Schedule of Events | Symposia

Differences in Moral Decision-Making between Military Personnel and Civilians

Poster Session B - Sunday, March 30, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Lukas van Herk^1,2 (l.vanherk@umcutrecht.nl), Frank Schilder^1,2, Antoin de Weijer^1,2, Elbert Geuze^1,2, Bastiaan Bruinsma^1,2; ¹Brain Research and Innovation Centre, Ministry of Defence, Utrecht, The Netherlands, ²Department of Psychiatry, University Medical Centre, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Throughout life we are faced with decisions of varying degrees of complexity, some involving moral dilemmas that may cause harm to others. When looking at high-risk professions (e.g. armed forces) in particular, decision outcomes could have great moral repercussions, as lives are at stake. Knowing how high-risk professions, such as military personnel, decide in a moral conflict what the right course of action is, might give insight in how harm could be prevented. Furthermore, it is currently unknown if military personnel might respond differently to a moral conflict compared to civilians. We investigated both military personnel (n = 256) and civilians (n = 196) in twenty-one fictional war scenarios in which participants had to decide how to end a war. Choices could be deontological, utilitarian or a compromise, characterized by how many civilian and soldier lives were sacrificed, respectively. Non-parametric tests revealed no significant differences between military personnel and civilians in the amount of utilitarian (p = .104) and deontological (p = .126) responses. However, a significant difference was found in compromise responses (p = .025), in which military personnel (6.52 ± 6.10 SD) seems less likely to choose a compromise response compared to civilians (7.69 ± 6.10 SD). These results suggest that military members, either from a utilitarian or deontological viewpoint, are more absolute, while civilians seem more inclined to compromise. Cognitive flexibility, empathy, stress levels, demographics, sleep quality and psychological symptoms as possible predictors of decision-making will be discussed.

Topic Area: THINKING: Decision making