Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90007, USA.
Department of Psychology & Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2020 Jun 23;15(4):371-381. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsaa055.
Cooperation is necessary for solving numerous social issues, including climate change, effective governance and economic stability. Value-based decision models contend that prosocial tendencies and social context shape people's preferences for cooperative or selfish behavior. Using functional neuroimaging and computational modeling, we tested these predictions by comparing activity in brain regions previously linked to valuation and executive function during decision-making-the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), respectively. Participants played Public Goods Games with students from fictitious universities, where social norms were selfish or cooperative. Prosocial participants showed greater vmPFC activity when cooperating and dlPFC-vmPFC connectivity when acting selfishly, whereas selfish participants displayed the opposite pattern. Norm-sensitive participants showed greater dlPFC-vmPFC connectivity when defying group norms. Modeling expectations of cooperation was associated with activity near the right temporoparietal junction. Consistent with value-based models, this suggests that prosocial tendencies and contextual norms flexibly determine whether people prefer cooperation or defection.
合作对于解决许多社会问题是必要的，包括气候变化、有效治理和经济稳定。基于价值的决策模型认为，亲社会倾向和社会环境塑造了人们对合作或自私行为的偏好。我们使用功能神经影像学和计算模型，通过比较在决策过程中与估值和执行功能相关的大脑区域的活动来检验这些预测——分别是腹内侧前额叶皮层（vmPFC）和背外侧前额叶皮层（dlPFC）。参与者与来自虚构大学的学生一起玩公共物品游戏，其中社会规范是自私的或合作的。亲社会的参与者在合作时表现出更大的 vmPFC 活动，而在自私地行动时表现出更大的 dlPFC-vmPFC 连通性，而自私的参与者则表现出相反的模式。违背群体规范的规范敏感参与者表现出更大的 dlPFC-vmPFC 连通性。对合作期望的建模与右颞顶交界处附近的活动有关。与基于价值的模型一致，这表明亲社会倾向和环境规范灵活地决定了人们是更喜欢合作还是背叛。
