Nash Kyle, Baumgartner Thomas, Knoch Daria
Department of Social Psychology and Social Neuroscience, Institute of Psychology, University of Bern, Switzerland; Center for Cognition, Learning and Memory, University of Bern, Switzerland; University of Canterbury, Department of Psychology, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Department of Social Psychology and Social Neuroscience, Institute of Psychology, University of Bern, Switzerland; Center for Cognition, Learning and Memory, University of Bern, Switzerland.
Biol Psychol. 2017 Feb;123:235-240. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2016.12.018. Epub 2017 Jan 5.
Group-focused moral foundations (GMFs) - moral values that help protect the group's welfare - sharply divide conservatives from liberals and religiously devout from non-believers. However, there is little evidence about what drives this divide. Moral foundations theory and the model of motivated social cognition both associate group-focused moral foundations with differences in conflict detection and resolution capacity, but in opposing directions. Individual differences in conflict detection and resolution implicate specific neuroanatomical differences. Examining neuroanatomy thus affords an objective and non-biased opportunity to contrast these influential theories. Here, we report that increased adherence to group-focused moral foundations was strongly associated (whole-brain corrected) with reduced gray matter volume in key regions of the conflict detection and resolution system (anterior cingulate cortex and lateral prefrontal cortex). Because reduced gray matter is reliably associated with reduced neural and cognitive capacity, these findings support the idea outlined in the model of motivated social cognition that belief in group-focused moral values is associated with reduced conflict detection and resolution capacity.
群体导向的道德基础（GMFs）——有助于保护群体福祉的道德价值观——使保守派与自由派、宗教虔诚者与非信徒产生了明显分歧。然而，几乎没有证据表明是什么导致了这种分歧。道德基础理论和动机性社会认知模型都将群体导向的道德基础与冲突检测和解决能力的差异联系起来，但方向相反。冲突检测和解决方面的个体差异意味着特定的神经解剖学差异。因此，研究神经解剖学为对比这些有影响力的理论提供了一个客观且无偏见的机会。在这里，我们报告称，对群体导向的道德基础的更强坚持（全脑校正）与冲突检测和解决系统关键区域（前扣带回皮质和外侧前额叶皮质）的灰质体积减少密切相关。由于灰质减少与神经和认知能力下降可靠相关，这些发现支持了动机性社会认知模型中概述的观点，即对群体导向的道德价值观的信仰与冲突检测和解决能力下降有关。
