Effects of childhood trauma on adult moral decision-making: Clinical correlates and insights from bipolar disorder

Abstract

Background: Childhood adversity has been shown to exert profound effects on basic psychological processes well into adulthood. Some of these processes, such as those related to reward and emotion, play critical roles in moral decision-making. As a population with high rates of childhood trauma as well as heterogenous clinical presentation, individuals with bipolar disorder (BD) constitute an enriched group in which to examine the correlates of trauma and other clinical variables with moral cognition.

Methods: 62 euthymic BD patients and 27 controls responded to moral dilemma scenarios and completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire.

Results: Results revealed a main effect of diagnosis on moral decision-making only when both personal force and an intention were required, indicating a more utilitarian style in BD patients relative to controls. Several interesting patterns also emerged regardless of diagnostic status. Higher ratings of physical neglect were significantly associated with higher ratings of acceptability (a utilitarian tendency) across dilemma types, and a similar pattern was observed at the trend level for experiences of emotional neglect. Significant main effects on moral decision-making were also observed for sex, illness duration, and history of psychotic features in the BD sample.

Limitations: The present study is limited by the self-reported nature of the CTQ and by the small number of trials of moral dilemmas. In addition, practical and clinical implications of the moral dilemmas paradigm are limited due to its abstract nature.

Conclusions: Our results indicate that certain clinical features as well as childhood maltreatment (in particular neglect) may significantly impact moral decision making in adult life. Surprisingly, childhood trauma was associated with a more utilitarian style, which is in the opposite direction from previous effects shown in PTSD. Although speculative, our results suggest that there may be a protective quality associated with utilitarian moral decision-making tendencies.

Keywords: Bipolar disorder; Childhood trauma; Moral decision-making; Moral dilemmas.