title: Heart rate correlates of utilitarian moral decision-making in alcoholism.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Recent studies of moral reasoning in patients with alcohol use disorders have indicated a 'utilitarian' bias, whereby patients are more likely to endorse emotionally aversive actions in favor of aggregate welfare (e.g., to kill a person in order to save a group of people). The aim of the present study was to examine psychophysiological correlates of this tendency indexed by heart rate.
  
  
  METHODS
  The sample was composed by 31 alcohol-dependent individuals and 34 healthy controls without alcohol use disorders. Electrocardiogram was recorded at rest and during execution of a validated moral judgment task, including non-moral scenarios, and moral dilemmas that were either high in emotional salience ("personal scenarios") or low in emotional salience ("impersonal scenarios").
  
  
  RESULTS
  Alcohol-dependent individuals showed a blunted response to moral dilemmas. Furthermore, healthy controls displayed decreased heart rate to the personal vs. impersonal or non-moral scenarios, while alcohol-dependent individuals failed to differentiate dilemmas in terms of heart rate both prior decision-making and its post appraisal. These deficits were not related to baseline differences in Heart Rate.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our findings indicate that alcohol-dependent individuals failed to engage emotional aversive reactions to personal moral violations in terms of heart rate response.
authors.affiliation: Department of Personality, Assessment and Psychological Treatment School of Psychology, University of Granada, Campus Cartuja s/n. 18071 Granada, Spain. Electronic address: martinacarmona@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Martina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Carmona-Perera
authors.forename: Gustavo A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Reyes Del Paso
authors.forename: Miguel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pérez-García
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Verdejo-García
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D001146:Arrhythmia, Sinus / Q000503:physiopathology; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009014:Morals
keywords: Alcohol-dependent individuals; Emotion; Heart rate; Moral decision-making