Effects of the cardiac cycle on moral judgements of fairness

• Grant number: 23/06209-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor
• Start date: October 23, 2023
• End date: August 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Cognitive Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Paulo Sérgio Boggio
• Grantee: Mateus Silvestrin
• Supervisor: Emmanouil Tsakiris
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Biológicas e da Saúde (CCBS). Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie (UPM). Instituto Presbiteriano Mackenzie. São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of London, England
• Associated to the scholarship: 21/14866-6 - Using a naturalistic stimulus to investigate moral deliberation, moral verdict and their relations with affect, BP.PD

Abstract

Moral decision-making plays a pivotal role in our daily lives, often involving complexjudgements around fairness. Cardiac interoception, the perception and integration ofbodily signals like heartbeat, has been shown to influence various aspects of socialdecision-making. However, the interplay between cardiac interoception and moraldecision-making, particularly in fairness judgements, remains largely unexplored.This research project aims to investigate the impact of cardiac signals on moraldecision-making and fairness judgements, utilizing an adaptation of the Dictator'sGame. The game's trials, presenting a spectrum of offers ranging from altruistic toegotistical, will be time-locked with the participant's systole or diastole, allowing usto detect potential influences of this interoceptive mechanism on fairnessjudgements. The overarching goal is to determine whether the synchronisation ofstimuli with the systole might exacerbate the perception of unfairness, akin to biasesobserved in synchronisation with other social stimuli. The proposed study will becarried out in an internship at the Lab of Action and Body (London University RoyalHolloway), a leading group in neuroscience research on interoception. The outcomesare expected to provide significant contributions to both the fields of moral decision-making and interoception. (AU)