Mothes Hendrik, Enge Sören, Strobel Alexander
Department of Psychology, Technische Universitaet Dresden, 01062, Dresden, Germany.
Institute of Sport and Sport Science, University of Freiburg, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2016 Apr;16(2):276-88. doi: 10.3758/s13415-015-0388-x.
To date, the interplay betwexen neurophysiological and individual difference factors in altruistic punishment has been little understood. To examine this issue, 45 individuals participated in a Dictator Game with punishment option while the feedback-related negativity (FRN) was derived from the electroencephalogram (EEG). Unlike previous EEG studies on the Dictator Game, we introduced a third party condition to study the effect of fairness norm violations in addition to employing a first person perspective. For the first time, we also examined the role of individual differences, specifically fairness concerns, positive/negative affectivity, and altruism/empathy as well as recipients' financial situation during altruistic punishment. The main results show that FRN amplitudes were more pronounced for unfair than for fair assignments in both the first person and third party perspectives. These findings suggest that FRN amplitudes are sensitive to fairness norm violations and play a crucial role in the recipients' evaluation of dictator assignments. With respect to individual difference factors, recipients' current financial situation affected the FRN fairness effect in the first person perspective, indicating that when being directly affected by the assignments, more affluent participants experienced stronger violations of expectations in altruistic punishment decisions. Regarding individual differences in trait empathy, in the third party condition FRN amplitudes were more pronounced for those who scored lower in empathy. This may suggest empathy as another motive in third party punishment. Independent of the perspective taken, higher positive affect was associated with more punishment behavior, suggesting that positive emotions may play an important role in restoring violated fairness norms.
迄今为止，人们对利他惩罚中神经生理因素与个体差异因素之间的相互作用了解甚少。为了研究这个问题，45名参与者在有惩罚选项的独裁者博弈中进行了实验，同时通过脑电图（EEG）记录与反馈相关的负波（FRN）。与以往关于独裁者博弈的脑电图研究不同，我们引入了第三方条件来研究公平规范违反的影响，此外还采用了第一人称视角。我们还首次研究了个体差异的作用，特别是公平关切、积极/消极情感、利他主义/同理心以及利他惩罚过程中接受者的财务状况。主要结果表明，在第一人称和第三方视角中，不公平分配比公平分配引发的FRN波幅更明显。这些发现表明，FRN波幅对公平规范的违反很敏感，并且在接受者对独裁者分配的评价中起着关键作用。关于个体差异因素，接受者当前的财务状况在第一人称视角下影响了FRN的公平效应，这表明当直接受到分配影响时，较富裕的参与者在利他惩罚决策中经历了更强烈的期望违背。关于特质同理心的个体差异，在第三方条件下，同理心得分较低的人FRN波幅更明显。这可能表明同理心是第三方惩罚的另一个动机。无论采用何种视角，较高的积极情绪都与更多的惩罚行为相关，这表明积极情绪可能在恢复被违反的公平规范中发挥重要作用。
