title: Sleep and moral awareness.
abstract: The implications of sleep for morality are only starting to be explored. Extending the ethics literature, we contend that because bringing morality to conscious attention requires effort, a lack of sleep leads to low moral awareness. We test this prediction with three studies. A laboratory study with a manipulation of sleep across 90 participants judging a scenario for moral content indicates that a lack of sleep leads to low moral awareness. An archival study of Google Trends data across 6 years highlights a national dip in Web searches for moral topics (but not other topics) on the Monday after the Spring time change, which tends to deprive people of sleep. Finally, a diary study of 127 participants indicates that (within participants) nights with a lack of sleep are associated with low moral awareness the next day. Together, these three studies suggest that a lack of sleep leaves people less morally aware, with important implications for the recognition of morality in others.
authors.affiliation: Foster School of Business, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
authors.forename: Christopher M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Barnes
authors.forename: Brian C
authors.initials: BC
authors.lastname: Gunia
authors.forename: David T
authors.initials: DT
authors.lastname: Wagner
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001364:Awareness / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008297:Male; D009014:Morals; D012890:Sleep / Q000502:physiology*; D012892:Sleep Deprivation / Q000523:psychology*; D012894:Sleep Stages / Q000502:physiology
keywords: behavioural ethics; ethics; moral awareness; sleep