Pretus, C., Swencionis, J. K., et al.
(2023, August 28).
Abstract
People generate evaluations of different attitude objects based on their goals and aspects of the social context. Prior research suggests that people can shift between at least three types of evaluations to judge whether something is good or bad: pragmatic (how costly or beneficial it is), moral (whether it’s aligned with moral norms), and hedonic (whether it feels good; Van Bavel et al., 2012). The current research examined the neurocognitive computations underlying these types of evaluations to understand how people construct affective judgments. Specifically, we examined whether different types of evaluations stem from a common neural evaluation system that incorporates different information in response to changing evaluation goals (moral, pragmatic, or hedonic), or distinct evaluation systems with different neurofunctional architectures. We found support for a hybrid evaluation system in which people rely on a set of brain regions to construct all three forms of evaluation, but recruit additional distinct regions for each type of evaluation. The three types of evaluations all relied on common neural activity in affective structures such as the amygdala, the insula, and the hippocampus. However, moral evaluations involved greater neural activation in the orbitofrontal and cingulate cortex compared to pragmatic evaluations, and temporoparietal regions compared to hedonic evaluations. These results suggest that people use a hybrid system that includes common evaluation components as well as distinct ones to generate moral judgments.
Here is my summary:
The research found that people draw on a hybrid evaluation system to generate moral, pragmatic, and hedonic evaluations. This system involves a set of brain regions that are common to all three types of evaluations, as well as distinct regions that are specific to each type of evaluation.
The study used fMRI to examine the neural correlates of moral, pragmatic, and hedonic evaluations in participants who were instructed to make each type of evaluation on a set of stimuli. The stimuli included moral dilemmas, practical decisions, and objects that were associated with different levels of hedonic pleasure.
The results showed that all three types of evaluations were associated with common neural activity in affective structures such as the amygdala, insula, and hippocampus. However, moral evaluations involved greater neural activation in the orbitofrontal and cingulate cortex than pragmatic evaluations, and in temporoparietal regions than hedonic evaluations.
These findings suggest that people use a hybrid system to generate moral judgments. This system includes common evaluation components that are involved in processing affective information, as well as distinct components that are specialized for processing moral information.
The research has implications for our understanding of how people make moral decisions. It suggests that moral decisions are not made in isolation from other types of decisions, but rather are influenced by a common evaluation system that also plays a role in pragmatic and hedonic evaluations. The research also suggests that moral decisions may be influenced by distinct neural components that are specialized for processing moral information.
