A study analysed the brain activity of military officer cadets and civilians while they were making moral decisions and concluded that the perception of being the author of our actions and their consequences decreases when we follow orders, whether we are civilians or military. Understanding how the brain processes moral responsibility is important because of the implications it can have for ethics, justice, and the psychology of human behaviour.

Although we can make some decisions freely in our daily lives, a significant part of the choices we make are conditioned by rules established by society or other individuals, which can strongly influence our behaviours. Numerous historical examples and experimental research have shown that restrictions on freedom of choice can lead to behaviour that causes serious harm to others. Thus, understanding how people make moral decisions and the neural processes underlying these decisions are critical scientific and societal issues, particularly for a better understanding of wrongdoings.

A key neurocognitive process for decision-making is the so-called sense of agency (SoA), which refers to the perception that we are the authors of our actions and their consequences, thus taking responsibility for our choices. SoA is a cognitive process that seems to be reduced when individuals obey orders, as opposed to making free decisions.

Previous studies have shown that this feeling actually decreases when we obey orders, reducing our perception of responsibility. This effect is particularly relevant in contexts where following orders is part of the routine, such as in the military.

To assess whether the neural basis of SoA during moral decision-making differs between civilian and military populations when making free or coerced decisions, while occupying different positions within a hierarchical chain, Axel Cleeremans (Centre for Research in Cognition and Neuroscience, Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium) and collaborators used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to analyse the brain activity of 19 military officer cadets and 24 civilian controls while they were making moral decisions.

In the article “Neural correlates of the sense of agency in free and coerced moral decision-making among civilians and military personnel”, published in March in the scientific journal Cerebral Cortex, the authors explain that in the experiment they carried out, the participants could freely choose or follow orders to inflict a mild shock on a victim. SoA was assessed through temporal binding, a phenomenon in which the perception of the time between action and consequence changes depending on the degree to which the decision was voluntary.

The results of the study, supported by the BIAL Foundation, indicated that SoA decreases when we follow orders, regardless of whether we are civilian or military, i.e. no significant differences were found between the groups, suggesting that the neural basis of moral decision-making is consistent, regardless of professional environment. In addition, several brain regions, including the occipital lobe, the frontal gyrus and the precuneus, were associated with this perception.

Axel Cleeremans points out that, “in addition to confirming that the perception of being the author of our actions and their consequences decreases when we follow orders, there were also no differences between military personnel and civilians, which suggests that everyday environments have minimal influence on the neural basis of moral decision-making, allowing the results to be generalised”.

Although these results might suggest that the effects of coercion on the brain are generalisable across populations, it is important to stress that in this case, the military participants were officers trained to take responsibility for their actions. “One might wonder whether being a mere executant would influence these results, as a previous study showed that holding a low military rank had a detrimental effect on the SoA. This would suggest important avenues for responsibility training”, says Cleeremans.

Learn more about the project “150/18- A neuroscience approach to investigating how hierarchy influences moral behaviour” here.