Moral Judgment Under Induced Anxiety: Threat-of-Shock Reduces Sensitivity to Immoral Acts and Alters Neural Processing

Thirty-seven right-handed individuals were recruited from Shenzhen University, all with normal or corrected-to-normal vision. Participants scoring more than two standard deviations above the mean on the Trait Anxiety Inventory (T-AI) or the Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) were excluded during pre-screening (Cheung, 1996; Shek, 1988). One participant was further excluded due to excessive EEG artifacts, resulting in fewer than 75% of trials available for analysis. The final sample comprised 36 participants (16 males; mean age = 20.14 ± 2.22 years [mean ± standard deviation]). All procedures complied with the Declaration of Helsinki (1964) and subsequent amendments, as well as relevant ethical standards. The study protocol was approved by the local ethics committee (protocol number: PN-202200067).