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. 2020 Jul 10;11:1521. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01521

FIGURE 4.

FIGURE 4

S-allele carriers of the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism exhibited deontological moral judgments for personal inevitable moral dilemmas. The one-way ANOVA revealed that genotype group mean differences were statistically significant for personal moral dilemmas where harm or death to another individual is inevitable [F(2,111) = 3.196, p = 0.045]. Post hoc analyses further showed that in the personal inevitable moral dilemmas, those homozygous for the S-allele (34.27 ± 3.55, mean ± SE, p = 0.048) were less compliant on harming another person, even when harm or death would inevitably occur to this other individual, when compared to those homozygous for the L allele (51.92 ± 9.16, mean ± SE, p = 0.048). In the same manner, the difference between the means of those homozygous for the S allele and those with heterozygous alleles (L/S) (46.15 ± 4.64, mean ± SE, p = 0.047) was also significant. Nevertheless, there was no statistically significant difference between the means of those with heterozygous alleles (L/S) and those with homozygous L alleles (p = 0.535). Furthermore, there is a statistically significant linear association between genotype group (number of risk allele “S”) and personal inevitable moral dilemmas, when controlling for age and gender [F(3,110) = 3.256, p = 0.019, R2 = 0.082]. Hence, there is a 9.27% decrease in the participants’ willingness to answer positively to perform an action that would have as an outcome harm or death (even when such harm or death is in the end inevitable) to another person, as a function of a one increase in S alleles being carried.