Open AccessThe 5-HTTLPR polymorphism impacts moral permissibility of impersonal harmful behaviors
Author(s) -
Yafang Yang,
Chunlan Wang,
Xiaohan Li,
Rongjun Yu,
Mengfei Zhang,
Mengying Xue,
Wenxuan Guo,
Lan He,
Xiaocai Gao,
Pingyuan Gong
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
social cognitive and affective neuroscience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.229
H-Index - 103
eISSN - 1749-5024
pISSN - 1749-5016
DOI - 10.1093/scan/nsz060
Subject(s) - serotonin transporter , 5 httlpr , psychology , cohort , association (psychology) , allele , serotonin , polymorphism (computer science) , social psychology , developmental psychology , genetics , gene , medicine , biology , receptor , psychotherapist
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 the association between 5-HTTLPR polymorphism and moral permissibility of impersonal harmful actions was stable from wave 1 to wave 2. Thus, these findings highlight the importance of the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism to harmful moral behaviors.