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Neural Correlates of Post-Conventional Moral Reasoning: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study

Going back to Kohlberg, moral development research affirms that people progress through different stages of moral reasoning as cognitive abilities mature. Individuals at a lower level of moral reasoning judge moral issues mainly based on self-interest (personal interests schema) or based on adherenc...

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Autores principales: Prehn, Kristin, Korczykowski, Marc, Rao, Hengyi, Fang, Zhuo, Detre, John A., Robertson, Diana C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4454660/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26039547
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0122914
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author Prehn, Kristin
Korczykowski, Marc
Rao, Hengyi
Fang, Zhuo
Detre, John A.
Robertson, Diana C.
author_facet Prehn, Kristin
Korczykowski, Marc
Rao, Hengyi
Fang, Zhuo
Detre, John A.
Robertson, Diana C.
author_sort Prehn, Kristin
collection PubMed
description Going back to Kohlberg, moral development research affirms that people progress through different stages of moral reasoning as cognitive abilities mature. Individuals at a lower level of moral reasoning judge moral issues mainly based on self-interest (personal interests schema) or based on adherence to laws and rules (maintaining norms schema), whereas individuals at the post-conventional level judge moral issues based on deeper principles and shared ideals. However, the extent to which moral development is reflected in structural brain architecture remains unknown. To investigate this question, we used voxel-based morphometry and examined the brain structure in a sample of 67 Master of Business Administration (MBA) students. Subjects completed the Defining Issues Test (DIT-2) which measures moral development in terms of cognitive schema preference. Results demonstrate that subjects at the post-conventional level of moral reasoning were characterized by increased gray matter volume in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and subgenual anterior cingulate cortex, compared with subjects at a lower level of moral reasoning. Our findings support an important role for both cognitive and emotional processes in moral reasoning and provide first evidence for individual differences in brain structure according to the stages of moral reasoning first proposed by Kohlberg decades ago.
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spelling pubmed-44546602015-06-09 Neural Correlates of Post-Conventional Moral Reasoning: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study Prehn, Kristin Korczykowski, Marc Rao, Hengyi Fang, Zhuo Detre, John A. Robertson, Diana C. PLoS One Research Article Going back to Kohlberg, moral development research affirms that people progress through different stages of moral reasoning as cognitive abilities mature. Individuals at a lower level of moral reasoning judge moral issues mainly based on self-interest (personal interests schema) or based on adherence to laws and rules (maintaining norms schema), whereas individuals at the post-conventional level judge moral issues based on deeper principles and shared ideals. However, the extent to which moral development is reflected in structural brain architecture remains unknown. To investigate this question, we used voxel-based morphometry and examined the brain structure in a sample of 67 Master of Business Administration (MBA) students. Subjects completed the Defining Issues Test (DIT-2) which measures moral development in terms of cognitive schema preference. Results demonstrate that subjects at the post-conventional level of moral reasoning were characterized by increased gray matter volume in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and subgenual anterior cingulate cortex, compared with subjects at a lower level of moral reasoning. Our findings support an important role for both cognitive and emotional processes in moral reasoning and provide first evidence for individual differences in brain structure according to the stages of moral reasoning first proposed by Kohlberg decades ago. Public Library of Science 2015-06-03 /pmc/articles/PMC4454660/ /pubmed/26039547 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0122914 Text en © 2015 Prehn et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Prehn, Kristin
Korczykowski, Marc
Rao, Hengyi
Fang, Zhuo
Detre, John A.
Robertson, Diana C.
Neural Correlates of Post-Conventional Moral Reasoning: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study
title Neural Correlates of Post-Conventional Moral Reasoning: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study
title_full Neural Correlates of Post-Conventional Moral Reasoning: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study
title_fullStr Neural Correlates of Post-Conventional Moral Reasoning: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study
title_full_unstemmed Neural Correlates of Post-Conventional Moral Reasoning: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study
title_short Neural Correlates of Post-Conventional Moral Reasoning: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study
title_sort neural correlates of post-conventional moral reasoning: a voxel-based morphometry study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4454660/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26039547
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0122914
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