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Yang L, Gao Y, Ao L, Wang H, Zhou S, Liu Y. Context Modulates Perceived Fairness in Altruistic Punishment: Neural Signatures from ERPs and EEG Oscillations. Brain Topogr 2024:10.1007/s10548-024-01039-1. [PMID: 38448713 DOI: 10.1007/s10548-024-01039-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/04/2023] [Accepted: 02/01/2024] [Indexed: 03/08/2024]
Abstract
Social norms and altruistic punitive behaviours are both based on the integration of information from multiple contexts. Individual behavioural performance can be altered by loss and gain contexts, which produce different mental states and subjective perceptions. In this study, we used event-related potential and time-frequency techniques to examine performance on a third-party punishment task and to explore the neural mechanisms underlying context-dependent differences in punishment decisions. The results indicated that individuals were more likely to reject unfairness in the context of loss (vs. gain) and to increase punishment as unfairness increased. In contrast, fairness appeared to cause an early increase in cognitive control signal enhancement, as indicated by the P2 amplitude and theta oscillations, and a later increase in emotional and motivational salience during decision-making in gain vs. loss contexts, as indicated by the medial frontal negativity and beta oscillations. In summary, individuals were more willing to sanction violations of social norms in the loss context than in the gain context and rejecting unfair losses induced more equity-related cognitive conflict than accepting unfair gains, highlighting the importance of context (i.e., gain vs. loss) in equity-related social decision-making processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lei Yang
- School of Psychology and Mental Health, North China University of Science and Technology, 21 Bohai avenue, Caofeidian district, Tangshan, Hebei province, China
| | - Yuan Gao
- School of Psychology and Mental Health, North China University of Science and Technology, 21 Bohai avenue, Caofeidian district, Tangshan, Hebei province, China
| | - Lihong Ao
- School of Psychology and Mental Health, North China University of Science and Technology, 21 Bohai avenue, Caofeidian district, Tangshan, Hebei province, China
| | - He Wang
- School of Psychology and Mental Health, North China University of Science and Technology, 21 Bohai avenue, Caofeidian district, Tangshan, Hebei province, China
| | - Shuhang Zhou
- Meta Platform, Inc, 121 S Magnolia Ave, Apt 1, Millbrae, CA, 94030, USA
| | - Yingjie Liu
- School of Psychology and Mental Health, North China University of Science and Technology, 21 Bohai avenue, Caofeidian district, Tangshan, Hebei province, China.
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Liu Y, Xing H, Gao Y, Bian X, Fu X, DiFabrizio B, Wang H. Disrupting the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex Attenuates the Difference in Decision-Making for Altruistic Punishment Between the Gain and Loss Contexts. Brain Topogr 2024:10.1007/s10548-023-01029-9. [PMID: 38200358 DOI: 10.1007/s10548-023-01029-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/14/2023] [Accepted: 12/08/2023] [Indexed: 01/12/2024]
Abstract
Altruistic punishment is a primary response to social norms violations; its neural mechanism has also attracted extensive research attention. In the present studies, we applied a low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) while participants engaged in a modified Ultimatum Game (Study 1) and third-party punishment game (Study 2) to explore how the bilateral DLPFC disruption affects people's perception of violation of fairness norms and altruistic punishment decision in the gain and loss contexts. Typically, punishers intervene more often against and show more social outrage towards Dictators/Proposers who unfairly distribute losses than those who unfairly share gains. We found that disrupting the function of the left DLPFC in the second-party punishment and the bilateral DLPFC in the third-party punishment with rTMS effectively obliterated this difference, making participants punish unfairly shared gains as often as they usually would punish unfairly shared losses. In the altruistic punishment of maintaining the social fairness norms, the inhibition of the right DLPFC function will affect the deviation of individual information integration ability; the inhibition of the left DLPFC function will affect the assessment of the degree of violation of fairness norms and weaken impulse control, leading to attenuate the moderating effect of gain and loss contexts on altruistic punishment. Our findings emphasize that DLPFC is closely related to altruistic punishment and provide causal neuroscientific evidence.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yingjie Liu
- School of Public Health, North China University of Science and Technology, 21 Bohai Avenue, Caofeidian District, Tangshan, Hebei, China
- School of Psychology and Mental Health, North China University of Science and Technology, 21 Bohai Avenue, Caofeidian District, Tangshan, Hebei, China
| | - Hongbo Xing
- School of Psychology and Mental Health, North China University of Science and Technology, 21 Bohai Avenue, Caofeidian District, Tangshan, Hebei, China
| | - Yuan Gao
- School of Psychology and Mental Health, North China University of Science and Technology, 21 Bohai Avenue, Caofeidian District, Tangshan, Hebei, China
| | - Xiaohua Bian
- School of Educational Science, International Joint Laboratory of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences, Zhengzhou Normal University, No.16 Yingcai Street, Huiji District, Zhengzhou, Henan, China
| | - Xin Fu
- School of Psychology and Mental Health, North China University of Science and Technology, 21 Bohai Avenue, Caofeidian District, Tangshan, Hebei, China
| | | | - He Wang
- School of Public Health, North China University of Science and Technology, 21 Bohai Avenue, Caofeidian District, Tangshan, Hebei, China.
- School of Psychology and Mental Health, North China University of Science and Technology, 21 Bohai Avenue, Caofeidian District, Tangshan, Hebei, China.
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