People with the greatest ability to make value judgments or moral reasoning show an increase in the amount of gray matter in the brain in the areas related to complex social behavior, decision-making and conflict processing, as shown It emerges from the latest study carried out by a team of scientists from the Perelman School of Medicine and the Wharton School , both belonging to the University of Pennsylvania (USA).
In their work, the researchers analyzed the 67 MBA (Master in Business Administration) students aged between 24 and 33 years from the aforementioned American university. Taking into account that the different stages of moral reasoning make our cognitive capacities mature, as many studies have attested since the one presented in the middle of the 20th century by the psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg, neuroscience has taken a further step in this regard by quantifying the brain structures that support individual stages of our moral reasoning or value judgment.
“MBA students were ideal candidates for this job, as the Wharton curriculum deals with decision-making and moral reasoning. The objective was to investigate whether the stage of moral reasoning is reflected in the structural brain architecture ”, explains Diana Robertson, leader of the study.
Thus, the scientists tested the moral reasoning of the participants with a test that would determine what behavior or thought pattern each student used on moral issues such as assisted suicide . With the results in hand, the participants were assigned to one of seven levels of moral development. In addition, all of them were subjected to magnetic resonance imaging tests to check the differences in the volume of gray matter between the students from the lowest level of moral reasoning to the highest levels. And to personality tests that would group them into: neurotic, extrovert, open to new experiences, scrupulous or pleasant.
The results revealed a higher score in opening new experiences and low levels of neuroticism in the participants with a higher level of moral development . In addition, regarding the structure of the brain, the scientists observed in these same subjects a considerable increase in the gray matter of the brain in the prefrontal cortex compared to the participants with more conventional moral ideas.
In conclusion, the volume of the brain’s gray matter was directly related to the participant’s level of non-traditional moral thinking: “This research adds a study of individual differences in moral reasoning to the expanding landscape of moral neuroscience. The new results provide initial evidence for the structural brain difference based on the stages of moral reasoning that Lawrence Kohlberg proposed decades ago. However, more research is needed to determine whether these changes are the cause or effect of higher levels of moral reasoning, ”explains Hengyi Rao, co-author of the work.
The study has been published in the journal PloS One .
