Social and Moral Cognition in Multiple Sclerosis

Moral dilemma judgments

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, progressive disease that affects young adults (aged
 between 20 and 40) and has a major impact on patients' quality of life. Cognitive disorders
 in MS are common, affecting 40-60% of patients. Among these disorders, the presence of social
 cognition disorders is common. Within social cognition, the moral judgment has been an object
 of research in order to understand the determinants of moral decision-making: how and why
 individuals make moral choices with regard to a set of prescriptions and social norms.
 Compared to control subjects, MS patients show a decrease in moral permissiveness, as well as
 an increase in moral relativity and emotional reactivity. Thus, it would seem that MS
 patients issue more deontological choices (lower moral permissiveness). Given that these
 patients also exhibit empathy deficits and higher alexithymia, these patterns are surprising.
 Indeed, in other clinical populations, low empathic abilities and high alexithymia are linked
 to utilitarian rather than deontological moral judgments.
 
 The objective of this project is to analyze the process of decision-making carried out by
 patients during moral dilemma situations in comparison with control individuals and verify
 whether the presence of a positivity bias could explain the more deontological choices made
 by some patients. Indeed, some work has shown that older individuals make more deontological
 moral judgments than younger adults. These results are also observed with young individuals
 when their future temporal perspectives have been experimentally constrained.