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How moral decision-making occurs, matures over time and relates to behaviour is complex. To develop a full picture of moral decision-making, moral development and moral behaviour it is necessary to understand: (a) how real-time moral decisions are made (including relevant social and contextual factors), (b) what processes are required to develop to enable mature moral decisions, (c) how these processes develop over time, and (d) how moral decisions relate to behaviour. In this paper, psychological and social neuroscience theories of moral decision-making and development are briefly reviewed, as is the development of relevant component processes. Various component processes and factors are seen as required for moral decision-making and development, yet there is no comprehensive framework incorporating these components into one explanation of how real-time moral decisions are made and mature. In this paper, we integrated these components into a new framework based on social information processing (SIP) theory. Situational factors, and how both cognitive and affective processes guide moral decisions was incorporated into the Social Information Processing-Moral Decision-Making (SIP-MDM) framework, drawing upon theories and findings from developmental psychology and social neuroscience. How this framework goes beyond previous SIP models was outlined, followed by a discussion of how it can explain both real-time moral decisions and moral development. We concluded with how the SIP-MDM framework could be used to guide future research and theory development in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although health provider racial/ethnic bias has the potential to influence health outcomes and inequities, research within health education and training contexts remains limited. This paper reports findings from an anonymous web-based study examining racial/ethnic bias amongst final year medical students in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Data from 302 students (34% of all eligible final year medical students) were collected in two waves in 2014 and 2015 as part of the Bias and Decision Making in Medicine (BDMM) study. Two chronic disease vignettes, two implicit bias measures, and measures of explicit bias were used to assess racial/ethnic bias towards New Zealand European and Māori (indigenous) peoples. Medical students demonstrated implicit pro-New Zealand European racial/ethnic bias on average, and bias towards viewing New Zealand European patients as more compliant relative to Māori. Explicit pro-New Zealand European racial/ethnic bias was less evident, but apparent for measures of ethnic preference, relative warmth, and beliefs about the compliance and competence of Māori patients relative to New Zealand European patients. In addition, racial/ethnic bias appeared to be associated with some measures of medical student beliefs about individual patients by ethnicity when responding to a mental health vignette. Patterning of racial/ethnic bias by student characteristics was not consistent, with the exception of some associations between student ethnicity, socioeconomic background, and racial/ethnic bias. This is the first study of its kind with a health professional population in Aotearoa/New Zealand, representing an important contribution to further understanding and addressing current health inequities between Māori and New Zealand European populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]