving complicated and conflicting moral dilemmas as moral psychologists have

proposed. These findings from the interaction and Granger causality analyses in the

present study can provide researchers in the field of moral psychology and social

neuroscience with useful insights about how to approach the research topics regarding

psychological processes and neural correlates of human morality. In particular, the

present study demonstrates the importance of activity in the CMS associated with

selfhood during the process of moral judgment to be accounted for in their future

studies.

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CHAPTER 4: DEVELOPING EFFECTIVE MORAL

EDUCATIONAL INTERVENTIONS USING MORAL

EXEMPLARS THOROUGH PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPERIMENTS

The stories of moral exemplars have been widely utilized as sources for moral

inspiration and materials for moral education. For instance, parents and teachers tell

children the stories of moral saints, such as Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr.,

to promote their moral development. In fact, scholars have suggested the positive

effects of the presentation of moral exemplars in moral education. According to

Kristjánsson's (2006) philosophical account, because a moral exemplar has a better

moral characteristic compared to us, ordinary people, watching the exemplar makes us

recognize our deficiency of a certain moral value possessed by the exemplar. Finally,

this perceived deficiency induces an emotional response, such as envy, that potentially

generates motivation to become better people by emulating the presented moral

behavior. Thus, moral philosophers have suggested that moral exemplars can be used

in educational contexts. They have endorsed that the presentation of moral exemplars

can promote students’ moral development (Kristjánsson, 2006; Sanderse, 2012b).

This kind of positive effect has also been supported by social psychological

studies focusing on moral motivation. The effects of moral exemplars can be

explained by at least three social psychological mechanisms: vicarious socio-moral

learning, moral elevation and upward social comparison. First, according to the social

learning theory (Bandura, 1969), moral development in childhood and adolescence

can be significantly influenced by the presence of moral models. For instance, a social

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psychological experiment conducted by Bandura and McDonald (1963) showed that

an exposure to moral models was necessary for the development of moral judgment

among participating children as the models indirectly reinforced children’s moral

behavior. This effect of moral modeling has been replicated by other social

psychological experiments (Bandura, Ross, & Ross, 1963; Cowan, Longer,

Heavenrich, & Nathanson, 1969; Dorr & Fey, 1974; Prentice, 1972; Rushton, 1975).

Secondly, recent social psychological studies have suggested that moral elevation

provoked by moral exemplars can induce moral behavior. Haidt (2000) defined moral

elevation as “a warm, uplifting feeling that people experience when they see

unexpected acts of human goodness, kindness, and compassion,” which is associated

with moral exemplarity. Several social psychological experiments have shown that

moral elevation experienced after watching moral exemplars can actually induce

prosocial behavior in various forms (e.g., increased lactation as a proxy for the

strength of maternal caring (Silvers & Haidt, 2008), increased motivation for self-

improvement (Vianello et al., 2010), enhanced fairness and altruistic leadership

(Algoe & Haidt, 2009)). Thirdly, upward social comparison can also explain this

phenomenon. According to the mechanism of upward social comparison, after

watching moral exemplars, who are morally better, people usually feel negative

emotional responses, particularly envy, and are motivated to become morally better

people similar to and to catch up with the moral exemplar (Suls et al., 2002; Wood,

1989). It results in the promotion of self-improvement, and the motivation to emulate

the presented exemplary behaviors (Schnall et al., 2010). Given these philosophical

and psychological accounts, the stories of moral exemplars generally seem to be

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reliable and effective sources for moral education.

However, the presentation of moral stories does not always produce positive

outcomes, the promotion of motivation for moral behavior. The mere presentation of

moral exemplars without any consideration from the perspective of social psychology

can even induce detrimental results. Among various types of moral exemplars, those

that are unattainable and extreme, such as historical moral figures that do not share

any similar experience or background with students, can induce negative emotional

and behavioral responses such as moral resentment and withdrawal from moral

behavior (Monin, 2007). Monin (2007) argued that although upward social

comparison in the moral domain caused by watching moral exemplars usually induces

positive emotional and behavioral responses, people may feel that such upward moral-

social comparisons with exemplars threaten their selfhood when the presented

exemplars are perceived to be extreme. By comparing themselves to such moral

exemplars, people can feel extreme, insurmountable inferiority and, as a result,

resentment (Monin, 2007). A social psychological experiment successfully supported

his argument. Participants in that experiment reported negative opinions about moral

rebels in the domain of social equity (e.g., racial inequality) and tended to dislike the

presented socio-moral behavior, such as pursuing social equity, after they watched the

moral rebels who seemed to be unattainable and irrelevant to them (Monin, Sawyer, &

Marquez, 2008). A severe discrepancy between presented extraordinary exemplars and

selfhood, particularly that is associated with one’s current moral behavior in the

reality, is likely to produce self-conflict as explained by the cognitive dissonance

theory, induce self-defense to reduce the conflict, and finally decrease motivation

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(Elliot & Devine, 1994; Higgins et al., 1987; Sherman & Cohen, 2006). Therefore, the

present study argues that psychologists as well as educators should carefully consider

social psychological mechanisms and empirical evidence to prevent potential negative

outcomes when designing moral educational interventions using moral exemplars.

The present study, thus, conducts social psychological experiments to design

effective moral educational interventions using moral exemplars. The previous social

psychological experiment can provide useful insights regarding which types of

exemplars can effectively promote behavioral motivation. First, the present study

considers attainability as one key factor moderating the effects of the presentation of

moral exemplars. Attainability can be defined as the perceived possibility of being

able to emulate a presented exemplary behavior with a reasonable amount of effort in

the current circumstance (Lockwood & Kunda, 1997). Previous social psychological

experiments have reported that participants were more likely to emulate a presented

exemplary behavior as the degree of perceived attainability of exemplary figures or

messages increased (Cialdini, 1980; Lockwood & Kunda, 1997). Second, the present

study also considers relevance as another key factor. Participants are more likely to

emulate presented exemplary behavior when the presented exemplars are perceived to

be relevant to them (Dasgupta, 2011). Social psychological studies have proven that

the source of relevance can be diverse; for instance, a shared interest (Lockwood &

Kunda, 1997) or even a mere belongingness, such as having the same birthday

(Walton, Cohen, Cwir, & Spencer, 2012), have significantly increased participants’

motivation for behavior. Although the majority of these studies have not focused

directly on the domain of morality, the present study expects that the suggested key

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factors, i.e., attainability and relevance, also positively moderate the effectiveness of

interventions and promotion of moral motivation.

Unlike the use of extraordinary moral exemplars, which can backfire in the

long term, the presentation of attainable and relevant exemplars can effectively

promote moral motivation and behavioral tendency among participants, possibly

through the licensing mechanism of behavior. Attainable and relevant exemplars can

both license and more effectively induce positive behavioral outcomes (Miller &

Prentice, 2012), because by watching these exemplars, people might think that the

exemplars are not significantly different from or extraordinarily better than them.

Rather, they would think that the exemplars’ prosocial and moral behaviors are not

extreme, and they can emulate these behaviors. By watching attainable and relevant

moral stories, people might think “Ordinary people like me have committed to

voluntary services and donation behaviors. Why can’t I do those things? I can also

contribute to our community and world. Even a small contribution helps. It can be

appreciated and appropriate.” They would feel that it is easy to behave morally and

they have the ability to participate in moral activities. In fact, social psychologists who

studied the mechanism of motivation have argued that to motivate participants, it was

necessary not only to add motivational force to their tension systems, but also to lower

a psychological barrier hindering a certain behavioral outcome (Bettinger, Long,

Oreopoulos, & Sanbonmatsu, 2012; Leventhal, Singer, & Jones, 1965; Leventhal,

Watts, & Pagano, 1967; Leventhal, 1971; Yeager & Walton, 2011). Thus, the present

study expects that attainable and relevant exemplary stories can lower the

psychological barrier hindering people from emulating and practicing moral behavior

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and license their moral engagement.

Social neuroscience studies can also support the main assumption of the

present study. Studies that examined the neural correlates of moral elevation induced

by moral stories have reported that brain regions associated with selfhood, such as the

MPFC and PCC in the DMN (Buckner et al., 2008; Damasio, 2010; Han et al., 2016),

were significantly activated when participants were watching and motivated by moral

exemplars (Englander et al., 2012; Immordino-Yang et al., 2009). Furthermore, meta-

analyses investigating the neural circuitry of moral functioning have proven that the

selfhood-related regions in the DMN were commonly involved in various moral

functions (Bzdok et al., 2012; Han, 2015b; Sevinc & Spreng, 2014). Finally, a

functional neuroimaging study showed that activity in the self-related regions

significantly interacted with and influenced activity in other regions associated with

moral motivation (Han et al., 2015). These results suggest that selfhood moderates the

psychological processes associated with moral motivation at the neural level, and

selfhood would be the core psychological construct affects the motivational outcomes

of moral inspiration induced by exemplars. Given the neural-level evidence, the

present study expects that the stories of attainable and relevant exemplars that are

likely to be closely connected to participants’ selfhood can more strongly motivate

participants’ moral behavior compared to those of extraordinary exemplars that have

no strong connection with participants’ selfhood.

The present study conducts social psychological experiments using the

intervention method to test these hypotheses. First, the present study performs a lab-

level experiment to test whether attainable moral stories are more likely to induce

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participants’ moral behavior compared to extraordinary and non-moral stories. The

present study uses participants’ engagement in voluntary service activity as a proxy

for moral motivation and behavioral tendency. Second, the present study conducts a

classroom-level experiment to scale up the findings from the lab-level experiment and

to implement the main idea of the present study in an actual educational setting. This

experiment tests whether the stories of attainable and relevant exemplars, such as

peers and family members, more strongly motivate students to engage in moral

behavior compared to extraordinary moral stories, such as the stories of saints;

particularly, it attempts to apply those stories in actual moral educational classes.

Experiment 1

This experiment tests whether the stories of attainable exemplars are more

likely to motivate participants’ moral behavior, which is measured by their voluntary

service engagement, compared to extraordinary moral stories or non-moral stories.

Methods

Sample and design

Fifth-nine undergraduate students (20 male, 39 female) participated in this

social psychological intervention experiment. They were recruited through university

information bulletins and social network services, such as Facebook. The average age

of participants was 22.17 years (SD = 5.20 years) and they had experienced an average

of 2.95 years of college education (SD = 1.25 years). Participants were randomly

assigned into three groups: attainable, unattainable and control groups. 19 participants

were assigned to the attainable group, 18 to the unattainable group and 22 to the

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control group. Among the 59 participants who initially completed the pre-test survey

forms and participated in the intervention session, 54 participants (20 male, 34 female;

18 attainable condition, 17 unattainable condition and 19 control condition) responded

to the post-test survey request. The attrition did not differ significantly between the

three conditions, χ2 (2) = 1.16, p = .56, V = .10.

Measures

Immediate responses to the interventions

Participants’ immediate responses to the interventions were measured for

manipulation check. The present study asked for participants’ responses immediately

after the interventions using a self-reporting method. Participants’ responses were

measured in three dimensions. First, the degree of induced moral elevation, i.e., the

degree of the perceived moral elevation after reading presented stories. It was

measured by asking this question: “how strongly were you emotionally (morally)

touched by stories?” Second, the perceived moral excellence of each exemplary story,

i.e., how strongly was a presented exemplar perceived to be morally better. This

dimension was quantified by this question: “did you think that persons presented in

stories were morally excellent and better compared to yourself?” Third, the perceived

difficulty of emulating voluntary service activity presented in a given exemplary story

by asking this question: “did you think that it would be difficult to emulate the

activities of persons presented in stories?” We did not ask this question to the control

group because the presented stories to this group, such as news reports, did not intend

to induce emulation among students. An answer to each item was anchored to a 5-

point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree or extremely unlikely – 5 = strongly agree or

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extremely likely).

Intention to participate in voluntary service activity

Participants’ intention to participate in voluntary service activity was measured

by PHP-code embedded email letters containing voluntary service activity

information. To test whether the intervention influenced the intention to participate in

and seek the information about voluntary service activity, this study applied a

behavioral measurement using email. The present study sent five email messages (one

per week) to each participant, between the pre- and post-test survey sessions. Each

email message contained a short advertisement to persuade participants to donate their

time to a charity or organization (e.g. mentoring for secondary school students). The

email letters recorded each participant’s behavioral responses (e.g. whether a

participant did not erase, opened a mail and read details) using the embedded PHP-

code. Their behavioral responses were recorded on a PHP server on Stanford AFS.

The behavioral responses were quantified into 0 (neither opened nor read) or 1

(opened and read).

Voluntary service activity engagement

The present study measured each participant’s actual voluntary service activity

engagement at the pre- and post-test survey using a self-reporting method. To

minimize potential social desirability bias, which can be frequently caused by self-

reporting measures, participants were asked to provide the names of charities or

organizations, the amount of time they had participated, and the dates of participation.

This procedure was employed in order to hinder the participants from providing fake

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information. The degree of engagement was quantified in hours per month. In case of

the pre-test, the present study requested them to write down the history of their

participation between a month before the day of the pre-test survey and the day of the

survey. In case of the post-test, participants provided their participation history

between a month before the day of the post-test survey and the day of the survey.

Procedures

Before conducting the experiment, five attainable, five unattainable and five

neutral stories were prepared for reading materials. First, five undergraduate students

were recruited, who had been actively engaging in various voluntary service activities

in their everyday lives for more than three months. They were asked to write 1,000

words about their voluntary service activity experiences and what they have felt when

they were participating in voluntary service. Five stories were collected from those

college students and were used for both the attainable and unattainable conditions by

modifying the amount of engagement written in hours per week. The present study set

thresholds determining the attainability of a certain story by calculating results from a

preliminary survey that asked 35 undergraduate students the following two questions:

“How many hours can you donate to charities every week, without any hesitation? (in

hours) (for the threshold for attainable stories)” and “What is the maximum amount of

time that you can donate to charities every week? (in hours) (for the threshold for

unattainable stories)”. The mean response to the first question was 4.21 hrs/wk (SD =

3.69) and that to the second question was 7.57 hrs/wk (SD = 4.69). The present study

calculated the thresholds using the following equations.

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𝑇𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑛 = ⌊�̅� − 𝑧99%/2

𝜎

√𝑛⌋ , 𝑇𝑢𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑛 = ⌈�̅� + 𝑧99%/2

𝜎

√𝑛⌉

As a result, five attainable stories were presented with voluntary service

engagement less than three hours per week and five unattainable stories with

engagement exceeding nine hours per week; the number of hours was modified in

each story according to the thresholds. For the control condition, five morally neutral

news reports were used, such as a story about a baseball player or new technological

developments.

Participants were asked to complete the pre-test questionnaire measuring their

voluntary service activity engagement. Then, the intervention took place immediately

after the completion of the pre-test survey. The present study provided participants

with five selected stories matching to their group assignments, and asked them to write

solicitation letters for their friends’ voluntary service activity participation if they were

assigned to either the attainable or the unattainable group. Then, another questionnaire

measured the immediate responses to the intervention, i.e., moral elevation, perceived

moral excellence, and perceived difficulty to emulate (only for attainable and

unattainable groups), was distributed to participants for a manipulation check. To

measure participants’ intention to participate in voluntary service, they received five

weekly emails containing voluntary service activity information after the end of the

intervention session. Six weeks after the intervention session, the participants were

requested to provide their post-test voluntary service engagement information.

Results

The present study analyzed participants’ responses to interventions for

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manipulation check using ANOVA. Furthermore, it compared the change in intention

to participate in voluntary service activity as well as that in actual engagement

between the three groups using ANCOVA.

Immediate responses to the interventions

There were significant differences in participants’ responses between groups in

all of three dimensions (see Figure 13). For the induced moral elevation, the main

effect of the group factor was statistically significant, F (2, 56) = 4.79, p < .05, η2 =

.11. Only the attainable group reported a significantly stronger response than the

control group, t (39) = 3.20, p < .05, 95% CI [.36, 1.60], d= .1.01, while there was no

significant difference between the unattainable and control groups, t (38) = 1.36, p =

.35, 95% CI [-.23, 1.17], d = .43. Furthermore, there was no significant difference

between the attainable and unattainable groups, t (35) = 1.60, p = .32, 95% CI [-.13,

1.15], d = .53. In the domain of perceived moral excellence, the main effect of the

group variable was also significant, F (2, 56) = 9.89, p < .001, η2 = .26. Both

attainable, t (39) = 4.41, 95% CI [.62, 1.67], p < .001, d = 1.41, and unattainable

groups, t (38) = 2.97, p < .01, 95% CI [.30, 1.55], d = .97, showed a significantly

higher score than the control group, while the difference between attainable and

unattainable groups was not significant, t (35) = .81, p = .75, 95% CI [-.33, .77], d =

.27. Lastly, the present study compared the degree of perceived difficulty to emulate a

presented exemplar between the two moral stories groups. The control group was

excluded from this analysis, because the nature of presented stories, such as news

reports and sports headlines, was not emulable. The result of the comparison showed

that the attainable group felt that the presented stories were significantly easier to

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emulate than the unattainable group felt about their presented stories, t (35) = 2.33, p <

.05, 95% CI [.10, 1.48], d = .79.

Figure 13. Participants’ responses to interventions in experiment 1 for manipulation check.

Intention to participate in voluntary service activity

The present study measured participants’ intention to participate in voluntary

service activity by using five weekly information email messages containing PHP

codes to record their behavioral response (i.e., whether they opened and read a

message). The longitudinal trend was presented in Figure 14. The week 5 data was

excluded from the analysis because a system problem occurred on one email server. In

week 1, the rate of behavioral response was highest in the control group (86.4%),

followed by that of unattainable (83.3%) and attainable groups (78.9%). After the mid-

term period between weeks 2 and 3 when undergraduate students are likely to

disengage from voluntary service activity the rate was highest in the attainable group

(73.7%) compared to both unattainable (63.6%) and control groups (61.1%) in week 4.

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Given this trend, the attainable group showed the least decline of voluntary service

intention.

Figure 14. Participants’ intention to participate in voluntary service activity measured by

behavioral responses to weekly information email correspondences in experiment 1.

The result of ANCOVA also reported that there was a significant interaction

effect between participants’ email open behavior in week 1 and their group, F (2, 48)

= 4.78, p < .05, f = .37. This result showed that participants in the attainable group

who opened and read week 1 information letter were significantly more likely to open

and read the week 4 letter compared to those in other groups. In other words,

participants in the attainable group were more likely to maintain their behavioral

tendency over time compared to other participants. However, participants in the

attainable group who did not open and read the initial email were no more likely to

have intention at the end of the experimental period than those in other groups.

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Voluntary service activity engagement

First, the present study conducted preliminary ANOVA to test whether

participants were randomly assigned to each group in terms of their pre-test voluntary

service engagement. The result of the ANOVA indicated that the mean pre-test service

engagement did not significantly differ across three groups, F (2, 56) = 1.84, p = .17, f

= .17, which indicated that the randomization process was properly performed.

Second, the present study conducted an ANCOVA and post-hoc pairwise comparison

using Scheffe’s method to test whether the attainable stories motivated participants’

voluntary service activity engagement significantly better compared to those in the

unattainable and control groups. The ANCOVA found a significant main effect of

group factor, F (2, 50) = 3.19, p < .05, f = .27, after controlling for initial engagement

(see Figure 15). The results of post-hoc tests demonstrated that the longitudinal change

in the hours of voluntary service activity engagement was significantly greater in the

attainable group compared to that in the control group, t (35) = 2.37, p < .05, 95% CI

[.98, 12.8], d = .73, while such difference was insignificant between the unattainable

and control groups, t (34) = .96, p = .73, 95% CI [-2.25, 6.27], d = .32,. However,

there was no significant difference between the attainable and unattainable groups, t

(33) = 1.99, p = .17, 95% CI [-.10, 9.87], d = .65.

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Figure 15. Participants’ voluntary service engagement change (hours per week) in experiment 1.

In addition, the result of logistic regression analysis reported that the post-test

engagement, which was coded into a binary variable, was greater in the attainable

group than in other groups after controlling for initial engagement (see Figure 16). The

difference was statistically significant between attainable and unattainable groups, β

= .49, z (54) = 2.26, p < .05, 95% CI [.31, 4.34], and marginal between attainable and

control groups, β = .31, z (54) = 1.68, p = .09, 95% CI [.-24, 3.05], given the estimated

coefficients. The logistic regression model was also statistically significant, χ2 (3) =

12.73, p < .01, R2 = .20, f = .25.

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Figure 16. Participants’ voluntary service engagement rate change in experiment 1.

Discussion

The results of this experiment supported the initial hypothesis about the effects

of attainable exemplary stories on the promotion of moral motivation. The

manipulation check showed that stories about attainable exemplars induced

significantly stronger moral elevation among participants and were more likely to be

perceived as morally excellent compared to non-moral stories. Moreover, participants

reported that attainable exemplars seemed to be significantly easier to emulate

compared to unattainable exemplars. It suggests that the experiment successfully

differentiated the degree of perceived difficulty of emulating presented exemplars

between two conditions. Given this result, the perceived attainability was

appropriately manipulated in this experiment. In case of voluntary service intention,

participants who read attainable exemplary stories about voluntary service activity

experience were more likely to sustain intention to seek voluntary service activity

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information during the period (the mid-term exam period) compared to their

counterparts. Furthermore, the attainable group showed significantly increased

engagement compared to unattainable and control groups. Based on these results, it

can be concluded that attainable stories more effectively promoted participants to

initiate and continuously engage in voluntary service activity compared to other types

of stories.

However, there are several unanswered questions. First, although this

experiment showed significant effects of attainable stories on moral motivation and

moral behavior through the intervention, the sample size was limited (n = 59).

Because analysis indicated that the statistical power of this experiment was

insufficient (power < .80) and it was able to provide only modest statistical power due

to the small sample size, this experiment should be replicated with more participants

to assure an appropriate level of statistical power. In fact, the sample size was able to

assure the statistical power of .80 only when an effect size was large (d = .80). Second,

because this experiment was conducted in a lab environment, another classroom-level

experiment should be conducted to apply the main idea of the present study to actual

moral education.

Experiment 2

The present study conducted an additional experiment at a middle school to

implement and test the main idea of the present study in an actual educational setting.

Moreover, because the sample size of this field study was greater (N = 107), the

results can be generalized better. This experiment tested whether moral education

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utilizing attainable-relevant moral stories, such as the stories of peer’s moral behavior,

significantly promoted students’ moral motivation to engage in actual moral behavior,

particularly voluntary service activity engagement. Because the classroom-level

experiment was conducted in a real educational setting, this experiment can show

educators how to utilize the main idea of the present study in moral education at

schools.

Methods

Sample and design

A total of 111 eighth graders from four classes initially participated in this

experiment. Of these, 107 students attended both pre- and post-test survey sessions, so

the data collected from those 107 students was used for the analyses. Given the

medium effect size (f = .27) resulting from the ANCOVA of the previous lab-level

experiment, this sample size (N = 107) can assure 80% of statistical power at α = .05,

which was calculated using the a priori sample size estimation function offered by the

G*Power package (Faul, Erdfelder, Buchner, & Lang, 2009; Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, &

Buchner, 2007). All participants were aged 14 years and 50 were females. These

participants were recruited from a public middle school in Seoul, Korea. All

participant were assigned to one of two exemplar groups: attainable-relevant and

unattainable-irrelevant. Because the participants were already assigned to four classes,

which were determined by the school’s staff at the beginning of the academic year, the

class assignment procedure was not fully random. Instead, the present study randomly

selected two classes per condition. As a result, students in two classes were assigned

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to the attainable-relevant group, while the other two classes were assigned to the

unattainable-irrelevant group. 55 students were assigned to the attainable-relevant

group while 52 were assigned to the unattainable-irrelevant group. The attrition did

not differ significantly between the two conditions, χ2 (1) = .38, p = .54, V = .06.

Measures

Responses to the interventions

Similar to experiment 1, this experiment measured participants’ responses to

the interventions after the end of the intervention sessions. This experiment surveyed

participants’ responses in three domains identical to experiment 1. Participants were

asked three questions relating the degree of moral elevation, perceived moral

excellence and difficulty to emulate. Their answer to each item was anchored to a 5-

point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree or extremely unlikely – 5 = strongly agree or

extremely likely).

Voluntary service activity engagement and intention questionnaires

This experiment measured participants’ voluntary service activity engagement

and intention using a questionnaire previously used in civic and community service

purpose studies (Crocetti, Jahromi, & Meeus, 2012; Porter, 2013). These measured

variables were used as proxies for participants’ motivation for moral behavior. First, in

case of activity engagement, the present study surveyed the frequency of engagement

in service activity offered by: 1. Religion, 2. Charity, 3. Art, and 4. Child-adolescent-

student community organizations. The survey question asked the degree of

participants’ engagement for the last two months; their answer was quantified using a

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5-point Likert scale (“1. None”—“5. More than once per week”). The overall

voluntary service participation score was calculated by averaging scores in those four

domains. In addition, participants’ intention to engage in voluntary service was also

surveyed. Survey questions asked whether they would like to engage in service

activity, whether they will engage in service activity, and whether they will seek

service activity opportunities. Their answer was anchored to a 7-point Likert scale.

Procedures

The educational interventions in this experiment were conducted as a part of an

official subject, Moral Education. This course was required for all eighth graders at the

school for three hours per week. The experiment constituted a part of the course

utilizing moral exemplars as agents of moral inspiration. The participants were asked

to complete questionnaires before the initiation of educational interventions. After the

pre-test survey session, the educational interventions began at the beginning of the

2014 fall semester. First, participants in the attainable-relevant group were requested

to praise and discuss the exemplary behaviors (e.g., donation and voluntary service) of

people who were close to them (e.g., family members, friends, teachers, etc.). Second,

participants in the unattainable-irrelevant group were requested to praise and discuss

historic or well-known figures, such as Mother Teresa, who devoted her whole life to

voluntary service; or Bill and Melinda Gates, who donated vast amounts of money to

charity. In both groups, participants participated in various activities (e.g., poster

drawing, award making and focused discussion), and were asked to affirm that they

can become morally better people by emulating moral behavior of the presented

exemplars. The products of activity made by participants during the course of

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interventions are presented in Figure 17. The interventions were conducted once a

week (1 hour / week) and the length of the intervention period was eight weeks. 12

weeks after the pre-test survey, the post-test survey was conducted using the

questionnaires as those used during the pre-test survey.

Figure 17. Participants’ activity products during moral education classes in experiment 2. Left:

praising voluntary service activity of a teacher exemplar (attainable-relevant condition). Right: praising the

moral virtue of Stephen Cardinal Kim Sou-hwan.

Results

This experiment performed ANOVA for both the analysis of manipulation

check and the comparison of the changes in voluntary service intention and

participation between groups.

Responses to the interventions

First, there was no significant intergroup difference in moral elevation induced

by moral exemplars between the two groups, F (1, 105) = .36, p = .55, η2 = .00.

Second, the mean of the degree of perceived excellence also did not significantly

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differ between two conditions, F (1, 105) = .66, p = .42, η2 = .01 (See Fig. 6).

However, participants in the attainable-relevant condition reported that the presented

stories were significantly less difficult to emulate compared to participants in the

unattainable-irrelevant condition, F (1, 105) = 38.20, p < .001, η2 = .27 (See Figure

18). In short, although both the attainable-relevant and unattainable-irrelevant

exemplars equally elevated participants and were similarly perceived to be morally

excellent to participants, the attainable-relevant exemplars seemed to be significantly

easier to emulate for participants compared to the unattainable-irrelevant exemplars.

This result was consistent with the result in experiment 1 that showed significant

difference in the perceived difficulty to emulate presented exemplars between

attainable and unattainable groups.

Figure 18. Participants’ responses to interventions in experiment 2 for manipulation check.

Voluntary service activity intention and engagement

The present study conducted a series of ANOVA to check whether there was

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any significant intergroup difference in any dependent variable at the pre-test as it did

in the experiment 1. The results demonstrated that the pre-test mean score of every

dependent variable did not significantly differ between the two groups. These

analyzed dependent variables included service intention, F (1, 104) = .11, p = .74, f

= .00; overall service engagement, F (1, 105) = .53, p = .47, f = .00; service

engagement in organizations that were religion-related, F (1, 103) = .59, p = .44, f

= .00, charity, F (1, 103) = .04, p = .84, f = .00, art-related, F (1, 104) = .00, p = .96, f

= .00, and for youth, F (1, 104) = .04, p = .84, f = .00. Given the findings, the present

study concluded that the random assignment procedure was appropriately performed.

In addition, the present study conducted a series of ANCOVA to investigate

whether there was any significant difference between the two groups in longitudinal

change in each dependent variable. The pre-test score was included in the ANCOVA

model to control for baseline difference across individuals. In case of service

intention, the main effect of condition was insignificant, F (1, 103) = 1.33, p = .25, f

= .04 (see Figure 19). However, the present study found the significant main effect of

the group assignment on overall voluntary service activity engagement, F (1, 104) =

8.10, p < .01, f = .22 (see Figure 20). In case of ANCOVA for subdomains,

Bonferroni’s correction was applied to prevent possible error due to the multiple

comparisons. More specifically, only one domain of voluntary service activity, that is,

participation in activity offered by youth community organizations, F (1, 102) = 12.30,

p < .01, f = .31, showed the significant main effect of condition. In case of the domain

of activity offered by religion-related organization the main effect was marginal, F (1,

96) = 5.65, p = .08, f = .17. However, such effect was not significant in the domain of

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engagement in charity organizations, F (1, 98) = 1.00, p = .51, f = .00, or art

organizations, F (1, 97) = 3.94, p = .21, f = .16.

Figure 19. Participants’ voluntary service activity intention change in experiment 2. † p < .1, two-

ailed. ** p < .01, two-tailed.

Figure 20. Participants’ voluntary service activity engagement change in experiment 2. † p < .1,

two-ailed. ** p < .01, two-tailed.

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Finally, there was not any significant effect of class factor given the results of

mixed-effects model analysis. The random factors in the model, i.e., class assignment

and student ID, were insignificant, 2 (1) = .04, p = .98, while the effect of condition

as a fixed effect, B = .26, z = 2.69, p < .01, 95% CI [.071 .45], and the overall model

were significant, Wald 2 (2) = 52.60, p < 001.

Discussion

The manipulation check showed that although both attainable-relevant and

unattainable-irrelevant exemplars similarly induced moral elevation among and were

perceived to be morally excellent by participants, participants felt that attainable-

relevant exemplars were significantly easier to emulate compared to unattainable-

irrelevant exemplars. This result implies that this experiment was able to differentiate

the perceived difficulty for emulation between two types of exemplary stories similar

to experiment 1. This experiment showed that the utilization of close moral exemplars

who are perceived to be relevant and attainable to participants in moral education

classes could more effectively promote participants moral motivation to participate in

various voluntary service activity compared to historic moral saints. As the previous

social psychological studies reported the effect of attainability and closeness on the

promotion of motivation (Lockwood & Kunda, 1997; Walton et al., 2012), the present

study also successfully demonstrated that attainable-relevant exemplars, such as peers

and family members, significantly promoted moral motivation not only in the lab

environment but also in the classroom. Although both peer and extraordinary stories

similarly inspired students given the insignificant difference in the reported level of

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moral elevation and perceived excellence, peer stories more strongly impacted

students’ moral motivation. Interestingly, the main effect of condition was significant

in the domain of participation in youth organizations but was marginal in the domain

of participation in religion-related organizations. Given that middle school students

can more easily access organizations focusing on adolescents than general charity or

art organizations, the effect of attainability and relevance of exemplars is more likely

to motivate adolescents to engage in adolescent-related organizations.

However, such a significant intergroup difference was not found in the

dimension of voluntary service intention. This dimension represents mere expectation

or intention rather than actual motivation, which is more directly connected to

behavioral outcome, so the difference in motivating effect between two exemplar

types would diminish in this domain. In fact, previous psychological studies have

shown that a significant portion of adolescents, referred to as “dreamers,” had only the

intention to participate but did not actually participate in activity (Bronk, 2014;

Damon, Menon, & Bronk, 2003; Damon, 2008; Han, 2015a; Malin, Reilly, Quinn, &

Moran, 2014); thus, mere intention would be independent from actual engagement.

Because voluntary service engagement is directly influenced by motivation for moral

behavior and is more likely to become the target of the licensing effect, this effect

originating from the presence of attainability and relevance would cause the

significant longitudinal change only in this dimension.

Although this classroom-level experiment was able to discover some

significant findings, several limitations should be addressed by future studies with

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more sophisticated experimental designs. First, this experiment was not able to

randomize fully the organization of classes, or to assign each individual student

completely randomly to a certain group. Because students were assigned to their

classes at the beginning of each academic year according to their previous scholastic

achievement, behavioral record and socio-economic status (SES), the present study

was able only to randomly select two pre-organized classes per group. It may

significantly bias the distribution of population. Although the non-random group

assignment was suboptimal and this issue should be addressed by future studies,

several factors could remedy the problem in this experiment. Teachers and school

administrators carefully assigned each student to each class to minimize interclass

differences in the mean scholastic achievement, behavioral record and SES across all

classes. Thus, although the classes were not randomly assigned, they were

homogeneously determined in terms of students’ cognitive and social development

and socio-economic background. In addition, because there was no significant

intergroup difference in any dependent variables found by the pre-test survey, the

interclass difference in moral behavioral intention and tendency at the beginning of the

interventional period was not severe.

Second, due to the educational system in Korean middle schools, the present

study was not able to set a pure control group that did not engage in any moral

educational activity similar to the control group in experiment 1. According to the

national-level standard curriculum (Roh, 2004), moral education as a formal subject is

mandatory for all middle school students. Thus, all student participants were required

to enroll in this subject and regularly engage in moral educational activity during the

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weekly moral education classes. This experiment was not able to completely control

for the possible impact of any types of moral educational instructions without the

presence of the pure control group. Thus, it would be difficult to argue that the

significant effect found in this experiment was due solely to the attainability and

relevance; the effect may be due to the mere milieu of general moral educational

activity.

General Discussion

The present study tested the psychological impacts of exemplar-applied moral

educational interventions through two experiments. The stories of attainable and

relevant moral exemplar more effectively promoted students’ motivation for moral

behavior compared to those of unattainable, irrelevant and extraordinary moral

exemplars. In this section, the present study discusses which factors may contribute to

the significant difference in the psychological impacts and how educators can develop

a more effective moral educational program based on the findings.

Attainability

As initially proposed in the introduction, although the stories of moral

exemplars are generally expected to promote people’s moral motivation through

mechanisms of vicarious social learning and modeling (Bandura & McDonald, 1963;

Bandura, 1969), moral elevation (Haidt, 2000), and positive upward social comparison

(Smith, 2000; Suls et al., 2002; Tesser, 1991), unattainable and extraordinary moral

stories can induce adverse psychological results, such as resentment (Monin et al.,

2008; Monin, 2007). These negative effects of unattainable moral exemplars on moral

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motivation would be produced by the self-defense mechanism to protect against the

perceived threats from those stories (Alicke, 2000). For instance, when a person is

exposed to a story of an extraordinary moral saint, who does not seem to be emulable

from her perspective, the person might think the presented exemplar is a completely

superior person, and she cannot possibly carry out such a moral behavior. In this

situation, the self-defense mechanism attempts to protect her selfhood by isolating it

from the moral domain when he or she has any negative, self-threatening feelings,

such as a sense of inadequacy or lethargy in moral behavior (Alicke, 2000; Monin,

2007; Wood, 1989). Eventually, the selfhood would be separated from the moral

behavior presented by the extraordinary exemplars and she would withdraw from

moral behavior in the future.

On the other hand, attainability is likely to promote the motivational effect of

presented moral stories. In fact, Cialdini's (1980) experiment showed that the amount

of donated money from participants was significantly greater when “even a penny

helps” message was presented compared to when the researchers merely solicited

donation. This short message can make donating behavior seem more attainable to

participants and significantly promote their motivation for donation. In addition,

Lockwood and Kunda's (1997) experiment also showed that the motivating effect of

role models on scholastic activity became greater when participants had enough time

before their graduation to catch up with the models. Given these studies, a message

suggesting that moral behavior is attainable does not threat people’s self-esteem and

can effectively promote motivation. In fact, a similar idea has also been proposed in

the field of moral education. Scholars confirmed that presenting a framework of moral

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thinking just one stage above students’ current moral developmental level was

perceived to be attainable and easily emulable to the students, and effectively

promoted the development of moral reasoning (Blatt & Kohlberg, 1975). In addition, a

meta-analysis showed that several experiments successfully replicated the result of

this experiment (Enright, Lapsley, Harris, & Shawver, 1983). Given these studies, the

presence of attainability significantly influences the effect of interventions in

classroom. Consequently, the application of attainable moral stories, instead of

unattainable moral stories of moral saints, can effectively motivate students’ moral

behavior.

The present study demonstrated the positive effect of attainability on the

promotion of moral motivation. First, experiment 1 tested the pure effect of

attainability in a lab environment. Because all recruited exemplars were undergraduate

students, whose current socio-economic background was identical to that of

participants, and attainability was the only factor that differentiated groups, the present

study concludes that attainability significantly influenced the promotion of students’

moral motivation. Furthermore, the present study replicated the result of experiment 2

in real classroom.

Finally, given both the theoretical framework and the findings of the

experiments, attainability is one of the fundamental factors that determines the

motivational effect of presented moral exemplars. Attainable stories are perceived to

be emulable through a feasible amount of effort for students, enable them to think that

they can accomplish those attainable moral behaviors and that even small behaviors

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are meaningful and valuable. Most importantly, attainable stories do not demotivate

them as the way extraordinary moral stories do by backfiring in the long term.

Relevance

As the present study proposed, irrelevant exemplars, such as historic figures

who do not have any significant connection with students in terms of social or cultural

contexts, cannot effectively promote students’ moral motivation and make them

engage in the moral behavior of presented exemplars. For instance, in case of moral

education, the mere presentation of historic moral saints cannot effectively improve

students’ moral motivation (Han, 2013). Although students might think that the heart-

touching stories of Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela are great, they might ask, “so

what?” Because there is no strong connection between the moral saints and students,

students might think that the stories of moral behaviors are not within the boundary of

their everyday lives, and they are not responsible for emulating such behaviors. In

fact, Monin et al. (2008) and Monin (2007) proposed that such irrelevant extraordinary

moral exemplars cannot induce any significant change in moral motivation and may

even backfire. On the other hand, Lockwood and Kunda (1997) demonstrated that the

effect of relevance was positive. When they presented role models to undergraduate

students, students studying in the same field as the field of the exemplars showed

significantly stronger motivation for self-improvement compared to their counterparts

in different fields. Finally, even a small connection with models, such as the same

birthday, significantly promoted motivation to learn mathematics (Walton et al.,

2012). Given these studies, relevance is another key factor that determines the strength

of motivational impact of exemplars.

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Why does the factor, relevance, significantly influences the promotion of

moral motivation induced by moral exemplars? First, people are more likely to

compare themselves to relevant models than to irrelevant models when they are

engaging in upward social comparison. For instance, attractive others are significantly

more likely to be compared and influential when they are of the same gender (Brown,

Novick, Lord, & Richards, 1992; Zanna, Goethals, & Hill, 1975). Moreover, several

experiments that replicated such results in the classroom showed that perceived

similarity or relevance between presented models and perceivers, and the likelihood of

upward social comparison and motivation for self-improvement were positively

associated with each other (Blanton et al., 1999; Huguet et al., 2001). Thus, the

likelihood of upward social comparison is proportional to the degree of relevance

between perceivers’ selfhood and presented exemplars, so relevant exemplars are

more likely to influence participants.

Second, group affiliation and group norm can also explain the impact of

relevance. As proposed by social psychological theories regarding social identity and

group dynamics, people are usually motivated to observe and are influenced by their

own group norms or cultural standards that consolidate their in-group identity

(Abrams & Hogg, 1990; Gino, Ayal, & Ariely, 2009; Tajfel, 1982). This idea was

empirically tested by recent social psychological experiments focusing on which

environmental and group factors significantly influenced motivation for both desirable

and undesirable behavior. There was a positive relation between the degree of

perceived group identity, the presence of group norms requiring desirable behavior,

and tax law compliance (Wenzel, 2004). In addition, another study focusing on

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undesirable behavior reported that when a model’s immoral behavior was significantly

associated with a group norm, it was more likely to be emulated by participants

affiliated to the same group with the model (Gino et al., 2009). Furthermore, previous

meta-analyses demonstrated that the presence of an ethical climate and norm within

the same field or group (Loe, Ferrell, & Mansfield, 2000) and interaction with moral

peers (Ford & Richardson, 1994) were positively associated with a more developed

moral decision making ability. Thus, when a behavior is perceived as permitted by

their group norm, the participants are more strongly influenced by and likely to

emulate the presented behavior when the model is a member of the same group. The

group affiliation, which is a fundamental form of relevance, of moral exemplars

influences their motivational impact.

Intervention design for classes

The utilization of attainable and relevant exemplars can be particularly useful

when moral education targets are about to initiate students’ prosocial and moral

behavior, such as volunteer service activity. Because attainable and relevant exemplars

promote moral motivation mainly through the licensing effect (Miller & Prentice,

2012; Schein, 1999), those exemplars are especially effective at lowering the barrier

hindering students to initiate and engage in moral behavior. The foot-in-the-door

(FITD) technique can also explain this aspect. This technique suggests that a request

for a large amount of help is more likely to be accepted when a smaller request comes

before (Dillard, 1991; Freedman & Fraser, 1966). Likewise, attainable and relevant

exemplars, who seem to be easily emulated compared to extraordinary exemplars, can

enable students to initiate moral behavior at first and then to engage in more difficult

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moral behavior in the future. Given this technique, attainable and relevant exemplars

can be particularly effective at the earlier phase of a moral education class.

Then, should moral educators utilize only attainable and relevant exemplars in

their classes? Are the stories of Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela only harmful

without any potential benefit for students’ moral development? The present study

would say, “No.” In fact, moral exemplars have been regarded as valuable sources for

the investigation of morality in real life, as paragons of morality, in developmental

psychological studies (Colby & Damon, 1992; Damon & Colby, 2013; Matsuba &

Walker, 2004; Walker & Hennig, 2004; Walker, 2013). Given these studies,

extraordinary moral exemplars can show us what goals should be pursued in our lives,

and what is the ultimate endpoint of moral development (Han, 2015c). Thus, the

presentation of those moral saints can work as a Polaris for moral education utilizing

exemplary stories.

Given the previous accounts regarding the value of extraordinary exemplars in

moral education, the present study suggests that moral educators should carefully

consider students’ developmental level and arrange the order of the presentation of

exemplars corresponding to the current developmental level. In fact, both moral

psychologists and moral philosophers have underscored that although moral ideals can

provide the ultimate end point of moral education, educational methods should be

determined based on students’ current developmental status and should attempt to help

students to approach much higher developmental levels (Blatt & Kohlberg, 1975; Han,

2014, 2015c; Kristjánsson, 2014; Sanderse, 2012a; Silverstein & Trombetti, 2013).

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Therefore, extraordinary exemplars, who usually seem to be distant from students’

moral developmental level and background, should be presented after the students’

motivation is initially elicited by attainable and relevant stories. In fact, given both the

licensing effect (Miller & Prentice, 2012) and FITD technique (Freedman & Fraser,

1966), attainable and relevant stories can effectively introduce students to moral

behavior. Extraordinary stories can show higher standards of moral behavior to

students, make them compare themselves with those higher standards, and finally

encourage them to engage in more difficult moral behavior once their psychological

barrier is lowered and effectively motivated by attainable and relevant stories. Moral

educators can arrange their educational programs, materials and classroom activities

using moral exemplars following this basic guideline.

Limitations and future directions

Although the present study demonstrated the importance of attainability and

relevance for the design of moral educational interventions using moral exemplars,

several limitations should be addressed by future studies. The present study discusses

limitations common in the two experiments in this section.

First, measurements used in the present study present a significant limitation

due to the usage of the self-reporting method. This method was used due to the limited

class time particularly in experiment 2. The most fundamental shortcoming of self-

reporting, that is, social desirable bias (Ito & Cacioppo, 2007), has been a particularly

significant issue for moral educational studies; scholars have warned that self-

reporting is not an optimal methodology to measure students’ character and actual

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moral behavior (Kristjánsson, 2013). Of course, to minimize the possibility of bias,

experiment 1 requested participants to provide the details of their voluntary service

activity record. However, despite the technique used in the experiment, self-reporting

is susceptible to deception and cannot directly measure moral motivation, which is a

covert and implicit psychological disposition. Therefore, future studies should utilize

more direct measurements, such as behavioral observation in classrooms (Woodhead

& Paulkner, 2000) or writing a daily diary reporting the record of motivational status

and actual moral behavior (Boekaerts & Corno, 2005; Conway & Briner, 2002;

Pekrun, Goetz, Titz, & Perry, 2002). In addition, a more direct research method

focusing on the internal psychological processes of moral motivation and behavior,

such as the longitudinal functional and structural neuroimaging method, could be

another possible way to address this issue (Han et al., 2016, 2014; Han, 2014;

Kristjánsson, 2007).

Second, although the present study suggested how best to apply both attainable

and relevant, and extraordinary exemplars to the course of moral education based on

the idea of moral development, it did not discuss any details. More specifically, we

should consider several possible ways to utilize both or either ordinary (attainable and

relevant) and extraordinary moral stories in classes. First, as the FITD technique

suggests (Freedman & Fraser, 1966), a teacher may gradually increase the degree of

the extraordinariness of presented moral stories; at the first phase of classes, he or she

introduces attainable and relevant moral exemplars to arouse students’ interest in

moral behavior, and then utilizes gradually less attainable or relevant but more

extraordinary stories. Second, ordinary and extraordinary stories may be introduced in

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turn for each chapter dealing with a specific domain in moral behavior; attainable and

relevant exemplars are introduced to induce students’ interest, and then extraordinary

exemplars are discussed to present students with the moral ideal in the domain.

Finally, only attainable and relevant exemplary stories collected from peers, family

and community members may be introduced during all classes without introducing

any extraordinary stories; this design is obviously opposite to the usual tendency to

regard the value of moral saints as moral paragons in moral education (see Han

(2014a) and Han (2014b)). Future studies should test and compare the effects of those

diverse course designs in the long term to determine the most effective course design

using ordinary and/or extraordinary moral stories.

Third, the present study was not able to test the pure effect of relevance due to

the experimental design. In experiment 1, only the effect of attainability was tested.

Although experiment 2 attempted to test the effect of relevance, because it set only

two conditions, i.e., attainable-relevance and unattainable-irrelevant exemplar

conditions, it was not able to isolate the pure effect of relevance from the effect of

attainability. Because the main purpose of experiment 2 was to test the effect of moral

education utilizing peer exemplars, which was feasible to implement in classroom, it

was necessary to mix relevance and attainability in its experimental design. Thus,

future studies should directly compare longitudinal change in moral motivation

between relevant and irrelevant exemplar conditions while controlling for other

potential compounding factors, such as attainability.

Conclusion

The present study tested whether the effectiveness of attainable and relevant

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moral exemplars better promoted moral motivation, which was measured by

participants’ voluntary service intention and engagement, compared to unattainable

and irrelevant exemplars. Two experiments, one in a lab environment and another in a

classroom, successfully demonstrated that attainable and relevant exemplars better

promoted moral behavior. Given the findings, the present study concludes that

attainability and relevance are core factors determining the motivational impact of

exemplary stories in moral education, particularly among students who are about to

initiate their moral engagement. Therefore, moral educators should consider how to

use attainable and relevant stories and how to design and organize a more effective

moral education curriculum as suggested in the general discussion section. Future

psychological experiments with more sophisticated experimental designs should also

be conducted to better generalize the findings of the present study.

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CHAPTER 5: CONCLUDING REMARKS

The present study was able to demonstrate the positive psychological effects of

attainable and relevant exemplars on the promotion of students’ moral motivation,

which was measured by their voluntary service engagement.

Two neuroscientific studies were able to illuminate the core psychological

processes that possibly moderate the processes of moral emotion and moral

motivation. First, the meta-analysis of previous neuroimaging studies examining the

neural correlates of moral functioning showed that brain regions associated with

selfhood and self-related psychological processes, particularly the DMN and brain

circuitry of autobiographical memory processing, commonly activated in the moral-

task conditions. Second, the functional neuroimaging experiment utilizing both the

PPI and GCA methods reported that brain regions associated with selfhood and self-

related processes, particularly the PCC and MPFC, significantly interacted with and

influenced brain activity in regions associated with moral emotion and motivation in

the moral-task conditions. Given these findings, I concluded that selfhood-related

processes were the core psychological processes that moderate moral emotion and

moral motivation and should be the targets of social psychological interventions.

Based on the neuroscientific experiments, the present study conducted two

social psychological experiments examining the longitudinal effects of moral

exemplars on the promotion of motivation for moral behavior. Because the

neuroscientific experiments indicated that selfhood-related processes are significantly

involved in moral emotion and moral motivation, the social psychological experiments

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attempted to compare the influence of attainable and relevant exemplars, which are

possibly closely connected to participants’ selfhood, with the influence of

extraordinary exemplars. Consequently, both the lab- and school-level experiments

supported the main hypothesis of the present study: attainable and relevant exemplars

would more strongly promote participants’ moral motivation.

To complement and expand the present study, I plan to conduct several

additional research projects using psychological experimental and simulation methods.

First, I will conduct an additional functional neuroimaging experiment to examine

whether selfhood-related psychological processes moderate and/or influence the

process of moral inspiration and motivation when participants are watching the stories

of moral exemplars that were utilized in the present social psychological experiments.

Although the present study demonstrated the functional relationship between selfhood-

related psychological processes, moral emotion and moral motivation using the PPI

and GCA methods, because this experiment used moral dilemmas instead of

exemplary stories as visual stimuli, it would be inappropriate to directly illuminate the

neural mechanism of moral inspiration. Furthermore, due to this reason, the nature of

moral emotion and motivation investigated in the neuroimaging and intervention

experiment part in the present study is not coherent with each other. While the present

study focused on the negative aspects of moral emotion, such as moral disgust, in the

fMRI experiment, the intervention experiments concentrated on positive moral

emotions, such as moral elevation. Therefore, it would be difficult to directly connect

the findings from the neuroimaging experiment, those particularly dealing with

negative moral emotion, to moral psychological interventions intending to provoke

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positive moral emotions. Thus, it is necessary to utilize the same analysis methods,

i.e., the PPI and GCA, with functional neuroimaging data collected by an experiment

utilizing exemplary stories. In these future neuroimaging studies, I expect to see the

significant involvement of selfhood-related regions when participants are watching

exemplary stories and being elevated. Since moral ideals, such as Jesus Christ in the

Western culture, can be embraced in extended self-identity (Aquino & Reed, 2002),

participants would show increased activity in selfhood-related regions in moral

exemplar-related task conditions compared to non-moral task conditions.

Second, I will perform additional social psychological interventions focusing

on the promotion of moral motivation in behavioral domains other than voluntary

service engagement. The present psychological experiments only utilized voluntary

service activity as a dependent variable and proxy for moral motivation. However,

there are diverse forms of socio-moral behaviors other than voluntary service activity,

such as donating behavior and civic engagement. Thus, additional experiments will

examine whether attainable and relevant exemplars promote other types of moral

behavior more effectively than extraordinary exemplars do.

Third, to facilitate intervention designing and planning, I will develop and test

a simulation program that can predict the long-term longitudinal outcomes of

interventions. In fact, I am currently developing a MATLAB and Python simulation

programs utilizing Google’s TensorFlow in order to predict the type and frequency of

interventions that will potentially produce a large effect in the long term based on the

theory of evolution, Markov Chain and Deep Learning model. For the prediction of

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the implementation of attainable and relevant exemplars that were tested in the present

study, the pilot simulation program demonstrated that those exemplars should be

presented to students at least once every 18 months to produce a large effect.

However, the current version does not consider various environmental factors but

takes into account only the type and frequency of interventions. Thus, I will modify

the current simulation model to take into account other relevant environmental factors.

For instance, the upgraded simulation model will predict the outcome of interventions

while considering the demographic and socio-economic factors of target populations.

Furthermore, since the current version can only simulate moral educational

interventions in my dissertation, I will develop a generalizable simulation package that

can be applied to other types of interventions.

Fourth, I intend to conduct additional neuroimaging studies in order to

illuminate relatively less studied natures of human morality, that is, the involvement of

the DMN. In the previous neuroimaging studies, the DMN has been deemed to be

deactivated when participants were involved in cognitive tasks and to be activated

during idle states (Buckner et al., 2008); however, the present study and another

previous fMRI study that I conducted (Han et al., 2014) reported that the DMN was

likely to be activated in moral task conditions. Additional neuroimaging experiments

using various task conditions associated with human morality should be conducted to

illuminate this interesting neural-level nature of morality. Moreover, we may consider

the potential value of the real-time fMRI feedback method in moral educational

interventions (Caria et al., 2007; Haller, Birbaumer, & Veit, 2010; Veit et al., 2012;

Weiskopf et al., 2003). Participants will be able to regulate their moral functioning,

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particularly moral self and emotion, during fMRI experimental sessions to promote

moral motivation by monitoring neural activity in regions associated with that moral

functioning, which have been examined in the present study. It would be able to

provide useful insights about how to develop more effective interventions for moral

education based on more directly neural-level evidence.

The present study illuminated the functional relationship between selfhood,

moral emotion and motivation and examined whether attainable and relevant moral

exemplars, who were more closely connected to participants’ selfhood than

extraordinary exemplars were, significantly promoted motivation for moral behavior.

Although there are several limitations in the present study, it may be able to provide

some useful ideas, such as that a close exemplar is as a valuable source for moral

education as an extraordinary exemplar is, to moral educators who wish to present

moral stories in their class. I plan to generalize the findings from the present study and

answer remaining questions with future studies, such as neuroimaging experiments

utilizing exemplary stories, additional intervention experiments focusing on other

domains of moral behavior and simulation experiments predicting long-term outcomes

of interventions.

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APPENDIX A COMPARISONS WITH THE DEFAULT MODE

NETWORK (DMN) AND GRAY MATTERS ASSOCIATED WITH

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY PROCESSING

The present study conducted two additional analyses to examine whether the

common activation foci of moral functioning resulted from the main meta-analysis

significantly overlapping the default mode network (DMN) as well as gray matter

voxels associated with autobiographical memory processing, which was regarded as

the core self-related psychological process in the present study.

Comparison with the DMN

First, the present study extracted the brain map of the DMN that was

empirically created. Thus, the present study downloaded the map of the DMN from

the FIND Lab at Stanford University (Shirer et al., 2012). This map contained brain

regions associated with the DMN proven by previous empirical neuroimaging studies

and was stored in the form of NIFTI (See Figure 21). Second, the present study

composed a customized MATLAB program to calculate the percentage of gray matter

voxels overlapping between the DMN and common activation foci extracted from the

meta-analysis of the present study. The percentage was calculated by using this

formula: total gray matter # in the DMN / total gray matter # in the common activation

foci x 100. In this process, only the gray matter areas were considered for the analysis;

the gray matter voxels were extracted from a previously available atlas (Cui et al.,

2015).

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Figure 21 The DMN from the FIND Lab Atlas

Comparison with the brain circuitry of autobiographical memory

processing

Similar to the case of the comparison with the DMN, the present study also

analyzed the percentage overlap between the brain circuitry of autobiographical

memory processing and the common activation foci of moral functioning. First, the

present study accessed BrainMap to extract the activation foci of autobiographical

memory processing from previously published functional neuroimaging studies. The

present study downloaded papers by setting conditions as “paradigm class-

autobiographical recall” and “activation-activation only” using Sleuth (Fox &

Lancaster, 2002; Fox et al., 2005; Laird, Lancaster, & Fox, 2005b) (For the list of

papers, see the appendix). As a result, a total of 890 locations from 655 subjects in 116

172

experiments were found (See Figure 22). Second, the present study performed an

additional GingerALE analysis (Eickhoff et al., 2009, 2012; Laird et al., 2005b) as the

case of the main meta-analysis to examine the common activation foci of

autobiographical memory processing. All activation foci downloaded from BrainMap

were entered to GingerALE package. The resulting activation foci were set at a

threshold of p < .05 (false discovery rate corrected) and k > 95mm3 (12 voxels). The

calculated common activation foci of this function was presented in Figure 23. Finally,

the activation foci extracted from the meta-analysis were compared with the common

activation foci of moral functioning by using the previously composed MATLAB

program and previously determined formula. As for the case of the previous analysis,

only the gray matter voxels were analyzed.

Figure 22 Activation foci of autobiographical memory processing extracted using BrainMap

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Figure 23 Common activation foci of autobiographical memory processing calculated by

GingerALE

Results

Comparison with the DMN

The present study calculated the percent gray matter overlap between the

common activation foci of moral functioning and the DMN. The resulted percentage

was 27%. The previous study using the identical method to identify the significantly

associated functional circuitries set 25% as the threshold determining the significance

of the gray matter overlap between two circuitries (Bohland et al., 2009). Given this

study, the present study shall conclude that the gray matters in the resulted common

activation foci of moral functioning and the DMN significantly overlapped each other.

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Comparison with the brain circuitry of autobiographical memory

processing

The calculated gray matter overlap between the common activation foci of

moral functioning and brain circuitry of autobiographical memory processing, which

was determined by the additional GingerALE analysis, was 30.2%. Similar to the case

of the comparison with the DMN, there was significant gray matter overlap between

those two circuitries.

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APPENDIX B PRESENTED MORAL DILEMMAS

(1) You are a farm worker driving a turnip-harvesting machine. You are approaching

two diverging paths. <Next Page>

By choosing the path on the left you will harvest ten bushels of turnips. By choosing

the path on the right you will harvest twenty bushels of turnips. If you do nothing your

turnip-harvesting machine will turn to the left <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to turn your turnip-picking machine to the right in order to

harvest twenty bushels of turnips instead of ten? <Answer>

(2) You are bringing home a number of plants from a store that is about two miles

from your home. The trunk of your car， which you’ve lined with plastic to catch the

mud from the plants， will hold most of the plants you’ve purchased. <Next Page>

You could bring all the plants home in one trip， but this would require putting some

of the plants in the back seat as well as in the trunk. By putting some of the plants in

the back seat you will ruin your fine leather upholstery which would cost thousands of

dollars to replace. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to make two trips home in order to avoid ruining the

upholstery of your car? <Answer>

(3) You are in charge of scheduling appointments in a dentist’s office. Two people，

Mr. Morris and Mrs. Santiago have called to make appointments for next Monday.

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The only available times for next Monday are at 10:00 AM and at 3:00 PM. <Next

Page>

Mr. Morris’s schedule is rather flexible. He can have his appointment either at 10:00

AM or at 3:00 PM. Mrs. Santiago’s schedule is less flexible. She can only have her

appointment at 10:00 AM. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to schedule Mr. Morris for 3:00 PM so that both he and Mrs.

Santiago can have their appointments next Monday? <Answer>

(4) You have a headache. You go to the pharmacy with the intention of buying a

particular name-brand headache medicine. When you get there you discover that the

pharmacy is out of the brand you were looking for. <Next Page>

The pharmacist， whom you’ve known for a long time and in whom you have a great

deal of trust， tells you that he has in stock a generic product which is， in his

words， “exactly the same” as the product you had originally intended to buy. <Next

Page>

Is it appropriate for you to purchase the generic brand instead of searching further for

the name-brand product you were looking for? <Answer>

(5) You have decided to make a batch of brownies for yourself. You open your recipe

book and find a recipe for brownies. <Next Page>

177

The recipe calls for a cup of chopped walnuts. You don’t like walnuts， but you do

like macadamia nuts. As it happens， you have both kinds of nuts available to you.

<Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to substitute macadamia nuts for walnuts in order to avoid

eating walnuts? <Answer>

(6) You need to travel from New York to Boston in order to attend a meeting that

starts at 2:00 PM. You can take either the train or the bus. <Next Page>

The train will get you there just in time for your meeting no matter what. The bus is

scheduled to arrive an hour before your meeting， but the bus is occasionally several

hours late because of traffic. It would be nice to have an extra hour before the

meeting， but you cannot afford to be late. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to take the train instead of the bus in order to ensure your not

being late for your meeting? <Answer>

(7) You are looking to buy a new computer. At the moment the computer that you

want costs $1000. A friend who knows the computer industry has told you that this

computer’s price will drop to $500 next month. <Next Page>

If you wait until next month to buy your new computer you will have to use your old

computer for a few weeks longer than you would like to. Nevertheless you will be able

178

to do everything you need to do using your old computer during that time. <Next

Page>

Is it appropriate for you to use your old computer for a few more weeks in order to

save $500 on the purchase of a new computer? <Answer>

(8) A representative of a reputable， national survey organization calls you at your

home while you are having a quiet dinner by yourself. <Next Page>

The representative explains that if you are willing to spend a half an hour answering

questions about a variety of topics her organization will send you a check for $200.

<Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to interrupt your dinner in order to earn $200? <Answer>

(9) You have gone to a bookstore to buy $50 worth of books. You have with you two

coupons. <Next Page>

One of these coupons gives you 30% off of your purchase price. This coupon expires

tomorrow. The other coupon gives you 25% off your purchase price， and this

coupon does not expire for another year. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to use the 30%-off coupon for your present purchase so that

you will have another coupon to use during the coming year? <Answer>

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(10) An old friend has invited you to spend the weekend with him at his summer home

some ways up the coast from where you are. You intend to travel there by car， and

there are two routes that you can take: the highway and the coastal road. <Next Page>

The highway will get you to your friend’s house in about three hours， but the scenery

along the highway is very boring. The coastal route will get you to your friend’s house

in about three hours and fifteen minutes， and the scenery along the coastal road is

breathtakingly beautiful. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to take the coastal route in order to observe the beautiful

scenery as you drive? <Answer>

(11) You are a farm worker driving a turnip-harvesting machine. You are approaching

two diverging paths. <Next Page>

By choosing the path on the left you will harvest thirty bushels of turnips. By choosing

the path on the right you will harvest fifteen bushels of turnips. If you do nothing your

turnip-picking machine will turn to the left. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to turn your turnip-harvesting machine to the right in order to

harvest fifteen bushels of turnips instead of thirty? <Answer>

(12) You are at home one day when the mail arrives. You receive a letter from a

reputable corporation that provides financial services. They have invited you to invest

180

in a mutual fund， beginning with an initial investment of one thousand dollars.

<Next Page>

As it happens， you are familiar with this particular mutual fund. It has not performed

very well over the past few years， and， based on what you know， there is no

reason to think that it will perform any better in the future. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to invest a thousand dollars in this mutual fund in order to

make money? <Answer>

(13) You have brought your broken VCR to the local repair shop. The woman working

at the shop tells you that it will cost you about $100 to have it fixed. <Next Page>

You noticed in the paper that morning that the electronics shop next door is having a

sale on VCR’s and that a certain new VCR which is slightly better than your old one is

on sale for $100. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you have your old VCR fixed in order to avoid spending money

on a new one? <Answer>

(14) You are beginning your senior year of college. In order to fulfill your graduation

requirements you need to take a history class and a science class by the end of the

year. <Next Page>

181

During the fall term， the history class you want to take is scheduled at the same time

as the science class you want to take. During the spring term the same history class is

offered， but the science class is not. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to take the history class during the fall term in order to help

you fulfill your graduation requirements? <Answer>

(15) You’ve decided to buy a raffle ticket to support a local charity. They are

separately raffling off two different cars: Car A and Car B. You have decided to buy

one raffle ticket. You are a serious and knowledgeable car enthusiast， and you think

that these two cars are equally good. <Next Page>

Because there have been a lot of ads for Car B on TV recently， many more people

have chosen to buy tickets for the Car B raffle. Since more people have bought tickets

for the Car B raffle， your chances of winning are better in the Car A raffle than in

the Car B raffle. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to buy a ticket for the Car B raffle in order to win a car?

<Answer>

(16) You intend to accomplish two things this afternoon: going for a jog and doing

some paperwork. In general you prefer to get your work done before you exercise.

<Next Page>

182

The weather is nice at the moment， but the weather forecast says that in a couple of

hours it will start to rain. You very much dislike jogging in the rain， but you don’t

care what the weather is like while you do paperwork. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to do your paperwork now with the intention of jogging in a

couple of hours in order to get your work done before you exercise? <Answer>

(17) You are preparing pasta with fresh vegetables， and you are deciding on the

order in which you will do the various things you need to do. You are in a big hurry.

<Next Page>

At the moment you have a slight urge to cut vegetables. If you first start the water

boiling and then cut the vegetables you will be done in twenty minutes. If you cut the

vegetables and then start the water boiling you will be done in forty minutes. <Next

Page>

Is it appropriate for you to cut the vegetables first and then start the water boiling in

order to satisfy your slight urge to cut vegetables? <Answer>

(18) You are planning to attend a luncheon this afternoon， and before you go you

will need to take a shower. You have some yard work that you would like to do before

then， and doing this yard will cause you to perspire a fair amount. <Next Page>

183

If you shower before you do your yard work you will have to take another shower

before the luncheon. At the present time you could enjoy taking a shower. At the same

time， you have a very strong commitment to lowering your water bill and to

showering no more than once a day. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to shower before doing your yard work in order to enjoy a

shower now? <Answer>

(19) You need to go to the bakery in the morning and the furniture store in the

afternoon. You also need to go to the camera shop at some point. You prefer to do

most of your errands in the morning， but you very much dislike doing unnecessary

driving. <Next Page>

The camera shop is near the furniture store and far from the bakery. As a result you

will have to do less driving if you go to the camera shop in the afternoon when you go

to the furniture store. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to go to the camera shop in the morning in order to do most of

your errands in the morning? <Answer>

(20) You have been offered employment by two different firms， and you are trying

to decide which offer to accept. <Next Page>

Firm A has offered you an annual salary of $100，000 and fourteen days of vacation

per year. Firm B has offered you an annual salary of $50，000 and sixteen days of

184

vacation per year. The two firms and the two positions are otherwise very similar.

<Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to take Firm B’s offer in order to have two more days of

vacation per year? <Answer>

(21) You are at the wheel of a runaway trolley quickly approaching a fork in the

tracks. On the tracks extending to the left is a group of five railway workmen. On the

tracks extending to the right is a single railway workman. <Next Page>

If you do nothing the trolley will proceed to the left, causing the deaths of the five

workmen. The only way to avoid the deaths of these workmen is to hit a switch on

your dashboard that will cause the trolley to proceed to the right,causing the death of

the single workman. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to hit the switch in order to avoid the deaths of the five

workmen? <Answer>

(22) You are the late-night watchman in a hospital. Due to an accident in the building

next door, there are deadly fumes rising up through the hospital's ventilation system.

In a certain room of the hospital are three patients. In another room there is a single

patient. If you do nothing the fumes will rise up into the room containing the three

patients and cause their deaths. <Next Page>

The only way to avoid the deaths of these patients is to hit a certain switch, which will

cause the fumes to bypass the room containing the three patients. As a result of doing

185

this the fumes will enter the room containing the single patient, causing his death.

<Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to hit the switch in order to avoid the deaths of the three

patients? <Answer>

(23) You are at home one day when the mail arrives. You receive a letter from a

reputable international aid organization. The letter asks you to make a donation of two

hundred dollars to their organization. <Next Page>

The letter explains that a two hundred-dollar donation will allow this organization to

provide needed medical attention to some poor people in another part of the world.

<Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to not make a donation to this organization in order to save

money? <Answer>

(24) You work for the Bureau of Health, a government agency. You are deciding

whether or not your agency should encourage the use of a certain recently developed

vaccine. The vast majority of people who take the vaccine develop an immunity to a

certain deadly disease, but a very small number of people who take the vaccine will

actually get the disease that the vaccine is designed to prevent. <Next Page>

All the available evidence, which is very strong, suggests that the chances of getting

the disease due to lack of vaccination are much higher than the chances of getting the

disease by taking the vaccine. <Next Page>

186

Is it appropriate for you to direct your agency to encourage the use of this vaccine in

order to promote national health? <Answer>

(25) You are a member of a government legislature. The legislature is deciding

between two different policies concerning environmental hazards. <Next Page>

Policy A has a 90% chance of causing no deaths at all and has a 10% chance of

causing 1000 deaths. Policy B has a 92% chance of causing no deaths and an 8%

chance of causing 10,000 deaths. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to vote for Policy A over Policy B? <Answer>




causing 1000 deaths. Policy B has an 88% chance of causing no deaths and a 12%

chance of causing 10 deaths. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to vote for Policy B over Policy A? <Answer>

(27) You are visiting the sculpture garden of a wealthy art collector. The garden

overlooks a valley containing a set of train tracks. A railway workman is working on

the tracks, and an empty runaway trolley is heading down the tracks toward the

workman. <Next Page>

187

The only way to save the workman's life is to push one of the art collector's prized

sculptures down into the valley so that it will roll onto the tracks and block the

trolley's passage. Doing this will destroy the sculpture. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to destroy the sculpture in order to save this workman's life?

<Answer>

(28) While on vacation on a remote island, you are fishing from a seaside dock. You

observe a group of tourists board a small boat and set sail for a nearby island. Soon

after their departure you hear over the radio that there is a violent storm brewing, a

storm that is sure to intercept them. <Next Page>

The only way that you can ensure their safety is to warn them by borrowing a nearby

speedboat. The speedboat belongs to a miserly tycoon who would not take kindly to

your borrowing his property. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to borrow the speedboat in order to warn the tourists about the

storm? <Answer>

(29) While on vacation on a remote island, you are fishing from a seaside dock. You

observe a group of tourists board a small boat and set sail for a nearby island. Soon

after their departure you hear over the radio that there is a violent storm brewing, a

storm that is sure to intercept them. <Next Page>

The only way that you can ensure their safety is to warn them by borrowing a nearby

speedboat. The speedboat belongs to a miserly tycoon who has hired a fiercely loyal

188

guard to make sure that no one uses his boat without permission. To get to the

speedboat you will have to lie to the guard. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to lie to the guard in order to borrow the speedboat and warn

the tourists about the storm? <Answer>

(30) You are at the wheel of a runaway trolley quickly approaching a fork in the

tracks. On the tracks extending to the left is a group of five railway workmen. On the

tracks extending to the right is a group of seven railway workmen. <Next Page>

If you do nothing the trolley will proceed to the left, causing the deaths of the five

workmen. The only way to save these workmen is to hit a switch on your dashboard

that will cause the trolley to proceed to the right, causing the deaths of the seven

workmen on the other side. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to hit the switch in order to avoid the deaths of the five

workmen? <Answer>

(31) You are the late-night watchman in a hospital. Due to an accident in the building

next door, there are deadly fumes rising up through the hospital's ventilation system.

In a certain room of the hospital are three patients. In another room there are seven

patients. If you do nothing the fumes will rise up into the room containing the three

patients and cause their deaths. <Next Page>

The only way to save these patients is to hit a certain switch, which will cause the

fumes to bypass the room containing the three people. As a result of doing this the

189

fumes will enter the room containing the seven patients, causing their deaths. <Next

Page>

Is it appropriate for you to hit the switch in order to avoid the deaths of the three

patients? <Answer>

(32) You have a friend who has been trying to find a job lately without much success.

He figured that he would be more likely to get hired if he had a more impressive

resume. <Next Page>

He decided to put some false information on his resume in order to make it more

impressive. By doing this he ultimately managed to get hired, beating out several

candidates who were actually more qualified than he. <Next Page>

Was it appropriate for your friend to put false information on his resume in order to

help him find employment? <Answer>

(33) You are the owner of a small business trying to make ends meet. It occurs to you

that you could lower your taxes by pretending that some of your personal expenses are

business expenses. <Next Page>

For example, you could pretend that the stereo in your bedroom is being used in the

lounge at the office, or that your dinners out with your wife are dinners with clients.

<Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to pretend that certain personal expenses are business

expenses in order to lower your taxes? <Answer>

190




causing 1000 deaths. Policy B has a 92% chance of causing no deaths and an 8%

chance of causing 10,000 deaths. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to vote for Policy B over Policy A? <Answer>




causing 1000 deaths. Policy B has a 88% chance of causing no deaths and a 12%

chance of causing 10 deaths. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to vote for Policy A over Policy B? <Answer>

(36) You are a management consultant working on a case for a large corporate client.

You have access to confidential information that would be very useful to investors.

You have a friend who plays the stock market. You owe this friend a sizable sum of

money. <Next Page>

By providing her with certain confidential information you could help her make a lot

of money, considerably more than you owe her. If you did this, she would insist on

canceling your debt. Releasing information in this way is strictly forbidden by federal

law. <Next Page>

191

Is it appropriate for you to release this information to your friend so that she will

cancel your debt? <Answer>

(37) You are a lawyer working on a big case. The judge presiding over the trial

happens to be someone you knew from law school. The two of you were rather

friendly back then, but now, decades later, it seems that your old friend barely

remembers you. <Next Page>

You're quite sure that if you were to talk to him over lunch, you could jog his memory

and he would begin to see you as an old buddy, which would be very good for your

work on this case. It's illegal for judges and lawyers working on the same case to meet

socially. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to meet with this judge socially in order to help you win your

case? <Answer>

(38) You are walking down the street when you come across a wallet lying on the

ground. You open the wallet and find that it contains several hundred dollars in cash

as well the owner's driver's license. From the credit cards and other items in the wallet

it's very clear that the wallet's owner is wealthy. <Next Page>

You, on the other hand, have been hit by hard times recently and could really use

some extra money. You consider sending the wallet back to the owner without the

cash, keeping the cash for yourself. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to keep the money you found in the wallet in order to have

more money for yourself? <Answer>

192

(39) You are a doctor. You have five patients, each of whom is about to die due to a

failing organ of some kind. You have another patient who is healthy. <Next Page>

The only way that you can save the lives of the first five patients is to transplant five

of this young man's organs (against his will) into the bodies of the other five patients.

If you do this, the young man will die, but the other five patients will live. <Next

Page>

Is it appropriate for you to perform this transplant in order to save five of your

patients? <Answer>

(40) A runaway trolley is heading down the tracks toward five workmen who will be

killed if the trolley proceeds on its present course. You are on a footbridge over the

tracks, in between the approaching trolley and the five workmen. Next to you on this

footbridge is a stranger who happens to be very large. <Next Page>

The only way to save the lives of the five workmen is to push this stranger off the

bridge and onto the tracks below where his large body will stop the trolley. The

stranger will die if you do this, but the five workmen will be saved. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to push the stranger on to the tracks in order to save the five

workmen? <Answer>

(41) You are driving along a country road when you hear a plea for help coming from

some roadside bushes. You pull over and encounter a man whose legs are covered

with blood. The man explains that he has had an accident while hiking and asks you to

take him to a nearby hospital. <Next Page>

193

Your initial inclination is to help this man, who will probably lose his leg if he does

not get to the hospital soon. However, if you give this man a lift, his blood will ruin

the leather upholstery of your car. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to leave this man by the side of the road in order to preserve

your leather upholstery? <Answer>

(42) You are a young architect visiting one of your construction sites with your boss.

Your boss is a despicable individual who makes everyone around him miserable

including you. <Next Page>

It occurs to you that if you were to push him off of the building you are inspecting he

would fall to his death and everyone would think it was an accident. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to push your boss off of the building in order to get him out of

your life? <Answer>

(43) You are the head of a poor household in a developing country. Your crops have

failed for the second year in a row, and it appears that you have no way to feed your

family. Your sons, ages eight and ten, are too young to go off to the city where there

jobs, but your daughter could fare better. <Next Page>

You know a man from your village who lives in the city and who makes sexually

explicit films featuring small children such as your daughter. He tells you that in one

year of working in his studio your daughter could earn enough money to keep your

family fed for several growing seasons. <Next Page>

194

Is it appropriate for you to employ your daughter in the child pornography industry in

order to feed your family? <Answer>

(44) You are in hospital lounge waiting to visit a sick friend. A young man sitting next

to you explains that his father is very ill. The doctors believe that he has a week to live

at most. He explains further that his father has a substantial life insurance policy that

expires at midnight. <Next Page>

If his father dies before midnight, this young man will receive a very large sum of

money. He says that the money would mean a great deal to him and that no good will

come from his father's living a few more days. He offers you half a million dollars to

go up to his father's room and smother his father with a pillow. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to kill this man's father in order to get money for yourself and

this young man? <Answer>

(45) Enemy soldiers have taken over your village. They have orders to kill all

remaining civilians. You and some of your townspeople have sought refuge in the

cellar of a large house. Outside you hear the voices of soldiers who have come to

search the house for valuables. <Next Page>

Your baby begins to cry loudly. You cover his mouth to block the sound. If you

remove your hand from his mouth his crying will summon the attention of the soldiers

who will kill you, your child, and the others hiding out in the cellar. To save yourself

and the others you must smother your child to death. <Next Page>

195

Is it appropriate for you to smother your child in order to save yourself and the other

townspeople? <Answer>

(46) Your plane has crashed in the Himalayas. The only survivors are yourself,

another man, and a young boy. The three of you travel for days, battling extreme cold

and wind. Your only chance at survival is to find your way to small a village on the

other side of the mountain, several days away. <Next Page>

The boy has a broken leg and cannot move very quickly. His chances of surviving the

journey are essentially zero. Without food, you and the other man will probably die as

well. The other man suggests that you sacrifice the boy and eat his remains over the

next few days. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate to kill this boy so that you and the other man may survive your

journey to safety? <Answer>

(47) You have been dissatisfied with your marriage for several years. It is your distinct

impression that your wife no longer appreciates you. You remember how she

appreciated you years ago when you took care of her after she was mugged. You

devise the following plan to regain your wife's affection. <Next Page>

You will hire a man to break into your house while you are away. This man will tie up

your wife and rape her. You, upon hearing the horrible news, will return swiftly to her

side, to take care of her and comfort her, and she will once again appreciate you.

<Next Page>

196

Is it appropriate for you to hire a man to rape your wife so that she will appreciate you

as you comfort her? <Answer>

(48) A young boy is visiting his grandmother for the weekend. Usually she gives him

a gift of a few dollars when he arrives, but this time she doesn't. He asks her why not

and she says something about how he doesn't write her as many letters as he used to.

Angered by this, the boy decides to play a trick on her. <Next Page>

While his grandmother is busy cooking he removes a handful of pills from the

medicine cabinet and puts them in his grandmother's teapot. Later that night, she

makes her tea, and the dissolved pills make her sick. In the morning she is dead.

<Next Page>

Was it appropriate for this boy to put pills in his grandmother's teapot in order to play

a trick on her? <Answer>

(49) You are a fifteen-year-old girl who has become pregnant. By wearing loose

clothing and deliberately putting on weight you have managed to keep your pregnancy

a secret. One day, while at school, your water breaks. You run to the girls locker room

and hide for several hours while you deliver the baby. You are sure that you are not

prepared to care for this baby. <Next Page>

You think to yourself that it would be such a relief to simply clean up the mess you've

made in the locker room, wrap the baby in some towels, throw the baby in the

dumpster behind the school, and act as if nothing had ever happened. <Next Page>

197

Is it appropriate for you to throw your baby in the dumpster in order to move on with

your life? <Answer>

(50) You are on a cruise ship when there is a fire on board, and the ship has to be

abandoned. The lifeboats are carrying many more people than they were designed to

carry. The lifeboat you're in is sitting dangerously low in the water-a few inches lower

and it will sink. <Next Page>

The seas start to get rough, and the boat begins to fill with water. If nothing is done it

will sink before the rescue boats arrive and everyone on board will die. However,

there is an injured person who will not survive in any case. If you throw that person

overboard the boat will stay afloat and the remaining passengers will be saved. <Next

Page>

Is it appropriate for you to throw this person overboard in order to save the lives of the

remaining passengers? <Answer>

(51) You are a waiter. You overhear one of your customers say that he is about to go

to jail and that in his last forty-eight hours of freedom he plans to infect as many

people as possible with HIV. You know him well enough to know that he is telling the

truth and that he has access to many potential victims. <Next Page>

You happen to know that he has a very strong allergy to poppy seeds. If he eats even

one he will go into convulsions and have to be hospitalized for at least forty-eight

hours. <Next Page>

198

Is it appropriate for you to cause this man to have a serious allergy attack in order to

prevent him from spreading HIV? <Answer>

(52) You are part of a group of ecologists who live in a remote stretch of jungle. The

entire group, which includes eight children, has been taken hostage by a group of

paramilitary terrorists. One of the terrorists takes a liking to you. He informs you that

his leader intends to kill you and the rest of the hostages the following morning. <Next

Page>

He is willing to help you and the children escape, but as an act of good faith he wants

you to kill one of your fellow hostages whom he does not like. If you refuse his offer

all the hostages including the children and yourself will die. If you accept his offer

then the others will die in the morning but you and the eight children will escape.

<Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to kill one of your fellow hostages in order to escape from the

terrorists and save the lives of the eight children? <Answer>

(53) You are negotiating with a powerful and determined terrorist who is about to set

off a bomb in a crowded area. Your one advantage is that you have his teen-age son in

your custody. <Next Page>

There is only one thing that you can do to stop him from detonating his bomb, which

will kill thousands of people if detonated. To stop him, you must contact him over the

satellite hook-up that he has established and, in front of the camera, break one of his

199

son's arms and then threaten to break the other one if he does not give himself up.

<Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to break the terrorist's son's arm in order to prevent the

terrorist from killing thousands of people with his bomb? <Answer>

(54) You are the captain of a military submarine travelling underneath a large iceberg.

An onboard explosion has caused you to lose most of your oxygen supply and has

injured one of your crew who is quickly losing blood. The injured crew member is

going to die from his wounds no matter what happens. <Next Page>

The remaining oxygen is not sufficient for the entire crew to make it to the surface.

The only way to save the other crew members is to shoot dead the injured crew

member so that there will be just enough oxygen for the rest of the crew to survive.

<Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to kill the fatally injured crew member in order to save the

lives of the remaining crew members? <Answer>

(55) You are the leader of a small army that consists of warriors from two tribes, the

hill tribe and the river tribe. You belong to neither tribe. During the night a hill

tribesman got into an argument with a river tribesman and murdered him. The river

tribe will attack the hill tribe unless the murderer is put to death, but the hill tribe

refuses to kill one of its own warriors. <Next Page>

200

The only way for you to avoid a war between the two tribes that will costs hundreds of

lives is to publicly execute the murderer by cutting off is head with your sword. <Next

Page>

Is it appropriate for you to cut off this man's head in order to prevent the two tribes

from fighting a war that will cost hundreds of lives? <Answer>

(56) It is wartime and you and your two children, ages eight and five, are living in a

territory that has been occupied by the enemy. At the enemy's headquarters is a doctor

who performs painful experiments on humans that inevitably lead to death. <Next

Page>

He intends to perform experiments on one of your children, but he will allow you to

choose which of your children will be experimented upon. You have twenty-four

hours to bring one of your children to his laboratory. If you refuse to bring one of your

children to his laboratory he will find them both and experiment on both of them.

<Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to bring one of your children to the laboratory in order to

avoid having them both die? <Answer>

(57) You, your husband, and your four children are crossing a mountain range on your

return journey to your homeland. You have inadvertently set up camp on a local clan's

sacred burial ground. <Next Page>

201

The leader of the clan says that according to the local laws, you and your family must

be put to death. However, he will let yourself, your husband, and your three other

children live if you yourself will kill your oldest son. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to kill your oldest son in order to save your husband and your

other three children? <Answer>

(58) You are the leader of a mountaineering expedition that is stranded in the

wilderness. Your expedition includes a family of six that has a genetically caused

vitamin deficiency. A few people's kidneys contain large amounts of this vitamin.

<Next Page>

There is one such person in your party. The only way to save the lives of the six

members of this family is to remove one of this man's kidneys so that the necessary

vitamins may be extracted from it. The man will not die if you do this, but his health

will be compromised. The man is opposed to this plan, but you have the power to do

as you see fit. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to forcibly remove this man's kidney in order to save the lives

of the six vitamin-deficient people? <Answer>

(59) A viral epidemic has spread across the globe killing millions of people. You have

developed two substances in your home laboratory. You know that one of them is a

vaccine, but you don't know which one. You also know that the other one is deadly.

<Next Page>

202

Once you figure out which substance is the vaccine you can use it to save millions of

lives. You have with you two people who are under your care, and the only way to

identify the vaccine is to inject each of these people with one of the two substances.

One person will live, the other will die, and you will be able to start saving lives with

your vaccine. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to kill one of these people with a deadly injection in order to

identify a vaccine that will save millions of lives? <Answer>

(60) You are the leader of a small group of soldiers. You are on your way back from a

completed mission deep in enemy territory when one of your men has stepped in trap

that has been set by the enemy and is badly injured. The trap is connected to a radio

device that by now has alerted the enemy to your presence. They will soon be on their

way. <Next Page>

If the enemy finds your injured man they will torture him and kill him. He begs you

not to leave him behind, but if you try to take him with you your entire group will be

captured. The only way to prevent this injured soldier from being tortured is to shoot

him yourself. <Next Page>

Is it appropriate for you to shoot this soldier in order to prevent him from being

tortured by the enemy? <Answer>

The dilemmas were initially invented by Greene et al. (2001, 2004) and the

format was partially revised by Han et al. (2014).

203

APPENDIX C VOLUNTARY SERVICE ENGAGEMENT

REPORTING FORM

Please write your experience of voluntary services during last four weeks (from . . .

to . . .).

Date (If you are not sure of

the exact date, please provide

the date as you remember)

Name of the

charity

Amount of

time (hours)

Is this service for

a credit or

graduation

requirement?

Ex) May. 5. 2013. Save the

Children

3 No

(The rest has been omitted)

Please write the number of units you are taking this semester. _______________

Please write the number of hours you can freely use per week. ___________ hrs/wk

204

APPENDIX D SAMPLE EMAIL FOR VOLUNTARY SERVICE

ACTIVITY INFORMATION

Dear OOO University student,

UNICEF is driving force that helps build a world where the rights of every

child are realized. We believe that nurturing and caring for children are the

cornerstones of human progress. UNICEF was created with this purpose in mind – to

work with others to overcome the obstacles that poverty, violence, disease and

discrimination place in a child’s path. We believe that we can, together, advance the

cause of humanity. We advocate for measures to give children the best start in life,

because proper care at the youngest age forms the strongest foundation for a person’s

future. Our endeavors including the promotion of girls’ education, childhood

immunization, prevention of the spread of HIV/AIDS among young people, and other

activities to create protective environments for children.

You may visit our webpage by clicking a banner below. On our webpage, you

can read more about our endeavors, participate in voluntary services, and contribute to

our philanthropic affairs.

Thank you very much for your time.

2 3

2 This banner is linked to the donation information page in UNICEF website. 3 Participants will be able to share the message with friends via SNS (e.g., Facebook). Or, they

are able to forward the message to their friends’ Email accounts.

205

APPENDIX E VOLUNTARY SERVICE INTENTION AND

ENGAGEMENT QUESTIONNAIRE

How often have you participated in each of the following types of

organizations in the past 6 months.

Never Once or Twice

A few times

Almost every week

At least once a week

Church group

Charity organization

Ethnic club or

organization

Political party or

organization

Arts organization

Academic team or club

Sports team or club

Military organization

Community youth group

How much have you have participated in each of the following activities in the

past 6 months.

206

Never Once or

twice A few times

Sometimes

A lot

Volunteered with a children's

group or camp

Visited or helped out people

who were sick

Took care of other families’

children (unpaid)

Helped with a fund-raising

project

Helped organize neighborhood

or community events (e.g.,

carnivals, hot dog days,

potluck dinners, etc.)

Helped prepare and make

presentations to organizations

Did things to help improve

your neighborhood (e.g.,

helped clean neighborhood)

Gave help (e.g., money, food,

clothing, rides) to friends or

classmates who needed it.

207

Got information about

community activities from a

local information center

Volunteered at a school event

Helped people who were new

to the country

Gave money to a cause

Volunteered with a community

service organization

Earned money to support my

family

Provided care for younger

siblings, disabled, or elderly

members of my family

Got involved with

organizations that are trying to

do good in the world

208

How involved in volunteering are you compared to your classmates?

Very involved in volunteer activities compared to my classmates

Somewhat involved in volunteer activities compared to my classmates

Not involved in volunteering, but interested in getting involved in the next 6

months

Not involved in volunteering and don't want to get involved in the next 6

months

The questionnaire was initially invented by Bundick et al. (2006)

neuroscientific and social psychological …js059jv6161/final_hhm-augmen… · a dissertation...

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