Does interoceptive awareness affect the ability to regulate unfair treatment by others?

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Social Psychology
• Decision Science

Background:

• Interoceptive awareness is vital for emotional regulation.
• Limited research explores interoceptive awareness's role in regulating emotions during social decision-making.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the influence of interoceptive awareness on emotion regulation during social decision-making.
• To examine the relationship between heartbeat detection accuracy and behavioral changes in response to unfair offers within the Ultimatum Game.

Main Methods:

• Quantified interoceptive awareness using a heartbeat detection task.
• Assessed social decision-making via a two-round Ultimatum Game.
• Measured behavioral and self-reported emotional responses during baseline and reappraisal conditions.

Main Results:

• Participants accepted more unfair offers and made higher return offers after reappraisal compared to baseline.
• Higher interoceptive awareness correlated with reduced self-reported emotional involvement during reappraisal.
• No significant relationship found between heartbeat detection accuracy and offer acceptance or return offers.

Conclusions:

• Emotion regulation strategies, like reappraisal, alter social decision-making behavior.
• The link between interoceptive awareness and emotion regulation in social contexts is complex and requires further investigation.