Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Moral judgments and behaviors are highly sensitive to culture. The understanding and construction of the exact same moral issues can vary substantially across individuals who come from different cultural backgrounds or possess different levels of multicultural experiences. Social psychologists are increasingly interested in closely looking at human morality through the lens of culture, partly driven by a renaissance of cultural psychology in the 1980s and the broadening and deepening of globalization. Based upon the perspective of cultural psychology, we briefly summarize how particular cultural factors (e.g. geography, ecology, social class) influence individuals’ moral judgments and behaviors from three facets: between-culture variations, within-culture variations, and multiculturalism. Together, it is our hope that this review article will inspire future research to better understand how Chinese people’s moral patterns and value systems have changed and are changing in the context of rapid and deep cultural change in China.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Moral dilemma is a type of decision-making situation in which moral principles are in conflict. Under this condition, a decision maker may violate certain moral principles whether he or she endorses or rejects a behavior proposed for a given situation. As research on this topic has advanced, scholars have developed a variety of research paradigms of moral dilemmas. Thus, a systematic analysis of the development process of moral dilemma research paradigms is needed. Such work would not only provide a more accurate methodological understanding of moral dilemma research but would also provide a methodological reference for research on similar psychological conflicts. This paper systematically described the advantages and disadvantages and theoretical value of four current research paradigms in the study of moral dilemma: the classic dilemma (CD) paradigm; process dissociation (PD) paradigm; the consequences, norms, and generalized inaction/action preferences (CNI) model; and the consequences sensitivity, overall action/inaction preferences and norms sensitivity (CAN) algorithm. CD paradigm makes the utilitarianism principle of maximizing the consequences of conflict with the deontology principle of pursuing the normative behavior itself, making it possible to explore moral principle preferences in moral choices. However, it cannot independently measure preference for the utilitarianism principle and preference for the deontology principle, which makes the interpretation of results ambiguous. Based on this paradigm, PD paradigm considers both utilitarianism and deontology principles against a proposed behavior and independently measures these preferences in moral decision-making. PD paradigm has helped resolve many research controversies. However, it does not completely dissociate moral decision preferences. For example, it cannot demonstrate the inclination to generally endorse/refuse a behavior while not considering any moral principles. Particularly, it confounds the inclination to generally refuse behavior proposals while not considering any moral principles in the preference of deontology principle. In this way, it systematically overestimates deontology preference. To overcome this limitation, the CNI model applies a multinomial processing tree model with a factorial design of moral scenarios (norm: prescriptive/proscriptive × consequences: benefits greater/smaller than costs), so that the preferences of generalized action/inaction irrespective of moral principles can be estimated. However, it presupposes that the agent sequentially considers norms—consequences—generalized inaction/action preferences, which results in an overestimation of norms sensitivity and makes the generalized inaction/action preferences untenable. To address this important limitation, CAN applies a new algebraic method to estimate norms sensitivity, consequences sensitivity, and overall action/inaction preferences in moral decision-making. In the development of these four paradigms, later ones resolved the limitations of former ones. Different psychological processes are gradually uncovered with new developed paradigms. The development of research paradigms reveals some directions for future research. First, some controversies in moral decision studies might be due to fundamental limitations of earlier research paradigms. CNI and CAN can be used to solve these controversies. Second, the moral theories based on early research paradigms should be reevaluated using the new paradigms, to verify the tenability of these theories. Third, these research paradigms could be applied to explore other psychological conflicts. In sum, this paper systematically reviewed the development procedure of the methodological paradigms in moral decision-making. It provided a methodological reference for moral dilemma studies and related research.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Impulsivity is a typical characteristic of drug addiction. In addition to the problems of inhibition and executive control, the driving force from multiple dimensions is also an important reason for impulsive drug use. The psychological drive stems from a variety of sources, including reward effect, S-R related cue response through conditioning. Low levels of inhibition are insufficient to resist the effects of the drive. This leads to an unbalanced state, which results in habitual behavior tendency. Impulsivity has both a behavioral and neural basis. Although impulsivity may be a precursor of drug use, long-term use may also damage brain structures and functions related to the inhibition of impulsive behavior. There is an open question about whether these structures and functions recover after withdrawal. In this research we used multiple imaging methods to study the extent of recovery in heroin addicts who had been abstinent for several years on average. Thirty-five abstinent heroin addicts (26 males; average period of abstinence = 43.55 months) and 26 healthy controls (26 males) were recruited using advertisements in the community. The heroin group and the healthy control group were compared on multiple measures of brain structure and function related to inhibition using the imaging methods of voxel-based morphometry (VBM), amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) and regional homogeneity (ReHo). Based on the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF), right inferior frontal gyrus (15, 60, -6) was selected as the region of interest in which to study functional connectivity (FC). Heroin addicts showed damage in inhibition-related brain structures and functions an average of 44 months after withdrawal, and the extent of damage was correlated with lifetime dose. (1) Compared to the healthy control group, the heroin group had significantly (a) lower gray matter volume (p = 0.03) and lower whole-brain volume (p = 0.05); (b) lower gray matter in the right superior frontal gyrus (pAlphaSim < 0.01); (c) higher regional homogeneity in right posterior central gyrus and lower regional homogeneity in right middle frontal gyrus of the orbitofrontal cortex (pAlphaSim < 0.01); (d) lower amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation in right inferior frontal gyrus of the orbitofrontal cortex and left hippocampus (pAlphaSim < 0.01); (e) higher functional connectivity between right inferior frontal gyrus of the orbitofrontal cortex and the right caudate, and lower functional connectivity between the right inferior frontal gyrus and right middle temporal gyrus as well left precentral gyrus (pAlphaSim < 0.01). (2) Within the heroin group, higher lifetime dose of heroin was significantly associated with lower gray matter volume in the right middle temporal gyrus and left middle cingulate (pAlphaSim < 0.01). The results showed that compared to healthy controls, heroin addicts had significant damage in brain structure and functions related to impulsivity even after an average period of 44 months of abstinence. In addition, the extent of damage was correlated with the lifetime dose of heroin. These results suggest that heroin addicts could continue to show impulsive behavior even after several years of abstinence, perhaps explaining the high rate of relapse in this population. Future research could test this conclusion by examining correlations between brain damage in areas related to inhibition and behavioral measures of impulsivity after a period of abstinence. The current evidence underscores the need to take impulsivity into account in relapse prevention programs for heroin addicts.
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