Distinguishing neural correlates of context-dependent advantageous- and disadvantageous-inequity aversion

Humans can integrate social contextual information into decision-making processes to adjust their responses toward inequity. This context dependency emerges when individuals receive more (i.e., advantageous inequity) or less (i.e., disadvantageous inequity) than others. However, it is not clear whet...

Full description

Saved in:

Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 115; no. 33; pp. E7680 - E7689
Main Authors:	Gao, Xiaoxue, 高晓雪, Yu, Hongbo, 于宏波, Sáez, Ignacio, Blue, Philip R., Zhu, Lusha, 朱露莎, Hsu, Ming, 许明, Zhou, Xiaolin, 周晓林
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	United States National Academy of Sciences 14-08-2018
Series:	PNAS Plus
Subjects:	Amygdala Aversion Biological Sciences Cerebral Cortex - physiology Cognition Cognitive psychology Computation Computational neuroscience Computer Simulation Cortex (cingulate) Decision Making Dependence Female Functional magnetic resonance imaging Games, Experimental Humans Information processing Male Medical imaging Neuroimaging Neurology Pain PNAS Plus Prefrontal cortex Social Behavior Social psychology Social Sciences Substrates fMRI disadvantageous inequity guilt context advantageous inequity insula
Online Access:	Get full text
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!

Description
Summary:	Humans can integrate social contextual information into decision-making processes to adjust their responses toward inequity. This context dependency emerges when individuals receive more (i.e., advantageous inequity) or less (i.e., disadvantageous inequity) than others. However, it is not clear whether context-dependent processing of advantageous and disadvantageous inequity involves differential neurocognitive mechanisms. Here, we used fMRI to address this question by combining an interactive game that modulates social contexts (e.g., interpersonal guilt) with computational models that enable us to characterize individual weights on inequity aversion. In each round, the participant played a dot estimation task with an anonymous coplayer. The coplayerwould receive pain stimulation with 50% probability when either of them responded incorrectly. At the end of each round, the participant completed a variant of dictator game, which determined payoffs for him/herself and the coplayer. Computational modeling demonstrated the context dependency of inequity aversion: when causing pain to the coplayer (i.e., guilt context), participants cared more about the advantageous inequity and became more tolerant of the disadvantageous inequity, compared with other conditions. Consistently, neuroimaging results suggested the two types of inequity were associated with differential neurocognitive substrates. While the context-dependent processing of advantageous inequity was associated with social- and mentalizing-related processes, involving left anterior insula, right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, the context-dependent processing of disadvantageous inequity was primarily associated with emotion- and conflict-related processes, involving left posterior insula, right amygdala, and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. These results extend our understanding of decision-making processes related to inequity aversion.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 1X.G. and H.Y. contributed equally to this work. Edited by Ernst Fehr, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, and accepted by Editorial Board Member Michael S. Gazzaniga July 9, 2018 (received for review February 10, 2018) Author contributions: X.G., H.Y., I.S., P.R.B., L.Z., M.H., and X.Z. designed research; X.G. and H.Y. performed research; I.S., L.Z., and M.H. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; X.G. and H.Y. analyzed data; and X.G., H.Y., P.R.B., L.Z., M.H., and X.Z. wrote the paper.
ISSN:	0027-8424 1091-6490 1091-6490
DOI:	10.1073/pnas.1802523115