a Department of Psychology , University of Kentucky , Lexington , USA.
Soc Neurosci. 2013;8(6):640-9. doi: 10.1080/17470919.2013.846278. Epub 2013 Oct 18.
The misfortunes of enviable individuals are met by observers with pleasure whereas those of "average", non-enviable individuals elicit pain. These responses are mirrored in deservingness judgments, as enviable individuals' misfortunes are perceived as deserved and those of non-enviable individuals perceived as undeserved. However, the neural underpinnings of these deservingness disparities remain unknown. To explore this phenomenon, we utilized fMRI to test the hypotheses that (A) non-enviable targets' misfortunes would be associated with activation of brain regions that mediate empathic responding (pain matrix, mentalizing network) and not for enviable targets and (B) that activation of those regions would predict decreases in deservingness judgments. Supporting our first hypothesis, the misfortunes of non-enviable targets (as opposed to good fortunes) were associated with activation of the mentalizing network: medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, temporal-parietal junction, and anterior temporal lobes. Supporting our second hypothesis, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex activation from this contrast was negatively correlated with subsequent reports of how much the non-enviable target deserved his/her misfortune. These findings suggest that non-enviable individuals' misfortunes are perceived as unjust due, in part, to the recruitment of the mentalizing network.
令人羡慕的个体的不幸会被观察者愉快地接受，而“普通”、不令人羡慕的个体的不幸则会引起痛苦。这些反应在应得性判断中得到了反映，因为令人羡慕的个体的不幸被认为是应得的，而不令人羡慕的个体的不幸则被认为是不应得的。然而，这些应得性差异的神经基础仍不清楚。为了探索这一现象，我们利用 fMRI 来检验以下假设：（A）不令人羡慕的目标的不幸会与介导共情反应的大脑区域（疼痛矩阵、心理化网络）的激活相关，而不是与令人羡慕的目标相关；（B）这些区域的激活会预测应得性判断的下降。支持我们的第一个假设，不令人羡慕的目标的不幸（而不是好运）与心理化网络的激活有关：内侧前额叶皮层、后扣带回皮层、颞顶联合区和前颞叶。支持我们的第二个假设，从这个对比中背侧内侧前额叶皮层的激活与随后报告的不令人羡慕的目标应得多少不幸呈负相关。这些发现表明，不令人羡慕的个体的不幸被认为是不公正的，部分原因是心理化网络的招募。
