Moral thinking allows us to live in society. Empathy, social norms, guilt, this have allowed us to live in peace with others. It has allowed the existence of civilization, and indeed of the human race.
But now, how is the moral processing in the brain? This is the question of scientists from the University of Miami, New Mexico and Stanford in California, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and DukeUniversity in North Carolina.
Their article called “Hemispheric Asymmetries Immoral during Processing of Stimuli”, was published in The Journal Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience.
Discover all the mysteries of the brain are still today an ‘impossible mission’. That is the reason for these scientists did not seek the neural network processing of stimuli immoral, they investigated which hemisphere showed increased electrical activity.
The team used an MRIf machine to measure electrical activity through the levels of hemoglobin in the blood.
For example, a test, volunteers were shown pictures of neutral or immoral situations. At another point, volunteers saw different kinds of printed statements, with different themes immoral, for example, incest, pathogens, and control through neutral situations.
The researcher shows an increased activity in the left hemisphere of the brain. There is lateralization of information moral / immoral to receive us.
I hope one day this knowledge can help to reduce undesirable immoral behavior.
The study of the brain is very comprehensive, and the mysteries that make it attractive gives us ... is much to discover! So we have a lot of homework as a psychologist!
ResponderEliminarI remembered when I was on highschool and I studied some things about Lawrence Kohlberg and his theory about Moral Development. I thought your post would be something similar, but it's totally different, 'cause Kohlberg never mentioned brain anatomy.
ResponderEliminar