A Study On The Cognitive Neural Mechanism Of Facial Attraction Influencing Moral Decision-making

In social life,people often face some moral decisions,and the processing characteristics and influencing factors have been studied.However,there is little research on the cognitive neural mechanism of the effect of facial attractiveness on moral decision-making.Therefore,the present study aims to investigate the influence of facial attractiveness on moral decision-making and its cognitive neural mechanism by using event-related potential techniques.In the first experiment,the classic trolley moral dilemma was selected,and the character of the protagonist’s face in the trolley dilemma was manipulated to be high or low attractiveness,and the participants were required to make a decision on whether to pull the switch.The behavioral results found that participants tended to pull the switch for the rescued with high facial attractiveness.Participants were least likely to pull the switch when the less attractive face was saved and the more attractive face was sacrificed.The behavioral results showed that the subjects tended to make more favorable moral decisions for attractive individuals.The EEG results found that when the faces with low attractiveness were saved,the victim with higher face attractiveness induced a larger P3 amplitude than the victim with low face attractiveness.In addition,when the highly attractive faces were saved,the victim with a highly attractive faces induced a larger LPC amplitude than the victim with a low attractive face.These results show that when the victim is a highly attractive individual,the participants will have greater moral conflicts and need to allocate more cognitive resources to resolve this conflict.The experimental results reveal that the effect of facial attractiveness on moral decision-making occurs in the later stage of cognitive processing of moral decision-making.At the same time,it also shows that the type of face attractiveness of the rescued will affect the time course of the individual’s "beauty premium" effect on the victim’s face.The second experiment selects the moral dilemma in daily life to conduct behavior research,manipulates the protagonist’s face characteristics into high-attractive faces and low-attractive faces,and asks the subjects to choose whether to help the helpseekers.It was found that compared with those with low facial attractiveness,the subjects made more choices in helping people with high facial attractiveness.The experimental results show that individuals tend to make favorable moral decisions for individuals with high attractive faces.This study illustrates the neural response of facial attractiveness to moral decisionmaking,which is mainly reflected in the late cognitive processing of moral decisionmaking.The behavior results of the first Experiment and the second Experiment are consistent,which shows to a certain extent that the influence of face attractiveness on moral decision-making is consistent across situations.