Morally Awake

So there's this new study (link) saying that sleep deprivation may lead to a lack of moral fortitude. Basically a bunch of otherwise healthy soldiers were asked a series of questions ranging from simple situations to challenging moral dilemmas with the options "appropriate" or "inappropriate". Their answers were logged and they were then sleep deprived (kept awake) for 53 hours (a little more than 2 days) straight. The volunteers were then asked the same questions again, this time the morally challenging questions took longer for them to answer and in some cases their answers reflected a wavering from their previous answers.

Interesting...

Reading further I found out that those volunteers who scored high in morality when polled before the deprivation did not waiver on what they found morally appropriate.

What does this say about our sense of morality? People who have strong morals to begin with are more likely to stick to their guns under pressure. Could we expand that to show the importance of parenting? Will people who are raised with a strong moral conviction be more likely to stick to it later in life? Less likely to fall victim to peer pressure? I don't know...