Mental fatigue increases utilitarian moral judgments during COVID-19

This research investigated how mental fatigue is associated with moral judgments during the COVID-19 pandemic and studied the moderating effect of social support. We used self-report questionnaires to collect data from 4,042 people. We assessed people’s mental fatigue and social support during the pandemic, and designed nine moral dilemmas based on the background of COVID-19 to measure people’s moral judgments. The results showed that during the COVID-19 pandemic mental fatigue had a significant impact on moral judgments. Individuals with higher mental fatigue were more likely to make more utilitarian choices, while social support moderated the relationship between mental fatigue and moral judgments. When experiencing mental fatigue, individuals with low, compared to high, social support are more likely to rely on utilitarianism to make moral judgments.