Legal Studies and Business Ethics Papers

Document Type

Technical Report

Date of this Version

11-2016

Publication Source

NeuroImage

Volume

141

Start Page

408

Last Page

415

DOI

10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.07.045

Abstract

Moral competence (MC) refers to the ability to apply certain moral orientations in a consistent and differentiated manner when judging moral issues. People greatly differ in terms of MC, however, little is known about how these differences are implemented in the brain. To investigate this question, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging and examined resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) in n = 31 individuals with MC scores in the highest 15% of the population and n = 33 individuals with MC scores in the lowest 15%, selected from a large sample of 730 Master of Business Administration (MBA) students. Compared to individuals with lower MC, individuals with higher MC showed greater amygdala-ventromedial prefrontal connectivity, which may reflect better ability to cope with emotional conflicts elicited by moral dilemmas. Moreover, individuals with higher MC showed less inter-network connectivity between the amygdalar and fronto-parietal networks, suggesting a more independent operation of these networks. Our findings provide novel insights into how individual differences in moral judgment are associated with RSFC in brain circuits related to emotion processing and cognitive control.

Copyright/Permission Statement

Originally published in NeuroImage © 2016 Elsevier.

This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. The final version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.07.045

Keywords

moral competence, individual differences, functional connectivity, resting-state fMRI, amygdala

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Date Posted: 20 June 2018

This document has been peer reviewed.