(Photo: AP, graphic)A new study suggests that sleep deprivation can impair one's ability to make moral decisions.
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A recent study that was published in this month’s edition of Sleep, the official journal of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, recorded findings that suggest that lack of sleep can impair a person’s ability to make moral decisions.
The research, which was conducted by William D.S. Killgore, PhD, and his colleagues at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, showed that individuals who were kept awake for 53 hours had more difficulty acting upon “moral” situations due to their impaired ability to integrate emotion and cognition. Individuals that had high levels of “emotional intelligence,” however, were less or not at all affected by sleep deprivation.
The findings advocate individuals to get adequate sleep to ensure proper judgment, but it also brings up questions about how to increase one’s emotional intelligence, which would increase one’s ability to make moral choices.
"Most of us are confronted with moral dilemmas nearly every day, although the majority of these choices are minor and of little consequence," said Killgore in the report. "Although such decisions are inextricably steeped in social, emotional, religious and moral values, and their correct courses of action cannot be determined through scientific inquiry, it is well within the realm of science to ask how the brain goes about solving such dilemmas and what factors, whether internal or external to the individual, contribute to the judgments and decisions that are ultimately reached."
The study examined 26 test subjects - 21 men and 5 women - at the in-residence sleep laboratory at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Each of these subjects were kept awake over two nights (53 hours), which was followed by three types of dilemmas where each individual had to make a judgment about the “appropriateness” of an action. This test was also performed at the start of the study (rested baseline), which was compared to the concluding result.
Compared to the baseline, sleep deprived participants had more difficulty in deciding a course of action for “Moral Personal” dilemmas, those that are emotionally evocative. They also were more likely to agree with solutions that had previously violated their personal moral beliefs. When subjected to “Non Moral” dilemmas and less emotional “Moral Impersonal” dilemmas, individuals generally made the same decision as if they had not been sleep deprived.
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Based on the findings, one can conclude that sleep adversely affects moral decisions.
Those that have a high level of emotional intelligence, as measured by the Bar-On EQ-i – which has been argued as a better predictor of “success” than the more traditional measures of cognitive intelligence (IQ) - were less likely to change their judgments, however, even after sufficient sleep loss.
Those that have sleep disorders should consult a physician, and people who have occupations that require them to stay awake for long hours should be cautious.
Doctors recommend seven to eight hours of sleep a night.
