How beliefs about self-creation inflate value in the human brain

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Behavioral Economics

Background:

• Humans exhibit a bias towards overvaluing self-created items.
• This overvaluation can lead to suboptimal decisions, such as preferring self-made options over objectively superior ones.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the psychological and neurobiological mechanisms underlying the overvaluation of self-created items.
• To determine if the belief in self-creation, irrespective of its truthfulness, drives this valuation bias.

Main Methods:

• Utilized experimental manipulations to elicit or implant false beliefs of self-creation in participants.
• Employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine brain activity and functional connectivity during valuation tasks.
• Correlated blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) activity in specific brain regions with subjective value and belief.

Main Results:

• Overvaluation of items occurred when participants believed they had created them, regardless of actual creation (Experiments 1 & 2).
• Increased functional connectivity was observed between the right caudate nucleus (linked to subjective value) and the left amygdala (linked to subjective belief) following the creation manipulation.
• BOLD activity in the right caudate nucleus correlated with subjective value, while activity in the left amygdala correlated with subjective belief.

Conclusions:

• The belief in self-creation is a reconstructive process that significantly alters human valuation.
• False beliefs about creation can profoundly impact decision-making and judgments of value.
• Psychological and neurobiological processes mediate how beliefs influence valuation, shedding light on common errors in judgment.