Sleep and moral awareness

• Main Authors: BARNES, Christopher M., GUNIA, Brian C., WAGNER, David T.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2015
• Subjects: behavioural ethics; ethics; moral awareness; sleep; Mental and Social Health; Organizational Behavior and Theory
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/5509; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/lkcsb_research/article/6508/viewcontent/Sleep_and_moral_awareness.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

The implications of sleep for morality are only starting to be explored. Extending the ethics literature, we contend that because bringing morality to conscious attention requires effort, a lack of sleep leads to low moral awareness. We test this prediction with three studies. A laboratory study with a manipulation of sleep across 90 participants judging a scenario for moral content indicates that a lack of sleep leads to low moral awareness. An archival study of Google Trends data across 6 years highlights a national dip in Web searches for moral topics (but not other topics) on the Monday after the Spring time change, which tends to deprive people of sleep. Finally, a diary study of 127 participants indicates that (within participants) nights with a lack of sleep are associated with low moral awareness the next day. Together, these three studies suggest that a lack of sleep leaves people less morally aware, with important implications for the recognition of morality in others.