ArticleSocial cognitive and affective neuroscience2016
Variation in the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) is associated with differences in moral judgment.
Article in Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 38 citations in OpenAlex.
- Moral judgment and hormones: A systematic literature review.PloS one · 2022Pooled it
- Oxytocin, but not vasopressin, decreases willingness to harm others by promoting moral emotions of guilt and shame.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Trial
- Born to Fear the Machine? Genetic and Environmental Influences on Negative Attitudes toward AI Agents.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Would you? Effects of oxytocin on moral choices in forensic psychopathic patients.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2024Article
- The OXTR rs53576 impacts moral permissibility of attempted but failed harms in populations of students and prisoners.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2022Article
- Infection threat shapes our social instincts.Behavioral ecology and sociobiology · 2021Review
- AVPR1A main effect and OXTR-by-environment interplay in individual differences in depression level.Heliyon · 2020Article
- The interaction between OXTR rs2268493 and perceived maternal care is associated with amygdala-dorsolateral prefrontal effective connectivity during explicit emotion processing.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2020Article
- The Multifaceted Effects of Serotonin Transporter Polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) on Anxiety, Implicit Moral Attitudes, and Harmful Behaviors.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
- The 5-HTTLPR polymorphism impacts moral permissibility of impersonal harmful behaviors.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2019Article
- Moral Judgment: An Overlooked Deficient Domain in Multiple Sclerosis?Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2018Review
- Emotion recognition associated with polymorphism in oxytocinergic pathway gene ARNT2.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2018Article
- Social Decision-Making and the Brain: A Comparative Perspective.Trends in cognitive sciences · 2017Review
- Genetically-Driven Enhancement of Dopaminergic Transmission Affects Moral Acceptability in Females but Not in Males: A Pilot Study.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Moral judgments are produced through the coordinated interaction of multiple neural systems, each of which relies on a characteristic set of neurotransmitters. Genes that produce or regulate these neurotransmitters may have distinctive influences on moral judgment. Two studies examined potential genetic influences on moral judgment using dilemmas that reliably elicit competing automatic and controlled responses, generated by dissociable neural systems. Study 1 (N = 228) examined 49 common variants (SNPs) within 10 candidate genes and identified a nominal association between a polymorphism (rs237889) of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) and variation in deontological vs utilitarian moral judgment (that is, judgments favoring individual rights vs the greater good). An association was likewise observed for rs1042615 of the arginine vasopressin receptor gene (AVPR1A). Study 2 (N = 322) aimed to replicate these findings using the aforementioned dilemmas as well as a new set of structurally similar medical dilemmas. Study 2 failed to replicate the association with AVPR1A, but replicated the OXTR finding using both the original and new dilemmas. Together, these findings suggest that moral judgment is influenced by variation in the oxytocin receptor gene and, more generally, that single genetic polymorphisms can have a detectable effect on complex decision processes.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.