Test Materials & Analysis Tools

Text-based version of the Moral Sentiment and Action Tendencies (MSAT) task, optimised as part of the Antidepressant Advisor Study.  Funded by the MRC (REF 2064430). Accompanying paper Duan et al , please also cite Zahn et al. 2015 (downloadable below)

--PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS VERSION HAS MODIFIED CODE COMPARED TO THE VERSION USED BY DUAN

* the Duan et al version did NOT contain anger/indignation towards self or verbally/physically attacking yourself

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Description MSAT:

The MSAT was based on the value-related moral sentiment task (VMST), which has been validated in previous studies (Green et al., 2012; Green et al., 2013; Zahn et al., 2007; Zahn et al., 2009; Zahn et al., 2015). The task investigates the neurocognitive underpinnings of blame-related emotions, presenting short written statement describing hypothetical social behaviours, in which either the participant (self-agency) or their best friend (other-agency) acts counter to social and moral values.

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This optimised version consists of 54 short written statements. To personalise the statements, participants are asked to name their best friend in the initial set-up.

The following data is collected:

* closeness to friend

Participants rate how close they feel to their best friend on a 7-point visual analogue scale, where 1 = not at all close and 7 = extremely close.

* moral sentiment

Participants are asked to select the emotion that best describes how they would feel given the unpleasant hypothetical situation: guilt, shame, indignation/anger towards self, contempt/disgust towards self, contempt/disgust towards friend, indignation/anger towards friend, or no feeling/other feeling.

* action tendency

Participants are also asked to select the action that they would most strongly feel like doing in the unpleasant hypothetical situation: creating distance from self, verbally or physically attacking/punishing yourself, hiding, apologising, creating distance from friend, verbally or physically attacking/punishing friend, or no action/other action.

* blame attribution

Participants are asked to indicate how strongly they would blame themselves and how strongly they would blame thier friend for the imagined behaviour using a 7-point visual analogue scale, where 1 = not at all and 7 = very much.

Access Pavlovia online testing version here

Description files:

- MSAT_instructions_pavlovia_v2.docx: Instructions for participants, explaining the task

-Template_MSAT_excelversion_updatedAug22fwebpublication.xls: excel version uses excel macros and does not require Pavlovia

• Norms on social and animal function concepts as used in (Zahn et al., PNAS 2007, Cerebral Cortex 2009 and Brain 2009)
• Value-related moral sentiment task (different versions) including norms on guilt, indignation/anger towards self and other, pride, gratitude, disgust/contempt towards self and other, shame, embarrassment as used in (Zahn et al., Cerebral Cortex 2009, Green et al. Archives of General Psychiatry 2012, Green et al., Psychopathology 2012).
• The Phone pre-screening interview used in Green et al., Archives of General Psychiatry, 2012 is contained as an Appendix in the attached version of the Online Only Materials (see attached below)
• The conceptual social knowledge differentiation (CSKD) task as described in our 2013 paper (Green et al Soc Nsci 2013 free download) is attached below (free for non-commercial use and modification), please do not hesitate to get in touch with rzahn @ translational-cognitive-neuroscience.org if you have any questions or would like a copy of our normative data. There are two versions of the task, one starting with positive actions, and one with negative actions, this is to be randomised across participants to exclude order effects. The order of stimuli is fully randomised but you need to order them by the random number column for each participant (see word document with task instructions).