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From Concern for equality linked to logic, not emotion

by Lisa Wade, PhD, May 6, 2014, at 09:00 am

A new study finds that people with high “justice sensitivity” are using logic, not emotions. Subjects were put in a fMRI machine, one that measures ongoing brain activity and shown videos of people acting kindly or cruelly toward a homeless person.

Some respondents reacted more strongly than others — hence the high versus low justice sensitivity — and an analysis of the high sensitivity individuals’ brain activity showed that they were processing the images in the parts of the brain where logic and rationality live. “Individuals who are sensitive to justice and fairness do not seem to be emotionally driven,” explained one of the scientists, “Rather, they are cognitively driven.”

So, no:

Activists aren’t angry, they reasonably object to unjust circumstances that they understand all too well.

(Lisa Wade's PhD is in sociology)

A screenshot of this blog post has received at least 515 retweets and 421 favorites on twitter.

The claim seems surprising for me, because I suspect that there are some people who are extremely intelligent but are absolute monsters.

Also, I would have thought that if someone with a strong justice sensitivity witnessed someone acting cruelly, they'd engage the parts of the brain associated with logic to try to ascertain why someone was behaving cruelly.

Is concern for equality linked to logic, not to emotion?

Andrew Grimm
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  • The very wording of the article doesn't make sense to me. If justice turns out to have been served incorrectly, does that mean it was really emotion all along? The article seems to make use of an fMRI machine to make a total mishmash out of the English language. – Avery Oct 29 '14 at 16:45
  • Since this is from a recent PhD, I suspect that it might require original research to invalidate or confirm. – Larry OBrien Oct 29 '14 at 17:34
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    I don't think it is possible to answer this question in terms permitted by SkepticsSE as the claim seems to relate to a subjective interpretation of the paper that seems to me to be at least questionable (having skimmed the paper in question). The study in question obviously sought to eliminate emotional cues, and is about evaluating motive and outcomes, which are obviously logical tasks rather than emotional ones, hence the paper doesn't actually address this question AFAICS. –  Nov 04 '14 at 12:32
  • There is a leap in logic here. They basically *assume* that higher brain activity watching injustice/kindness means higher justice sensitivity. Without actually verifying by other means how test subjects would rank in justice sensitivity scale. Also word *"equality"* appears in the article completely out of the blue – vartec Nov 06 '14 at 23:55
  • Justice itself is both logical and emotional thus cannot be classified as result of exclusively one aspect, regardless of logical and emotional ratios from person to person. Equality is also a logical and emotional intelligence output. A logical output of equality belief is when you stay in row to the ATM/metro/supermarket cash out. An emotional output is when you give your turn to a person with special kinetic issues, or blind or very aged. This person do all actions quite slower than normal people so this action helps towards equality between this person and the rest. – Stefanos Zilellis Jun 28 '19 at 14:36

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