FIGURE 2.

The attachment model of moral judgment. In generating a non-conscious moral judgment, we perform two mental operations: we impose a dyadic structure of child–adult/agent–patient (Gray et al., 2012) on two parties in conflict and we compare the behavior of A toward C with our prior expectations of what adults should and should not do to children. Acts that violated our expectations are judged as morally wrong. Whilst the decision as to which party is C or A is highly subjective, the general traits that are associated with children and those associated with adults are constant and universal.