Studie: Mitgefühl, moralisches Dilemma

Zitat

The extent to which people regard others as full-blown individuals with mental states (humanization) seems crucial for
their prosocial motivation towards them. Previous research has shown that decisions about moral dilemmas in which one
person can be sacrificed to save multiple others do not consistently follow utilitarian principles. We hypothesized that this
behavior can be explained by the potential victim’s perceived humanness and an ensuing increase in vicarious emotions
and emotional conflict during decision making. Using fMRI, we assessed neural activity underlying moral decisions that
affected fictitious persons that had or had not been experimentally humanized. In implicit priming trials, participants either
engaged in mentalizing about these persons (HUMANIZED condition) or not (NEUTRAL condition). In subsequent moral
dilemmas, participants had to decide about sacrificing these persons’ lives in order to save the lives of numerous others.
Humanized persons were sacrificed less often, and the activation pattern during decisions about them indicated increased
negative affect, emotional conflict, vicarious emotions, and behavioral control (pgACC/mOFC, anterior insula/IFG, aMCC and
precuneus/PCC). Besides, we found enhanced effective connectivity between aMCC and anterior insula, which suggests
increased emotion regulation during decisions affecting humanized victims. These findings highlight the importance of
others’ perceived humanness for prosocial behavior - with aversive affect and other-related concern when imagining
harming more ‘‘human-like’’ persons acting against purely utilitarian decisions.

Zitat von Obermotz

Ich hab eine relativ empathische Ader, außer beim Autofahren.