A Magnetic Field Applied to the Brain Can Alter People's Sense of Morality

Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - 13:07 in Psychology & Sociology

Perfect for brainwashing an evil clone army Moral judgments often have less to do with outcome and more to do with intention. Take murder, for instance: The U.S. legal system makes distinctions between a crime committed in the heat of the moment and one that is planned ahead of time. But moral judgments may not be as sacrosanct as we believe: MIT scientists have shown that they can alter our moral judgments simply by magnetically interfering with a certain part of the brain. Studies have shown that the right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) lights up with activity when we engage in moral judgments like evaluating the intentions of another person, indicating the region is important to making moral decisions. But while we like to think we're very consistent in our morality, the MIT team showed that an electromagnetic field applied to the scalp impairs our ability to evaluate the intentions of others,...

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