- Stanford University, Graduate School of Education, Graduate StudentStanford University, Radiology, Graduate Studentadd
- Psychology, Education, Neuroimaging, Cognitive Neuroscience, Social Neuroscience, Educational Psychology, and 30 moreMoral Education, Moral Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Social Psychology, Experimental Psychology, Neuroscience, Neuropsychology, Moral Philosophy, Virtue Ethics, Ethics, FMRI, Character Education, Philosophy, Applied Ethics, Morality (Social Psychology), Aristotle, Moral Development, Deep Learning, Computer Simulation, Moral, Morality, Modeling and Simulation, Simulation, Educational Neuroscience, Behavioral Neuroscience, Affective Neuroscience, Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience, Positive Psychology, Computational Modelling, and Positive Youth Developmentedit
- Dr. Hyemin Han is Associate Professor in Educational Psychology and Educational Neuroscience at the University of Ala... moreDr. Hyemin Han is Associate Professor in Educational Psychology and Educational Neuroscience at the University of Alabama. With interdisciplinary research interests in the improvement of education, Dr. Han conducts research projects in Social, Emotional, and EDucational (SEED) Neuroscience. His research interests include neuroscience of morality, socio-moral development, growth mindset, educational intervention, computational simulation, and professional ethics education. He uses multidisciplinary research methods, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), deep learning, longitudinal analysis, meta-analysis, and psychological intervention methods, examining the mechanisms of human social, affective, and motivational processes.
Dr. Han has studied the nature of human morality and moral development by using interdisciplinary research methods, including quantitative meta-analysis, neuroimaging, psychological intervention, and computational simulation methods, and how to apply findings from interdisciplinary experiments to improve the effectiveness of moral and character education. His dissertation examined the neural correlates of moral motivation with a meta-analysis and fMRI experiment, and designed educational interventions that target psychological processes identified by the aforementioned neuroimaging experiments. Moreover, Dr. Han is currently conducting neuroscientific studies related to developmental and educational psychological topics, including the invention of fMRI-compatible moral psychological surveys, validation of analysis methods for fMRI experiments within the context of social and educational neuroscience, and development of computational simulation methods for educational policy-making.edit
Methodological experts suggest that psychological and educational researchers should employ appropriate methods for data-driven model exploration, such as Bayesian Model Averaging and regularized regression, instead of conventional... more
Methodological experts suggest that psychological and educational researchers should employ appropriate methods for data-driven model exploration, such as Bayesian Model Averaging and regularized regression, instead of conventional hypothesis-driven testing, if they want to explore the best prediction model. I intend to discuss practical considerations regarding data-driven methods for end-user researchers without sufficient expertise in quantitative methods. I tested three data-driven methods, i.e., Bayesian Model Averaging, LASSO as a form of regularized regression, and stepwise regression, with datasets in psychology and education. I compared their performance in terms of cross-validity indicating robustness against overfitting across different conditions. I employed functionalities widely available via R with default settings to provide information relevant to end users without advanced statistical knowledge. The results demonstrated that LASSO showed the best performance and Bayesian Model Averaging outperformed stepwise regression when there were many candidate predictors to explore. Based on these findings, I discussed appropriately using the data-driven model exploration methods across different situations from laypeople’s perspectives.
Research Interests: Psychology, Quantitative Psychology, Statistics, Education, Social Sciences, and 15 moreMachine Learning, Bayesian, Educational Research, Applied Statistics, Prediction, Quantitative Research, Quantitative Methods, Quantitative methodology, Regression Models, Quantitative Methods (Psychology), Bayesian Analysis, Bayesian statistics & modelling, Data Science, Bayesian statistics, and Regression
In the present study, I developed and tested an R module to explore the best models within the context of multilevel modeling in research in public health. The module that I developed, explore.models, compares all possible candidate... more
In the present study, I developed and tested an R module to explore the best models within the context of multilevel modeling in research in public health. The module that I developed, explore.models, compares all possible candidate models generated from a set of candidate predictors with information criteria, Akaike information criterion (AIC), and Bayesian information criterion (BIC), with multiprocessing. For testing, I ran explore.models with datasets analyzed in three previous studies in public health, which assumed candidate models with different degrees of model complexity. These three studies examined the predictors of psychological well-being, compliance with preventive measures, and vaccine intent during the COVID-19 pandemic. After conducting model exploration with explore.models, I cross-validated the nomination results with calculated model Bayes Factors to examine whether the model exploration was performed accurately. The results suggest that explore.models using AIC and BIC can nominate best candidate models and such nomination outcomes are supported by the calculated model Bayes Factors. In particular, all the identified models are superior to the full models in terms of model Bayes Factors. Also, by employing AIC and BIC with multiprocessing, explore.models requires a shorter processing time than model Bayes Factor calculations. These results indicate that explore.models is a reliable, valid, and feasible tool to conduct data-driven model exploration with datasets collected from multiple groups in research on health psychology and education.
Research Interests: Psychology, Quantitative Psychology, Health Psychology, Health Sciences, Statistics, and 15 moreSocial Sciences, Educational Psychology, Multilevel Modeling of Educational Data, Applied Statistics, Data Analysis, Global Health, Cross-Cultural Psychology, Cross-Cultural Studies, Quantitative Research, Quantitative Methods, Public Health, Quantitative Methods (Psychology), Mixed Effects Models, Data Science, and Public Policy
In this paper, I examine why moral exemplars are useful and even necessary in moral education despite several critiques from researchers and educators. To support my point, I review recent AI research demonstrating that exemplar-based... more
In this paper, I examine why moral exemplars are useful and even necessary in moral education despite several critiques from researchers and educators. To support my point, I review recent AI research demonstrating that exemplar-based learning is superior to rule-based learning in model performance in training neural networks, such as large language models. I particularly focus on why education aiming at promoting the development of multifaceted moral functioning can be done effectively by using exemplars, which is similar to exemplar-based learning in AI model training. Furthermore, I discuss the potential limitations and issues related to exemplar-applied moral education with findings from recent studies in AI research raising concerns about model biases and toxic outcomes. I attempt to propose ways to address the concerns regarding employing moral exemplars as well. As remedies, I suggest that autonomy-supporting deliberative and reflective learning processes should be utilized. Furthermore, based on the discussion, I examine how macroscopic socio-cultural aspects influence the effectiveness of exemplarapplied moral education. Suggestions for moral educators and future directions for research in moral education are briefly discussed.
Research Interests: Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, and 14 morePhilosophy, Ethics, Moral Psychology, Education, Social Sciences, Virtue Ethics, Character Education, Morality (Social Psychology), Moral Development, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Artificial Neural Networks, Moral, and Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence
The present study aimed to examine how to improve the effectiveness of moral exemplar-applied interventions based on the pillars of the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) framework, autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Past research has... more
The present study aimed to examine how to improve the effectiveness of moral exemplar-applied interventions based on the pillars of the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) framework, autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Past research has mainly focused on the relatedness and attainability of moral exemplars for predicting motivation outcomes. The data for this study consisted of synthesized data sets from previous studies examining the motivational impacts of distinct moral exemplars and intervention methods. The main syntheses for these data sets used Multilevel Modeling (MLM) focusing on relatability, attainability, and intervention methods, corresponding to relatedness, competence, and autonomy in the SDT, respectively, as predictors. In general, there was a significant interaction effect between the attainability or relatability, and the intervention method. Autonomous instruction methods, which support autonomy, were demonstrated to boost motivational outcomes. Implications from this study support the employment of SDT to examine the use of moral exemplars in moral education and were consistent with previous exemplar studies.
Research Interests: Psychology, Positive Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Philosophy, and 15 moreMoral Psychology, Education, Social Sciences, Motivation (Psychology), Educational Psychology, Virtue Ethics, Self-Determination Theory, Character Education, Morality (Social Psychology), Moral Development, Positive Youth Development, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Moral, and Morality
The current study investigates attitudes toward one form of sex for resources: the so-called sugar relationships, which often involve exchanges of resources for sex and/or companionship. The present study examined associations among... more
The current study investigates attitudes toward one form of sex for resources: the so-called sugar relationships, which often involve exchanges of resources for sex and/or companionship. The present study examined associations among attitudes toward sugar relationships and relevant variables (e.g., sex, sociosexuality, gender inequality, parasitic exposure) in 69,924 participants across 87 countries. Two self-report measures of Acceptance of Sugar Relationships (ASR) developed for younger companion providers (ASR-YWMS) and older resource providers (ASR-OMWS) were translated into 37 languages. We tested cross-sex and cross-linguistic construct equivalence, cross-cultural invariance in sex differences, and the importance of the hypothetical predictors of ASR. Both measures showed adequate psychometric properties in all languages (except the Persian version of ASR-YWMS). Results partially supported our hypotheses and were consistent with previous theoretical considerations and empirical evidence on human mating. For example, at the individual level, sociosexual orientation, traditional gender roles, and pathogen prevalence were significant predictors of both ASR-YWMS and ASR-OMWS. At the country level, gender inequality and parasite stress positively predicted the ASR-YWMS. However, being a woman negatively predicted the ASR-OMWS, but positively predicted the ASR-YWMS. At country-level, ingroup favoritism and parasite stress positively predicted the ASR-OMWS. Furthermore, significant cross-subregional differences were found in the openness to sugar relationships (both ASR-YWMS and ASR-OMWS scores) across subregions. Finally, significant differences were found between ASR-YWMS and ASR-OMWS when compared in each subregion. The ASR-YWMS was significantly higher than the ASR-OMWS in all subregions, except for Northern Africa and Western Asia.
Research Interests: Psychology, Psychometry, Social Psychology, Gender Studies, Social Sciences, and 15 morePsychometrics, Sexuality, Gender and Sexuality, Cross-Cultural Psychology, History of Sexuality, Gender, Cross-Cultural Studies, Quantitative Methods, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Psychometrics (Research Methodology), Quantitative Methods (Psychology), Sexual Behavior, The Psychology of Human Sexuality, Psychometrics and Test Development, and Gender Psychology
In this paper, I examined whether evidence from the neuroscience of morality supports the standard models of phronesis, i.e., Jubilee and Aretai Centre Models. The standard models explain phronesis as a multifaceted construct based on... more
In this paper, I examined whether evidence from the neuroscience of morality supports the standard models of phronesis, i.e., Jubilee and Aretai Centre Models. The standard models explain phronesis as a multifaceted construct based on interaction and coordination among functional components. I reviewed recent neuroscience studies focusing on brain networks associated with morality and their connectivity to examine the validity of the models. Simultaneously, I discussed whether the evidence helps the models address challenges, particularly those from the phronesis eliminativism. Neuroscientific evidence supported the importance of brain networks, i.e., the default mode, salience, and central executive functioning networks, in moral functioning in general. The findings favorably supported the multifaceted and integrative nature of phronesis proposed by the standard models. Finally, I considered how the two models could explain the mechanisms of phronesis more integratively based on neuroscientific findings. At the end of this paper, with the evidence, I proposed several practical ideas to promote the cultivation of phronesis, e.g., the consideration of coordination among components for moral functioning and the use of moral exemplars.
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Social Psychology, Philosophy, Moral Psychology, Education, and 15 moreSocial Sciences, Educational Psychology, Character Education, Wisdom, Social Neuroscience, PHRONESIS, Neural Networks, Moral Development, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Cognitive Neuroscience, Neural Network, Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience, Moral, and Morality
Universal assumptions of character development largely omit cultural and contextual factors and processes as critical influencers of character development, thereby ignoring that ascribed and prescribed social positions of some children... more
Universal assumptions of character development largely omit cultural and contextual factors and processes as critical influencers of character development, thereby ignoring that ascribed and prescribed social positions of some children impact opportunities to develop “good character.” This chapter critically questions premises of character development and ways of learning to develop “good character” and offers guidance on how to reimagine frameworks that encompass culturally relevant factors and processes that align with the developmental context of minoritized youth. Via a synthesis of theories and extant studies of character development, the authors showcase how macro-level, historical, and structural inequalities greatly affect the lives of an increasingly diverse U.S. population and have implications for what it means to be “moral,” “good,” and “ethical.” They conclude with a challenge to: (1) move beyond westernized perceptions of “good character;” and (2) to adapt and reconfigure existing character development frameworks that are inclusive of all youth realities.
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Moral Psychology, Education, and 15 moreSocial Sciences, Youth Studies, Contextualism, Character Education, Social Justice, Morality (Social Psychology), Moral Development, Positive Youth Development, Educational Equity and Justice, Youth Civic Engagement, Diversity & Inclusion, Inclusive Education, Cultural Diversity, Moral, and Character
Research Interests: Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Philosophy, Ethics, and 15 moreApplied Ethics, Moral Psychology, Education, Social Sciences, Philosophy of Education, Educational Psychology, Character Education, Morality (Social Psychology), Moral Development, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Moral and Political Philosophy, Moral, Character, and Morality
Despite the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, it provided the opportunity to investigate factors associated with compliance with public health measures that could inform responses to future pandemics. We analysed crosscountry... more
Despite the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, it provided the opportunity to investigate factors associated with compliance with public health measures that could inform responses to future pandemics. We analysed crosscountry data (k = 121, N = 15,740) collected one year into the COVID-19 pandemic to investigate factors related to compliance with COVID-19 guidelines. These factors include social norms, moral values, trust, stress, and demographic factors. We found that social norms to follow preventive measures were positively correlated with compliance with local prevention guidelines. Compliance was also predicted by concern about the moral value of harm and care, trust in government and the scientific community, stress, and demographic factors. Finally, we discuss country-level differences in the associations between predictors and compliance. Overall, results indicate that the harm/care dimension of moral foundations and trust are critical to the development of programs and policies aimed at increasing compliance with measures to reduce the spread of disease.
Research Interests: Psychology, Social Psychology, Health Psychology, Moral Psychology, Self and Identity, and 15 moreEpidemiology, Social Sciences, Mental Health, Trust, Resilience, Global Health, Identity (Culture), Cross-Cultural Psychology, Cross-Cultural Studies, Compliance, Public Health, Social Trust, Covid-19, Coronavirus COVID-19, and COVID-19 PANDEMIC
I explored the association between components constituting the basis for moral and optimal human functioning, i.e., moral reasoning, moral identity, empathy, and purpose, via network analysis. I employed factor scores instead of composite... more
I explored the association between components constituting the basis for moral and optimal human functioning, i.e., moral reasoning, moral identity, empathy, and purpose, via network analysis. I employed factor scores instead of composite scores that most previous studies used for better accuracy in score estimation in this study. Then, I estimated the network structure among collected variables and centrality indicators. For additional information, the structure and indicators were compared between two groups, participants who engaged in civic activities highly versus lowly. The results demonstrated significant intra-and inter-scale associations in the network. The network structure was invariant across the two groups. Despite the network invariance, I found that the global connectivity between and centrality indicators of examined factors were higher among the high civic engagement group in general. I discussed the implications of the findings in research on moral functioning based on moral psychology and virtue ethics.
Research Interests: Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Philosophy, Ethics, and 15 moreMoral Psychology, Social Sciences, Virtue Ethics, Civic Education, Virtues (Moral Psychology), Wisdom, Network Analysis, Morality (Social Psychology), Moral Development, Youth Civic Engagement, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Aristotle's Ethics, Moral, and Social Development
Measurement alignment adjusts factor loadings and intercepts across different groups to achieve measurement invariance, which assumes the equal measurement model validated across different groups. It should be achieved for validly... more
Measurement alignment adjusts factor loadings and intercepts across different groups to achieve measurement invariance, which assumes the equal measurement model validated across different groups. It should be achieved for validly conducting analysis and comparison in studies involving multiple groups, such as cross-cultural or cross-national studies. In this paper, I presented how to conduct measurement alignment with R. In addition to measurement alignment, I explained how to perform the Monte Carlo simulation to test the consistency and validity of alignment results and factor score calculation to facilitate further statistical analysis. A tutorial R code that implements all described procedures is freely shared via GitHub to inform readers who intend to use the alignment technique in their research projects.
Research Interests: Psychology, Psychological Assessment, Quantitative Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Social Sciences, and 15 moreInternational Studies, Psychometrics, Educational Psychology, Measurement and Evaluation, Cross-Cultural Studies, Survey Methodology, Quantitative Research, Quantitative Methods, Survey Research, Adolescent, Quantitative Methods (Psychology), Quantitative analysis, Confirmatory factor analysis, Measurement Invariance, and Psychological Research
Recently, computer scientists have developed large language models (LLMs) by training prediction models with large-scale language corpora and human reinforcements. The LLMs have become one promising way to implement artificial... more
Recently, computer scientists have developed large language models (LLMs) by training prediction models with large-scale language corpora and human reinforcements. The LLMs have become one promising way to implement artificial intelligence with accuracy in various fields. Interestingly, recent LLMs possess emergent functional features that emulate sophisticated human cognition, especially in-context learning and the chain of thought, which were unavailable in previous prediction models. In this paper, I will examine how LLMs might contribute to moral education and development research. To achieve this goal, I will review the most recently published conference papers and ArXiv preprints to overview the novel functional features implemented in LLMs. I also intend to conduct brief experiments with ChatGPT to investigate how LLMs behave while addressing ethical dilemmas and external feedback. The results suggest that LLMs might be capable of solving dilemmas based on reasoning and revising their reasoning process with external input. Furthermore, a preliminary experimental result from the moral exemplar test may demonstrate that exemplary stories can elicit moral elevation in LLMs as do they among human participants. I will discuss the potential implications of LLMs on research on moral education and development with the results.
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Computer Science, and 15 moreArtificial Intelligence, Moral Psychology, Education, Social Sciences, Educational Psychology, Educational Research, Character Education, Morality (Social Psychology), Modeling and Simulation, Moral Development, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Simulation, Moral, and Morality
Research Interests: Psychology, Social Psychology, Philosophy, Ethics, Applied Ethics, and 15 moreMoral Psychology, Education, Social Sciences, Philosophy of Education, Educational Psychology, Virtue Ethics, Character Education, Virtues (Moral Psychology), Morality (Social Psychology), Moral Development, Educational Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Moral, and Morality
Objective: Vaccines are an effective means to reduce the spread of diseases, but they are sometimes met with hesitancy that needs to be understood. Method: In this study, we analyzed data from a large, cross-country survey conducted... more
Objective: Vaccines are an effective means to reduce the spread of diseases, but they are sometimes met with hesitancy that needs to be understood. Method: In this study, we analyzed data from a large, cross-country survey conducted between June and August 2021 in 43 countries (N = 15,740) to investigate the roles of trust in government and science in shaping vaccine attitudes and willingness to be vaccinated. Results: Despite significant variability between countries, we found that both forms of institutional trust were associated with a higher will- ingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Furthermore, we found that conspiratorial thinking and anti-expert sen- timents predicted reduced trust in government and science, respectively, and that trust mediated the relationship between these two constructs and ultimate vaccine attitudes. Although most countries displayed similar relation- ships between conspiratorial thinking and anti-expert sentiments, trust in government and science, and vaccine attitudes, we identified three countries (Brazil, Honduras, and Russia) that demonstrated significantly altered associations between the examined variables in terms of significant random slopes. Conclusions: Cross-country differences suggest that local governments’ support for COVID-19 prevention policies can influence populations’ vaccine attitudes. These findings provide insight for policymakers to develop interventions aiming to increase trust in the institutions involved in the vaccination process.
Research Interests: Psychology, Social Psychology, Health Psychology, Epidemiology, Infectious disease epidemiology, and 15 moreSocial Sciences, Motivation (Psychology), Trust, Vaccines, Conspiracy Theories, Public Health Policy, Mediation, Health, Public Health, Social Trust, Vaccination, Public Policy, Covid-19, Coronavirus COVID-19, and COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Primary stressors are direct outcomes of extreme events (e.g., viruses, floodwater) whereas secondary stressors stem from pre-disaster life circumstances and societal arrangements (e.g., illness, problematic pre-disaster policies) or from... more
Primary stressors are direct outcomes of extreme events (e.g., viruses, floodwater) whereas secondary stressors stem from pre-disaster life circumstances and societal arrangements (e.g., illness, problematic pre-disaster policies) or from inefficient responses to the extreme event. Secondary stressors can cause significant long-term damage to people affected but are also tractable and amenable to change. In this study we explored the association between secondary stressors, social identity processes, social support, and perceived stress and resilience. Pre-registered analyses of data from the COVIDiSTRESS Global Survey Round II (N = 14,600; 43 countries) show that secondary stressors are positively associated with perceived stress and negatively associated with resilience, even when controlling for the effects of primary stressors. Being a woman or having lower socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with higher exposure to secondary stressors, higher perceived stress, and lower resilience. Importantly, social identification is positively associated with expected support and with increased resilience and lower perceived stress. However, neither gender, SES, or social identification moderated the relationship between secondary stressors and perceived stress and resilience. In conclusion, systemic reforms and the availability of social support are paramount to reducing the effects of secondary stressors.
Research Interests: Psychology, Social Psychology, Health Psychology, Self and Identity, Epidemiology, and 15 moreSocial Sciences, Environmental Psychology, Mental Health, Resilience, Identity (Culture), Cross-Cultural Psychology, Public Health Policy, Cross-Cultural Studies, Stress, Public Health, Stress (Psychology), Wellbeing, Psychological well-being, Covid-19, and COVID-19 PANDEMIC
The Defining Issues Test (DIT) has been widely used in psychological experiments to assess one’s developmental level of moral reasoning in terms of postconventional reasoning. However, there have been concerns regarding whether the tool... more
The Defining Issues Test (DIT) has been widely used in psychological experiments to assess one’s developmental level of moral reasoning in terms of postconventional reasoning. However, there have been concerns regarding whether the tool is biased across people with different genders and political and religious views. To address the limitations, in the present study, I tested the validity of the brief version of the test, that is, the behavioral DIT, in terms of the measurement invariance and differential item functioning (DIF). I could not find any significant non-invariance at the test level or any item demonstrating practically significant DIF at the item level. The findings indicate that neither the test nor any of its items showed a significant bias toward any particular group. As a result, the collected validity evidence supports the use of test scores across different groups, enabling researchers who intend to examine participants’ moral reasoning development across heterogeneous groups to draw conclusions based on the scores.
Research Interests: Religion, Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Gender Studies, and 15 moreMoral Psychology, Social Sciences, Psychometrics, Political Science, Gender, Morality (Social Psychology), Quantitative Methods, Moral Development, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Moral and Cognitive Reasoning, Religious Studies, Moral, Moral Reasoning, and Morality
The level of moral development may be crucial to understand behavior when people have to choose between prioritizing individual gains or pursuing general social benefits. This study evaluated whether two different psychological... more
The level of moral development may be crucial to understand behavior when people have to choose between prioritizing individual gains or pursuing general social benefits. This study evaluated whether two different psychological constructs, moral reasoning and moral competence, are associated with cooperative behavior in the context of the prisoner's dilemma game, a two-person social dilemma where individuals choose between cooperation or defection. One hundred and eighty-nine Mexican university students completed the Defining Issues Test (DIT-2; measuring moral reasoning) and the Moral Competence Test (MCT) and played an online version of the prisoner's dilemma game, once against each participant in a group of 6-10 players. Our results indicate that cooperative behavior is strongly affected by the outcomes in previous rounds: Except when both participants cooperated, the probability of cooperation with other participants in subsequent rounds decreased. Both the DIT-2 and MCT independently moderated this effect of previous experiences, particularly in the case of suckeroutcomes. Individuals with high scores on both tests were not affected when in previous rounds the other player defected while they cooperated. Our findings suggest that more sophisticated moral reasoning and moral competence promote the maintenance of cooperative behaviors despite facing adverse situations.
Research Interests: Organizational Behavior, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Organizational Psychology, Social Psychology, and 15 moreDevelopmental Psychology, Experimental Psychology, Game Theory, Ethics, Moral Psychology, Social Sciences, Morality (Social Psychology), Attitudes (Social Psychology), Reasons, Prosocial Behavior, Cooperation, Moral, Social Development, Social Science, and Experimental Social Psychology
In this paper, findings from research in neuroscience of morality will be reviewed to consider the purposes of moral education. Particularly, I will focus on two main themes in neuroscience, novel neuroimaging and experimental... more
In this paper, findings from research in neuroscience of morality will be reviewed to consider the purposes of moral education. Particularly, I will focus on two main themes in neuroscience, novel neuroimaging and experimental investigations, and Bayesian learning mechanism. First, I will examine how neuroimaging and experimental studies contributed to our understanding of psychological mechanisms associated with moral functioning while addressing methodological concerns. Second, Bayesian learning mechanism will be introduced to acquire insights about how moral learning occurs in human brains. Based on the reviewed neuroscientific research on morality, I will examine how evidence can support the model of moral education proposed by virtue ethics, Neo-Aristotelian moral philosophy in particular. Particularly, two main aims of virtue ethics-based moral education, the habituation of virtues and the cultivation of phronesis, will be discussed as the important purposes of moral education based on neuroscientific evidence.
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Ethics, and 15 moreNormative Ethics, Applied Ethics, Moral Psychology, Education, Social Sciences, Educational Psychology, Virtue Ethics, Character Education, Morality (Social Psychology), Social Neuroscience, Moral Development, Social Developmental Psychology, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, and Moral
In the present study, we examined how the perceived attainability and relatability of moral exemplars predicted moral elevation and pleasantness among both adult and college student participants. Data collected from two experiments were... more
In the present study, we examined how the perceived attainability and relatability of moral exemplars predicted moral elevation and pleasantness among both adult and college student participants. Data collected from two experiments were analyzed with Bayesian multilevel modeling to explore which factors significantly predicted outcome variables at the story level. The analysis results demonstrated that the main effect of perceived relatability and the interaction effect between attainability and relatability shall be included in the best prediction model, and thus, were deemed to predict the outcome variables significantly. The main effect of relatability as well as its interaction with attainability positively predicted elevation and pleasantness. We discussed educational implications of the findings in terms of how relatability may be the first point of emphasis for moral educators to focus on and attainability can then bolster the effectiveness. These relatable and attainable moral exemplars can be sources for moral elevation and pleasantness, which promote motivation to emulate moral behavior presented by the exemplars.
Research Interests: Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Experimental Psychology, Ethics, and 15 moreApplied Ethics, Moral Psychology, Education, Social Sciences, Educational Psychology, Educational Research, Character Education, Education Ethics, Morality (Social Psychology), Moral Development, Moral Education, Bayesian statistics & modelling, Moral, Morality, and Character Development
In the present study, we explored the best regression models that explain the develop- mental path of dispositional empathy among Iranian participants using Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA). BMA, a data-driven analysis method, was employed... more
In the present study, we explored the best regression models that explain the develop- mental path of dispositional empathy among Iranian participants using Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA). BMA, a data-driven analysis method, was employed to identify the most likely candidate regression models given the collected data. We reported the best regression model for each depend- ent variable and different components of applied questionnaires by evaluating and comparing mul- tiple model fit indicators—Akaike information criterion, Bayesian information criterion, adjusted R2, Bayes Factor model, and leave-one-out cross-validation root-mean-square error—among candi- date regression models identified by BMA. We discussed the theoretical implications of the findings regarding factors associated with empathy development and the methodological implications of using data-driven analysis in the field.
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Psychology, Quantitative Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, and 15 moreMoral Psychology, Social Sciences, Empathy (Psychology), Bayesian, Educational Psychology, Cultural Psychology, Iranian Studies, Human Development, Quantitative Methods, Social Developmental Psychology, Quantitative Methods (Psychology), Bayesian statistics & modelling, Empathy, Social Development, and Data Science
The COVID-19 pandemic urged systematic restrictive measures in order to avoid the spread of the virus. Different countries applied different restrictive measures; however, their efficacy was vastly dependent on the willingness of the... more
The COVID-19 pandemic urged systematic restrictive measures in order to avoid the spread of the virus. Different countries applied different restrictive measures; however, their efficacy was vastly dependent on the willingness of the people to comply with them. How people perceived the pandemic yielded different adaptive behavior to preventative measures. In this direction, individual characteristics (i.e., personality) seem very important. The current study aimed to map a relationship between personality structure as postulated within the five-factor model of personality with the tendency to comply with preventive measures, as mediated by perceived stress and concerns over coronavirus. In a sample of 3252 adults, we found that the traits of openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness directly and positively predicted compliance. However, concerns over coronavirus partially but positively mediated the relationship between agreeableness and conscientiousness on compliance. Perceived stress, on the other hand, was not a significant mediator, although it was significantly and positively predicted by neuroticism but negatively by extraversion. These findings showed that different personality traits have different direct effects on compliance with preventative measures.
Research Interests: Psychology, Personality Psychology, Social Psychology, Health Psychology, Epidemiology, and 15 moreSocial Sciences, Psychometrics, Personality, Mental Health, Personality Assessment, Kosovo, Compliance, Network Analysis, Public Health, Attitudes (Social Psychology), Motivation, Personality and Individual Differences, Big Five Personality Traits, Psychological distress, and COVID-19 PANDEMIC
In the present study, I explore the relationship between purpose, which was measured by the Claremont Purpose Scale, and moral psychological indicators, moral reasoning, moral identity, and empathy. Purpose was quantified in terms of... more
In the present study, I explore the relationship between purpose, which was measured by the Claremont Purpose Scale, and moral psychological indicators, moral reasoning, moral identity, and empathy. Purpose was quantified in terms of three subcomponents: meaning, goal, and beyond-the-self motivation. Moral reasoning was assessed in term of utilization of postconventional moral reasoning. Moral identity was examined with two subscales: moral internalization, and symbolization. Among diverse subscales of empathy, I focused on empathic concern and perspective taking, which have been reported to be strongly related to morality. To explore the best prediction models using the data, I employed Bayesian Model Selection and Bayesian regression analysis. In general, purpose was significantly predicted by most surveyed moral psychological indicators but not by moral symbolization. The best prediction model for beyond-the-self motivation included the most moral psychological indicator predictors including moral reasoning, which did not significantly predict other dependent variables.
Research Interests: Psychology, Positive Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Moral Psychology, Education, and 15 moreSelf and Identity, Social Sciences, Motivation (Psychology), Bayesian, Morality (Social Psychology), Meaning, Quantitative Methods, Moral Development, Positive Youth Development, Bayesian statistics & modelling, Empathy, Moral, Social Development, Data Science, and Morality
In this study, we tested the validity across two scales addressing conspiratorial thinking that may influence behaviors related to public health and the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the COVIDiSTRESSII Global Survey data from 12,261... more
In this study, we tested the validity across two scales addressing conspiratorial thinking that may influence behaviors related to public health and the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the COVIDiSTRESSII Global Survey data from 12,261 participants, we validated the 4-item Conspiratorial Thinking Scale and 3-item Anti-Expert Sentiment Scale across 24 languages and dialects that were used by at least 100 participants per language. We employed confirmatory factor analysis, measurement invariance test, and measurement alignment for internal consistency testing. To test convergent validity of the two scales, we assessed correlations with trust in seven agents related to government, science, and public health. Although scalar invariance was not achieved when measurement invariance test was conducted initially, we found that both scales can be employed in further international studies with measurement alignment. Moreover, both conspiratorial thinking and anti-expert sentiments were significantly and negatively correlated with trust in all agents. Findings from this study provide supporting evidence for the validity of both scales across 24 languages for future large-scale international research.
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Personality Psychology, Social Psychology, Health Psychology, and 15 moreMoral Psychology, Epidemiology, Infectious disease epidemiology, Social Sciences, International Studies, Psychometrics, Vaccines, Quantitative Methods, Public Health, Infectious Diseases, Cross-cultural studies (Culture), Medicine, Public Policy, Covid-19, and COVID-19 PANDEMIC
The VIA Classification of Strengths and Virtues is the most commonly used model of positive personality. In this study, we used two methods of model modification to develop models for two measures of the character strengths, the VIA... more
The VIA Classification of Strengths and Virtues is the most commonly used model of positive personality. In this study, we used two methods of model modification to develop models for two measures of the character strengths, the VIA Inventory of Strengths-Revised and the Global Assessment of Character Strengths. The first method consisted of freeing residual covariances based on modification indices until good fit was achieved. The second was residual network modeling (RNM), which frees residual partial correlations while minimizing a function that penalizes more complex models. Models based on both strategies were developed for the two questionnaires. The resulting structural models were then applied to four other samples. Though both modification procedures achieved good fit in the sample used to develop the models, only RNM resulted in adequate model fit for both measures in all cross-validation samples. This finding suggests RNM is more robust against overfitting than traditional practices. Moreover, the result supports the validity of the three-factor model of character strengths with replicability.
Research Interests: Psychology, Personality Psychology, Positive Psychology, Psychometry, Social Psychology, and 15 moreMoral Psychology, Social Sciences, Psychometrics, Personality, Personality Assessment, Network Analysis, Psychometrics (Research Methodology), Quantitative Methods (Psychology), Wellbeing, Psychological well-being, Personality Development, Personality and Individual Differences, Social and Emotional Wellbeing, Personality Traits, and Psychometrics and Test Development
We explored the relationship between 24 character strengths measured by the Global Assessment of Character Strengths (GACS), which was revised from the original VIA instrument, and moral functioning comprising postconventional moral... more
We explored the relationship between 24 character strengths measured by the Global Assessment of Character Strengths (GACS), which was revised from the original VIA instrument, and moral functioning comprising postconventional moral reasoning, empathic traits and moral identity. Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) was employed to explore the best models, which were more parsimonious than full regression models estimated through frequentist regression, predicting moral functioning indicators with the 24 candidate character strength predictors. Our exploration was conducted with a dataset collected from 666 college students at a public university in the Southern United States. Results showed that character strengths as measured by GACS partially predicted relevant moral functioning indicators. Performance evaluation results demonstrated that the best models identified by BMA performed significantly better than the full models estimated by frequentist regression in terms of AIC, BIC, and cross-validation accuracy. We discuss theoretical and methodological implications of the findings for future studies addressing character strengths and moral functioning.
Research Interests: Psychology, Positive Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Philosophy, and 15 moreMoral Psychology, Social Sciences, Educational Psychology, Virtue Ethics, Character Education, Moral Development, Positive Youth Development, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Bayesian Analysis, Bayesian statistics & modelling, Moral, Data Science, Morality, and Characteristics
Although the Moral Growth Mindset (MGM) Measure was tested and validated in general, whether it measures MGM consistently across people with different political perspectives, which are associated with moral foundations, has not been... more
Although the Moral Growth Mindset (MGM) Measure was tested and validated in general, whether it measures MGM consistently across people with different political perspectives, which are associated with moral foundations, has not been tested. We examined measurement invariance (MI) and differential item functioning (DIF) across different political affiliations to test whether the MGM Measure functioned consistently. We also examined the relationship between MGM, moral foundations, and political affiliation with t-tests and regression analyses. The findings reported that first, at the test level, the strictest MI was achieved, so the measurement structure was consistent between the different political groups. Second, no item showed significant DIF, so the MGM Measure was not biased at the item level. Third, t-tests and regression analyses reported that MGM and its relationship with moral foundations were not significantly associated with political affiliation.
Research Interests: Psychology, Positive Psychology, Quantitative Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, and 15 moreSocial Sciences, Assessment, Political Psychology, Psychometrics, Educational Psychology, Political Science, Civic Education, Item Response Theory, Measurement and Evaluation, Moral Development, Positive Youth Development, Youth Civic Engagement, Moral Education, Moral, and Psychometrics and Test Development
Trust in the scientific research community predicts intent to comply with COVID-19 prevention measures: An analysis of a large-scale international survey dataset
Research Interests: Psychology, Social Psychology, Health Psychology, Health Sciences, Epidemiology, and 15 moreInfectious disease epidemiology, Social Sciences, Political Psychology, Trust, Vaccines, Political Science, Public Health Policy, Compliance, Network Analysis, Public Health, Social Trust, Bayesian statistics & modelling, Data Science, Epidemiology and Public Health, and COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Previous research showed that employing results from meta-analyses of relevant previous fMRI studies can improve the performance of voxelwise Bayesian second-level fMRI analysis. In this process, prior distributions for Bayesian analysis... more
Previous research showed that employing results from meta-analyses of relevant previous fMRI studies can improve the performance of voxelwise Bayesian second-level fMRI analysis. In this process, prior distributions for Bayesian analysis can be determined by information acquired from the meta-analyses. However, only image-based meta-analysis, which is not widely accessible to fMRI researchers due to the lack of shared statistical images, was tested in the previous study, so the applicability of the prior determination method proposed by the previous study might be limited. In the present study, whether determining prior distributions based on coordinate-based meta-analysis, which is widely accessible to researchers, can also improve the performance of Bayesian analysis, was examined. Three different types of coordinate-based meta-analyses, BrainMap and Ginger ALE, and NeuroQuery, were tested as information sources for prior determination. Five different datasets addressing three task conditions, i.e., working memory, speech, and face processing, were analyzed via Bayesian analysis with a meta-analysis informed prior distribution, Bayesian analysis with a default Cauchy prior adjusted for multiple comparisons, and frequentist analysis with familywise error correction. The findings from the aforementioned analyses suggest that use of coordinate-based meta-analysis also significantly enhanced performance of Bayesian analysis as did image-based meta-analysis.
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Quantitative Psychology, Neuropsychology, and 15 moreBrain Imaging, Bayesian, Statistical Analysis, Computational Neuroscience, Meta-Analysis and Systematic Review, Cognitive Neuropsychology, Quantitative Research, Quantitative Methods, Statistical Modeling, Cognitive Neuroscience, Bayesian Analysis, Bayesian statistics & modelling, Bayesian Inference, Bayesian statistics, and Neurosciences
Some stories of moral exemplars motivate us to emulate their admirable attitudes and behaviors, but why do some exemplars motivate us more than others? We systematically studied how motivation to emulate is influenced by the similarity... more
Some stories of moral exemplars motivate us to emulate their admirable attitudes and behaviors, but why do some exemplars motivate us more than others? We systematically studied how motivation to emulate is influenced by the similarity between a reader and an exemplar in social or cultural background (Relatability) and how personally costly or demanding the exemplar’s actions are (Attainability). Study 1 found that university students reported more inspiration and related feelings after reading true stories about the good deeds of a recent fellow alum, compared to a famous moral exemplar from decades past. Study 2A developed a battery of short moral exemplar stories that more systematically varied Relatability and Attainability, along with a set of non-moral exemplar stories for comparison. Studies 2B and 2C examined the path from the story type to relatively low stakes altruism (donating to charity and intentions to volunteer) through perceived attainability and relatability, as well as elevation and pleasantness. Together, our studies suggest that it is primarily the relatability of the moral exemplars, not the attainability of their actions, that inspires more prosocial motivation, at least regarding acts that help others at a relatively low cost to oneself.
Research Interests: Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Philosophy, Ethics, Philosophical Psychology, and 15 moreEducation, Social Sciences, Educational Psychology, Educational Research, Virtue Ethics, Theoretical Psychology, Civic Education, Moral Development, Positive Youth Development, Youth Civic Engagement, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Civic Engagement, Moral, and Inspiration
In this study, we tested the validity of the modified version of the Vaccine Attitude Question Battery (VAQB) across 22 different languages. Validity test was conducted with a large-scale international survey dataset, COVIDiSTRESSII... more
In this study, we tested the validity of the modified version of the Vaccine Attitude Question Battery (VAQB) across 22 different languages. Validity test was conducted with a large-scale international survey dataset, COVIDiSTRESSII Global Survey, collected from 20,601 participants from 62 countries. We employed exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, measurement invariance test, and measurement alignment for internal validity test. Moreover, we examined correlation between the VAQB score, vaccination intent, compliance with preventive measures, and trust in public health-related agents. The results reported that the modified VAQB, which included five items, showed good validity across 22 languages with measurement alignment. Furthermore, the VAQB score showed negative association with vaccination intent, compliance, and trust as expected. The findings from this study provide additional evidence supporting the validity of the modified VAQB in 22 languages for future large-scale international research on COVID-19 and vaccination.
Research Interests: Cognitive Psychology, Quantitative Psychology, Social Psychology, Health Psychology, Health Sciences, and 15 moreMedical Sciences, Epidemiology, Infectious disease epidemiology, Psychometrics, Vaccines, Global Health, Cross-Cultural Psychology, Public Health Policy, Quantitative Methods, Preventive medicine, Public Health, Health Policy, Medicine, Epidemiology and Public Health, and COVID-19 PANDEMIC
We examined the relationship between moral foundations, empathic traits, and moral identity using an online survey via Mechanical Turk. In order to determine how moral foundations contribute to empathic traits and moral identity, we... more
We examined the relationship between moral foundations, empathic traits, and moral identity using an online survey via Mechanical Turk. In order to determine how moral foundations contribute to empathic traits and moral identity, we performed classical correlation analysis as well as Bayesian correlation analysis, Bayesian ANCOVA, and Bayesian regression analysis. Results showed that individualizing foundations (harm/care, fairness/reciprocity) and binding foundations (ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, purity/sanctity) had various different relationships with empathic traits. In addition, the individualizing versus binding foundations showed somewhat reverse relationships with internalization and symbolization of moral identity. This suggests that moral foundations can contribute to further understanding of empathic traits and moral identity and how they relate to moral behavior in reality. We discuss the implications of these results for moral educators when starting to teach students about moral issues.
Research Interests: Psychology, Quantitative Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Ethics, and 15 moreMoral Psychology, Self and Identity, Social Sciences, Social Identity, Empathy (Psychology), Political Psychology, Bayesian, Political Science, Quantitative Research, Quantitative Methods, Moral Development, Bayesian statistics & modelling, Empathy, Political Identity, and Moral
Introduction: Changes in civic purpose during the emerging adulthood has been a significant research topic since it is closely associated with active civic engagement later in human lives. While standard regression methods have been used... more
Introduction: Changes in civic purpose during the emerging adulthood has been a significant research topic since it is closely associated with active civic engagement later in human lives. While standard regression methods have been used in previous studies to predict civic purpose development, they have limitations that may not always lead to best prediction models. We aimed to address these limitations by utilizing elastic-net multinomial logistic regression, which favors models with the least number of necessary predictors, in exploration of predictors for civic purpose development in a data-driven manner. Methods: We analyzed data from the longitudinal Civic Purpose Project while focusing on the model that best predicted civic purpose from Wave 1 (before high school graduation) to Wave 2 (two years after Wave 1). The reanalyzed data included responses from 480 participants recruited Californian high schools. The elastic-net regression was performed 5,000 times for predicting three dependent variables, Wave 2 political purpose, community service purpose, and expressive activity purpose, with Wave 1 predictors. We identified which predictors were selected as the constituents of the best regression models during the elastic-net regression process. Results: Results showed that civic purpose, moral and political identity, and external supports (e.g., parental and peer involvement, school civic opportunities, etc.) in Wave 1 significantly predicted civic purpose in Wave 2. Several predictors were excluded from the regression models during the elastic-net regression process.
Research Interests: Psychology, Positive Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Education, Social Sciences, and 15 moreYouth Studies, Educational Psychology, Civic Education, Emerging Adulthood, Quantitative Research, Quantitative Methods, Moral Development, Positive Youth Development, Youth Civic Engagement, Civic Engagement, Youth, Moral, Data Science, Civics, and Adolescentes
In the risky-choice framing effect, different wording of the same options leads to predictably different choices. In a large-scale survey conducted from March to May 2020 and including 88,181 participants from 47 countries, we... more
In the risky-choice framing effect, different wording of the same options leads to predictably different choices. In a large-scale survey conducted from March to May 2020 and including 88,181 participants from 47 countries, we investigated how stress, concerns, and trust moderated the effect in the Disease problem, a prominent framing problem highly evocative of the COVID-19 pandemic. As predicted by the appraisal-tendency framework, risk aversion and the framing effect in our study were larger than under typical circumstances. Furthermore, perceived stress and concerns over coronavirus were positively associated with the framing effect. Contrary to predictions, however, they were not related to risk aversion. Trust in the government's efforts to handle the coronavirus was associated with neither risk aversion nor the framing effect. The proportion of risky choices and the framing effect varied substantially across nations. Additional exploratory analyses showed that the framing effect was unrelated to reported compliance with safety measures, suggesting, along with similar findings during the pandemic and beyond, that the effectiveness of framing manipulations in public messages might be limited. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed, along with directions for further investigations.
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Social Psychology, Experimental Psychology, Health Psychology, and 15 moreCommunication, Social Sciences, Mental Health, Cross-Cultural Psychology, Compliance, Stress, Quantitative Research, Preventive medicine, Public Health, Infectious Diseases, Stress (Psychology), Framing, Risk Aversion, Coronavirus COVID-19, and COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Previous research suggests that prior experience of pain affects the expression of empathy. However, most of these studies attended to physical pain despite evidence indicating that other forms of pain may also affect brain activity and... more
Previous research suggests that prior experience of pain affects the expression of empathy. However, most of these studies attended to physical pain despite evidence indicating that other forms of pain may also affect brain activity and emotional states in similar ways. To address this limitation, we compared empathic responses of 33 participants, some of whom had experienced a personal loss, across three conditions: observing strangers in physical pain, psychological pain, and a non-painful condition. We also examined the effect of presence of prior painful experience on empathic reactions. In addition, we examined the stimulation type, prior experience, and ERPs in the early Late Positive Potential (300–550 ms), late Late Positive Potential (550–800 ms), and very late Late Positive Potential (VLLPP; 800–1,050 ms) time windows. Behavioral data indicated that participants who had personally experienced a loss scored significantly higher on perspective taking in the psychological-pain condition. ERP results also indicated significantly lower intensity in Fp2, an electrode in the prefrontal region, within VLLPP time window for participants experiencing a loss in the psychological-pain condition. The results of both behavioral and ERP analysis indicated that prior experience of psychological pain is related to cognitive empathy, but not affective empathy. The implication of these findings for research on empathy, for the study of psychological pain, and the moderating influence of prior painful experiences are discussed.
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Social Psychology, and 15 moreDevelopmental Psychology, Emotion, Experimental Psychology, Social Sciences, Empathy (Psychology), Affective Neuroscience, Social Neuroscience, Affect/Emotion, Cognitive Neuroscience, Perspective Taking, Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience, Empathy, Event-Related Potentials, Brain, and Psychological Approaches to Pain
Research on public value is inevitably interdisciplinary in its nature due to its aim and purpose. Both philosophical and empirical approaches are necessary to conduct such research in a successful manner. In the present paper, I intend... more
Research on public value is inevitably interdisciplinary in its nature due to its aim and purpose. Both philosophical and empirical approaches are necessary to conduct such research in a successful manner. In the present paper, I intend to discuss the importance of empirical approaches in research on public values, particularly psychological and neuroscientific approaches, with concrete examples. I proposed that such empirical approaches are essential in better understanding the processes and mechanisms associated with how people address issues associated with public value in the modern society. Also, I overviewed how the psychological and neuroscientific approaches contribute to practical aspects related to public value, such as policy making and education. Based on the aforementioned points, I briefly discussed directions for future research in research on public value as an interdisciplinary field.
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Social Psychology, Neuropsychology, and 15 moreExperimental Psychology, Philosophy, Moral Psychology, Education, Social Sciences, Values, Educational Research, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Cognitive Neuroscience, Moral, Morality, Public Value, Civic and Moral Education, and Public Policy
Character strengths have become a popular topic in personality research. A set of questionnaires has recently been developed as measures of character strengths: the VIA Inventory of Strengths-Revised, two 96-item short forms of that... more
Character strengths have become a popular topic in personality research. A set of questionnaires has recently been developed as measures of character strengths: the VIA Inventory of Strengths-Revised, two 96-item short forms of that instrument, and two new measures called the Global Assessment of Character Strengths and Signature Strengths Survey. Collectively, these are referred to as the VIA Assessment Suite for Adults. Prior research has supported the reliability and validity of these measures. The current study extended those findings through a demographically stratified sample of 1,765 U.S. resident adults. Results indicated the scores were interchangeable across all three versions of the VIA-IS, irrespective of whether the items are all positively keyed or a mix of positive and negative items. In addition, the VIA-IS-R factor structure is also consistent with a previously identified three-factor model for the strengths. By freeing residual covariances, a model was developed for which adequate fit was replicable. This provided the foundation for demonstrating measurement invariance. The present study also explored differences in strengths across demographic categories and evaluated various approaches to identifying key (signature) strengths for the respondents. Recommendations on the use of the different instruments are provided.
Research Interests: Psychology, Psychological Assessment, Personality Psychology, Positive Psychology, Quantitative Psychology, and 15 moreSocial Sciences, Assessment, Psychometrics, Personality, Personality Assessment, Character Education, Measurement and Evaluation, Well-Being, Positive Youth Development, Measurement, Character Strengths, Characteristics, Personality Traits, Psychological Tests, and Psychological and Educational Testing
Research has examined the association between people’s compliance with measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and personality traits. However, previous studies were conducted with relatively small-size datasets and employed... more
Research has examined the association between people’s compliance with measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and personality traits. However, previous studies were conducted with relatively small-size datasets and employed frequentist analysis that does not allow data-driven model exploration. To address the limitations, a large-scale international dataset, COVIDiSTRESS Global Survey dataset, was explored with Bayesian generalized linear model that enables identification of the best regression model. The best regression models predicting participants’ compliance with Big Five traits were explored. The findings demonstrated first, all Big Five traits, except extroversion, were positively associated with compliance with general measures and distancing. Second, neuroticism, extroversion, and agreeableness were positively associated with the perceived cost of complying with the measures while conscientiousness showed negative association. The findings and the implications of the present study were discussed.
Research Interests: Psychology, Personality Psychology, Quantitative Psychology, Social Psychology, Moral Psychology, and 15 moreCross-Cultural Psychology, Public Health Policy, Compliance, Statistical Modeling, Public Health, Prosocial Behavior, Generalized Linear models, Bayesian statistics & modelling, Bayesian Inference, Moral, Bayesian statistics, Regression, Big Five Personality Traits, Coronavirus COVID-19, and COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Previous research has shown the potential value of Bayesian methods in fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) analysis. For instance, the results from Bayes factor-applied second-level fMRI analysis showed a higher hit rate compared... more
Previous research has shown the potential value of Bayesian methods in fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) analysis. For instance, the results from Bayes factor-applied second-level fMRI analysis showed a higher hit rate compared with frequentist second-level fMRI analysis, suggesting greater sensitivity. Although the method reported more positives as a result of the higher sensitivity, it was able to maintain a reasonable level of selectivity in term of the false positive rate. Moreover, employment of the multiple comparison correction method to update the default prior distribution significantly improved the performance of Bayesian second-level fMRI analysis. However, previous studies have utilized the default prior distribution and did not consider the nature of each individual study. Thus, in the present study, a method to adjust the Cauchy prior distribution based on a priori information, which can be acquired from the results of relevant previous studies, was proposed and tested. A Cauchy prior distribution was adjusted based on the contrast, noise strength, and proportion of true positives that were estimated from a meta-analysis of relevant previous studies. In the present study, both the simulated images and real contrast images from two previous studies were used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. The results showed that the employment of the prior adjustment method resulted in improved performance of Bayesian second-level fMRI analysis.
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Quantitative Psychology, and 15 moreNeuropsychology, Statistics, Neuroimaging, Bayesian, Applied Statistics, Neuroinformatics, Quantitative Research, Quantitative Methods, Cognitive Neuroscience, Bayesian Analysis, Bayesian statistics & modelling, Bayesian Inference, Brain, Bayesian statistics, and Neuropsicología
BayesFactorFMRI is a tool developed with R and Python to allow neuroimaging researchers to conduct Bayesian second-level analysis and Bayesian meta-analysis of fMRI image data with multiprocessing. This tool expedites computationally... more
BayesFactorFMRI is a tool developed with R and Python to allow neuroimaging researchers to conduct Bayesian second-level analysis and Bayesian meta-analysis of fMRI image data with multiprocessing. This tool expedites computationally intensive Bayesian fMRI analysis through multiprocessing. Its GUI allows researchers who are not experts in computer programming to feasibly perform Bayesian fMRI analysis. BayesFactorFMRI is available via Zenodo and GitHub for download. It would be widely reused by neuroimaging researchers who intend to analyse their fMRI data with Bayesian analysis with better sensitivity compared with classical analysis while improving performance by distributing analysis tasks into multiple processors.
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Quantitative Psychology, Neuropsychology, and 15 moreExperimental Psychology, Statistics, Neuroimaging, Bayesian, Neuroinformatics, Cognitive Neuropsychology, Quantitative Research, Quantitative Methods, Cognitive Neuroscience, Bayesian Analysis, Bayesian statistics & modelling, Bayesian Inference, Brain, Bayesian statistics, and Neuropsicología
Although some previous studies have investigated the relationship between moral foundations and moral judgment development, the methods used have not been able to fully explore the relationship. In the present study, we used Bayesian... more
Although some previous studies have investigated the relationship between moral foundations and moral judgment development, the methods used have not been able to fully explore the relationship. In the present study, we used Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) in order to address the limitations in traditional regression methods that have been used previously. Results showed consistency with previous findings that binding foundations are negatively correlated with post-conventional moral reasoning and positively correlated with maintaining norms and personal interest schemas. In addition to previous studies, our results showed a positive correlation for individualizing foundations and post-conventional moral reasoning. Implications are discussed as well as a detailed explanation of the novel BMA method in order to allow others in the field of moral education to be able to use it in their own studies.
Research Interests: Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Moral Psychology, Education, and 15 moreBayesian, Morality (Social Psychology), Quantitative Methods, Moral Development, Social Developmental Psychology, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Bayesian Models, Quantitative Methods (Psychology), Bayesian Analysis, Bayesian statistics & modelling, Bayesian Inference, Moral, Morality, and Bayesian statistics
Having an agreed-upon definition of character education would be useful for both researchers and practitioners in the field. However, even experts in character education disagree on how they would define it. We attempted to achieve... more
Having an agreed-upon definition of character education would be useful for both researchers and practitioners in the field. However, even experts in character education disagree on how they would define it. We attempted to achieve greater conceptual clarity on this issue through a prototype analysis in which the features perceived as most central to character education were identified. In Study 1 (N = 77), we asked character education experts to enumerate features of character education. Based on these lists, we identified 30 features. In Study 2 (N = 101), experts assessed which features were central to character education through a categorization task. In Study 3 (N = 166), we assessed the extent of centrality using scalar items. We conclude by offering practical advice for the development of future character education studies and programs rooted in what is deemed central to such programs.
Research Interests: Psychology, Personality Psychology, Positive Psychology, Social Psychology, Philosophy, and 15 moreMoral Psychology, Education, Teacher Education, Philosophy of Education, Educational Psychology, Educational Research, Character Education, Morality (Social Psychology), Moral Development, Positive Youth Development, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Curriculum and Instruction, Moral, and Morality
The purpose of this study is to assess effects of STS(Science and Technology Studies) education in natural science colleges and engineering colleges. STS is an interdisciplinary study includes ethics, history, sociology, policy of science... more
The purpose of this study is to assess effects of STS(Science and Technology Studies) education in natural science colleges and engineering colleges. STS is an interdisciplinary study includes ethics, history, sociology, policy of science and technology; its main purpose is elaborating students' social perspectives on science and technology. In Korea, however, there is few studies related to STS education to improve its educational effects. Therefore, this study will do exploratory investigation effects of STS education in moral development and epistemological beliefs from view point of educational psychology; moral development will be assessed by DIT(Defining Issues Test), and epistemological beliefs will be assessed by EBI(Epistemic Beliefs Inventory). The results show that, first, there was significant difference between growth in epistemological beliefs of students who attended STS course for semesters and who did not attend STS course at all or attended just once, second, students who attended historical-social based and interdisciplinary STS courses showed significantly grater growth in moral reasoning than students who attended non STS courses or field specified STS courses such as philosophy of science and technology, From the results of investigation, this study will propose some suggestions to improve STS education in Korea.
Research Interests: Philosophy of Science, Moral Psychology, Education, Science Education, Engineering Education, and 15 moreHigher Education, Cognitive development, Educational Psychology, Educational Research, History of Science, Moral Development, Moral and Ethical Issues in Science, Sociology of Science, Moral and Cognitive Reasoning, science and technology studies (STS), Moral Reasoning, Engineering Ethics, Morality, College Students, and Science and Technology Studies
Introduction The Defining Issues Test (DIT) aimed to measure one’s moral judgment development in terms of moral reasoning. The Neo-Kohlbergian approach, which is an elaboration of Kohlbergian theory, focuses on the continuous development... more
Introduction
The Defining Issues Test (DIT) aimed to measure one’s moral judgment development in terms of moral reasoning. The Neo-Kohlbergian approach, which is an elaboration of Kohlbergian theory, focuses on the continuous development of postconventional moral reasoning, which constitutes the theoretical basis of the DIT. However, very few studies have directly tested the internal structure of the DIT, which would indicate its construct validity.
Objectives
Using the DIT-2, a later revision of the DIT, we examined whether a bi-factor model or 3-factor CFA model showed a better model fit. The Neo-Kohlbergian theory of moral judgment development, which constitutes the theoretical basis for the DIT-2, proposes that moral judgment development occurs continuously and that it can be better explained with a soft-stage model. Given these assertions, we assumed that the bi-factor model, which considers the Schema-General Moral Judgment (SGMJ), might be more consistent with Neo-Kohlbergian theory.
Methods
We analyzed a large dataset collected from undergraduate students. We performed confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) via weighted least squares. A 3-factor CFA based on the DIT-2 manual and a bi-factor model were compared for model fit. The three factors in the 3-factor CFA were labeled as moral development schemas in Neo-Kohlbergian theory (i.e., personal interests, maintaining norms, and postconventional schemas). The bi-factor model included the SGMJ in addition to the three factors.
Results
In general, the bi-factor model showed a better model fit compared with the 3-factor CFA model although both models reported acceptable model fit indices.
Conclusion
We found that the DIT-2 scale is a valid measure of the internal structure of moral reasoning development using both CFA and bi-factor models. In addition, we conclude that the soft-stage model, posited by the Neo-Kohlbergian approach to moral judgment development, can be better supported with the bi-factor model that was tested in the present study.
The Defining Issues Test (DIT) aimed to measure one’s moral judgment development in terms of moral reasoning. The Neo-Kohlbergian approach, which is an elaboration of Kohlbergian theory, focuses on the continuous development of postconventional moral reasoning, which constitutes the theoretical basis of the DIT. However, very few studies have directly tested the internal structure of the DIT, which would indicate its construct validity.
Objectives
Using the DIT-2, a later revision of the DIT, we examined whether a bi-factor model or 3-factor CFA model showed a better model fit. The Neo-Kohlbergian theory of moral judgment development, which constitutes the theoretical basis for the DIT-2, proposes that moral judgment development occurs continuously and that it can be better explained with a soft-stage model. Given these assertions, we assumed that the bi-factor model, which considers the Schema-General Moral Judgment (SGMJ), might be more consistent with Neo-Kohlbergian theory.
Methods
We analyzed a large dataset collected from undergraduate students. We performed confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) via weighted least squares. A 3-factor CFA based on the DIT-2 manual and a bi-factor model were compared for model fit. The three factors in the 3-factor CFA were labeled as moral development schemas in Neo-Kohlbergian theory (i.e., personal interests, maintaining norms, and postconventional schemas). The bi-factor model included the SGMJ in addition to the three factors.
Results
In general, the bi-factor model showed a better model fit compared with the 3-factor CFA model although both models reported acceptable model fit indices.
Conclusion
We found that the DIT-2 scale is a valid measure of the internal structure of moral reasoning development using both CFA and bi-factor models. In addition, we conclude that the soft-stage model, posited by the Neo-Kohlbergian approach to moral judgment development, can be better supported with the bi-factor model that was tested in the present study.
Research Interests: Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Moral Psychology, Education, Social Sciences, and 15 morePsychometrics, Educational Psychology, Educational Research, Measurement and Evaluation, Morality (Social Psychology), Quantitative Methods, Moral Development, Social Developmental Psychology, Moral Education, Moral, Social Development, Moral Judgment, Morality, Measurement and evaluation in education, and Assessment and Measurement
Raine (2019) reviewed previous research on the neural correlates of antisocial, violent, and psychopathic behavior based on previous studies of neuroscience of morality. The author identified neural circutries associated with the... more
Raine (2019) reviewed previous research on the neural correlates of antisocial, violent, and psychopathic behavior based on previous studies of neuroscience of morality. The author identified neural circutries associated with the aforementioned types of antisocial behaviors. However, in the review, Raine acknowledged a limitation in his arguments, the lack of evidence supporting the presence of the neural circutries. In this correspondence, I intend to show that this limitation can be addressed with additional evience from recent neuroimaging research and the evidence can support the presence of the neural circutiries of antisociality proposed by Raine.
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Social Psychology, and 15 moreNeuropsychology, Psychiatry, Moral Psychology, Brain Imaging, Violence, Aggression (Psychology), Psychopathology, Morality (Social Psychology), Social Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuroscience, Psychopathy, Psychiatry and Psychopathology, Prosocial Behavior, Moral, and Neuropsicología
Background: Moral Growth Mindset (MGM) is a belief about whether one can become a morally better person through efforts. Prior research showed that MGM is positively associated with promotion of moral motivation among adolescents and... more
Background: Moral Growth Mindset (MGM) is a belief about whether one can become a morally better person through efforts. Prior research showed that MGM is positively associated with promotion of moral motivation among adolescents and young adults. We developed and tested the English version of the MGM measure in this study with data collected from college student participants.
Methods: In Study 1, we tested the reliability and validity of the MGM measure with two-wave data (N = 212, Age mean = 24.18 years, SD = 7.82 years). In Study 2, we retested the construct validity of the MGM measure once again and its association with other moral and positive psychological indicators to test its convergent and discriminant validity (N = 275, Age mean = 22.02 years, SD = 6.34 years).
Results: We found that the MGM measure was reliable and valid from Study 1. In Study 2, the results indicated that the MGM was well correlated with other moral and positive psychological indicators as expected.
Conclusions: We developed and validated the English version of the MGM measure in the present study. The results from studies 1 and 2 supported the reliability and validity of the MGM measure. Given these, we found that the English version of the MGM measure can well measure one’s MGM as we intended.
Methods: In Study 1, we tested the reliability and validity of the MGM measure with two-wave data (N = 212, Age mean = 24.18 years, SD = 7.82 years). In Study 2, we retested the construct validity of the MGM measure once again and its association with other moral and positive psychological indicators to test its convergent and discriminant validity (N = 275, Age mean = 22.02 years, SD = 6.34 years).
Results: We found that the MGM measure was reliable and valid from Study 1. In Study 2, the results indicated that the MGM was well correlated with other moral and positive psychological indicators as expected.
Conclusions: We developed and validated the English version of the MGM measure in the present study. The results from studies 1 and 2 supported the reliability and validity of the MGM measure. Given these, we found that the English version of the MGM measure can well measure one’s MGM as we intended.
Research Interests: Psychology, Positive Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Moral Psychology, and 15 moreEducation, Social Sciences, Youth Studies, Educational Psychology, Educational Research, Character Education, Measurement and Evaluation, Morality (Social Psychology), Quantitative Methods, Moral Development, Positive Youth Development, Moral Education, Adolescent Education (Education), Mindset, and Moral
Predicting outcomes of educational interventions before investing in large-scale implementation efforts in school settings is essential for educational policy-making. However, due to time and resource limitations, conducting longitudinal,... more
Predicting outcomes of educational interventions before investing in large-scale implementation efforts in school settings is essential for educational policy-making. However, due to time and resource limitations, conducting longitudinal, large-scale experiments testing outcomes of interventions in authentic settings is difficult. Here, we introduce the deep learning method as a way to address this issue and illustrate the use of the deep learning method for the prediction of intervention outcomes through a MATLAB implementation. The presented deep learning method extracts predictable patterns from an empirical dataset to simulate large-scale intervention outcomes. Findings from our simulations suggest that the deep learning applied simulation model can predict intervention outcomes significantly more accurately compared to the traditional regression analysis methods.
Research Interests: Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Computer Science, Moral Psychology, and 14 moreEducation, Educational Technology, Social Sciences, Computer Engineering, Machine Learning, Educational Psychology, Educational Research, Computational Modelling, Neural Networks, Modeling and Simulation, Simulation, Artificial Neural Networks, Computer Simulation, and Deep Learning
Incremental implicit theories are associated with a belief regarding it is possible to improve one's intelligence or ability through efforts. Previous studies have demonstrated that incre-mental implicit theories contributed to better... more
Incremental implicit theories are associated with a belief regarding it is possible to improve one's intelligence or ability through efforts. Previous studies have demonstrated that incre-mental implicit theories contributed to better academic achievement and positive youth development. Our study aimed to examine whether incremental implicit theories of morality significantly influenced change in students' engagement in voluntary service activities. In our study, 54 Korean college students for Study 1 and 180 Korean 8 th graders for Study 2 were recruited to conduct two two-wave studies. We surveyed participants' implicit theories of morality and participation in voluntary service activities. The effect of implicit theories of morality on change in service engagement was analyzed through regression analysis. In Study 1, the moral growth mindset significantly moderated longitudinal change in service engagement. In Study 2, the moral growth mindset significantly influenced engagement in art-related activities, while it significantly moderated change in engagement in youth-related activities.
We developed and tested Bayesian multiple comparison correction method for Bayesian voxelwise second-level fMRI analysis with R. The performance of the developed method was tested with simulation and real image datasets. First, we... more
We developed and tested Bayesian multiple comparison correction method for Bayesian voxelwise second-level fMRI analysis with R. The performance of the developed method was tested with simulation and real image datasets. First, we compared false alarm and hit rates, which were used as proxies for selectivity and sensitivity, respectively, between Bayesian and classical inference were conducted. For the comparison, we created simulated images, added noise to the created images, and analyzed the noise-added images while applying Bayesian and classical multiple comparison correction methods. Second, we analyzed five real image datasets to examine how our Bayesian method worked in realistic settings. When the performance assessment was conducted, Bayesian correction method demonstrated good sensitivity (hit rate ≥ 75%) and acceptable selectivity (false alarm rate < 10%) when N ≤ 8. Furthermore, Bayesian correction method showed better sensitivity compared with classical correction method while maintaining the aforementioned acceptable selectivity.
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Neuropsychology, and 15 moreSocial Sciences, Brain Imaging, Neuroimaging, Bayesian, Cognition, Computational Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuropsychology, Social Neuroscience, Quantitative Methods, Cognitive Neuroscience, Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience, Bayesian statistics & modelling, Bayesian Inference, Brain Mapping, and Brain
A significant challenge for fMRI research is statistically controlling for false positives without omitting true effects. Although a number of traditional methods for multiple comparison correction exist, several alternative tools have... more
A significant challenge for fMRI research is statistically controlling for false positives without omitting true effects. Although a number of traditional methods for multiple comparison correction exist, several alternative tools have been developed that do not rely on strict parametric assumptions, but instead implement alternative methods to correct for multiple comparisons. In this study, we evaluated three of these methods, Statistical non-Parametric Mapping (SnPM), 3DClustSim,
and Threshold Free Cluster Enhancement (TFCE), by examining which method produced the most consistent outcomes even when spatially-autocorrelated noise was added to the original images. We assessed the false alarm rate and hit rate of each method after noise was applied
to the original images.
and Threshold Free Cluster Enhancement (TFCE), by examining which method produced the most consistent outcomes even when spatially-autocorrelated noise was added to the original images. We assessed the false alarm rate and hit rate of each method after noise was applied
to the original images.
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Neuropsychology, Image Processing, and 15 moreSocial Sciences, Brain Imaging, Neuroimaging, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Cognitive Neuropsychology, Functional MRI, Image Analysis, Quantitative Methods, Medical Image Analysis, Cognitive Neuroscience, Behavioral Neuroscience, Brain Mapping, Brain, Social Science, and Neurosciences
We examined the links between moral identity—the centrality of moral principles to identity—and political purpose during emerging adulthood. We analyzed data from two waves of a longitudinal study of civic purpose. T1 surveys were... more
We examined the links between moral identity—the centrality of moral principles to identity—and political purpose during emerging adulthood. We analyzed data from two waves of a longitudinal study of civic purpose. T1 surveys were collected before high school graduation and T2 survey were collected two years later. We categorized people (N = 1,578 at T1 and N = 480 at T2) into political purpose groups based on the person-centered perspective and then performed multinomial logistic regression analysis to test whether moral identity was associated with categories of political purpose. The findings from our study indicate that moral identity at T1 is linked with the maintenance and formation of T2 political purpose.
Research Interests: Psychology, Positive Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Moral Psychology, and 15 moreEducation, Social Sciences, Educational Psychology, Political Science, Civic Education, Politics, Emerging Adulthood, Human Development, Morality (Social Psychology), Moral Development, Positive Youth Development, Moral Education, Civic Engagement, Adolescent Education (Education), and Moral
This paper suggests how to develop more effective moral educational programs by utilizing interdisciplinary research methods including neuroimaging, social psychological intervention, evolutionary modeling and deep learning methods. Our... more
This paper suggests how to develop more effective moral educational programs by utilizing interdisciplinary research methods including neuroimaging, social psychological intervention, evolutionary modeling and deep learning methods. Our interdisciplinary research program consists of three steps: identification of core psychological processes involved in moral functioning at the neural level, development of small-scale intervention programs tweaking the identified psychological processes, prediction of long-term, large-scale outcomes of designed interventions using computational methods. We discuss how this research program will inform moral educators and educational policy makers who wish to develop effective moral educational programs in larger educational settings in the long term with actual neuroimaging and intervention experimental data.
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Neuropsychology, Developmental Psychology, Moral Psychology, Education, and 15 moreEducational Technology, Social Sciences, Youth Studies, Teacher Education, Educational Psychology, Educational Research, Character Education, Cognitive Neuropsychology, Morality (Social Psychology), Moral Development, Positive Youth Development, Moral Education, Cognitive Neuroscience, Moral, and Social Development
Moral exemplars can work as agents for moral modeling and potentially sources for moral education, given the accounts of virtue ethicists who supported the power of moral modeling (Kristjánsson, 2006; Sanderse, 2012) as well as the... more
Moral exemplars can work as agents for moral modeling and potentially sources for moral education, given the accounts of virtue ethicists who supported the power of moral modeling (Kristjánsson, 2006; Sanderse, 2012) as well as the previous social psychological studies that showed the effect of moral elevation (Englander, Haidt, & Morris, 2012; Haidt, 2000; Schnall, Roper, & Fessler, 2010), upward social comparison (Smith, 2000; Suls, Martin, & Wheeler, 2002) and vicarious socio-moral learning (Bandura & McDonald, 1963; Bandura, 1969). However, recent social psychological experiments have shown that the mere presentation of extreme moral exemplars can induce negative emotional and behavioral responses (e.g., moral envy, moral resentment, withdrawal from moral behavior) (Monin, Sawyer, & Marquez, 2008; Monin, 2007). In fact, some virtue ethicists have also warned the potential harmful aspects of extreme moral exemplars (Curzer, 2015; Kristjánsson, 2014; Swanton, 2003). Social psychology has suggested that stories of attainable and relevant exemplars are more powerful to promote motivational forces compared to stories of extraordinary exemplars. First, the motivational power of stories became significantly greater when the stories were perceived to be more attainable (Cialdini, 1980; Lockwood & Kunda, 1997). Second, even a presence of a mere relevance (e.g., having the same birthday with an exemplar) significantly improved the motivational power (Lockwood & Kunda, 1997; Walton, Cohen, Cwir, & Spencer, 2012). Thus, the present study tested whether the stories of attainable and relevant moral exemplars are more effective to promote students’ moral motivation compared to extraordinary moral stories through psychological experiments.
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Experimental Psychology, and 27 morePhilosophy, Ethics, Teaching and Learning, Applied Ethics, Moral Psychology, Education, Educational Technology, Social Sciences, Neuroimaging, Educational Psychology, Educational Research, Learning and Teaching, Virtue Ethics, Character Education, Morality (Social Psychology), Social Neuroscience, Quantitative Research, Moral Development, Longitudinal Research, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Cognitive Neuroscience, Classroom Action Research, Moral and Political Philosophy, Moral, Morality, and Intervention
The present study briefly proposes how varied empirical research methods, including functional neuroimaging (fMRI), social psychological intervention experiments and evolutionary modeling methods, can contribute to the development of... more
The present study briefly proposes how varied empirical research methods, including functional neuroimaging (fMRI), social psychological intervention experiments and evolutionary modeling methods, can contribute to the development of moral educational programs. Particularly, the present study focuses on the application of attainable and relevant moral models, which are usually perceived to be closer to students’ selfhood compared to extraordinary moral saints, in moral education.
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, and 27 moreEvolutionary Psychology, Experimental Psychology, Computer Science, Philosophy, Ethics, Applied Ethics, Moral Psychology, Education, Social Sciences, Educational Psychology, Educational Research, Social Studies Education, Computational Modelling, Character Education, Morality (Social Psychology), Probabilistic Markov Modeling, Social Neuroscience, Modeling and Simulation, Moral Development, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Cognitive Neuroscience, Social Cognitive Neuroscience, Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience, Simulation, Moral, and Morality
The main purpose of the present study is to design a more effective methodology for moral education by utilizing stories of attainable and imitable moral exemplars. Because the mere presentation of moral exemplars can induce a backfire in... more
The main purpose of the present study is to design a more effective methodology for moral education by utilizing stories of attainable and imitable moral exemplars. Because the mere presentation of moral exemplars can induce a backfire in the long term given social psychology, we aimed at designing a sophisticated intervention using exemplars based on the social psychological theory of attainability. To test the effects of attainable moral exemplars, we examined the improvement of voluntary service activity engagement after reading the stories of moral exemplars between attainable, unattainable exemplar, and control conditions. The experimental results showed that the longitudinal increase of activity engagement hours was significantly greater in the attainable group compared to unattainable and control groups.
Research Interests: Psychology, Personality Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Experimental Psychology, and 27 moreEthics, Applied Ethics, Moral Psychology, Education, Educational Technology, Behavioral Sciences, Social Sciences, Higher Education, Motivation (Psychology), Educational Psychology, Educational Research, Virtue Ethics, Social Studies Education, Student Motivation And Engagement, Character Education, Moral Development, Longitudinal Research, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Secondary Education, Social Studies, Motivation, Moral, Morality, Intervention, Psychological Intervention, and Longitudinal Studies
The main purpose of this essay is to explore the relation between Aristotelian moral philosophy, moral psychology, and recent neurosciences. This essay discusses whether motivational externalism can be supported by recent neuroscientific... more
The main purpose of this essay is to explore the relation between Aristotelian moral philosophy, moral psychology, and recent neurosciences. This essay discusses whether motivational externalism can be supported by recent neuroscientific evidence. I propose that given various neurosurgical studies from Phineas Gage’s case study to ventromedial prefrontal cortical (VMPFC) lesion experiments, the findings can refute motivational internalism, and can support motivational externalists. Those studies have shown that developed and sophisticated moral reasoning does not necessarily generate moral motivation and actual moral behavior at the end. Instead, there is a motivational force that drives our moral behavior independent from reasoning-based moral judgment from the vantage point of neurosciences.
Second, I demonstrate whether or not findings in developmental neuroscience correspond to moral developmental theory inspired by Aristotelian ethics. Recent studies conducted by developmental neuroscientists show that the developmental process, early habituation followed by development of reasoning, actually occurs in human brains. In addition, intervention-based neuroimaging studies would give us inspiration about how the development of habit and reasoning can be stimulated by interventions by demonstrating that neural-level changes are occurring during the course of the interventions.
I assert that recent neuroscience studies can support Aristotelian moral philosophy and developmental psychology.
Second, I demonstrate whether or not findings in developmental neuroscience correspond to moral developmental theory inspired by Aristotelian ethics. Recent studies conducted by developmental neuroscientists show that the developmental process, early habituation followed by development of reasoning, actually occurs in human brains. In addition, intervention-based neuroimaging studies would give us inspiration about how the development of habit and reasoning can be stimulated by interventions by demonstrating that neural-level changes are occurring during the course of the interventions.
I assert that recent neuroscience studies can support Aristotelian moral philosophy and developmental psychology.
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Psychology, Positive Psychology, Neuropsychology, Developmental Psychology, and 25 morePhilosophy, Ethics, Philosophical Psychology, Moral Psychology, Education, Self and Identity, Social Sciences, Aristotle, Neuroimaging, Educational Psychology, Educational Research, Virtue Ethics, Theoretical Psychology, Character Education, Virtues (Moral Psychology), Educational Neuroscience, Morality (Social Psychology), Social Neuroscience, Moral Development, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Cognitive Neuroscience, Aristotle's Ethics, Self-Esteem, and Moral
We conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment to examine cultural influences on moral decision making processes at the neural level. The present study compared the neural correlates of moral judgment between... more
We conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment to examine cultural influences on moral decision making processes at the neural level. The present study compared the neural correlates of moral judgment between Korean and American participants. A total of sixteen (8 Korean and 8 American participants) healthy adult participants were recruited, and they were scanned using a whole-body 3T MRI scanner. For moral dilemmas, the present study utilized Greene et al.’s moral-personal and moral-impersonal dilemmas. The result showed some significant cross-cultural differences. First, under the moral-personal condition, Korean participants showed significantly stronger activity in the right putamen and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. On the other hand, American participants showed significantly stronger activity in the bilateral anterior cingulate cortex. Second, in case of the moral-impersonal condition, the result of the statistical analysis reported that neural activity in the right postcentral sulcus among Korean participants was significantly stronger than that among American participants. Meanwhile, the left frontopolar cortex showed significantly stronger activity among American participants compared with Korean participants. In addition to the results of these whole-brain comparisons, we analyzed correlations between participants’ self-reported socio-cultural perspective score and neural activity. Given the finding of the present study, we shall conclude that socio-cultural factors significantly influence on moral judgment and moral development at the neural level. However, due to its small number of recruited participants, the statistical power and generalizability of the finding of the present study would be limited, so future cross-cultural neuroimaging studies of moral functioning should be conducted.
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Cultural Studies, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, and 16 morePersonality Psychology, Social Psychology, Neuropsychology, Developmental Psychology, Moral Psychology, Neuroimaging, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Theory, Cultural Psychology, Culture, Cross-Cultural Studies, Cognitive Neuropsychology, Social Neuroscience, Moral Development, Moral Philosophy, and Cognitive Neuroscience
This study attempts to design an effective science ethics education program for high-school and university level students who are majoring in natural sciences or engineering. The overall structure of our educational program focuses on the... more
This study attempts to design an effective science ethics education program for high-school and university level students who are majoring in natural sciences or engineering. The overall structure of our educational program focuses on the socioscientific issues-based approach and theories and topics of science, technology and society (STS). To measure the effects of this program, we apply a semi-structured questionnaire before and after semester. The questionnaire assesses students’ development in moral judgment and epistemological beliefs on natural sciences and technology.
Research Interests: Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Experimental Psychology, Ethics, Philosophy of Science, and 17 moreApplied Ethics, Moral Psychology, Education, Science Education, Research Ethics, Sociology of Knowledge, Educational Psychology, Educational Research, History of Science, Computer Networks, Sociology of Science, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Secondary Education, Databases, Software, and Science and Technology Studies
This essay considers how neuroimaging methods can measure the development of moral virtue in individuals. The neuroimaging presents significant advantages over current methods for assessing moral development, such as self-reporting, which... more
This essay considers how neuroimaging methods can measure the development of moral virtue in individuals. The neuroimaging presents significant advantages over current methods for assessing moral development, such as self-reporting, which (1) do not give scientists insight into the substructures that process moral virtue and that underlie manifest behavior; and which (2) are biased by respondents’ subjective reporting. Thus, such traditional methods are problematic for researchers in the field of virtue psychology. The neuroimaging methods can address these problems by giving researchers access to quantifiable data on inner events, allowing them to develop specific metrics to apply to moral virtue development in individuals. Thus, this essay demonstrates how to apply neuroimaging methods in practice. First, this essay reviews the brain connectivity analysis and suggests its application to the studies of virtue psychology. Virtue psychologists will be able to examine whether moral functions are properly integrated into selfhood with the brain connectivity analysis. Second, this essay introduces structural neuroimaging methods to examine the neural substrate of moral virtue. By comparing both the functional and structural characteristics of brains between moral exemplars and ordinary people, we will be able to gain insights about the measurement of moral virtue.
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Social Psychology, and 21 moreNeuropsychology, Developmental Psychology, Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Ethics, Philosophy of Science, Moral Psychology, Social Sciences, Aristotle, Neuroimaging, Educational Psychology, Virtue Ethics, Philosophy of Psychology, Measurement and Evaluation, Social Neuroscience, Moral Development, Philosophy of Cognitive Science, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Moral
The stories of moral exemplars have been utilized in moral education to induce students to emulate the moral behavior presented by the stories. Several developmental and social psychological mechanisms, i.e., vicarious social learning,... more
The stories of moral exemplars have been utilized in moral education to induce students to emulate the moral behavior presented by the stories. Several developmental and social psychological mechanisms, i.e., vicarious social learning, moral elevation and upward social comparison, explain why such a presentation of moral stories can promote moral motivation. However, recent social psychological studies have demonstrated that the mere presentation of moral stories, particularly those of extreme moral exemplars, may provoke negative emotional responses and weaken motivation to emulate the presented moral behavior. Thus, this dissertation uses research methods in neuroscience, developmental and social psychology to propose a more effective way to apply moral stories to educational settings while minimizing possible negative emotional and motivational outcomes. Two neuroscientific experiments identified the psychological processes involved in moral emotion and motivation, which are associated with moral inspiration induced by moral stories. Furthermore, two psychological experiments examined which type of moral stories effectively promoted moral motivation in a lab and in a school setting.
The first part of this dissertation identified the neural-level mechanism of moral emotion and motivation. Study 1 meta-analyzed 43 previously published articles focusing on the neural correlates of moral functioning to illuminate the common neural foci of moral functioning in general. This study demonstrated that brain regions associated with selfhood and autobiographical self, such as the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and other regions associated with the default mode network (DMN) and cortical midline structures (CMS), were commonly activated in moral-task conditions. Study 2 examined the role of selfhood in moral emotion and motivation by conducting a functional neuroimaging experiment. The findings from this experiment showed that the seed regions, i.e., the MPFC and PCC, associated with selfhood significantly moderated neural activity in brain regions associated with moral emotion and motivation, particularly the insula, when participants were solving moral problems. These neuroimaging experiments suggest that selfhood is significantly involved in the process of moral emotion and moral motivation, and finally may influence the effect of moral inspiration.
The second part of this dissertation described psychological interventions designed to target and tweak the psychological process identified by the previous neuroscientific experiments. Study 3 compared the psychological influence of attainable and unattainable moral stories on the longitudinal change in moral motivation, which was measured by voluntary service activity engagement. This lab-level experiment demonstrated that attainable moral stories better promoted motivation among college students to engage in voluntary service activity compared to unattainable moral stories. Study 4 applied this intervention design to a school setting. This study examined whether the stories of peer exemplars better promoted moral motivation among middle schoolers than those of extraordinary exemplars did. The result of an eight-week intervention session showed that students who had discussed the moral virtue of peer exemplars were significantly more likely to engage in voluntary service activity after the end of the session compared to those who were presented with extraordinary exemplars. These results suggest that moral motivation might be effectively fostered by the utilization of attainable and relevant moral stories, such as stories of peer moral exemplars, instead of extraordinary moral stories, such as the stories of moral saints, in educational settings.
The first part of this dissertation identified the neural-level mechanism of moral emotion and motivation. Study 1 meta-analyzed 43 previously published articles focusing on the neural correlates of moral functioning to illuminate the common neural foci of moral functioning in general. This study demonstrated that brain regions associated with selfhood and autobiographical self, such as the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and other regions associated with the default mode network (DMN) and cortical midline structures (CMS), were commonly activated in moral-task conditions. Study 2 examined the role of selfhood in moral emotion and motivation by conducting a functional neuroimaging experiment. The findings from this experiment showed that the seed regions, i.e., the MPFC and PCC, associated with selfhood significantly moderated neural activity in brain regions associated with moral emotion and motivation, particularly the insula, when participants were solving moral problems. These neuroimaging experiments suggest that selfhood is significantly involved in the process of moral emotion and moral motivation, and finally may influence the effect of moral inspiration.
The second part of this dissertation described psychological interventions designed to target and tweak the psychological process identified by the previous neuroscientific experiments. Study 3 compared the psychological influence of attainable and unattainable moral stories on the longitudinal change in moral motivation, which was measured by voluntary service activity engagement. This lab-level experiment demonstrated that attainable moral stories better promoted motivation among college students to engage in voluntary service activity compared to unattainable moral stories. Study 4 applied this intervention design to a school setting. This study examined whether the stories of peer exemplars better promoted moral motivation among middle schoolers than those of extraordinary exemplars did. The result of an eight-week intervention session showed that students who had discussed the moral virtue of peer exemplars were significantly more likely to engage in voluntary service activity after the end of the session compared to those who were presented with extraordinary exemplars. These results suggest that moral motivation might be effectively fostered by the utilization of attainable and relevant moral stories, such as stories of peer moral exemplars, instead of extraordinary moral stories, such as the stories of moral saints, in educational settings.
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Personality Psychology, and 62 morePositive Psychology, Social Psychology, Neuropsychology, Developmental Psychology, Emotion, Experimental Psychology, Ethics, Experimental philosophy, Applied Ethics, Moral Psychology, Education, Self and Identity, Educational Technology, Social Sciences, Youth Studies, Higher Education, Neuroimaging, Narrative, Motivation (Psychology), Educational Psychology, Educational Research, Virtue Ethics, Community Engagement & Participation, Student Motivation And Engagement, Cognition, Civic Education, Social Cognition, Character Education, Adolescent Development, Self-Efficacy, Student Engagement, Cognitive Neuropsychology, Affective Neuroscience, Emotions (Social Psychology), Morality (Social Psychology), Social Neuroscience, Moral Development, Positive Youth Development, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Moral emotions, Cognitive Neuroscience, Secondary Education, Civic Engagement, Adolescent, Motivation (Education), College student development, FMRI, Prosocial Behavior, Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience, Youth, Motivation, Moral, Brain, Moral Judgment, Morality, Intervention, Students Motivation, Educational studies, Social Emotional Learning, Community participation and engagement, and Student
We investigated the neural substrate of moral decision making processes of Koreans and Americans. Korean participants showed significantly more brain activity in the right putamen and right superior frontal gyrus in the moral-personal... more
We investigated the neural substrate of moral decision making processes of Koreans and Americans. Korean participants showed significantly more brain activity in the right putamen and right superior frontal gyrus in the moral-personal condition, and in the right postcentral sulcus in the moral-impersonal condition. American participants showed a significantly higher degree of activity in the bilateral anterior cingulate cortex in the moral-personal condition, and in the right medial frontal gyrus in the moral-impersonal condition. These findings support the ideas of the interaction between cultural environment, education and brain development that have been recently proposed in cultural and educational psychology.
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Cultural Studies, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, and 62 morePersonality Psychology, Social Psychology, Neuropsychology, Developmental Psychology, Asian Studies, Ethics, Applied Ethics, Moral Psychology, Social Sciences, Brain Imaging, Decision Making, Neuroimaging, Judgment and decision making, Judgment and Decision Making (Judgment And Decision Making), Educational Psychology, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Korean Studies, South Korea, Cognition, Decision Sciences, Social Cognition, East Asia, Cross-Cultural Psychology, Culture, Cross-Cultural Studies, Behavioral Decision Making, East Asian Studies, Cognitive Neuropsychology, Affective Neuroscience, Neuroethics, Morality (Social Psychology), Social Neuroscience, Moral Development, Social Developmental Psychology, Developmental Social Psychology, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Moral emotions, Cognitive Neuroscience, Culture and Cognition, Cross-cultural studies (Culture), Decision-Making, Prefrontal Cortex, Behavioral Neuroscience, Moral and Political Philosophy, Social Judgements, Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience, Anthropology of ethics and morality, Brain Mapping, Moral, Brain, Judgement and Decision Making (JDM), Social Development, Korea, Moral Judgment, Neurociencias, Morality, Neuropsicología, Psicologia Cognitiva, Developmental neuropsychology, Neuropsicologia, and Neurosciences
What is the neural-level basis of human morality? Various empirical studies, such as fMRI investigations, have been conducted to answer this question. However, because the majority of the previous studies have focused on human moral... more
What is the neural-level basis of human morality? Various empirical studies, such as fMRI investigations, have been conducted to answer this question. However, because the majority of the previous studies have focused on human moral functioning in a specific domain, such as moral decision making or moral affection, they have not been able to examine the common neural substrate of human morality across diverse psychological functional domains. To address this limitation, the present study conducted a meta-analysis based on the previous fMRI investigations focused on diverse moral functions. In addition, philosophical and psychological implications of the result were discussed.
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Social Psychology, and 50 moreNeuropsychology, Ethics, Philosophical Psychology, Applied Ethics, Moral Psychology, Self and Identity, Social Sciences, Brain Imaging, Decision Making, Neuroimaging, Judgment and decision making, Judgment and Decision Making (Judgment And Decision Making), Philosophy of Psychology, Cognition, Social Cognition, Meta-Analysis and Systematic Review, Behavioral Decision Making, Cognitive Neuropsychology, Neuroethics, Morality (Social Psychology), The Self, Social Neuroscience, Moral Development, Brain and Cognitive Development, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Moral and Cognitive Reasoning, Moral emotions, Cognitive Neuroscience, Social cognition (Psychology), Behavioral Neuroscience, Philosophy of cognitive neuroscience, Social Cognitive Neuroscience, Philosophy of Neuroscience, Neuroethics (Philosophy), Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience, Brain Mapping, Moral, Brain, Judgement and Decision Making (JDM), Moral Reasoning, Moral Judgment, Morality, Brain Science, Neuropsicología, Self-concept, Neuropsicologia, Self Concept, Kohlberg, and Neurosciences
Moral psychologists argue that moral self associated with self-related psychological processes significantly influences moral functioning including moral affection, cognition, and motivation [1,2]. However, there have not been any... more
Moral psychologists argue that moral self associated with self-related psychological processes significantly influences moral functioning including moral affection, cognition, and motivation [1,2]. However, there have not been any previous neuroimaging studies that investigated the modulatory role of self-related processes in moral functioning. In the present study, by conducting psycho-physiological interaction (PPI) and Granger causality analyses of neuroimaging data acquired while subjects were solving moral dilemmas, we examined how default mode network (DMN) regions, which are associated with selfhood-related processes in part, such as self-reflection, self-referencing, self-related emotional and episodic memory processing, the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) in particular [3], interact with and affect activity in other brain regions related to moral functioning.
Subjects: 16 right-handed healthy adults (mean age 28.59 years, SD 3.18 years; 8 females; 8 Koreans, 8 Americans) participated in the experiment. Data acquisition: Functional images were scanned at 3T (GE Signa 750, spiral-in/out sequence, TR = 2s). Respiration and cardiac (pulse oximetry) responses were recorded using a respiratory belt and pulse-ox sensor attached to a finger. The data was initially acquired and used for a cross-cultural social neuroscientific experiment [4]. Experiment: Each subject was requested to solve 22 moral-personal, 18 moral-impersonal and 20 neutral dilemmas during functional scanning sessions [4,5,6] (Fig1). Each trial consisted of a 46-sec decision making and 14-sec inter-trial fixation phases. Data analysis: The acquired images were analyzed using SPM 8 and MATLAB. (1) Pre-processing consisted of physiological noise reduction [7,8], slice time correction, motion correction, co-registration, normalization, and spatial smoothing (Gaussian FWHM = 8mm). Demographic variables (ethnicity, age, gender) were included in the statistical model as covariates. (2) A whole-brain t-test examined which regions were significantly activated under both moral-personal and moral-impersonal conditions compared to the control condition. (3) A PPI analysis was performed based on two seed regions, the PCC (MNI [0, -54, 28]) and MPFC (MNI [0, 54, 12]), to investigate which regions showed significant interaction with these seed regions. (4) Additional Granger causality analysis focusing on a region displaying mixed PPI results was conducted using The MVGC Multivariate Granger Causality Toolbox [9].
Results:
(1) Task Activation: In both conditions, regions associated with the DMN were significantly activated as presented in previous studies [3,4,5] (Fig2). More regions showed significant activity under the moral-personal condition compared to the moral-impersonal condition.
(2) PPI Analysis: Under the moral-personal condition, the dorsolateral prefrontal (DLPFC) and orbitofrontal cortices, cerebellum, brainstem, midbrain, and anterior insula (AI) showed significant positive interaction with both the PCC and MPFC. However, the posterior insula (PI) showed significant negative interaction with both seed regions (Fig3(a/b)). Under the moral-impersonal condition, although the overall result was identical to that under the moral-personal condition, the interaction between the MPFC and DLPFC was insignificant (Fig3(c/d)).
(3) Granger Causality Analysis: Only under the moral-personal condition, was significant Granger causality from the PI to AI and MPFC, MPFC to AI, and AI to PCC found (Fig4). However, no significant causality was discovered under the moral-impersonal condition.
Conclusions: Regions of the DMN that take part in selfhood-related processing significantly interacted with other regions associated with moral functioning in moral judgment consistent with our hypothesis. In addition, the result of the Granger causality analysis indicated that there were significant influences between DMN and morality-related regions.
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[6] Greene, J.D., Nystrom, L.E., Engell, A.D., Darley, J.M., Cohen, J.D. (2004), ‘The Neural Bases of Cognitive Conflict and Control in Moral Judgment’, Neuron, vol. 44, no. 2, pp. 389-400
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[8] Chang, C., Glover, G.H. (2009), ‘Relationship between respiration, end-tidal CO2, and BOLD signals in resting-state fMRI’, NeuroImage, vol. 47, no. 4, pp. 1381-1393.
[9] Barnett, L., Seth, A.K. (2014), ‘The MVGC multivariate Granger causality toolbox: A new approach to Granger-causal inference’, Journal of Neuroscience Methods, vol. 223, pp. 50-68.
Subjects: 16 right-handed healthy adults (mean age 28.59 years, SD 3.18 years; 8 females; 8 Koreans, 8 Americans) participated in the experiment. Data acquisition: Functional images were scanned at 3T (GE Signa 750, spiral-in/out sequence, TR = 2s). Respiration and cardiac (pulse oximetry) responses were recorded using a respiratory belt and pulse-ox sensor attached to a finger. The data was initially acquired and used for a cross-cultural social neuroscientific experiment [4]. Experiment: Each subject was requested to solve 22 moral-personal, 18 moral-impersonal and 20 neutral dilemmas during functional scanning sessions [4,5,6] (Fig1). Each trial consisted of a 46-sec decision making and 14-sec inter-trial fixation phases. Data analysis: The acquired images were analyzed using SPM 8 and MATLAB. (1) Pre-processing consisted of physiological noise reduction [7,8], slice time correction, motion correction, co-registration, normalization, and spatial smoothing (Gaussian FWHM = 8mm). Demographic variables (ethnicity, age, gender) were included in the statistical model as covariates. (2) A whole-brain t-test examined which regions were significantly activated under both moral-personal and moral-impersonal conditions compared to the control condition. (3) A PPI analysis was performed based on two seed regions, the PCC (MNI [0, -54, 28]) and MPFC (MNI [0, 54, 12]), to investigate which regions showed significant interaction with these seed regions. (4) Additional Granger causality analysis focusing on a region displaying mixed PPI results was conducted using The MVGC Multivariate Granger Causality Toolbox [9].
Results:
(1) Task Activation: In both conditions, regions associated with the DMN were significantly activated as presented in previous studies [3,4,5] (Fig2). More regions showed significant activity under the moral-personal condition compared to the moral-impersonal condition.
(2) PPI Analysis: Under the moral-personal condition, the dorsolateral prefrontal (DLPFC) and orbitofrontal cortices, cerebellum, brainstem, midbrain, and anterior insula (AI) showed significant positive interaction with both the PCC and MPFC. However, the posterior insula (PI) showed significant negative interaction with both seed regions (Fig3(a/b)). Under the moral-impersonal condition, although the overall result was identical to that under the moral-personal condition, the interaction between the MPFC and DLPFC was insignificant (Fig3(c/d)).
(3) Granger Causality Analysis: Only under the moral-personal condition, was significant Granger causality from the PI to AI and MPFC, MPFC to AI, and AI to PCC found (Fig4). However, no significant causality was discovered under the moral-impersonal condition.
Conclusions: Regions of the DMN that take part in selfhood-related processing significantly interacted with other regions associated with moral functioning in moral judgment consistent with our hypothesis. In addition, the result of the Granger causality analysis indicated that there were significant influences between DMN and morality-related regions.
[1] Blasi, A. (1999), ‘Emotions and Moral Motivation’, Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 1-19.
[2] Hardy, S.A., Carlo, G. (2005), ‘Identity as a Source of Moral Motivation’, Human Development, vol. 48, no. 4, pp. 232-256.
[3] Buckner, R., Andrews-Hanna, J., Schacter, D. (2008), ‘The Brain’s Default Network: Anatomy, Function, and Relevance to Disease’, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 1124, no. 1, pp.1-38.
[4] Han, H., Glover, G.H., Jeong, C. (2014), ‘Cultural Influences on the Neural Correlate of Moral Decision Making Processes’, Behavioural Brain Research, vol. 259, pp. 215-228.
[5] Greene, J.D., Sommerville, R.B., Nystrom, L.E., Darley, J.M., Cohen, J.D. (2001), ‘An fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment’, Science, vol. 293, no. 5537, pp. 2105-2108.
[6] Greene, J.D., Nystrom, L.E., Engell, A.D., Darley, J.M., Cohen, J.D. (2004), ‘The Neural Bases of Cognitive Conflict and Control in Moral Judgment’, Neuron, vol. 44, no. 2, pp. 389-400
[7] Glover, G.H., Li, T-Q, Ress, D. (2000), ‘Image-based method for retrospective correction of physiological motion effects in fMRI: RETROICOR’, Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, vol. 44, no. 1, pp. 162-167.
[8] Chang, C., Glover, G.H. (2009), ‘Relationship between respiration, end-tidal CO2, and BOLD signals in resting-state fMRI’, NeuroImage, vol. 47, no. 4, pp. 1381-1393.
[9] Barnett, L., Seth, A.K. (2014), ‘The MVGC multivariate Granger causality toolbox: A new approach to Granger-causal inference’, Journal of Neuroscience Methods, vol. 223, pp. 50-68.
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Personality Psychology, and 45 moreSocial Psychology, Neuropsychology, Developmental Psychology, Philosophy, Ethics, Applied Ethics, Moral Psychology, Social Sciences, Brain Imaging, Decision Making, Neuroimaging, Judgment and decision making, Judgment and Decision Making (Judgment And Decision Making), Motivation (Psychology), Cognition, Decision Sciences, Social Cognition, Behavioral Decision Making, Cognitive Neuropsychology, Affective Neuroscience, Neuroethics, Morality (Social Psychology), Social Neuroscience, Moral Development, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Cognitive Neuroscience (in Cognition/Cognitive Development), Moral emotions, Cognitive Neuroscience, Social cognition (Psychology), Social neuroscience (Psychology), FMRI, Behavioral Neuroscience, Moral and Political Philosophy, Social Cognitive Neuroscience, Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience, Brain Mapping, Moral, Brain, Judgement and Decision Making (JDM), Moral Judgment, Morality, Neuropsicología, Neuropsicologia, and Neurosciences
Research Interests: Psychology, Quantitative Psychology, Statistics, Social Research Methods and Methodology, Social Sciences, and 15 moreResearch Methods and Methodology, Research Methodology, Research Design, Bayesian, Educational Research, Applied Statistics, Data Analysis, Open Source Software, Statistical Analysis, Quantitative Research, Quantitative Methods, Quantitative methodology, Quantitative Methods (Psychology), Bayesian Inference, and Software
Research Interests: Abnormal Psychology, Applied Ethics, Behavioral Sciences, Brain Imaging, Autobiography, and 15 moreBehavioral Decision Making, Adolescent, Autobiographical Memory, Behavioral Neuroscience, Antisocial Personality Disorder, Brain Mapping, Brain, Child, Cerebral Cortex, Aggression, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Big Five Personality Traits, Adult, Autobiographies, and Angular Gyrus
Please see files under "Tutorial" folder for further details.
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The present study aimed to examine how to improve the effectiveness of moral exemplar-applied interventions based on the pillars of the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) framework, autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Past research has... more
The present study aimed to examine how to improve the effectiveness of moral exemplar-applied interventions based on the pillars of the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) framework, autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Past research has mainly focused on the relatedness and attainability of moral exemplars for predicting motivation outcomes. The data for this study consisted of synthesized data sets from previous studies examining the motivational impacts of distinct moral exemplars and intervention methods. The main syntheses for these data sets used Multilevel Modeling (MLM) focusing on relatability, attainability, and intervention methods, corresponding to relatedness, competence, and autonomy in the SDT, respectively, as predictors. In general, there was a significant interaction effect between the attainability or relatability, and the intervention method. Autonomous instruction methods, which support autonomy, were demonstrated to boost motivational outcomes. Implications from ...
Research Interests: Psychology, Positive Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Philosophy, and 15 moreMoral Psychology, Education, Social Sciences, Educational Psychology, Character Education, Moral Development, Autonomy, Positive Youth Development, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Moral, Morality, Psychological Intervention, Self Determination Theory, and Motivation Psychology
I explored the association between components constituting the basis for moral and optimal human functioning, i.e., moral reasoning, moral identity, empathy, and purpose, via network analysis. I employed factor scores instead of composite... more
I explored the association between components constituting the basis for moral and optimal human functioning, i.e., moral reasoning, moral identity, empathy, and purpose, via network analysis. I employed factor scores instead of composite scores that most previous studies used for better accuracy in score estimation in this study. Then, I estimated the network structure among collected variables and centrality indicators. For additional information, the structure and indicators were compared between two groups, participants who engaged in civic activities highly versus lowly. The results demonstrated significant intra- and inter-scale associations in the network. The network structure was invariant across the two groups. Despite the network invariance, I found that the global connectivity between and centrality indicators of examined factors were higher among the high civic engagement group in general. I discussed the implications of the findings in research on moral functioning bas...
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Philosophy, and 15 moreEthics, Moral Psychology, Social Sciences, Virtue Ethics, Civic Education, Wisdom, Network Analysis, Moral Development, Youth Civic Engagement, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Empathy, Moral, Social Development, and Centrality
Despite the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, it provided the opportunity to investigate factors associated with compliance with public health measures that could inform responses to future pandemics. We analysed cross-country... more
Despite the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, it provided the opportunity to investigate factors associated with compliance with public health measures that could inform responses to future pandemics. We analysed cross-country data (k = 121, N = 15,740) collected one year into the COVID-19 pandemic to investigate factors related to compliance with COVID-19 guidelines. These factors include social norms, moral values, trust, stress, and demographic factors. We found that social norms to follow preventive measures were positively correlated with compliance with local prevention guidelines. Compliance was also predicted by concern about the moral value of harm and care, trust in government and the scientific community, stress, and demographic factors. Finally, we discuss country-level differences in the associations between predictors and compliance. Overall, results indicate that the harm/care dimension of moral foundations and trust are critical to the development of prog...
Research Interests: Psychology, Social Psychology, Health Psychology, Moral Psychology, Self and Identity, and 15 moreEpidemiology, Social Sciences, Mental Health, Trust, Resilience, Global Health, Identity (Culture), Compliance, Public Health, Social Trust, Cross Cultural Psychology, Cross cultural studies, Harm, Pandemic, and CoVid
Research Interests: Psychology, Personality Psychology, Health Psychology, Epidemiology, Psychometrics, and 15 morePersonality, Conscientiousness, Mental Health, Personality Assessment, Kosovo, Compliance, Network Analysis, Motivation, Psych, Neuroticism, Personality and Individual Differences, Big Five Personality Traits, Agreeableness, Psychological distress, and Openness to experience
Primary stressors are direct outcomes of extreme events (e.g., viruses, floodwater) whereas secondary stressors stem from pre-disaster life circumstances and societal arrangements (e.g., illness, problematic pre-disaster policies) or from... more
Primary stressors are direct outcomes of extreme events (e.g., viruses, floodwater) whereas secondary stressors stem from pre-disaster life circumstances and societal arrangements (e.g., illness, problematic pre-disaster policies) or from inefficient responses to the extreme event. Secondary stressors can cause significant long-term damage to people affected but are also tractable and amenable to change. In this study we explored the association between secondary stressors, social identity processes, social support, and perceived stress and resilience. Pre-registered analyses of data from the COVIDiSTRESS Global Survey Round II (N = 14,600; 43 countries) show that secondary stressors are positively associated with perceived stress and negatively associated with resilience, even when controlling for the effects of primary stressors. Being a woman or having lower socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with higher exposure to secondary stressors, higher perceived stress, and lower re...
Research Interests: Psychology, Social Psychology, Health Psychology, Self and Identity, Epidemiology, and 15 moreSocial Sciences, Environmental Psychology, Mental Health, Resilience, Public Health Policy, Social Support, Public Health, Multidisciplinary, Psychological Well Being, Cross Cultural Psychology, Social Stress, Cross cultural studies, Psychosocial, Psychological Resilience, and CoVid
Objective: Although compliance scales have been used to assess compliance with health guidelines to reduce the spread of COVID-19, no scale known to us has shown content validity regarding global guidelines and reliability across a large... more
Objective: Although compliance scales have been used to assess compliance with health guidelines to reduce the spread of COVID-19, no scale known to us has shown content validity regarding global guidelines and reliability across a large international sample. Here, we have assessed the validity and reliability of the Compliance Scale developed by the COVIDiSTRESS II Global Consortium, a group of over 150 researchers from across the globe. Methods: We used exploratory factor analysis to determine the most reliable items on the English version of the survey. We conducted a measurement invariance test to determine whether the different language versions of the scale are measuring the same construct with the same measurement structure. Invariance testing indicated that measurement alignment was needed to ensure that the scales are comparable across languages and cultures. After alignment, we employed a novel R code to run MC simulation for alignment validation. Results: We found that al...
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Objective: Vaccines are an effective means to reduce the spread of diseases, but they are sometimes met with hesitancy that needs to be understood.Methods: In this study, we analysed data from a large, cross-country survey conducted... more
Objective: Vaccines are an effective means to reduce the spread of diseases, but they are sometimes met with hesitancy that needs to be understood.Methods: In this study, we analysed data from a large, cross-country survey conducted between June and August 2021 in 43 countries (N = 15,740) to investigate the roles of trust in government and science in shaping vaccine attitudes and willingness to be vaccinated. Results: We found that, despite significant variability between countries, both forms of institutional trust were associated with a higher willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Further, we found that conspiratorial thinking and anti-expert sentiments predicted reduced trust in government and science, respectively, and that trust mediated the relationship between these beliefs and ultimate vaccine attitudes. Although most countries displayed similar relationships between conspiratorial thinking and anti-expert sentiments, trust, and vaccine attitudes, we identified three c...
Research Interests: Psychology, Social Psychology, Health Psychology, Education, Epidemiology, and 15 moreInfectious disease epidemiology, Social Sciences, Trust, Conspiracy Theories, Public Health Policy, Mediation, Health, Public Health, Social Trust, Vaccination, Motivation Psychology, Public Policy, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, CoVid, and Medical and Health Sciences
The VIA Classification of Strengths and Virtues is the most commonly used model of positive personality. In this study, we used two methods of model modification to develop models for two measures of the character strengths, the VIA... more
The VIA Classification of Strengths and Virtues is the most commonly used model of positive personality. In this study, we used two methods of model modification to develop models for two measures of the character strengths, the VIA Inventory of Strengths-Revised and the Global Assessment of Character Strengths. The first method consisted of freeing residual covariances based on modification indices until good fit was achieved. The second was residual network modeling (RNM), which frees residual partial correlations while minimizing a function that penalizes more complex models. Models based on both strategies were developed for the two questionnaires. The resulting structural models were then applied to four other samples. Though both modification procedures achieved good fit in the sample used to develop the models, only RNM resulted in adequate model fit for both measures in all cross-validation samples. This finding suggests RNM is more robust against overfitting than traditiona...
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Personality Psychology, Positive Psychology, Psychometry, and 15 moreSocial Psychology, Moral Psychology, Social Sciences, Psychometrics, Personality, Personality Assessment, Network Analysis, Psychological Well Being, Personality Development, Personality and Individual Differences, Social and Emotional Wellbeing, Personality Traits, Psychometrics and Test Development, Overfitting, and Residual
During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the COVIDiSTRESS Consortium launched an open-accessglobal survey to understand and improve individuals’ experiences related to the crisis. A year later,we extended this line of research by... more
During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the COVIDiSTRESS Consortium launched an open-accessglobal survey to understand and improve individuals’ experiences related to the crisis. A year later,we extended this line of research by launching a new survey to address the dynamic landscape of thepandemic. This survey was released with the goal of addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion byworking with over 150 researchers across the globe who collected data in 48 languages and dialectsacross 137 countries. The resulting cleaned dataset described here includes 15,740 of over 20,000responses. The dataset allows cross-cultural study of psychological wellbeing and behaviours a yearinto the pandemic. It includes measures of stress, resilience, vaccine attitudes, trust in government andscientists, compliance, and information acquisition and misperceptions regarding COVID-19. Openaccessraw and cleaned datasets with computed scores are available. Just as our initial COVIDiSTRESSdataset has ...
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Character strengths have become a popular topic in personality research. A set of questionnaires has recently been developed as measures of character strengths: the VIA Inventory of Strengths-Revised, two 96-item short forms of that... more
Character strengths have become a popular topic in personality research. A set of questionnaires has recently been developed as measures of character strengths: the VIA Inventory of Strengths-Revised, two 96-item short forms of that instrument, and two new measures called the Global Assessment of Character Strengths and Signature Strengths Survey. Collectively, these are referred to as the VIA Assessment Suite for Adults. Prior research has supported the reliability and validity of these measures. The current study extended those findings through a demographically stratified sample of 1,765 U.S. resident adults. Results indicated the scores were interchangeable across all three versions of the VIA-IS, irrespective of whether the items are all positively keyed or a mix of positive and negative items. In addition, the VIA-IS-R factor structure is also consistent with a previously identified three-factor model for the strengths. By freeing residual covariances, a model was developed fo...
Research Interests: Psychology, Psychological Assessment, Personality Psychology, Positive Psychology, Quantitative Psychology, and 15 moreAssessment, Psychometrics, Personality, Personality Assessment, Character Education, Measurement and Evaluation, Positive Youth Development, Medicine, Measurement, Character Strengths, Characteristics, Personality Traits, Psychological Tests, Psychological and Educational Testing, and Psychology and Cognitive Sciences
Research Interests: Psychology and Insula
Please see files under "Tutorial" folder for further details.
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Survey in 42 languages collecting global data on the psychological and behavioural impact of the COCID-19/coronavirus crisis. Collaborative open science project. By the COVIDiSTRESS global survey research community
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JASP, Jeffrey’s Amazing Statistics Program (official webpage: https://jasp-stats.org/), version 0.12.2, is an open-source, free statistical software package available on Windows, MacOS, and Linux platforms. It was developed by a group of... more
JASP, Jeffrey’s Amazing Statistics Program (official webpage: https://jasp-stats.org/), version 0.12.2, is an open-source, free statistical software package available on Windows, MacOS, and Linux platforms. It was developed by a group of quantitative methodologists who are interested in improving statistical testing and analysis methods used in the fields of psychological sciences. It implements various analysis methods, particularly those in Bayesian analysis and data science. The implemented methods include t-tests, ANOVA, regression analysis, factor analysis, machine learning, meta-analysis, network analysis, and SEM. JASP also includes a data editor for visual inspection and pre-processing. It supports data importing and exporting from/to various data sources. The statistical analysis program R constitutes the basis of JASP, but for users who are not familiar with programming, JASP is featured with a graphical user interface (GUI) so that the users can select analysis modules an...
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Research Interests: Psychology and Morality
We explored the relationship between 24 character strengths measured by the Global Assessment of Character Strengths (GACS), which was revised from the original VIA instrument, and moral functioning comprising postconventional moral... more
We explored the relationship between 24 character strengths measured by the Global Assessment of Character Strengths (GACS), which was revised from the original VIA instrument, and moral functioning comprising postconventional moral reasoning, empathic traits and moral identity. Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) was employed to explore the best models, which were more parsimonious than full regression models estimated through frequentist regression, predicting moral functioning indicators with the 24 candidate character strength predictors. Our exploration was conducted with a dataset collected from 666 college students at a public university in the Southern United States. Results showed that character strengths as measured by GACS partially predicted relevant moral functioning indicators. Performance evaluation results demonstrated that the best models identified by BMA performed significantly better than the full models estimated by frequentist regression in terms of AIC, BIC, and cr...
Research Interests: Psychology, Positive Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Philosophy, and 15 moreApplied Ethics, Moral Psychology, Educational Psychology, Character Education, Moral Development, Positive Youth Development, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Bayesian Analysis, Moral, Moral Character, Data Science, Morality, Regression, and Characteristics
The COVIDiSTRESS global survey collects data on early human responses to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic from 173 429 respondents in 48 countries. The open science study was co-designed by an international consortium of researchers to... more
The COVIDiSTRESS global survey collects data on early human responses to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic from 173 429 respondents in 48 countries. The open science study was co-designed by an international consortium of researchers to investigate how psychological responses differ across countries and cultures, and how this has impacted behaviour, coping and trust in government efforts to slow the spread of the virus. Starting in March 2020, COVIDiSTRESS leveraged the convenience of unpaid online recruitment to generate public data. The objective of the present analysis is to understand relationships between psychological responses in the early months of global coronavirus restrictions and help understand how different government measures succeed or fail in changing public behaviour. There were variations between and within countries. Although Western Europeans registered as more concerned over COVID-19, more stressed, and having slightly more trust in the governments' efforts, there...
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The Defining Issues Test (DIT) has been widely used in psychological experiments to assess one’s developmental level of moral reasoning in terms of postconventional reasoning. However, there have been concerns regarding whether the tool... more
The Defining Issues Test (DIT) has been widely used in psychological experiments to assess one’s developmental level of moral reasoning in terms of postconventional reasoning. However, there have been concerns regarding whether the tool is biased across people with different genders and political and religious views. To address the limitations, in the present study, I tested the validity of the brief version of the test, that is, the behavioral DIT, in terms of the measurement invariance and differential item functioning (DIF). I could not find any significant non-invariance at the test level or any item demonstrating practically significant DIF at the item level. The findings indicate that neither the test nor any of its items showed a significant bias toward any particular group. As a result, the collected validity evidence supports the use of test scores across different groups, enabling researchers who intend to examine participants’ moral reasoning development across heterogene...
Research Interests: Religion, Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Gender Studies, and 15 moreMoral Psychology, Psychometrics, Political Science, Politics, Gender, Quantitative Methods, Moral Development, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Moral and Cognitive Reasoning, Religious Studies, Moral, Moral Reasoning, Morality, and Experimental results
The level of moral development may be crucial to understand behavior when people have to choose between prioritizing individual gains or pursuing general social benefits. This study evaluated whether two different psychological... more
The level of moral development may be crucial to understand behavior when people have to choose between prioritizing individual gains or pursuing general social benefits. This study evaluated whether two different psychological constructs, moral reasoning and moral competence, are associated with cooperative behavior in the context of the prisoner's dilemma game, a two-person social dilemma where individuals choose between cooperation or defection. One hundred and eighty-nine Mexican university students completed the Defining Issues Test (DIT-2; measuring moral reasoning) and the Moral Competence Test (MCT) and played an online version of the prisoner’s dilemma game, once against each participant in a group of 6 to 10 players. Our results indicate that cooperative behavior is strongly affected by the outcomes in previous rounds: Except when both participants cooperated, the probability of cooperation with other participants in subsequent rounds decreased. Both the DIT-2 and MCT ...
Research Interests: Organizational Behavior, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Organizational Psychology, Developmental Psychology, and 15 moreExperimental Psychology, Game Theory, Ethics, Moral Psychology, Reasons, Prosocial Behavior, Cooperation, Moral, Social Development, Moral Reasoning, Defining issues Test, Dilemma, Experimental Social Psychology, Social Dilemma, and Moral dilemma
In this paper, findings from research in neuroscience of morality will be overviewed to consider the purposes of moral education. Particularly, I will focus on two main themes in neuroscience, novel neuroimaging and experimental... more
In this paper, findings from research in neuroscience of morality will be overviewed to consider the purposes of moral education. Particularly, I will focus on two main themes in neuroscience, novel neuroimaging and experimental investigations, and Bayesian learning mechanism. First, I will examine how neuroimaging and experimental studies contributed to our understanding of psychological mechanisms associated with moral functioning while addressing methodological concerns. Second, Bayesian learning mechanism will be introduced to acquire insights about how moral learning occurs in human brains. Based on the overviewed neuroscientific research on morality, I will examine how evidence can support the model of moral education proposed by virtue ethics, Neo-Aristotelian moral philosophy in particular. Particularly, two main aims of virtue ethics-based moral education, habituation of virtues and cultivation of phronesis, will be discussed as the important purposes of moral education bas...
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Philosophy, Ethics, and 15 moreNormative Ethics, Applied Ethics, Moral Psychology, Education, Educational Psychology, Political Science, Character Education, PHRONESIS, Moral Development, Social Developmental Psychology, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Moral, Morality, and Moral Disengagement
In the present study, we examined how the perceived attainability and relatability of moral exemplars predicted moral elevation and pleasantness among both adult and college student participants. Data collected from two experiments were... more
In the present study, we examined how the perceived attainability and relatability of moral exemplars predicted moral elevation and pleasantness among both adult and college student participants. Data collected from two experiments were analyzed with Bayesian multilevel modeling to explore which factors significantly predicted outcome variables at the story level. The analysis results demonstrated that the main effect of perceived relatability and the interaction effect between attainability and relatability shall be included in the best prediction model, and thus, were deemed to predict the outcome variables significantly. The main effect of relatability as well as its interaction with attainability positively predicted elevation and pleasantness. We discussed educational implications of the findings in terms of how relatability may be the first point of emphasis for moral educators to focus on and attainability can then bolster the effectiveness. These relatable and attainable mor...
Research Interests: Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Experimental Psychology, Ethics, and 15 moreApplied Ethics, Moral Psychology, Education, Social Sciences, Educational Psychology, Educational Research, Character Education, Education Ethics, Moral Development, Moral Education, Moral, Moral Reasoning, Morality, Character Development, and Moral Disengagement
In the present study, we explored the best regression models that explain the developmental path of dispositional empathy among Iranian participants using Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA). BMA, a data-driven analysis method, was employed to... more
In the present study, we explored the best regression models that explain the developmental path of dispositional empathy among Iranian participants using Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA). BMA, a data-driven analysis method, was employed to identify the most likely candidate regression models given the collected data. We reported the best regression model for each dependent variable and different components of applied questionnaires by evaluating and comparing multiple model fit indicators—Akaike information criterion, Bayesian information criterion, adjusted R2, Bayes Factor model, and leave-one-out cross-validation root-mean-square error—among candidate regression models identified by BMA. We discussed the theoretical implications of the findings regarding factors associated with empathy development and the methodological implications of using data-driven analysis in the field.
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Psychology, Quantitative Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Moral Psychology, and 15 moreBayesian, Educational Psychology, Cultural Psychology, Iranian Studies, Human Development, Quantitative Methods, Social Developmental Psychology, Empathy, Psych, Social Development, Data Science, Regression, Regression Analysis, Akaike Information Criterion, and Bayesian Information Criterion
In the present study, I explore the relationship between purpose, which was measured by the Claremont Purpose Scale, and moral psychological indicators, moral reasoning, moral identity, and empathy. Purpose was quantified in terms of... more
In the present study, I explore the relationship between purpose, which was measured by the Claremont Purpose Scale, and moral psychological indicators, moral reasoning, moral identity, and empathy. Purpose was quantified in terms of three subcomponents: meaning, goal, and beyond-the-self motivation. Moral reasoning was assessed in term of utilization of postconventional moral reasoning. Moral identity was examined with two subscales: moral internalization, and symbolization. Among diverse subscales of empathy, I focused on empathic concern and perspective taking, which have been reported to be strongly related to morality. To explore the best prediction models using the data, I employed Bayesian Model Selection and Bayesian regression analysis. In general, purpose was significantly predicted by most surveyed moral psychological indicators but not by moral symbolization. The best prediction model for beyond-the-self motivation included the most moral psychological indicator predicto...
Research Interests: Psychology, Positive Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Applied Ethics, Moral Psychology, and 15 moreEducation, Self and Identity, Bayesian, Meaning, Quantitative Methods, Moral Development, Positive Youth Development, Empathy, Moral, Social Development, Moral Reasoning, Data Science, Morality, Moral Disengagement, and Motivation Psychology
We applied the deep learning method, which has been developed in the fields of computer and data science for accurate prediction, to predict political purpose development during emerging adulthood. We tested whether deep learning more... more
We applied the deep learning method, which has been developed in the fields of computer and data science for accurate prediction, to predict political purpose development during emerging adulthood. We tested whether deep learning more accurately predicted Wave 2 political purpose with Wave 1 predictors compared with traditional regression. A convolutional neural network consisting of two dense and dropout layers was trained to predict the outcome variable. For comparison, we also estimated a multinomial logistic regression model. The result demonstrated that deep learning outperformed traditional regression in general while effectively minimizing overfitting. Moreover, from exploratory analysis, we found that deep learning might be able to model the non-linear relationship between the predictors and outcome variable. Based on the findings, we discussed the implications of the present study within the context of improving citizens’ lives in smart cities.
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Previous research suggests that prior experience of pain affects the expression of empathy. However, most of these studies attended to physical pain despite evidence indicating that other forms of pain may also affect brain activity and... more
Previous research suggests that prior experience of pain affects the expression of empathy. However, most of these studies attended to physical pain despite evidence indicating that other forms of pain may also affect brain activity and emotional states in similar ways. To address this limitation, we compared empathic responses of 33 participants, some of whom had experienced a personal loss, across three conditions: observing strangers in physical pain, psychological pain, and a non-painful condition. We also examined the effect of presence of prior painful experience on empathic reactions. In addition, we examined the stimulation type, prior experience, and ERPs in the early Late Positive Potential (300–550 ms), late Late Positive Potential (550–800 ms), and very late Late Positive Potential (VLLPP; 800–1,050 ms) time windows. Behavioral data indicated that participants who had personally experienced a loss scored significantly higher on perspective taking in the psychological-pai...
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Social Psychology, and 15 moreDevelopmental Psychology, Emotion, Experimental Psychology, Social Sciences, Affective Neuroscience, Social Neuroscience, Electroencephalography, Cognitive Neuroscience, Medicine, Perspective Taking, Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience, Empathy, Brain, Event Related Potentials, and Psychological Approaches to Pain
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Research Interests: Philosophy, Epistemology, Philosophy of Science, Moral Psychology, Education, and 15 moreEngineering Education, Higher Education, Cognitive development, Educational Psychology, Educational Research, History of Science, Moral Development, Moral and Ethical Issues in Science, Moral and Cognitive Reasoning, Moral Reasoning, Engineering Ethics, Morality, College Students, Defining issues Test, and Science and Technology Studies
Although the Moral Growth Mindset (MGM) Measure was tested and validated in general, whether it measures MGM consistently across people with different political perspectives, which are associated with moral foundations, has not been... more
Although the Moral Growth Mindset (MGM) Measure was tested and validated in general, whether it measures MGM consistently across people with different political perspectives, which are associated with moral foundations, has not been tested. We examined measurement invariance (MI) and differential item functioning (DIF) across different political affiliations to test whether the MGM Measure functioned consistently. We also examined the relationship between MGM, moral foundations, and political affiliation with t-tests and regression analyses. The findings reported that first, at the test level, the strictest MI was achieved, so the measurement structure was consistent between the different political groups. Second, no item showed significant DIF, so the MGM Measure was not biased at the item level. Third, t-tests and regression analyses reported that MGM and its relationship with moral foundations were not significantly associated with political affiliation.
Research Interests: Psychology, Positive Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Assessment, Political Psychology, and 15 morePsychometrics, Educational Psychology, Political Science, Civic Education, Item Response Theory, Politics, Measurement and Evaluation, Moral Development, Positive Youth Development, Moral Education, Mindset, Moral, Measurement Invariance, Defining issues Test, and Psychometrics and Test Development
The stories of moral exemplars have been utilized in moral education to induce students to emulate the moral behavior presented by the stories. Several developmental and social psychological mechanisms, i.e., vicarious social learning,... more
The stories of moral exemplars have been utilized in moral education to induce students to emulate the moral behavior presented by the stories. Several developmental and social psychological mechanisms, i.e., vicarious social learning, moral elevation and upward social comparison, explain why such a presentation of moral stories can promote moral motivation. However, recent social psychological studies have demonstrated that the mere presentation of moral stories, particularly those of extreme moral exemplars, may provoke negative emotional responses and weaken motivation to emulate the presented moral behavior. Thus, this dissertation uses research methods in neuroscience, developmental and social psychology to propose a more effective way to apply moral stories to educational settings while minimizing possible negative emotional and motivational outcomes. Two neuroscientific experiments identified the psychological processes involved in moral emotion and motivation, which are associated with moral inspiration induced by moral stories. Furthermore, two psychological experiments examined which type of moral stories effectively promoted moral motivation in a lab and in a school setting. The first part of this dissertation identified the neural-level mechanism of moral emotion and motivation. Study 1 meta-analyzed 43 previously published articles focusing on the neural correlates of moral functioning to illuminate the common neural foci of moral functioning in general. This study demonstrated that brain regions associated with selfhood and autobiographical self, such as the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and other regions associated with the default mode network (DMN) and cortical midline structures (CMS), were commonly activated in moral-task conditions. Study 2 examined the role of selfhood in moral emotion and motivation by conducting a functional neuroimaging experiment. The findings from this experiment showed that the seed regions, i.e., the MPFC and PCC, associated with selfhood significantly moderated neural activity in brain regions associated with moral emotion and motivation, particularly the insula, when participants were solving moral problems. These neuroimaging experiments suggest that selfhood is significantly involved in the process of moral emotion and moral motivation, and finally may influence the effect of moral inspiration. The second part of this dissertation described psychological interventions designed to target and tweak the psychological process identified by the previous neuroscientific experiments. Study 3 compared the psychological influence of attainable and unattainable moral stories on the longitudinal change in moral motivation, which was measured by voluntary service activity engagement. This lab-level experiment demonstrated that attainable moral stories better promoted motivation among college students to engage in voluntary service activity compared to unattainable moral stories. Study 4 applied this intervention design to a school setting. This study examined whether the stories of peer exemplars better promoted moral motivation among middle schoolers than those of extraordinary exemplars did. The result of an eight-week intervention session showed that students who had discussed the moral virtue of peer exemplars were significantly more likely to engage in voluntary service activity after the end of the session compared to those who were presented with extraordinary exemplars. These results suggest that moral motivation might be effectively fostered by the utilization of attainable and relevant moral stories, such as stories of peer moral exemplars, instead of extraordinary moral stories, such as the stories of moral saints, in educational settings.
Research Interests: Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Developmental Psychology, Applied Ethics, Education, and 15 moreEducational Psychology, Educational Research, Cognition, Civic Education, Character Education, Adolescent Development, Cognitive Neuropsychology, Affective Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuroscience, Civic Engagement, Adolescent, College student development, Brain, Educational studies, and Community participation and engagement
What is the neural-level basis of human morality? Various empirical studies, such as fMRI investigations, have been conducted to answer this question. However, because the majority of the previous studies have focused on human moral... more
What is the neural-level basis of human morality? Various empirical studies, such as fMRI investigations, have been conducted to answer this question. However, because the majority of the previous studies have focused on human moral functioning in a specific domain, such as moral decision making or moral affection, they have not been able to examine the common neural substrate of human morality across diverse psychological functional domains. To address this limitation, the present study conducted a meta-analysis based on the previous fMRI investigations focused on diverse moral functions. In addition, philosophical and psychological implications of the result were discussed.
Research Interests: Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Ethics, Applied Ethics, Brain Imaging, and 15 moreDecision Making, Judgment and decision making, Cognition, Behavioral Decision Making, Cognitive Neuropsychology, Brain and Cognitive Development, Moral and Cognitive Reasoning, Cognitive Neuroscience, Behavioral Neuroscience, Brain Mapping, Moral, Brain, Brain Science, Kohlberg, and Meta Analysis and Systematic Review
ABSTRACT In this study, we tested the validity of the modified version of the Vaccine Attitude Question Battery (VAQB) across 22 different languages. Validity test was conducted with a large-scale international survey dataset,... more
ABSTRACT In this study, we tested the validity of the modified version of the Vaccine Attitude Question Battery (VAQB) across 22 different languages. Validity test was conducted with a large-scale international survey dataset, COVIDiSTRESSII Global Survey, collected from 20,601 participants from 62 countries. We employed exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, measurement invariance test, and measurement alignment for internal validity test. Moreover, we examined correlation between the VAQB score, vaccination intent, compliance with preventive measures, and trust in public health-related agents. The results reported that the modified VAQB, which included five items, showed good validity across 22 languages with measurement alignment. Furthermore, the VAQB score showed negative association with vaccination intent, compliance, and trust as expected. The findings from this study provide additional evidence supporting the validity of the modified VAQB in 22 languages for future large-scale international research on COVID-19 and vaccination.
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Quantitative Psychology, Health Psychology, Health Sciences, and 15 moreMedical Sciences, Epidemiology, Infectious disease epidemiology, Psychometrics, Global Health, Public Health Policy, Quantitative Methods, Preventive medicine, Public Health, Health Policy, Medicine, Cross Cultural Psychology, Confirmatory factor analysis, External Validity, and Epidemiology and Public Health
Previous research showed that employing results from meta-analyses of relevant previous fMRI studies can improve the performance of voxelwise Bayesian second-level fMRI analysis. In this process, prior distributions for Bayesian analysis... more
Previous research showed that employing results from meta-analyses of relevant previous fMRI studies can improve the performance of voxelwise Bayesian second-level fMRI analysis. In this process, prior distributions for Bayesian analysis can be determined by information acquired from the meta-analyses. However, only image-based meta-analysis, which is not widely accessible to fMRI researchers due to the lack of shared statistical images, was tested in the previous study, so the applicability of the prior determination method proposed by the previous study might be limited. In the present study, whether determining prior distributions based on coordinate-based meta-analysis, which is widely accessible to researchers, can also improve the performance of Bayesian analysis, was examined. Three different types of coordinate-based meta-analyses, BrainMap and Ginger ALE, and NeuroQuery, were tested as information sources for prior determination. Five different datasets addressing three tas...
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Neuropsychology, Mathematics, and 15 moreComputer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Brain Imaging, Bayesian, Computational Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuropsychology, Quantitative Methods, Cognitive Neuroscience, Bayesian Analysis, Bayesian Inference, Bayesian statistics, Meta Analysis, Bayesian Probability, Neurosciences, and Meta Analysis and Systematic Review
In this study, we tested the validity across two scales addressing conspiratorial thinking that may influence behaviors related to public health and the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the COVIDiSTRESSII Global Survey data from 12,261... more
In this study, we tested the validity across two scales addressing conspiratorial thinking that may influence behaviors related to public health and the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the COVIDiSTRESSII Global Survey data from 12,261 participants, we validated the 4-item Conspiratorial Thinking Scale and 3-item Anti-Expert Sentiment Scale across 24 languages and dialects that were used by at least 100 participants per language. We employed confirmatory factor analysis, measurement invariance test, and measurement alignment for internal consistency testing. To test convergent validity of the two scales, we assessed correlations with trust in seven agents related to government, science, and public health. Although scalar invariance was not achieved when measurement invariance test was conducted initially, we found that both scales can be employed in further international studies with measurement alignment. Moreover, both conspiratorial thinking and anti-expert sentiments were significantly ...
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Personality Psychology, Social Psychology, Health Psychology, and 15 moreMoral Psychology, Epidemiology, Infectious disease epidemiology, Social Sciences, International Studies, Psychometrics, Quantitative Methods, Public Health, Infectious Diseases, Medicine, Confirmatory factor analysis, Measurement Invariance, Convergent Validity, Public Policy, and CoVid
Moral exemplars can work as agents for moral modeling and potentially sources for moral education, given the accounts of virtue ethicists who supported the power of moral modeling (Kristjánsson, 2006; Sanderse, 2012) as well as the... more
Moral exemplars can work as agents for moral modeling and potentially sources for moral education, given the accounts of virtue ethicists who supported the power of moral modeling (Kristjánsson, 2006; Sanderse, 2012) as well as the previous social psychological studies that showed the effect of moral elevation (Englander, Haidt, &amp; Morris, 2012; Haidt, 2000; Schnall, Roper, &amp; Fessler, 2010), upward social comparison (Smith, 2000; Suls, Martin, &amp; Wheeler, 2002) and vicarious socio-moral learning (Bandura &amp; McDonald, 1963; Bandura, 1969). However, recent social psychological experiments have shown that the mere presentation of extreme moral exemplars can induce negative emotional and behavioral responses (e.g., moral envy, moral resentment, withdrawal from moral behavior) (Monin, Sawyer, &amp; Marquez, 2008; Monin, 2007). In fact, some virtue ethicists have also warned the potential harmful aspects of extreme moral exemplars (Curzer, 2015; Kristjánsson, 2014; Swanton, 2003). Social psychology has suggested that stories of attainable and relevant exemplars are more powerful to promote motivational forces compared to stories of extraordinary exemplars. First, the motivational power of stories became significantly greater when the stories were perceived to be more attainable (Cialdini, 1980; Lockwood &amp; Kunda, 1997). Second, even a presence of a mere relevance (e.g., having the same birthday with an exemplar) significantly improved the motivational power (Lockwood &amp; Kunda, 1997; Walton, Cohen, Cwir, &amp; Spencer, 2012). Thus, the present study tested whether the stories of attainable and relevant moral exemplars are more effective to promote students’ moral motivation compared to extraordinary moral stories through psychological experiments.
Research Interests: Developmental Psychology, Experimental Psychology, Ethics, Applied Ethics, Education, and 15 moreEducational Technology, Educational Psychology, Educational Research, Learning and Teaching, Character Education, Moral Development, Longitudinal Research, Moral Philosophy, Moral Education, Cognitive Neuroscience, Classroom Action Research, Moral and Political Philosophy, Moral, Morality, and Intervention
Introduction: Changes in civic purpose during the emerging adulthood has been a significant research topic since it is closely associated with active civic engagement later in human lives. While standard regression methods have been used... more
Introduction: Changes in civic purpose during the emerging adulthood has been a significant research topic since it is closely associated with active civic engagement later in human lives. While standard regression methods have been used in previous studies to predict civic purpose development, they have limitations that may not always lead to best prediction models. We aimed to address these limitations by utilizing elastic-net multinomial logistic regression, which favors models with the least number of necessary predictors, in exploration of predictors for civic purpose development in a data-driven manner. Methods: We analyzed data from the longitudinal Civic Purpose Project while focusing on the model that best predicted civic purpose from Wave 1 (before high school graduation) to Wave 2 (two years after Wave 1). The reanalyzed data included responses from 480 participants recruited Californian high schools. The elastic-net regression was performed 5,000 times for predicting thr...
Research Interests: Psychology, Positive Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Education, Educational Psychology, and 15 moreCivic Education, Emerging Adulthood, Quantitative Methods, Moral Development, Positive Youth Development, Civic Engagement, Medicine, Logistic Regression, Moral, Data Science, Adolescence, Civics, Adolescentes, Multinomial Logistic Regression, and Elastic Net Regularization
In the risky-choice framing effect, different wording of the same options leads to predictably different choices. In a large-scale survey conducted from March to May 2020 and including 88,181 participants from 47 countries, we... more
In the risky-choice framing effect, different wording of the same options leads to predictably different choices. In a large-scale survey conducted from March to May 2020 and including 88,181 participants from 47 countries, we investigated how stress, concerns, and trust moderated the effect in the Disease problem, a prominent framing problem highly evocative of the COVID-19 pandemic. As predicted by the appraisal-tendency framework, risk aversion and the framing effect in our study were larger than under typical circumstances. Furthermore, perceived stress and concerns over coronavirus were positively associated with the framing effect. Contrary to predictions, however, they were not related to risk aversion. Trust in the government’s efforts to handle the coronavirus was associated with neither risk aversion nor the framing effect. The proportion of risky choices and the framing effect varied substantially across nations. Additional exploratory analyses showed that the framing eff...
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Experimental Psychology, Health Psychology, Communication, and 15 moreMental Health, Compliance, Quantitative Research, Preventive medicine, Public Health, Infectious Diseases, Medicine, Multidisciplinary, Framing, Risk Aversion, Cross Cultural Psychology, Framing effect, Framing Effects, PLoS one, and Pandemic
The COVIDiSTRESS global survey collects data on early human responses to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic from 173 429 respondents in 48 countries. The open science study was co-designed by an international consortium of researchers to... more
The COVIDiSTRESS global survey collects data on early human responses to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic from 173 429 respondents in 48 countries. The open science study was co-designed by an international consortium of researchers to investigate how psychological responses differ across countries and cultures, and how this has impacted behaviour, coping and trust in government efforts to slow the spread of the virus. Starting in March 2020, COVIDiSTRESS leveraged the convenience of unpaid online recruitment to generate public data. The objective of the present analysis is to understand relationships between psychological responses in the early months of global coronavirus restrictions and help understand how different government measures succeed or fail in changing public behaviour. There were variations between and within countries. Although Western Europeans registered as more concerned over COVID-19, more stressed, and having slightly more trust in the governments' efforts, there...
Research Interests:
Research has examined the association between people’s compliance with measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and personality traits. However, previous studies were conducted with relatively small-size datasets and employed... more
Research has examined the association between people’s compliance with measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and personality traits. However, previous studies were conducted with relatively small-size datasets and employed frequentist analysis that does not allow data-driven model exploration. To address the limitations, a large-scale international dataset, COVIDiSTRESS Global Survey dataset, was explored with Bayesian generalized linear model that enables identification of the best regression model. The best regression models predicting participants’ compliance with Big Five traits were explored. The findings demonstrated first, all Big Five traits, except extroversion, were positively associated with compliance with general measures and distancing. Second, neuroticism, extroversion, and agreeableness were positively associated with the perceived cost of complying with the measures while conscientiousness showed negative association. The findings and the implications of the present study were discussed.
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Personality Psychology, Quantitative Psychology, Moral Psychology, and 15 moreConscientiousness, Public Health Policy, Compliance, Public Health, Medicine, Prosocial Behavior, Generalized Linear models, Bayesian Inference, Moral, Neuroticism, Cross Cultural Psychology, Bayesian statistics, Regression, Big Five Personality Traits, and Agreeableness
This N = 173,426 social science dataset was collected through the collaborative COVIDiSTRESS Global Survey – an open science effort to improve understanding of the human experiences of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic between 30th March and... more
This N = 173,426 social science dataset was collected through the collaborative COVIDiSTRESS Global Survey – an open science effort to improve understanding of the human experiences of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic between 30th March and 30th May, 2020. The dataset allows a cross-cultural study of psychological and behavioural responses to the Coronavirus pandemic and associated government measures like cancellation of public functions and stay at home orders implemented in many countries. The dataset contains demographic background variables as well as measures of Asian Disease Problem, perceived stress (PSS-10), availability of social provisions (SPS-10), trust in various authorities, trust in governmental measures to contain the virus (OECD trust), personality traits (BFF-15), information behaviours, agreement with the level of government intervention, and compliance with preventive measures, along with a rich pool of exploratory variables and written experiences. A global consortiu...
Research Interests: Psychology, Stress, Psychological Health Risks and Consequences, Medicine, Anxiety, and 15 morePsicología, Emotional Distress, Ciencias Sociales, Well Being, Psychological measurement, Loneliness, Isolation, Scientific Data, ANXIETY, Raw Data, Pandemic, Dataset, Coronavirus COVID-19, CoVid, and Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Neuropsychology, Experimental Psychology, and 15 moreComputer Science, Neuroimaging, Bayesian, Neuroinformatics, Cognitive Neuropsychology, Quantitative Methods, Cognitive Neuroscience, Bayesian Analysis, Bayesian Inference, Brain, Bayesian statistics, Neuropsicología, Bayesian Probability, Multiprocessing, and python programming language
Previous research has shown the potential value of Bayesian methods in fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) analysis. For instance, the results from Bayes factor-applied second-level fMRI analysis showed a higher hit rate compared... more
Previous research has shown the potential value of Bayesian methods in fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) analysis. For instance, the results from Bayes factor-applied second-level fMRI analysis showed a higher hit rate compared with frequentist second-level fMRI analysis, suggesting greater sensitivity. Although the method reported more positives as a result of the higher sensitivity, it was able to maintain a reasonable level of selectivity in term of the false positive rate. Moreover, employment of the multiple comparison correction method to update the default prior distribution significantly improved the performance of Bayesian second-level fMRI analysis. However, previous studies have utilized the default prior distribution and did not consider the nature of each individual study. Thus, in the present study, a method to adjust the Cauchy prior distribution based on a priori information, which can be acquired from the results of relevant previous studies, was proposed...
Research Interests: Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Neuropsychology, Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, and 15 moreNeuroimaging, Bayesian, Applied Statistics, Neuroinformatics, Biology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Bayesian Analysis, Bayesian Inference, Brain, Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Bayesian statistics, Neuropsicología, Bayes Theorem, Bayesian Probability, and a priori and a posteriori
We developed and tested Bayesian multiple comparison correction method for Bayesian voxelwise second-level fMRI analysis with R. The performance of the developed method was tested with simulation and real image datasets. First, we... more
We developed and tested Bayesian multiple comparison correction method for Bayesian voxelwise second-level fMRI analysis with R. The performance of the developed method was tested with simulation and real image datasets. First, we compared false alarm and hit rates, which were used as proxies for selectivity and sensitivity, respectively, between Bayesian and classical inference were conducted. For the comparison, we created simulated images, added noise to the created images, and analyzed the noise-added images while applying Bayesian and classical multiple comparison correction methods. Second, we analyzed five real image datasets to examine how our Bayesian method worked in realistic settings. When the performance assessment was conducted, Bayesian correction method demonstrated good sensitivity (hit rate ≥ 75%) and acceptable selectivity (false alarm rate < 10%) when N ≤ 8. Furthermore, Bayesian correction method showed better sensitivity compared with classical correction me...