The heart as judge: Association of heart rate variability with moral judgement—A replication study

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

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Abstract

There is growing research into contributing processes and biological correlates of moral inclinations. Recently, a negative association between utilitarianism and resting heart rate variability (HRV) as an indicator of cardiac vagal tone/parasympathetic activity was reported. We aimed to replicate and extend these findings by additionally investigating the sympathetic parameter electro-dermal activity (EDA), but found no associations in the total sample (N = 157). However, when taking sex and the use of combined oral contraceptives (COC) into account, we found a positive association between HRV and estimated deontology in women using COC and men, while in free cycling women there was a negative association. While no direct replication, our results also point to associations between higher HRV and decreased endorsement of harmful actions that serve a greater good. Unlike HRV, EDA showed no associations with moral judgements. In addition, there were correlations between personality traits and moral judgement.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number108284
Number of pages8
JournalBiological psychology
Volume169
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2022
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

PubMed 35122889
unpaywall 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2022.108284
WOS 000779727900001
ORCID /0000-0002-9426-5397/work/141543202

Keywords

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Subject groups, research areas, subject areas according to Destatis

Keywords

  • Deontology, Electro-dermal activity, Heart rate variability, Moral judgement, Personality, Utilitarianism, Heart, Heart Rate/physiology, Humans, Male, Morals, Female, Ethical Theory, Judgment

Library keywords