Acute psychosocial stress and everyday moral decision-making: behavioral effects, psychoneuroendocrinological responses, and neuronal activity

在日常生活中，道德决定经常需要在巨大的压力下做出。尽管有经验证据表明，压力和压力荷尔蒙都会影响包括经济、社会和抽象道德决策在内的各个领域的决策，但令人惊讶的是，很少有人尝试探讨压力对日常道德决策的影响。因此，这个项目的首要目标是对这一论点进行实验研究，即男性和女性在日常道德冲突情况下，严重的心理社会压力会影响决策。随着这一提案的继续资金申请(去掉符号)，我们申请将工作人员拨款从30个月延长到36个月。最初的项目包括两项主要研究。在第一个主要的实验室实验研究中，我们首次采用受试者内设计(结果可用)调查了急性心理社会压力对日常道德决策的影响。在第二个主要的实验研究中，我们的目标是使用fMRI(数据收集仍很突出)来检查行为影响，并首次检查急性应激暴露后日常道德决策过程中的神经元激活模式。对于主要研究2，一个基本的前提是开发和建立新的功能磁共振兼容范式(ScanSTRESS范式和道德决策范式的安慰剂版本)。到目前为止，这些新的范式开发已经成功完成。然而，事实证明，这一过程比最初计划的要复杂得多(就内容和技术而言)，尤其是更耗时。在主要研究1和主要研究2的准备工作的同时，我们成功地提出了以下额外的研究问题：在为两个主要研究开发新的刺激材料之后，已经进行了四个独立的验证性研究。这导致了EMCS量表的建立(发表在Singer等人，2019年)。在另一项行为研究(受试者间设计)中，我们调查了压力效应对日常道德决策的时间依赖性(Singer等人，在准备中)。由于主要研究1(受试者内设计)的结果不能证实预期的压力对日常道德决策的影响，我们另外进行了主要研究1的重复(Singer等人，正在准备中)。在申请继续为工作人员批款提供6个月经费的情况下，将进行仍未完成的主要研究2。

In everyday life, moral decisions frequently need to be made under acute stress. Although there is empirical evidence that both stress and stress hormones affect decision-making in various domains including economic, social, and abstract moral decision-making, surprisingly few attempts have been made to explore the effects of stress on everyday moral decision-making. Therefore, the overarching goal of this project is to experimentally investigate the thesis that acute psychosocial stress influences decision-making in everyday moral conflict situations in both men and women.With this application for continuated funding of the proposal (sign removed), we apply for an extension of staff appropriations from 30 to 36 months. The original project comprised two main studies. In a first main experimental laboratory study, we investigated the impact of acute psychosocial stress on everyday moral decision-making applying for the first time a within-subjects design (results available). In a second main experimental study, we aim to examine behavioral effects and, for the first time, neuronal activation patterns during everyday moral decision-making after acute stress exposure using fMRI (data collection still outstanding). For main study 2, an essential prerequisite was the development and establishment of new fMRI compatible paradigms (placebo version of the ScanSTRESS paradigm and moral decision-making paradigm). These new paradigm developments have been successfully accomplished by now. Though, this process turned out to be much more complex (with regard to content as well as technically) and especially more time-consuming than originally planned. Simultaneously to main study 1 and the preparatory works for main study 2, we successfully pursued the following additional research questions: After the development of new stimulus material for both main studies, four independent validation studies have been conducted. This led to the establishment of the EMCS Scale (published in Singer et al., 2019). In an additional behavioral study (between-subjects design), we investigated the time dependency of stress effects on everyday moral decision-making (Singer et al., in preparation). Since the results of main study 1 (within-subjects design) did not confirm the expected stress effects on everyday moral decision-making, we additionally conducted a replication of main study 1 (Singer et al., in preparation). With this application for continuated funding of staff appropriations for 6 months, the still outstanding main study 2 will be conducted.