The Multifaceted Effects of Serotonin Transporter Polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) on Anxiety, Implicit Moral Attitudes, and Harmful Behaviors

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Róger Marcelo Martínez¹  Chin-Yau Chen³  Tsai-Tsen Liao⁴  Yawei Cheng⁵  Yang-Teng Fan⁸  Shih-Han Chou⁹  Chenyi Chen^1,10 

[1] Graduate Institute of Injury Prevention and Control, Taipei Medical University;School of Psychological Sciences, National Autonomous University of Honduras;Department of Surgery, National Yang-Ming University Hospital;Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University;Institute of Neuroscience, Brain Research Center, National Yang-Ming University;Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, National Yang-Ming University Hospital;Department of Education and Research, Taipei City Hospital;Department of Biological Science and Technology, National Chiao Tung University;Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei Medical University;Research Center of Brain and Consciousness, Shuang-Ho Hospital, Taipei Medical University;Graduate Institute of Mind, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Taipei Medical University;Psychiatric Research Center, Wan Fang Hospital, Taipei Medical University

关键词: 5-HTTLPR;    moral judgment;    justice sensitivity;    implicit moral attitude;    moral permissibility;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01521

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Morality is fundamentally human in nature. Regardless, and even when moral norms seem to work toward the common goal of human cooperation, which morally contentious behaviors are permitted and which are prohibited vary across populations. Because of this occurrence, much scientific debate has revolved around the notion that this phenomenon might be explained by the interaction between genes and environment. Alongside, whether the principles cementing the bases of morality are intuition- or reason-based is another question that has been raised. However, previous research addressing these topics used explicit measures to probe moral attitudes, thus being the participants able to intentionally modify or disguise their honest responses. What’s more, while the 5-HTT gene was found to be associated with anxiety, morality, and even cultural structures, a single genotype–phenotype linkage cannot be established without considering the multifaceted effects of the 5-HTT gene on gene–behavior interactions. In order to explore the role of genetics on modeling moral attitudes and behaviors, we genotyped the 5-HTTLPR in 114 healthy volunteers and subsequently assessed their explicit justice sensitivity (Justice Sensitivity Inventory) and moral permissibility judgments, as well as their implicit moral attitudes [moral implicit association task (mIAT)]. Results revealed that 5-HTTLPR short-allele carriers had significantly lower mIAT reaction times when answering correctly and were less compliant on harming another person even when harm or death would inevitably occur anyway to this other individual. With these preliminary results, we can first see how it does not have to be a matter of vouching for a rationalist versus an intuitionist model of moral judgment, but rather being moral judgment an outcome of the different variants of the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism affecting the way in which individuals engage contrastingly with moral issues.

【 授权许可】

CC BY