Alcohol and morality: one alcoholic drink is enough to make people declare to harm others and behave impurely

We aimed to understand if alcohol intoxication affects the willingness to violate moral foundations (care, fairness, authority, loyalty, and purity). We conducted a laboratory study ( N  = 387) with three randomized groups: alcohol intoxication, placebo, and control, measuring the sacralization of m...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychopharmacology 2023-10, Vol.240 (10), p.2163-2172
Main Authors: Paruzel-Czachura, Mariola, Pypno, Katarzyna, Sorokowski, Piotr
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Alcohol
Alcoholic beverages
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Biomedicine
Drunkenness
Drunkenness (Criminal law)
Intoxication
Morality
Neurosciences
Offenses against the person
Original Investigation
Pharmacology/Toxicology
Placebos
Psychiatry
Psychological aspects
Risk factors
Sexual behavior
Social aspects
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We aimed to understand if alcohol intoxication affects the willingness to violate moral foundations (care, fairness, authority, loyalty, and purity). We conducted a laboratory study ( N  = 387) with three randomized groups: alcohol intoxication, placebo, and control, measuring the sacralization of moral foundations via the Moral Foundations Sacredness Scale. The study showed intoxicated participants sacralized moral foundations of care and purity more often than participants from control and placebo groups. It means participants declared more willing to physically harm other people and animals and behave impurely, e.g., doing deviant sexual behaviors or selling their souls. No differences related to fairness, authority, and loyalty were found. Our study helps to understand the decision processes underlying immoral behaviors, including crimes. We showed that even one drink makes people change their judgments about what is right and wrong (in the cases of harmful and impure behaviors), and because this kind of judgment precedes immoral behaviors, our results may help explain why some people under the influence of alcohol break the rules by doing things which they would never do when sober.
ISSN:0033-3158
1432-2072
DOI:10.1007/s00213-023-06438-z