The DOI matches its Crossref record; 66 of the 67 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Innocent intentions: A correlation between forgiveness for accidental harm and neural activity☆
Abstract
Contemporary moral psychology often emphasizes the universality of moral judgments. Across age, gender, religion and ethnicity, people's judgments on classic dilemmas are sensitive to the same moral principles. In many cases, moral judgments depend not only on the outcome of the action, but on the agent's beliefs and intentions at the time of action. For example, we blame agents who attempt but fail to harm others, while generally forgiving agents who harm others accidentally and unknowingly. Nevertheless, as we report here, there are individual differences in the extent to which observers exculpate agents for accidental harms. Furthermore, we find that the extent to which innocent intentions are taken to mitigate blame for accidental harms is correlated with activation in a specific brain region during moral judgment. This brain region, the right temporo-parietal junction, has been previously implicated in reasoning about other people's thoughts, beliefs, and intentions in moral and non-moral contexts.
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“Activity in the RTPJ while participants make moral judgments about attempted and accidental harms shows the same asymmetry: greater activity for attempted than accidental harms (9, 10, 24, 25).”
From Disruption of the right temporoparietal junction with transcranial magnetic stimulation reduces the role of beliefs in moral judgments (2010) · cites this paper as [24]
Citations
Cites
The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment.
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Dynamic mapping of human cortical development during childhood through early adulthood
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“Consistent with this hypothesis, recent research suggests the RTPJ may be late maturing (cf. Blakemore, 2008; Gogtay et al., 2004).”
ResultAn fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment
Greene, J. D., Sommerville, R. B., Nystrom, L. E., Darley, J. M., & Cohen, J. D. (2001) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1062872 · Cited by 4,561
The Moral Judgment Of The Child
Piaget, J. (2013) · Routledge eBooks · doi:10.4324/9781315009681 · Cited by 4,409
Frith, C., & Frith, U. (2005) · Current Biology · doi:10.1016/j.cub.2005.08.041 · Cited by 3,561
The Efficient Assessment of Need for Cognition
Cacioppo, J. T., Petty, R. E., & Feng Kao, C. (1984) · Journal of Personality Assessment · doi:10.1207/s15327752jpa4803_13 · Cited by 2,913
The Neural Bases of Cognitive Conflict and Control in Moral Judgment
Greene, J. D., Nystrom, L. E., Engell, A. D., Darley, J. M., & Cohen, J. D. (2004) · Neuron · doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2004.09.027 · Cited by 2,620
People thinking about thinking peopleThe role of the temporo-parietal junction in “theory of mind”
Saxe, R., & Kanwisher, N. (2003) · NeuroImage · doi:10.1016/s1053-8119(03)00230-1 · Cited by 2,316 · cited 4×
“…session, subjects participated in four runs of a theory of mind (mental state reasoning) localizer experiment, contrasting stories requiring inferences about mental states (e.g., thoughts, beliefs) versus physical representations (e.g., outdated photographs, maps, signs; Saxe & Kanwisher, 2003).”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialSelf-citationCan cognitive processes be inferred from neuroimaging data?
POLDRACK, R. (2006) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2005.12.004 · Cited by 2,249
Individual differences in intuitive-experiential and analytical-rational thinking styles.
Epstein, S. J., Pacini, R., Denes-Raj, V., & Heier, H. (1996) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.71.2.390 · Cited by 1,928
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Bzdok, D., Schilbach, L., Vogeley, K., Schneider, K., Laird, A. R., Langner, R., & Eickhoff, S. B. (2012) · Brain Structure and Function · doi:10.1007/s00429-012-0380-y · Cited by 653
Malle, B. F., Guglielmo, S., & Monroe, A. E. (2014) · Psychological Inquiry · doi:10.1080/1047840x.2014.877340 · Cited by 632
Young, L., Camprodon, J. A., Hauser, M., Pascual-Leone, A., & Saxe, R. (2010) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0914826107 · Cited by 584
Self-citationTheory of Mind: A Neural Prediction Problem
Koster-Hale, J., & Saxe, R. (2013) · Neuron · doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2013.08.020 · Cited by 513
Self-citationThe accidental transgressor: Morally-relevant theory of mind
Killen, M., Mulvey, K. L., Richardson, C., Jampol, N., & Woodward, A. (2011) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2011.01.006 · Cited by 384
Metadata
- Authors
- Young, L., & Saxe, R.
- Affiliations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- Corresponding author
- Young, Liane
- Venue
- Neuropsychologia
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2009-08
- Volume
- 47
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- 2065-2072
- ISSN
- 0028-3932 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2104698746
- Semantic Scholar
- c2b5c3e3d88e1e12a3dacfb86b433205fa758d50
- Cited by
- 249
- References
- 67
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 42 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 16 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 15 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 17 · 2015: 19 · 2014: 17 · 2013: 10 · 2012: 17
- FWCI
- 7.58
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Neuropsychologia (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Forgiveness and Related Behaviors
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Keywords
- accidental harm, moral judgment, intention, forgiveness, blame, right temporoparietal junction, individual differences, moral reasoning, theory of mind
- MeSH terms
- Accidents, Adolescent, Brain, Brain Mapping, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Judgment, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Morals, Oxygen, Reaction Time, Statistics as Topic, Imaging, Three-Dimensional, Intention, Young Adult
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