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Choosing to view morbid information involves reward circuitry.

Suzanne Oosterwijk1,2, Lukas Snoek3,4, Jurriaan Tekoppele5

  • 1Social Psychology Department, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. s.oosterwijk@uva.nl.

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People are drawn to negative content, and brain scans reveal that choosing to view such material activates reward pathways. This neural activity is similar to that seen with regular curiosity and incentives.

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Psychology
  • Decision Science

Background:

  • Human behavior frequently involves seeking out content depicting death, violence, or harm.
  • Understanding the neural mechanisms underlying the choice to engage with negative information is limited.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the neural circuits engaged when individuals choose to view negative stimuli.
  • To compare brain activation patterns for choosing negative versus positive stimuli.

Main Methods:

  • Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was employed to monitor brain activity.
  • Participants made active choices to view images (negative and positive) based on accompanying verbal cues.

Main Results:

  • Choosing to view negative stimuli, compared to passive viewing or choosing positive stimuli, significantly activated key brain regions.
  • Activated regions included the striatum, inferior frontal gyrus, anterior insula, and anterior cingulate cortex.
  • This activation pattern aligns with neural systems associated with extrinsic incentives and curiosity.

Conclusions:

  • The act of choosing negative content engages reward circuitry, challenging simpler models of decision-making and valuation.
  • Findings provide a foundation for understanding the psychological value and neural basis of seeking negative information.