New insights into the moral brain
Greetings leading brainers
I noticed yesterday that New Scientist (which I love) recently published two articles on topics that I had reported on almost a year ago (experts don’t give the best advice and seven habits to improve brain function). So I’m patting myself on the back for being ahead of the curve and delivering you brain and behavioural insights before the mainstream does.
Remember you heard it hear first!
So, I hope you enjoy your regular doses of brain and behaviour knowledge, shortened and made more readable — up today is morality and the brain and also the differences between conservative and liberal moral brains:
I do have a moral brain! I do! Don’t I?
Well, we know almost all babies have moral reasoning, so I suppose you have too
Do babies have moral reasoning?
Well, depends on what you mean by moral reasoning. But I have used some of the research into babies in my workshops for years. And it is well documented that babies make moral judgments — and this is good news. It means that morality is inborn.
Great!
But there is also downside to this because babies also show in-group (those similar to yourself) preferences and this includes punishing the out-group!
Oh dear!
But that is not what this research is about. This research was trying to get to the bottom of moral processing in the brain. This should answer questions such as: do we have a morality hub and are different moral contexts processed differently?
What about liberals and conservatives moral brains?
I’ll get on to that later.
So do we have a morality hub in the brain…and is that missing in some people?
Not really, and not really, is the answer to both questions:
These researchers from the University of California took 64 participants and gave them bunches of moral and non-moral questions to answer and also scanned…
