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
© 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. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/
This dissertation is online at: http://purl.stanford.edu/js059jv6161
ii I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
William Damon, Primary Adviser
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Gary Glover, Co-Adviser
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
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 in University Archives.
iii iv
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 v
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, vi
such as stories of peer moral exemplars, instead of extraordinary moral stories, such as the stories of moral saints, in educational settings.
vii
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 viii
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.
ix
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 x
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 xi
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 xii
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
xiii
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 xv
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 3
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). 4
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 5
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 6
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. 7
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.
8
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
Type F Sub References oc Jud Sen Contrast Threshold ject i gm sibi ent lity Moll, de Oliveira-Souza, Bramati, et al. (2002) 7 3 x Moral vs. Non-moral emotions p < .001, uncorr. (PMID: 12169253) Heekeren et al. (2003) 8 9 x Moral vs. Semantic judgment p < .005, uncorr. 19
(PMID: 12824762) Heekeren et al. (2005) 12 8 x Moral vs. Semantic judgment p < .001, uncorr. (PMID: 15652323) Berthoz et al. (2006) Moral-related intentional vs. 12 8 x p < .001, uncorr. (PMID: 16490367) Accidental violation judgment Borg et al. (2006) 24 7 x Moral vs. Non-moral harm p < .05, corr (PMID: 16768379) Moral belief task vs. 1 10 6 x p < .001, uncorr. Young et al. (2007) Photo presentation (PMID: 17485679) 2 17 6 Harrison et al., (2008) 22 8 x Moral dilemma vs. Stroop task p < .05, corr. (PMID: 18621692)
Harenski et al. (2008) 33 16 x Moral vs. Non-moral violation p < .001, uncorr. (PMID: 19015084)
Young and Saxe (2008) Moral vs. value-neutral 17 6 x p < .001, uncorr. (PMID: 18342544) judgment
Sommer et al. (2010) 12 6 x Moral vs. Neutral conflicts p < .05, corr. (PMID: 20362598)
Schleim et al. (2011) Moral vs. value-neutral 40 6 x p < .005, corr. (PMID: 20194515) judgment
FeldmanHall et al. (2012) Moral (real + hypothetical) vs. 14 14 x p < .05, corr. (PMID: 22711879) Non-moral
Reniers et al. (2012) Moral vs. Non-moral decision- 24 6 x p < .05, corr. (PMID: 22459338 making
FeldmanHall et al. (2014) 38 1 x Moral vs. Non-moral dilemmas p < .05, corr. (PMID: 23322890)
Han et al. (2014) Moral (personal + impersonal) 16 11 x p < .001, uncorr. (PMID: 24263193) vs. Non-moral (arithmetic)
Shenhav and Greene (2014) Integrative moral vs. utilitarian 35 5 x p < .05, corr. (PMID: 24672018) & emotional judgment
Sommer et al. (2014) 32 16 x Moral vs. Neutral conflicts p < .05, corr. (PMID: 24971880) Moll et al. (2001) p < .0001, 10 10 x Moral vs. factual evaluation (PMID: 11593260) uncorr. Berthoz et al. (2002) Socio-moral vs. Non-socio- p < .0001, 12 20 x (PMID: 12135962) moral violation stories uncorr. Moll, de Oliveira-Souza, Eslinger, et al. (2002) 7 17 x Moral vs. Non-moral pictures p < .005, uncorr. (PMID: 11923438) Singer et al. (2004) Moral vs. Non-moral status face 11 13 x p < .001, uncorr. (PMID: 14980212) watching Takahashi et al. (2004) Moral guilt and embarrassment 19 15 x p < .001, uncorr. (PMID: 15528097) vs. Neutral feeling Moll, de Oliveira-Souza, et Moral indignation vs. 13 22 x p < .005, uncorr. al. (2005) Basic disgust, neutral 20
(PMID: 15761278) Finger et al. (2006) Moral vs. Conventional 16 5 x p < .05, corr. (PMID: 16891125) transgression evaluation Harenski and Hamann Moral vs. Non-moral violation (2006) 10 2 x p < .001, uncorr. watching (PMID: 16249098) Moral (Guilt, Embarrassment, Moll et al. (2007) 12 31 x Compassion, Indignation) vs. p < .005, uncorr. (PMID: 18633822) Neutral agency Robertson et al. (2007) Justice/care vs. Non-moral 16 10 x p < .001, uncorr. (PMID: 17174987) strategy evaluation Borg et al. (2008) Socio-moral vs. Pathogen 50 24 x p < .05, corr. (PMID: 18345982) disgust feeling
Prehn et al. (2008) Socio-moral vs. Grammatical 23 6 x p < .05, corr. (PMID: 19015093) errors
Takahashi et al. (2008) Moral beauty + depravity vs. 15 7 x p < .001, uncorr. (PMID: 18203696) Emotion-neutral Immordino-Yang et al. (2009) 13 8 x Moral vs. Physical admiration p < .05, corr. (PMID: 19414310) Young and Saxe (2009) Moral vs. Non-moral intention 1 14 6 x p < .001, uncorr. (PMID: 18823250) evaluation 2 14 6 Cope et al. (2010) Moral vs. Nonmoral 100 17 x p < .05, corr. (PMID: 21344009) wrongdoing evaluation Harenski et al. (2010) Moral vs. Non-moral picture 30 10 x p < .05, corr. (PMID: 19878727) viewing Young et al. (2010) Moral vs. Non-moral story 17 5 x p < .001, uncorr. (PMID: 22558062) reading Parkinson et al. (2011) Moral vs. Neutral transgression 38 2 x p < .05, corr. (PMID: 21452951) stories Young et al. (2011) Moral vs. Non-moral intuitive 17 6 x p < .001, uncorr. (PMID: 21271462) verdict evaluation Englander et al. (2012) 10 8 x Moral vs. Physical admiration p < .05, corr. (PMID: 22745745) Harenski et al. (2012) 51 17 x Moral vs. Non-moral violation p < .05, corr. (PMID: 22267967) Avram et al. (2013) 16 8 x Moral vs. Esthetic judgment p < .05, corr. (PMID: 23262080) Avram et al. (2014) First- and third-person moral vs. 16 10 x p < .005, uncorr. (PMID: 24742205) Non-moral evaluation Fourie et al. (2014) Moral-related prejudice vs. 22 8 x p < .001, uncorr. (PMID: 24450582) neutral feeling Michl et al. (2014) Shame and guilt vs. neutral p < .0002, 14 28 x (PMID: 23051901) emotion 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 Volume Left/ ALE MNI coordinates 3 Region BA (mm ) Right value 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
Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex L 9 .001 -4 32 30
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 Middle Temporal Gyrus L 21 .001 -56 -12 -10 520 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
Left/ ALE MNI coordinates Volume Region BA Right value x y z (mm3) Moral Judgment > Control Ventomedial Prefrontal Cortex L 9 .001 -4 48 18 7048
Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex L 8 .001 -2 44 40 Temporoparietal Junction L 39 .001 -48 -58 20 3592
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 L 9 .001 -4 52 38
Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex R 9 .001 4 52 24
Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex L 8 .001 -10 44 40
Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex L 9 .001 -4 48 16
Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex L 9 .001 -4 32 30
Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex L 10 .001 -10 50 10 31
Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex R 10 .001 4 58 14 Temporoparietal Junction L 39 .001 -48 -64 22 5488 Posterior Cingulate Cortex L 31 .001 -4 -54 28 2528
Precuneus L 7 .001 -4 -60 34 Orbitofrontal Cortex L 47 .001 -40 30 -8 1856
Temporal Pole L 38 .001 -44 18 -16 Middle Temporal Gyrus L 21 .001 -56 -36 -4 1280
Middle Temporal Gyrus L 21 .001 -58 -38 -8 Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex L 6 .001 -44 4 44 816 Middle Temporal Gyrus L 21 .001 -56 -12 -10 496 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
Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex L 8 .001 -2 40 50
Amygdala L .001 -22 -4 -10 224 Orbitofrontal Cortex L 11 .001 -14 24 -10 184 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 (p- value) 480 Temporoparietal Junction R 39 .003 46 -56 28
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 4 Female 33.91 Korean 5 Male 28.13 Korean 6 Male 30.62 Korean 7 Female 26.42 Korean 8 Male 28.90 American 9 Female 31.74 American 10 Female 31.27 Korean 11 Female 28.98 American 12 Male 21.35 Korean 13 Male 30.99 American 14 Female 24.08 American 15 Male 27.60 American 16 Female 26.96 American
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)
MNI coordinates Brain region BA Voxels z score x y z Moral-Personal > Control Medial Frontal Gyrus LR9, 10, 32 -8 40 10 5507 5.36 Cingulate Cortex Caudate, Putamen Cingulate Gyrus, Precuneus LR7, 23, 31 -2 -58 28 1006 4.57 Cingulate Gyrus LR23, 24, 6 -24 44 433 4.54 31 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
LR7, 23, Precuneus, Cingulate Gyrus 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.
MNI coordinates Brain region BA Voxels z score x y z Moral-Personal > Control, PCC - Positive Lingual Gyrus, Cuneus LR17, 18, 19 20 -102 4 11288 5.93 Cerebellum Posterior Lobe Middle Frontal Gyrus Superior Frontal Gyrus L6, 8, 9 -26 2 66 3154 5.39 Inferior Frontal Gyrus 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 R3, 4 44 -26 64 410 -4.81 Precentral Gyrus 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.
MNI coordinates Brain region BA Voxels z score x y z Moral-Personal > Control, MPFC - Positive Cerebellum, Inferior Frontal Gyrus Lingual Gyrus, Middle Frontal LR9, 17, 18 -4 -32 -4 12944 5.73 Gyrus Midbrain, Cuneus, Thalamus Superior Frontal Gyrus LR6, 8 -4 12 64 1071 4.58 Medial Frontal Gyrus Inferior Parietal Lobule L7, 40 -34 -58 50 936 4.99 Superior Parietal Lobule 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 Middle Frontal Gyrus R10 40 58 10 39 5.07 Superior Frontal Gyrus L9 -18 52 34 37 4.07 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 R6, 24 8 -24 44 1253 -4.32 Medial Frontal Gyrus 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)
MNI coordinates Brain region BA Voxels z score x y z Moral-Impersonal > Control, PCC - Positive Cerebellum, Lingual Gyrus LR17, 18 20 -100 4 3868 4.83 Cuneus, Middle Occipital Gyrus Middle Frontal Gyrus L6, 9 -44 -8 58 835 3.96 Superior Frontal Gyrus L8 -16 28 58 761 5.44 Inferior Frontal Gyrus L47 -32 20 -8 330 5.08 Brainstem, Midbrain L -12 -16 -12 182 4.27 Midbrain, Brainstem, Thalamus L -8 -34 -4 134 4.03 Middle Temporal Gyrus L21 -54 6 -34 54 4.26 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 Middle Frontal Gyrus R9 46 32 38 30 3.76 Pons, Brainstem LR -2 -36 -32 27 3.50 Moral-Impersonal > Control, PCC - Negative Postcentral Gyrus R2,3, 40 62 -24 38 211 -4.41 Inferior Parietal Lobule 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)
MNI coordinates Brain region BA Voxels z score x y z Moral-Impersonal > Control, MPFC - Positive Cerebellum LR -12 -72 -22 726 4.68 Insula, Inferior Frontal Gyrus L13, 47 -28 18 -6 418 4.43 Lentiform Nucleus, Putamen 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 R13, 47 28 18 -2 181 4.88 Insula Precuneus L7 -16 -56 42 136 3.91 Midbrain, Brainstem L -10 -16 -12 107 4.07 Cuneus R18 10 -100 0 80 3.52 Midbrain, Brainstem L -6 -32 -10 71 3.70 Middle Frontal Gyrus L6 -30 -12 48 70 3.63 Lingual Gyrus L19 -26 -66 -2 67 3.91 Middle Temporal Gyrus L21 -54 6 -34 57 4.08 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)
MNI coordinates Brain region BA Voxels z score x y z 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 Midbrain, Brainstem L -4 -32 -4 79 3.53 Superior Frontal Gyrus LR8 0 28 54 49 3.20 Medial Frontal Gyrus L9 0 36 36 38 3.31 Inferior Frontal Gyrus L45 -56 18 4 35 3.39 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 Superior Frontal Gyrus L6 -12 6 58 168 3.61 Inferior Frontal Gyrus L44, 45 -56 16 6 160 3.51 Inferior Frontal Gyrus L9 -50 12 26 157 3.53 Midbrain, Brainstem L -4 -30 -4 113 3.81 Inferior Frontal Gyrus L47 -48 44 -12 46 3.27 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 -
80
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 81
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 82
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 83
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; 84
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 85
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, 86
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 87
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 88
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 89
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, 90
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 91
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. 92
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 93
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 94
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 95
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, & 96
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 97
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 99
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 100
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 101
(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 102
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 103
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 104
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 105
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 106
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 107
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. 108
휎 휎 푇푎푡푡푛 = ⌊푋̅ − 푧99%/2 ⌋ , 푇푢푛푎푡푡푛 = ⌈푋̅ + 푧99%/2 ⌉ √푛 √푛
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 109
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 110
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. 111
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. 112
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. 113
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. 114
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 115
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 116
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 117
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 118
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 119
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 120
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 121
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 122
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. 123
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 124
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 125
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 126
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 127
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 128
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 129
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. 130
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 131
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 132
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). 133
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 134
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 135
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 136
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. 137
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 138
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 139
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 140
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, 141
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.
142
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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). 171
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 173
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. 174
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.
175
APPENDIX B PRESENTED MORAL DILEMMAS
(1) You are a farm worker driving a turnip-harvesting machine. You are approaching two diverging paths.
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
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?
(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.
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.
Is it appropriate for you to make two trips home in order to avoid ruining the upholstery of your car?
(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. 176
The only available times for next Monday are at 10:00 AM and at 3:00 PM. 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. 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? (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. 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. Page> Is it appropriate for you to purchase the generic brand instead of searching further for the name-brand product you were looking for? (5) You have decided to make a batch of brownies for yourself. You open your recipe book and find a recipe for brownies. 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. Is it appropriate for you to substitute macadamia nuts for walnuts in order to avoid eating walnuts? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to take the train instead of the bus in order to ensure your not being late for your meeting? (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. 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. 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? (8) A representative of a reputable， national survey organization calls you at your home while you are having a quiet dinner by yourself. 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. Is it appropriate for you to interrupt your dinner in order to earn $200? (9) You have gone to a bookstore to buy $50 worth of books. You have with you two coupons. 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. 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? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to take the coastal route in order to observe the beautiful scenery as you drive? (11) You are a farm worker driving a turnip-harvesting machine. You are approaching two diverging paths. 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. 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? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to invest a thousand dollars in this mutual fund in order to make money? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you have your old VCR fixed in order to avoid spending money on a new one? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to take the history class during the fall term in order to help you fulfill your graduation requirements? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to buy a ticket for the Car B raffle in order to win a car? (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. 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. 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? (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. 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. 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? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to shower before doing your yard work in order to enjoy a shower now? (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. 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. 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? (20) You have been offered employment by two different firms， and you are trying to decide which offer to accept. 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. Is it appropriate for you to take Firm B’s offer in order to have two more days of vacation per year? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to hit the switch in order to avoid the deaths of the five workmen? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to hit the switch in order to avoid the deaths of the three patients? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to not make a donation to this organization in order to save money? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to direct your agency to encourage the use of this vaccine in order to promote national health? (25) You are a member of a government legislature. The legislature is deciding between two different policies concerning environmental hazards. 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. Is it appropriate for you to vote for Policy A over Policy B? (26) You are a member of a government legislature. The legislature is deciding between two different policies concerning environmental hazards. Policy A has a 90% chance of causing no deaths at all and has a 10% chance of causing 1000 deaths. Policy B has an 88% chance of causing no deaths and a 12% chance of causing 10 deaths. Is it appropriate for you to vote for Policy B over Policy A? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to destroy the sculpture in order to save this workman's life? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to borrow the speedboat in order to warn the tourists about the storm? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to lie to the guard in order to borrow the speedboat and warn the tourists about the storm? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to hit the switch in order to avoid the deaths of the five workmen? (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. 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. Page> Is it appropriate for you to hit the switch in order to avoid the deaths of the three patients? (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. 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. Was it appropriate for your friend to put false information on his resume in order to help him find employment? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to pretend that certain personal expenses are business expenses in order to lower your taxes? (34) You are a member of a government legislature. The legislature is deciding between two different policies concerning environmental hazards. 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. Is it appropriate for you to vote for Policy B over Policy A? (35) You are a member of a government legislature. The legislature is deciding between two different policies concerning environmental hazards. 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 88% chance of causing no deaths and a 12% chance of causing 10 deaths. Is it appropriate for you to vote for Policy A over Policy B? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to release this information to your friend so that she will cancel your debt? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to meet with this judge socially in order to help you win your case? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to keep the money you found in the wallet in order to have more money for yourself? (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. 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. Page> Is it appropriate for you to perform this transplant in order to save five of your patients? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to push the stranger on to the tracks in order to save the five workmen? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to leave this man by the side of the road in order to preserve your leather upholstery? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to push your boss off of the building in order to get him out of your life? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to employ your daughter in the child pornography industry in order to feed your family? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to kill this man's father in order to get money for yourself and this young man? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to smother your child in order to save yourself and the other townspeople? (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. 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. Is it appropriate to kill this boy so that you and the other man may survive your journey to safety? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to hire a man to rape your wife so that she will appreciate you as you comfort her? (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. 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. Was it appropriate for this boy to put pills in his grandmother's teapot in order to play a trick on her? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to throw your baby in the dumpster in order to move on with your life? (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. 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. Page> Is it appropriate for you to throw this person overboard in order to save the lives of the remaining passengers? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to cause this man to have a serious allergy attack in order to prevent him from spreading HIV? (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. 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. 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? (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. 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. 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? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to kill the fatally injured crew member in order to save the lives of the remaining crew members? (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. 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. 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? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to bring one of your children to the laboratory in order to avoid having them both die? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to kill your oldest son in order to save your husband and your other three children? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to forcibly remove this man's kidney in order to save the lives of the six vitamin-deficient people? (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. 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. 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? (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. 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. Is it appropriate for you to shoot this soldier in order to prevent him from being tortured by the enemy? 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 Name of the Amount of Is this service for the exact date, please provide charity time (hours) a credit or the date as you remember) graduation requirement? Ex) May. 5. 2013. Save the 3 No Children (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. Almost At least Once or A few Never every once a Twice times week 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 Once or A few Sometim Never A lot twice times es 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)