How Does Moral Evaluation Modulate Empathy For Pain:ERP Correlates

Empathy is a complex psychological process, which involve cognition, emotion and behavior, and it is also influenced by all kinds of factors. As a kind of social emotion, empathy play a important part in society, which has close relation with moral, justice, altruism.In our research, the aim is to investigate whether empathy for pain is modulated by moral evaluation. The present research includes two ERP studies, study1investigated whether empathy for pain could be modulated by abstract words like "good" or "bad"; Study2was designed to further discuss how empathy for pain was effected by moral stories that represented different level of compassion of the leading characters.Study1was a2(good or bad)*2(neutral or painful) within-subjects design. Subjects were indicated to watch pictures while imaging the one was "good" or "bad". The results of ANOVA for repeated measurement showed:Main effect of words was significant at200-300ms,300-400ms,400-500ms,700-800ms,900-1000ms and main effect of painful stimuli was significant at600-700ms,700-800ms,800-900ms,900-1000ms.Finally, interaction effect between words and stimuli was marginal significant at800-900ms (P=0.072).The task of study2is similar to study1, except that the words were replaced by moral stories, which represented high or low level of compassion of the leading characters. The results of ANOVA for repeated measurement showed:Main effect of sympathetic level was significant at200-300ms,300-400ms,400-500ms,500-600ms and main effect of painful stimuli was significant at500-600ms,600-700ms.Finally, interaction effect between words and stimuli was significant at800-900ms (P＜0.01). Results of simple effect show:the effect of pain was significant (P<0.05) under the condition that the stories were representing the leading characters with high level of compassion. And the effect of pain was not significant (p＞0.1) under the condition that the leading characters were low level of compassion. In conclusion, moral evaluation produced by abstract words and moral stories can both modulate empathy for pain except for the timing and intensity:The word of morality could affect the process from200to1000ms, which postpone processing pain material; Story take effect in200-600ms.It is obvious that the mechanism of moral evaluation modulating empathy for pain is complex. On one hand, the effect of these two kind of moral evaluation acting since200ms, before processing painful stimuli, which also postponing processing painful stimuli and the degree of postponing varying between the two; One the other hand, at the early stage of empathy for pain, negative evaluation could prevent empathy for pain, which last the whole course. In the late stage,800-900ms, moral evaluation could still modulate empathy for pain, which intensified empathy for pain under positive evaluation.The innovation of this research is using imaging task, including the using of ERP, discussing effect of two kind of moral evaluation on empathy for pain. As for future research, it is necessary to use more strict experimental design like setting neutral condition to investigate this topic. Focusing on improving the ecological validity of research, which is important for discussing the relationship between morality and empathy, could apply achievement in society.