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Common Medications Sway Moral Judgment

Posted by Soulskill on from the chemical-personality dept.

sciencehabit sends news that two commonly-prescribed drugs have been shown to influence how the human brain makes moral decisions. Citalopram is an SSRI used to treat depression, and levodopa is often used to combat Parkinson's disease. A new study (abstract) asked subjects to set a monetary value on receiving painful electric shocks — for themselves and for others (e.g. "Would you rather endure seven shocks to earn $10 or 10 shocks to earn $15?"). The study found that subjects on citalopram (which affects serotonin levels) were willing to give up more money to reduce shocks, both for themselves and others. Those on levodopa (which affects dopamine levels) made people just as willing to shock others as they were to shock themselves, when those on a placebo tended to be more reluctant to shock others. [Neuroscientist Molly] Crockett says those effects could suggests multiple underlying mechanisms. For example, excess dopamine might make our brain's reward system more responsive to the prospect of avoiding personal harm. Or it could tamp down our sense of uncertainty about what another person is experiencing, making us less hesitant to dole out pain. Serotonin, meanwhile, appeared to have a more general effect on aversion to harm, not just a heightened concern for another person. Such knowledge could eventually develop drugs that address disorders of social behavior, she says.

3 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Disorders of social behavior by PPH · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I want to be on the committee that decides what sort of behavior justifies drug intervention.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
    1. Re:Disorders of social behavior by ArylAkamov · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I was actually put into a "special" class for exactly what you are describing. I was a boy, I drew guns and played video games. Our school counselor found this unacceptable and literally told my parents that she was afraid I would "Be the next columbine kid".

      I was put into this "special" class without knowledge or consent from my parents, I asked them about this a few weeks ago and they had no idea what I was talking about. The other children in there with me ranged from slightly slow in the head to full on mentally deficient.

      Each day we were brought in to an extremely colorful room with rainbows and shit everywhere and were given a plush cube with different colors and expressions on the cube, we had to pick out the expression that best fit our mood and tell everyone why we were feeling that way. We were not allowed to say our feeling, we had to say the color that appeared on the cube.

      The counselor was constantly taking notes about everything we said or did. She was a kind of creepy, extreme political left type. Constantly told my parents that I needed to be put on meds because of the evil guns that I drew, often saying that she was afraid I would shoot up the school or make a bomb or some such nonsense. My parents actually showed me letters they saved from her, it's quite insulting to read now that I'm old enough to understand them.

      Thankfully my parents were smarter than this and more or less told her to piss off. (Apparently my dad asked her if she would rather I draw tits and ass).

        I am 22 now, this was happening from first grade up to about 4th grade, so you do the math here.

      Really makes me wonder how often this happens and how many kids have been needlessly put on these drugs being peddled by the schools.

  2. Citalopram by myrdos2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm seeing a lot of negative postings about unnecessary drugs and implying doctor's don't know what they're doing. I went through an episode about a year ago where if I tried to sleep my face would start burning. If I got up, it would fade away. I suffered on roughly one hour's sleep per night for a year before I went to see a doctor. The solution was to take one pill per day, and in a few weeks I was sleeping full nights again. It took years to recover though, because that level of extended sleep deprivation is very damaging. Even now, I'm still not quite as sharp as I was before.

    When I look back I can see how stupid I was. I suffered that entire year, and had years of recovery, for nothing. Why? Because people who don't have a hot clue about psychology said that the doctors don't know what they're doing, the medicine is as bad as the disease, those pills are over-prescribed, etc. etc. But guess what? If your meds turn out to have bad side effects you can stop taking them, or just ask for different ones. Such a simple thing. And yet so many people who could benefit from them are turned away by fear, uncertainty and doubt.