Commonly prescribed drugs affect decisions to harm oneself and others
Thursday, July 2, 2015 - 14:00
in Psychology & Sociology
Healthy people given the serotonin-enhancing antidepressant citalopram were willing to pay almost twice as much to prevent harm to themselves or others than those given placebo drugs in a moral decision-making experiment. In contrast, the dopamine-boosting Parkinson's drug levodopa made healthy people more selfish, eliminating an altruistic tendency to prefer harming themselves over others.