Sex differences in moral guilt reactions to justified and unjustified violence: insights from psychology and neuroscience

Despite a wealth of empirical evidence documenting psychological and neurological sex differences in empathy, guilt, and reactions to violence, no research has explicitly, empirically tied these literatures together. To fill this gap, this study investigated the relationships between empathy, guilt, violence reaction, and the effect of sex thereon. 48 participants completed measures of trait empathy and self-report psychopathy, and were subjected to functional neuroimaging during which they viewed first-person video game clips of characters shooting civilians ("unjustified violence"), soldiers ("justified violence"), or objects. Participants were instructed to imagine themselves as the perpetrator of the displayed violence, and filled out measures of guilt following imaging. Analyses revealed that in reaction to both unjustified and justified violence, women reported feeling guilter than men, and that measures of trait empathy positively correlated with guilt response. Men displayed greater levels of psychopathy than women, and level of psychopathy was negatively correlated with guilt response. When imagining shooting soldiers relative to shooting objects, women displayed greater right anterior insula and left posterior insula activation than men. These findings provide empirical insights into the role of empathy in guilt reactions to violence, and how sex differences in empathy relate to sex differences in guilt reactions to violence.