(1) Rational and Emotional? How Cognition and Feelings Influence Moral Decision Making

     Increased cognitive effort is required to evaluate a scenario and to make autilitarian decision in order to maximize benefits and minimizecosts. Affective processes and cognitive control processes enableindividuals... [ view full abstract ]

     Increased cognitive effort is required to evaluate a scenario and to make autilitarian decision in order to maximize benefits and minimizecosts. Affective processes and cognitive control processes enableindividuals to respond efficiently to moral dilemmas that induceconflict and/or are incongruent with personal and social values.We examined whether emotional primes influence one’s ability to judge the appropriateness of a decision with ease, dependingon the type of dilemma. Participants read and responded to personal moral dilemmas, impersonal moral dilemmas, and non-moral dilemmas. Each response was preceded by either apositive, negative, or neutral prime word. The results revealed an interaction between emotional prime type and dilemma type.Emotionally salient primes lead to decreased reaction times for judgments related to personal moral dilemmas, whereas reaction times for judgments related to impersonal moral dilemmas increased. These findings demonstrate emotion differentially affects judgment reaction time depending on the type of dilemma. We also discuss a follow up procedure that willemploy EEG/ERP methods to observe changes in brain activity related to emotional primes and moral judgments.