Department of General Psychiatry, Center for Psychosocial Medicine, Heidelberg University, Voßstraße 2, 69115, Heidelberg, Germany.
The Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College London, London, WC1N 3AR, UK.
Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2023 Mar;273(2):367-377. doi: 10.1007/s00406-022-01489-3. Epub 2022 Oct 8.
Protected moral values facilitate empathic concern for others, who are exposed to an existential threat, so that one spontaneously helps without taking into account utilitarian cost-benefit considerations. Subjects scoring high on the "Dark Triad" machiavellism, psychopathy, and narcissism are prone to ignore such appeals for selfless help. Until now, data on moral processing and moral decision-making following requests for altruistic help, which directly contrast appeals to protected and non-protected values in subjects with high and low scores on Dark Triad traits, have been missing. In this pilot study 25 healthy subjects with high and 27 with low Dark Triad scores participated in this functional magnetic resonance imaging study. We used a script-driven imagery paradigm to directly contrast requests for selfless help appealing to protected versus non-protected, negotiable moral values. Appeals to protected versus non-protected moral values elicited stronger activations in a large network including insula, amygdala, supramarginal gyrus, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Non-protected values evoked stronger activation in superior frontal sulcus, occipito-temporal junction, and posterior cingulate cortex. During decision-making, high-scorers on the Dark Triad showed increased activations in the superior parietal lobule, precuneus, and intraparietal sulcus. Behaviorally, protected versus non-protected values strongly reduced the reliance on personal cost-benefit calculations in low-scorers, while high-scorers continued to rely on utilitarian deliberations. Data suggest that appeals to protected versus non-protected values activate distinct brain regions associated with strong moral emotions, other-directed cognition, and rule-based decision-making processes. High-scorers display an increased reliance on cost-benefit calculations, which persists even when protected values are threatened.
受保护的道德价值观促进了对处于生存威胁下的他人的共情关怀，因此人们会自发地提供帮助，而不考虑功利成本效益的考虑。在马基雅维利主义、精神病态和自恋的“黑暗三联征”方面得分较高的受试者往往会忽视这种无私帮助的呼吁。直到现在，关于道德处理和道德决策的数据，在高分和低分的“黑暗三联征”特质的受试者中，直接对比了对受保护和不受保护的利他主义帮助请求的呼吁，这方面的数据一直缺失。在这项初步研究中，25 名高得分的健康受试者和 27 名低得分的受试者参加了这项功能性磁共振成像研究。我们使用脚本驱动的意象范式，直接对比了对无私帮助的呼吁，这些呼吁呼吁受保护和不受保护的、可协商的道德价值观。对受保护和不受保护的道德价值观的呼吁在包括岛叶、杏仁核、缘上回和背外侧前额叶皮层在内的大网络中引起更强的激活。非受保护的价值观在额上沟、枕颞交界处和后扣带回皮层引起更强的激活。在决策过程中，“黑暗三联征”的高分者在顶叶上回、楔前叶和顶内沟表现出更强的激活。行为上，“黑暗三联征”的高分者在受保护和非受保护的价值观之间强烈减少了对个人成本效益计算的依赖，而低分者则继续依赖功利主义的思考。数据表明，对受保护和非受保护的价值观的呼吁激活了与强烈的道德情感、他人指向的认知和基于规则的决策过程相关的不同大脑区域。高分者表现出对成本效益计算的依赖增加，即使受保护的价值观受到威胁，这种依赖仍然存在。
