Anti-Depressants And Morality: The Serotonin Effect On Harm Aversion

We know people have positive social behavior in part because of emotional reactions to real or imagined social harm  - we may not like seeing others slighted or we may not want to be perceived as the kind of person who does that sort of thing. But some are a lot more sensitive than others and a new study says that the neurotransmitter serotonin can directly alter both moral judgment and behavior through increasing  our aversion to personally harming others. For their study they gave volunteers the anti-depressant citalopram (a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, or SSRIs) and compared its effects with a pharmacological control treatment and a placebo regarding tests of moral judgment and behavior. read more

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