Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Behavioural Brain Research journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/bbr Research report A genetic profile of oxytocin receptor improves moral acceptability of outcome-maximizing harm in male insurance brokers Sara Palumbo a , Veronica Mariotti b , Teresa Anastasio b , Giuseppina Rota c , Laura Lucchi d , Andrea Manfrinati e , Rino Rumiati e , Lorella Lotto e , Michela Sarlo f , Pietro Pietrini g, **, Silvia Pellegrini b, * a Department of Surgical, Medical and Molecular Pathology and Critical Care Medicine, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy b Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy c Azienda USL Nord-Ovest Toscana, Pisa, Italy d Assiproject Broker, Lucca, Italy e Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization, University of Padova, Padova, Italy f Department of General Psychology and Padova Neuroscience Center, University of Padova, Padova, Italy g IMT School for Advanced Studies, Lucca, Italy ARTICLE INFO Keywords: OXTR genetic variants gene profiles decision-making moral dilemmas insurance brokers utilitarianism ABSTRACT In recent years, conflicting findings have been reported in the scientific literature about the influence of do- paminergic, serotonergic and oxytocinergic gene variants on moral behavior. Here, we utilized a moral judgment paradigm to test the potential effects on moral choices of three polymorphisms of the Oxytocin receptor (OXTR): rs53576, rs2268498 and rs1042770. We analyzed the influence of each single polymorphism and of genetic profiles obtained by different combinations of their genotypes in a sample of male insurance brokers (n = 129), as compared to control males (n = 109). Insurance brokers resulted significantly more oriented to maximize outcomes than control males, thus they expressed more than controls the utilitarian attitude phenotype. When analyzed individually, none of the selected variants influenced the responses to moral dilemmas. In contrast, a composite genetic profile that potentially increases OXTR activity was associated with higher moral accept- ability in brokers. We hypothesize that this genetic profile promotes outcome-maximizing behavior in brokers by focusing their attention on what represents a greater good, that is, saving the highest number of people, even though at the cost of sacrificing one individual. Our data suggest that investigations in a sample that most expresses the phenotype of interest, combined with the analysis of composite genetic profiles rather than in- dividual variants, represent a promising strategy to find out weak genetic influences on complex phenotypes, such as moral behavior. 1. Introduction Over the past twenty years, research in moral psychology has fo- cused on the difference between utilitarian and non-utilitarian re- sponses to sacrificial moral dilemmas [15,19]. The so-called Trolley problems are prototypical examples of these dilemmas. In the Trolley dilemma, the only way to save five workmen from a runaway trolley is to pull a lever redirecting the trolley onto a sidetrack, where it will kill a single workman. In the Footbridge dilemma, the only way to save the five workmen is to push a large man off an overpass onto the track, where he will die while his body will stop the trolley. According to utilitarianism, the moral acceptability of an action depends on whether the outcome maximizes collective well-being. The choice of sacrificing an innocent person to save a greater number of people is in line with the principles of utilitarianism, as it favors the greater good. Conversely, non-utilitarianism denies that rightness or wrongness of our conduct is exclusively determined by the consequences of our ac- tions. According to non-utilitarian normative ethical theories, an action is morally acceptable if it is consistent with relevant moral norms and, on the contrast, it is non-acceptable if it is inconsistent with relevant moral norms [see Gawronski and Beer [14] for a review of what makes moral judgments utilitarian or non-utilitarian]. However, recent studies are depicting a more complex picture. Kahane et al. [19], for example, showed that utilitarianism is not a https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2020.112681 Received 2 December 2019; Received in revised form 26 March 2020; Accepted 27 April 2020 ⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, via Savi 10, I-56126 Pisa, Italy ⁎⁎ Corresponding author at: IMT School for Advanced Studies, Piazza San Ponziano 6, I-55100, Lucca, Italy E-mail addresses: pietro.pietrini@imtlucca.it (P. Pietrini), silvia.pellegrini@med.unipi.it (S. Pellegrini). Behavioural Brain Research 392 (2020) 112681 Available online 06 May 2020 0166-4328/ © 2020 Published by Elsevier B.V. T