From moral to legal judgment: the influence of normative context in lawyers and other academics

Abstract

Various kinds of normative judgments are an integral part of everyday life. We extended the scrutiny of social cognitive neuroscience into the domain of legal decisions, investigating two groups, lawyers and other academics, during moral and legal decision-making. While we found activation of brain areas comprising the so-called 'moral brain' in both conditions, there was stronger activation in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and middle temporal gyrus particularly when subjects made legal decisions, suggesting that these were made in respect to more explicit rules and demanded more complex semantic processing. Comparing both groups, our data show that behaviorally lawyers conceived themselves as emotionally less involved during normative decision-making in general. A group × condition interaction in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex suggests a modulation of normative decision-making by attention based on subjects' normative expertise.

Fig. 1

Behavioral effects. The difference between groups in reported emotional involvement was significant, because lawyers reported to be less involved than other academics. While there was no significant group difference for endorsement (yes-answer) of the normative issues presented in the stimulus material, subjects were significantly less endorsing them in the legal condition (all error bars + 1 SE; *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001).

Fig. 2

Brain regions related to normative judgment as contrasted with the control condition (conjunction analysis). (A) Transversal view (z = 31) showing stronger activations in the anterior medial prefrontal cortex, the PCG extending into precuneus and the left superior temporal gyrus extending into the inferior parietal lobe, encompassing the left temporo-parietal-junction (TPJ); scale denotes t-values. (B) Saggital view (x = −34) of the left hemisphere with activations in the middle frontal gyrus and the left TPJ, statistics as in (A).

Fig. 3

Differences in neural processing comparing the legal to the moral condition. (A) Cluster of stronger activation in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (left middle frontal gyrus) during legal judgment in a transversal slice at z = 13; scale denotes t-values, L = left. The corresponding signal time courses (right) from this area illustrate an increasing difference between the legal and the other two conditions as the point of decision at zero (red vertical line) is approximated; not shifted for BOLD delay, error bars ± 1 SE. (B) Cluster of stronger activation in the left middle temporal gyrus in a saggital slice at y = −36; statistics as in (A), P = posterior.

Fig. 4

Group × condition interaction effect: Activation in the anterior cingulate gyrus was modulated by subjects’ expertise (analysis II, decision phase; slice at x = 0); scale denotes F-values; mean beta values are shown in the inlay, error bars −1 SE.