The 5-HTTLPR polymorphism impacts moral permissibility of impersonal harmful behaviors.

ABSTRACT: Inspired by the roles of serotonin in an emotional aversion to harmful actions, we examined to what extent serotonin transporter gene (5-HTT)-linked polymorphic region (5-HTTLPR), a proxy for measuring serotonin function, underpinned the individual differences in moral judgment through cross-sectional analysis and two-wave comparison. The cross-sectional analysis with a larger cohort (N = 1197) showed that the SS carriers of the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism, corresponding to the low ratio of serotonin recycling from the synaptic cleft, rated impersonal harmful actions (e.g. flipping a switch to divert a train to hit one person instead of five people) as more permissible as compared with the L-allele carriers. The two-wave comparison with a subsample from the larger cohort (N = 563) indicated that

SUBMITTER: Yang Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6847979 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature