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Highlights ► We show people are unable to appropriately judge outcomes of moral behaviour. ► Moral beliefs have weaker impact when there is a presence of significant self-gain. ► People make highly self-serving choices in real moral situations. ► Real moral choices contradict responses to simple hypothetical moral probes. ► Enhancing context can cause hypothetical decisions to mirror real moral decisions., Moral ideals are strongly ingrained within society and individuals alike, but actual moral choices are profoundly influenced by tangible rewards and consequences. Across two studies we show that real moral decisions can dramatically contradict moral choices made in hypothetical scenarios (Study 1). However, by systematically enhancing the contextual information available to subjects when addressing a hypothetical moral problem—thereby reducing the opportunity for mental simulation—we were able to incrementally bring subjects’ responses in line with their moral behaviour in real situations (Study 2). These results imply that previous work relying mainly on decontextualized hypothetical scenarios may not accurately reflect moral decisions in everyday life. The findings also shed light on contextual factors that can alter how moral decisions are made, such as the salience of a personal gain.

Consider the sheer number of people you interact with on any given day. How do you keep up with all the complex bonds, relationships, and hierarchies between people in your social community? Being able to track the quality of your connections to individuals within your social group, and to subsequently track their relationships to others, reflects the topologies of our social networks [1].

Phylogenetic threats such as spiders evoke our deepest primitive fears. When close or looming, such threats engage evolutionarily conserved monitoring systems and defense reactions that promote self-preservation. With the use of a modified behavioral approach task within functional MRI, we show that, as a tarantula was placed closer to a subject's foot, increased experiences of fear coincided with augmented activity in a cascade of fear-related brain networks including the periaqueductal gray, amygdala, and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis. Activity in the amygdala was also associated with underprediction of the tarantula's threat value and, in addition to the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, with monitoring the tarantula's threat value as indexed by its direction of movement. Conversely, the orbitofrontal cortex was engaged as the tarantula grew more distant, suggesting that this region emits safety signals or expels fear. Our findings fractionate the neurobiological mechanisms associated with basic fear and potentially illuminate the perturbed reactions that characterize clinical phobias.

Uncertainty preferences are typically studied in neutral, nonsocial contexts. This approach, however, fails to capture the dynamic factors that influence choices under uncertainty in the real world. Our goal was twofold: to test whether uncertainty valuation is similar across social and nonsocial contexts, and to investigate the effects of acute stress on uncertainty preferences. Subjects completed matched gambling and trust games following either a control or a stress manipulation. Those who were not under stress exhibited no differences between the amount of money gambled and the amount of money entrusted to partners. In comparison, stressed subjects gambled more money but entrusted less money to partners. We further found that irrespective of stress, subjects were highly attuned to irrelevant feedback in the nonsocial, gambling context, believing that every loss led to a greater chance of winning (the gamblers’ fallacy). However, when deciding to trust a stranger, control subjects behaved rationally, treating each new interaction as independent. Stress compromised this adaptive behavior, increasing sensitivity to irrelevant social feedback.

This article begins by discussing how emotions shape moral choices. We then review the imaging literature, highlighting how moral cognition relies on a broad and decentralized neural network. We focus in particular on the functional roles of the prefrontal cortex, temporal lobes (including the amygdala), and cingulate cortex, emphasizing how each distinct region differentially contributes to moral cognition. We conclude by examining the evidence that lesions to this neural network not only cause deficits in socioemotional responding but also can profoundly disrupt moral behavior.

Jet lag is a bane of international travel, robbing travelers of the full enjoyment of their destination for the first day or two after arrival. However, by understanding the jet-lag mechanism, hoteliers can help their guests overcome jet lag's worst effects. The key strategy is to assist travelers in reorienting their circadian rhythm (i.e., their internal clock), to the new time zone. While providing early check-in is helpful, the recommended tactic is to encourage travelers to “get on the clock” of their destination, even if that means helping the guest to stay awake for an extended time. The point of that tactic is to enable guests to get a good night's sleep on the destination's clock, rather than that of their origination point. To that end, bright light during daytime is just as helpful as full darkness (and an absence of other disturbances) at night. Certainly, it is essential to ensure that the room's environment and the bed is comfortable. Making it possible for guests to exercise or to be physically active in some manner is helpful. Alcohol and caffeine are not helpful, because they disturb sleep patterns. Although hoteliers should not encourange inappropriate muse of medications, some guests may use over-the-counter antihistamines to help ensure drowsiness at appropriate times.

Research has illustrated that the brain regions implicated in moral cognition comprise a robust and broadly distributed network. However, understanding how these brain regions interact and give rise to the complex interplay of cognitive processes underpinning human moral cognition is still in its infancy. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine patterns of activation for 'difficult' and 'easy' moral decisions relative to matched non-moral comparators. This revealed an activation pattern consistent with a relative functional double dissociation between the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) and ventro-medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Difficult moral decisions activated bilateral TPJ and deactivated the vmPFC and OFC. In contrast, easy moral decisions revealed patterns of activation in the vmPFC and deactivation in bilateral TPJ and dorsolateral PFC. Together these results suggest that moral cognition is a dynamic process implemented by a distributed network that involves interacting, yet functionally dissociable networks.

Classic social psychology studies demonstrate that people can behave in ways that contradict their intentions--especially within the moral domain. We measured brain activity while subjects decided between financial self-benefit (earning money) and preventing physical harm (applying an electric shock) to a confederate under both real and hypothetical conditions. We found a shared neural network associated with empathic concern for both types of decisions. However, hypothetical and real moral decisions also recruited distinct neural circuitry: hypothetical moral decisions mapped closely onto the imagination network, while real moral decisions elicited activity in the bilateral amygdala and anterior cingulate--areas essential for social and affective processes. Moreover, during real moral decision-making, distinct regions of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) determined whether subjects make selfish or pro-social moral choices. Together, these results reveal not only differential neural mechanisms for real and hypothetical moral decisions but also that the nature of real moral decisions can be predicted by dissociable networks within the PFC.

Classic psychology and economic studies argue that punishment is the standard response to violations of fairness norms. Typically, individuals are presented with the option to punish the transgressor or not. However, such a narrow choice set may fail to capture stronger alternative preferences for restoring justice. Here we show, in contrast to the majority of findings on social punishment, that other forms of justice restoration (for example, compensation to the victim) are strongly preferred to punitive measures. Furthermore, these alternative preferences for restoring justice depend on the perspective of the deciding agent. When people are the recipient of an unfair offer, they prefer to compensate themselves without seeking retribution, even when punishment is free. Yet when people observe a fairness violation targeted at another, they change their decision to the most punitive option. Together these findings indicate that humans prefer alternative forms of justice restoration to punishment alone.