Testing a dual-process model of moral judgement in college athletes and non-athletes: Abstract reasoning or emotion control

Does participation in sport promote good character? Many academics have attempted to investigate this question from philosophical, sociological and psychological perspectives. Most recently, several psychologists have adopted a range of methods to investigate the relationship between sport participation and moral character. To do so, they eschew the lay methodological approach, which focuses on a concept of character couched in terms of good and evil. Instead, they rely on a cognitive developmental concept of moral judgement. Moral judgement is the process of deciding what is right or wrong based on social norms. In the context of the mode of cognitive moral development, the moral judgement of non-athlete college students was significantly more mature than that of athletes. With the development of theory and technique, a substantial body of research supports a dual-process theory of moral judgement, which involves an automatic-emotional factor in the process of moral judgement. To date, however, limited work has been performed to explore whether sport participation can alter moral judgement in the context of the dual-process theory. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the different moral judgement mechanisms between athlete and non-athlete college students. A total of 30 college students (including 15 high-level basketball players with at least five years of professional training experience) participated in this cross-sectional study. The moral judgement task, consisting of personal and impersonal dilemmas, was designed with E-Prime software. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS Devices 1100, fNIR Devices LLC, 4 dual-wavelength source probes and 10 optical detector probes paired to obtain 16 channels) was adopted to monitor haemodynamic activities in the prefrontal cortex while the subjects performed the moral judgement task. Significant experimental effects were observed in behavioural and haemodynamic performance. Both subject groups revealed more utilitarianism in impersonal dilemmas than in personal dilemmas. In addition, compared with the non-athlete group, the athlete group evoked a greater haemodynamic response in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex-related channel (channel 13, channel 14 and channel 15) and evoked a decreased haemodynamic response in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex-related channel (channel 3). Moreover, the peak latency in the athlete group was shorter than that in the non-athlete group. This study verified the dual-process theory of moral judgement in athlete samples. Individual differences were observed in temporal and spatial indicators during the moral judgement task. Taking brain function into consideration, our findings reflect an enhanced emotion control ability in the athlete group to suppress a prepotent response to moral dilemmas.