It's Harder to Push, When I Have to Push Hard-Physical Exertion and Fatigue Changes Reasoning and Decision-Making on Hypothetical Moral Dilemmas in Males

• Published in: Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience Vol. 12; p. 268
• Main Authors: Weippert, Matthias, Rickler, Michel, Kluck, Steffen, Behrens, Kristin, Bastian, Manuela, Mau-Moeller, Anett, Bruhn, Sven, Lischke, Alexander
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Frontiers Research Foundation 23.11.2018; Frontiers Media S.A
• Subjects: Acute effects; Cognition & reasoning; Cooperation; cortisol; Decision making; Exercise; exhaustion; Fatigue; moral judgment; Morality; Neuroscience; Philosophy; strenuous exercise; stress; utilitarian moral; Germany; utilitarian moral; cortisol; stress; cognition; moral judgment; exhaustion; strenuous exercise; effort
• ISSN: 1662-5153; 1662-5153
• DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00268

Despite the prevalence of physical exertion and fatigue during military, firefighting and disaster medicine operations, sports or even daily life, their acute effects on moral reasoning and moral decision-making have never been systematically investigated. To test the effects of physical exertion on moral reasoning and moral decision-making, we administered a moral dilemma task to 32 male participants during a moderate or high intensity cycling intervention. Participants in the high intensity cycling group tended to show more non-utilitarian reasoning and more non-utilitarian decision-making on impersonal but not on personal dilemmas than participants in the moderate intensity cycling group. Exercise-induced exertion and fatigue, thus, shifted moral reasoning and moral decision-making in a non-utilitarian rather than utilitarian direction, presumably due to an exercise-induced limitation of prefrontally mediated executive resources that are more relevant for utilitarian than non-utilitarian reasoning and decision-making.