ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1661490
This article is part of the Research TopicMoral Emotions Scrutinized: Developmental, Clinical and Neuroscientific AspectsView all 4 articles
The Influence of Moral Reasoning on Adolescent Decision-Making and Stress Responses During VR Social-Moral Conflict
Provisionally accepted
Jianbao Zhang1*
Tingting Zhang2- 1Beijing Wuzi University, Beijing, China
- 2Huaiyin Normal University, Huai'an, China
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This study investigated the influence of moral reasoning ability on stress regulation in Chinese adolescents (N=118, 14-17 years) during simulated social-moral conflict using immersive virtual reality (VR). Participants, grouped into high/low moral reasoning ability via Defining Issues Test-2 (DIT-2) scores, completed two sessions: DIT-2 assessment (Session 1) and counterbalanced exposure to a high-pressure VR social-moral conflict scenario and a control condition (Session 2). Physiological stress (heart rate), moral decision-making (accuracy, speed, assessed only in the VR scenario), and state anxiety were measured. Results indicated the VR scenario successfully induced physiological arousal (higher heart rate) and state anxiety compared to the control condition. However, the level of moral reasoning ability yielded no significant effects on moral decision-making accuracy or state anxiety. A non-significant trend suggested potential stress buffering: high-reasoning participants showed slightly lower average heart rates during the VR conflict scenario than low-reasoning counterparts. Future research with larger samples should verify this potential buffering trend. These findings highlight that situational context and developmental factors significantly modulate moral reasoning's influence on adolescent stress responses and decision-making under pressure, contributing to our understanding of moral development and stress regulation.
Keywords: moral reasoning, adolescent stress, social-moral conflict, Virtual reality (VR), Heart Rate, decision-making, state anxiety, Buffering effect
Received: 07 Jul 2025; Accepted: 11 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jianbao Zhang, Beijing Wuzi University, Beijing, China
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