Institute of Psychology, University of Silesia in Katowice, Grazynskiego 53, 40-126, Katowice, Poland.
Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics, University of Pennsylvania, Goddard Laboratories, 3710 Hamilton Walk, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA.
Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2023 Oct;240(10):2163-2172. doi: 10.1007/s00213-023-06438-z. Epub 2023 Aug 9.
We aimed to understand if alcohol intoxication affects the willingness to violate moral foundations (care, fairness, authority, loyalty, and purity). We conducted a laboratory study (N = 387) with three randomized groups: alcohol intoxication, placebo, and control, measuring the sacralization of moral foundations via the Moral Foundations Sacredness Scale. The study showed intoxicated participants sacralized moral foundations of care and purity more often than participants from control and placebo groups. It means participants declared more willing to physically harm other people and animals and behave impurely, e.g., doing deviant sexual behaviors or selling their souls. No differences related to fairness, authority, and loyalty were found. Our study helps to understand the decision processes underlying immoral behaviors, including crimes. We showed that even one drink makes people change their judgments about what is right and wrong (in the cases of harmful and impure behaviors), and because this kind of judgment precedes immoral behaviors, our results may help explain why some people under the influence of alcohol break the rules by doing things which they would never do when sober.
我们旨在了解醉酒是否会影响人们违背道德基础（关爱、公平、权威、忠诚和纯洁）的意愿。我们进行了一项实验室研究（N=387），分为三组：醉酒组、安慰剂组和对照组，通过道德基础神圣性量表来衡量道德基础的神圣化。研究表明，醉酒参与者比对照组和安慰剂组更经常将道德基础的关爱和纯洁神圣化。这意味着参与者表示更愿意对他人和动物造成身体伤害，行为不端，例如进行反常的性行为或出卖自己的灵魂。在公平、权威和忠诚方面没有发现差异。我们的研究有助于理解包括犯罪在内的不道德行为背后的决策过程。我们表明，即使只喝一杯酒，也会让人改变对对错的判断（在有害和不纯洁的行为中），而且由于这种判断先于不道德行为，我们的结果可能有助于解释为什么有些人在酒精的影响下，会做出一些他们在清醒时绝不会做的违反规则的事情。
