Sommer Monika, Meinhardt Jörg, Rothmayr Christoph, Döhnel Katrin, Hajak Göran, Rupprecht Rainer, Sodian Beate
a Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy , University Regensburg , Regensburg , Germany.
Soc Neurosci. 2014;9(5):452-70. doi: 10.1080/17470919.2014.933714. Epub 2014 Jun 27.
Throughout adolescence, progress in the understanding of the moral domain as well as changes in moral behavior is observable. We tested 16 adolescents (14-16 years of age) and 16 healthy adults (22-31 years of age) on the developmental changes in everyday moral decision making using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Using verbal stories describing everyday moral conflict situations, subjects had to decide between a moral standard or a personal desire. In the moral conflict situations, adolescents not only chose significantly more often the hedonistic alternative than adults, but they also reported higher certainty ratings. Contrasted with everyday social conflict situations that required a decision between a social-oriented behavior and a personal need, moral conflict situations induced an activity increase in frontal areas, the middle temporal gyrus, the thalamus, and the parahippocampal gyrus in adolescents compared to adults. Moreover, a closer look at the moral conflict situations revealed that adolescents showed more activity than adults in brain areas that are also centrally involved in theory of mind (ToM) during morally oriented decisions in contrast to personal-oriented decisions. This indicated that the development of moral reasoning may be strongly correlated with the development of ToM reasoning.
在整个青春期，可以观察到对道德领域理解的进步以及道德行为的变化。我们使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）对16名青少年（14 - 16岁）和16名健康成年人（22 - 31岁）进行了日常道德决策发展变化的测试。通过描述日常道德冲突情境的文字故事，受试者必须在道德标准和个人欲望之间做出选择。在道德冲突情境中，青少年不仅比成年人更频繁地选择享乐主义的选项，而且他们报告的确定性评分也更高。与需要在社会导向行为和个人需求之间做出决策的日常社会冲突情境相比，道德冲突情境在青少年中诱发的额叶区域、颞中回、丘脑和海马旁回的活动比成年人增加。此外，仔细观察道德冲突情境发现，与个人导向决策相比，青少年在道德导向决策过程中，在那些也与心理理论（ToM）密切相关的脑区表现出比成年人更多的活动。这表明道德推理的发展可能与ToM推理的发展密切相关。
