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Prosocial decision-making under time pressure: Behavioral and neural mechanisms
Zhengjie Liu1, Hailing Zhao1, Yashi Xu1
1School of Psychology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
Human Brain Mapping
|September 29, 2023
Summary
Time pressure impacts self-interest decisions by reducing willingness to spend money. For prosocial choices, high time pressure alters brain activity in empathy and valuation regions, influenced by an individual's empathy trait.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Decision Science
Background:
- Prosocial decision-making is crucial for societal function.
- Understanding how external factors like time pressure influence these decisions is vital.
- Individual differences, such as empathy, can modulate prosocial behavior.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the neural mechanisms underlying prosocial decision-making under varying time pressures.
- To compare the effects of time pressure on self-concerned versus prosocial choices.
- To examine the role of empathy traits in modulating these effects.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a novel experimental paradigm combined with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
- Participants made decisions to alleviate self or others from noise threats under high and low time pressure.
- Behavioral data and brain activity (BOLD signal) were recorded and analyzed.
Main Results:
- High time pressure reduced willingness to spend money for self-relief.
- Neural activity in empathy and valuation regions decreased under high time pressure during prosocial decisions.
- Functional connectivity between valuation and emotion regions predicted behavioral outcomes.
- Empathy trait scores partially mediated the effect of medial orbitofrontal cortex activation on prosocial decisions.
Conclusions:
- Time pressure differentially affects neural processing for self-concerned and prosocial decisions.
- Empathy traits significantly influence prosocial decision-making, particularly under time constraints.
- Neural pathways involved in empathy, valuation, and emotion are key to understanding time pressure's impact on altruism.
Keywords:
empathyfunctional magnetic resonance imagingmedial orbitofrontal cortexprosocial decision-makingtime pressureMore Related Videos
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