Freie Universität Berlin, Division Personality Psychology and Psychological Assessment, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195, Berlin, Germany.
Julius Maximilians University Würzburg, Department of Psychology I, Differential Psychology, Personality Psychology, and Psychological Diagnostics, Marcusstr. 9-11, 97070, Würzburg, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2019 Jul 29;9(1):10985. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-47372-5.
Depending on the point of view, conceptions of greed range from being a desirable and inevitable feature of a well-regulated, well-balanced economy to the root of all evil - radix omnium malorum avaritia (Tim 6.10). Regarding the latter, it has been proposed that greedy individuals strive for obtaining desired goods at all costs. Here, we show that trait greed predicts selfish economic decisions that come at the expense of others in a resource dilemma. This effect was amplified when individuals strived for obtaining real money, as compared to points, and when their revenue was at the expense of another person, as compared to a computer. On the neural level, we show that individuals high, compared to low in trait greed showed a characteristic signature in the EEG, a reduced P3 effect to positive, compared to negative feedback, indicating that they may have a lack of sensitivity to adjust behavior according to positive and negative stimuli from the environment. Brain-behavior relations further confirmed this lack of sensitivity to behavior adjustment as a potential underlying neuro-cognitive mechanism which explains selfish and reckless behavior that may come at the expense of others.
从不同的观点来看，贪婪的概念既有可能是一个得到良好监管和平衡的经济体中所需要的和不可避免的特征，也有可能是万恶之源——贪婪是一切罪恶的根源（提摩太前书 6.10）。关于后者，有人提出贪婪的个体总是不惜一切代价去追求自己想要的东西。在这里，我们发现特质贪婪可以预测个体在资源困境下做出的以自我为中心的经济决策，这种影响在个体追求真实货币而非积分，以及个体的收入来自于他人而非电脑时会被放大。在神经水平上，我们发现特质贪婪程度高的个体与特质贪婪程度低的个体相比，在脑电图中表现出一种特征性的信号，即对正反馈的 P3 效应降低，而对负反馈的 P3 效应升高，这表明他们可能对根据环境中的正、负刺激来调整行为缺乏敏感性。脑行为关系进一步证实了这种缺乏对行为调整的敏感性，这可能是一种潜在的神经认知机制，可以解释可能以牺牲他人为代价的自私和鲁莽行为。
