The influence of moral behaviors on person perception processes: An fMRI investigation

Explicating the underlying neural processes underlying the perception of and reaction to media characters and their behaviors is of central importance to further understanding many theories of media effects. This dissertation uses moral cognitive neuroscience to identify and examine the hypothesized connections between moral judgment and person perception processes central to media enjoyment, by using functional magnetic resonance imaging to test predictions relevant to media theory. Of central concern was the influence of moral relevance (the extent to which narratives were moral or neutral in content), moral valance (the morality or immorality of the content) and moral domain (the extent to which the content evoked theoretically distinct domains) on moral judgment. Additionally, the role individual differences in moral intuitions play in moral judgment was included to identify the role of moral salience in making moral judgments along these dimensions.;A 2(Moral Relevance) x 2(Moral Valance) x 2(Domain) x 2(Moral Salience) experiment was conducted using short statements that varied in moral relevance, moral valance, and domain specificity as stimuli. Participants who varied in the moral salience of specific moral intuitions as judged by the Moral Foundations Questionnaire judged the relative morality of the behaviors presented in these statements while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning. Both the moral judgments and the imaging data were analyzed separately in order to gain a complete picture of the processes underlying moral judgment.;Findings suggest that moral content, compared to neutral content, activates a distinct "moral judgment" network in the brain. This moral judgment network further depends on the valence of the moral stimuli. That is, positively and negatively valenced statements elicited distinct patterns of neural activation. This activation also varied based on the domain of the moral behavior, supporting theoretical distinctions between moral domains central to recent theorizing in moral psychology. Furthermore, both moral judgments and neural activation varied based on participants' self-reported salience of moral intuitions. That is participants with distinct self-report scores on moral salience showed distinct patterns of neural activation across all conditions. Importantly, this indicates that the MFQ can be used to detect important differences in moral judgments between participants. Additionally, it suggests that people for whom moral intuitions are differentially salient when making moral judgments rely on different neural processes when judging moral and immoral behavior.;This study highlights the importance of moral relevance, moral valence, and domain specificity of moral behaviors in moral judgment at both behavioral and neural levels. Furthermore, it distinguishes the separate processes involved in moral intuition and social information processing in a manner that is theoretically relevant for media scholars, moral psychologists, and social cognitive neuroscientists. Finally, it suggests the importance of understanding the moral intuitions that underlie moral judgments in order to gain a fuller understanding of the moral judgment process.