Picturing Morality from Multidisciplinary Perspectives—Third Edition

A special issue of Behavioral Sciences (ISSN 2076-328X). This special issue belongs to the section "Social Psychology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 June 2026 | Viewed by 228

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
School of Public Administration, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China
Interests: behavioral ethics; moral decision-making; behavioral public administration; civic education
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

From 2022 to 2025, we published the first and second editions of the Special Issue entitled “Picturing Morality from Multidisciplinary Perspectives.” For the first edition, we collected twelve papers that provided fascinating insights into various ethical and moral topics, such as civic–moral education, ethical decision-making with AI, cheating behavior, fairness norms, social responsibility ethics, moral dilemma decision-making, moral hypocrisy, moral emotion attributions, and human identity. Due to the significant attention that these papers received, we embarked upon the creation of a second edition. Due to its continued and far-reaching influence, the second edition attracted over 30 submissions. The accepted papers discussed topics such as moral reasoning, character virtues, ethical citizenship, moral judgment, moral foundations, environmentally friendly behavior, moral disengagement, moral justification, moral pragmatism, immoral behavior, and conscientiousness.

We are encouraged to see that so many scholars are exploring the complex, multidimensional nature of human morality and, in an era of spreading AI technology that pushes us to reflect on human morality, we are excited to announce the third edition of our Special Issue on developing a deeper understanding of these themes. This latest installment is open to a diverse array of submissions, including empirical studies, reviews, meta-analyses, and brief reports, and we welcome contributions from all methodologies and disciplines as long as they align with our overarching theme of exploring the role of morality in human life.

Our commitment to fair and rigorous peer review ensures that all submissions receive the attention they deserve. Seize this opportunity to contribute to the field of moral studies and help us deepen our understanding of morality’s far-reaching influence on our world.

Dr. Chuanjun Liu
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • behavioral ethics
  • moral dilemma
  • moral judgment
  • health ethics
  • business ethics
  • organizational ethics
  • moral sociology
  • moral psychology
  • civic moral education
  • justice
  • AI ethics
  • responsibility
  • technological ethics
  • virtue ethics
  • moral behavior
  • unethical behavior
  • cheating
  • harming
  • lying
  • prosocial behavior
  • corruption
  • rule breaking
  • extra-role behavior

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

12 pages, 259 KiB  
Article
No Detectable Effects of Chronic Stress on Moral Decision-Making Are Found: A Data Reanalysis and a Pre-Registered Replication and Extension
by Lemei Zou, Junhong Wu and Chuanjun Liu
Behav. Sci. 2025, 15(8), 1068; https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15081068 - 6 Aug 2025
Viewed by 58
Abstract
According to the dual-process model of moral cognition, individuals tend to refuse the proposal of killing some to save more innocents under stressful conditions compared to non-stressful states, which has been demonstrated in previous studies. However, this effect might be unreliable according to [...] Read more.
According to the dual-process model of moral cognition, individuals tend to refuse the proposal of killing some to save more innocents under stressful conditions compared to non-stressful states, which has been demonstrated in previous studies. However, this effect might be unreliable according to the General Adaptation Syndrome theory and the Stress Process Model. To test this speculation, we reanalyzed the raw data on the effect of chronic stress on moral choice from a previous study (Study 1) and conducted a pre-registered replication and extension study (Study 2). Both results demonstrated no detectable effect of chronic stress on moral decisions, which is inconsistent with the original results. This study calls for caution regarding this effect and has important theoretical and practical implications. Full article
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