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The Multifaceted Effects of Serotonin Transporter Polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) on Anxiety, Implicit Moral Attitudes, and Harmful Behaviors.

ABSTRACT: Morality is fundamentally human in nature. Regardless, and even when moral norms seem to work toward the common goal of human cooperation, which morally contentious behaviors are permitted and which are prohibited vary across populations. Because of this occurrence, much scientific debate has revolved around the notion that this phenomenon might be explained by the interaction between genes and environment. Alongside, whether the principles cementing the bases of morality are intuition- or reason-based is another question that has been raised. However, previous research addressing these topics used explicit measures to probe moral attitudes, thus being the participants able to intentionally modify or disguise their honest responses. What's more, while the 5-HTT gene was found to be associated with anxiety, morality, and even cultural structures, a single genotype-phenotype linkage cannot be established without considering the multifaceted effects of the 5-HTT gene on gene-behavior interactions. In order to explore the role of genetics on modeling moral attitudes and behaviors, we genotyped the 5-HTTLPR in 114 healthy volunteers and subsequently assessed their explicit justice sensitivity (Justice Sensitivity Inventory) and moral permissibility judgments, as well as their implicit moral attitudes [moral implicit association task (mIAT)]. Results revealed that 5-HTTLPR short-allele carriers had significantly lower mIAT reaction times when answering correctly and were less compliant on harming another person even when harm or death would inevitably occur anyway to this other individual. With these preliminary results, we can first see how it does not have to be a matter of vouching for a rationalist versus an intuitionist model of moral judgment, but rather being moral judgment an outcome of the different variants of the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism affecting the way in which individuals engage contrastingly with moral issues.

SUBMITTER: Martinez RM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7366172 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The Multifaceted Effects of Serotonin Transporter Polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) on Anxiety, Implicit Moral Attitudes, and Harmful Behaviors.

Martínez Róger Marcelo RM Chen Chin-Yau CY Liao Tsai-Tsen TT Cheng Yawei Y Fan Yang-Teng YT Chou Shih-Han SH Chen Chenyi C

Frontiers in psychology 20200710

Morality is fundamentally human in nature. Regardless, and even when moral norms seem to work toward the common goal of human cooperation, which morally contentious behaviors are permitted and which are prohibited vary across populations. Because of this occurrence, much scientific debate has revolved around the notion that this phenomenon might be explained by the interaction between genes and environment. Alongside, whether the principles cementing the bases of morality are intuition- or reaso ...[more]

PMID: 32754089

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Project description:Suicidal behavior and self-mutilation can be regarded as the expression of self-directed aggression and both are common in prison populations. We investigated the influence of externalizing behaviors, depressive symptoms, childhood trauma, 5-HTTLPR variants on self-directed aggression (N = 145) in a group of 702 male Italian prisoners. Participants were comprehensively evaluated, including for psychiatric disorders, impulsive traits, lifetime aggressive behavior [Brown-Goodwin Lifetime History of Aggression (BGHA)], hostility, violent behavior during incarceration, depressive symptomatology [Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS)], childhood trauma [Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ)]. Logistic regression analysis showed false discovery rate corrected independent main effects of externalizing behaviors: BGHA (P = 0.001), violent behavior in jail (P = 0.007), extraversion (P = 0.015); HDRS (P = 0.0004), Axis I disorders (P = 0.015), CTQ (P = 0.004) and 5-HTTLPR genotype (P = 0.02). Carriers of 5-HTTLPR high (LA LA ), intermediate (LA LG , SLA ) activity variants were more likely to have exhibited self-directed aggression relative to the low activity (LG LG , SLG , SS) variant: high/low: odds ratio (OR) = 2.3, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.27-4.68, P = 0.007; intermediate/low: OR = 1.96, 95% CI 1.09-3.68, P = 0.025. The CTQ main effect was driven by physical abuse. There was no interactive effect of 5-HTTLPR and CTQ. Secondary logistic regression analyses in (1) all suicide attempters (N = 88) and (2) all self-mutilators (N = 104), compared with controls showed that in both groups, childhood trauma (P = 0.008-0.01), depression (P = 0.0004-0.001) were strong predictors. BGHA, violent behavior in jail predicted self-mutilation (P = 0.002) but not suicide attempts (P = 0.1). This study was able to distinguish differing influences on self-directed aggression between groups of closely related predictor variables within the externalizing behavioral domain. 5-HTTLPR had an independent, variant dosage effect.

Dataset Information

The Multifaceted Effects of Serotonin Transporter Polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) on Anxiety, Implicit Moral Attitudes, and Harmful Behaviors.

Publications

The Multifaceted Effects of Serotonin Transporter Polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) on Anxiety, Implicit Moral Attitudes, and Harmful Behaviors.

Similar Datasets

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