Title The heart as judge: Association of heart rate variability with moral judgement-A replication study.
Author Armbruster, Diana; Strobel, Alexander
Journal Biol Psychol Publication Year/Month 2022-Mar
PMID 35122889 PMCID -N/A-
Affiliation + expend 1.Personality Psychology and Assessment, Institute of Psychology, Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz, Germany. Electronic address: diana.armbruster@psychologie.tu-chemnitz.de.

There is growing research into contributing processes and biological correlates of moral inclinations. Recently, a negative association between utilitarianism and resting heart rate variability (HRV) as an indicator of cardiac vagal tone/parasympathetic activity was reported. We aimed to replicate and extend these findings by additionally investigating the sympathetic parameter electro-dermal activity (EDA), but found no associations in the total sample (N = 157). However, when taking sex and the use of combined oral contraceptives (COC) into account, we found a positive association between HRV and estimated deontology in women using COC and men, while in free cycling women there was a negative association. While no direct replication, our results also point to associations between higher HRV and decreased endorsement of harmful actions that serve a greater good. Unlike HRV, EDA showed no associations with moral judgements. In addition, there were correlations between personality traits and moral judgement.

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