# Moral judgement under induced anxiety: threat-of-shock reduces sensitivity to immoral acts and alters neural processing

## TL;DR

This study shows that anxiety caused by a threat of shock makes people less sensitive to immoral acts and changes how the brain processes moral judgments.

## Contribution

The study reveals that threat-induced anxiety disrupts moral judgment processes and alters neural responses to immoral behaviors.

## Key findings

- Participants under threat-of-shock rated immoral behaviors as less unpleasant compared to a safe context.
- ERP results showed increased N1 amplitudes for immoral acts under threat-of-shock, indicating heightened attention.
- The N400 component failed to distinguish moral from immoral acts under threat-of-shock, suggesting impaired semantic processing.

## Abstract

This study investigates how anxiety influences moral judgement processes using event-related potential (ERP) techniques. Participants were instructed to rate their feelings towards others’ moral and immoral acts while neural responses were recorded under safe and threat-of-shock (TOS) conditions. Participants reported significantly higher anxiety levels in the TOS context, accompanied by increased non-specific skin conductance responses (NSSCR), indicating heightened autonomic nervous system activity. Behaviourally, participants in the TOS context rated immoral behaviours as significantly less unpleasant compared to those in the safe context, while ratings for moral behaviours did not differ significantly, suggesting reduced sensitivity to immoral acts in the TOS context. ERP results revealed larger N1 amplitudes in response to immoral behaviours in the TOS condition, reflecting heightened attention to threatening stimuli. In contrast, the N400 component showed significant differences between moral and immoral acts only in the safe condition; this distinction was absent in the TOS condition, indicating impaired semantic processing under anxiety. Together, these findings demonstrate that threat-induced anxiety disrupts moral judgement processes, leading to reduced sensitivity to immoral behaviours. This highlights the critical role of anxiety in moral processing and the flexibility and context dependence of moral judgements.