The neural correlates of justified and unjustified killing: an fMRI study.
Despite moral prohibitions on hurting other humans, some social contexts allow for harmful actions such as killing of others. One example is warfare, where killing enemy soldiers is seen as morally justified. Yet, the neural underpinnings distinguishing between justified and unjustified killing are largely unknown. To improve understanding of the neural processes involved in justified and unjustified killing, participants had to imagine being the perpetrator whilst watching 'first-person perspective' animated videos where they shot enemy soldiers ('justified violence') and innocent civilians ('unjustified violence'). When participants imagined themselves shooting civilians compared with soldiers, greater activation was found in the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). Regression analysis revealed that the more guilt participants felt about shooting civilians, the greater the response in the lateral OFC. Effective connectivity analyses further revealed an increased coupling between lateral OFC and the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) when shooting civilians. The results show that the neural mechanisms typically implicated with harming others, such as the OFC, become less active when the violence against a particular group is seen as justified. This study therefore provides unique insight into how normal individuals can become aggressors in specific situations.
School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, pascal.molenberghs@monash.edu.
Pascal
P
Molenberghs
School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia.
Claudette
C
Ogilvie
School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia.
Winnifred R
WR
Louis
Department of Psychology, and Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, The University of Chicago, IL, USA, and.
Jean
J
Decety
School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia.
Jessica
J
Bagnall
School of Psychology and Counselling, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia.
Paul G
PG
Bain
D000328:Adult; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006167:Guilt; D006708:Homicide / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008889:Military Personnel; D009014:Morals; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D014754:Violence / Q000523:psychology*
conflict; intentional harm; morality; orbitofrontal cortex; violence