Consciousness, Cognition and Computation Group (CO3), Center for Research in Cognition & Neurosciences (CRCN), ULB Neuroscience Institute (UNI), Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), London, United Kingdom.
Social & Moral Brain Lab, Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
PLoS One. 2021 Oct 28;16(10):e0258884. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0258884. eCollection 2021.
Milgram's classical studies famously suggested a widespread willingness to obey authority, even to the point of inflicting harm. Important situational factors supporting obedience, such as proximity with the victim, have been established. Relatively little work has focused on how coercion affects individual cognition, or on identifying the cognitive factors that underlie inter-individual differences in the tendency to yield to coercion. Here, we used fMRI to investigate the neural systems associated with changes in volitional processes associated with sense of agency and sense of responsibility under coercion. Participants either freely chose, or were instructed by the experimenter, to give mildly painful electric shocks to another participant, or to refrain from doing so. We have previously shown that coercion reduces temporal binding, which has been proposed as an implicit proxy measure of sense of agency. We tested how reduced agency under coercion related to differences in neural activity between free choice and coercion. In contrast to previous studies and to participants performing the task outside the MRI scanner, on average there was no effect of coercion on agency for participants in the scanner. However, greater activity in the medial frontal gyrus was reliably associated with greater agency under coercion. A similar association was found using explicit responsibility ratings. Our findings suggest that medial frontal processes, perhaps related to volition during action planning and execution, may help to preserve a sense of accountability under coercion. Further, participants who administered more shocks under free choice showed reduced activity during free choice trials in brain areas associated with social cognition. Possibly, this might reflect participants cognitively distancing themselves from the recipient of the shocks under free choice, whereas this was not observed under coercion.
米尔格拉姆的经典研究著名地表明，人们普遍愿意服从权威，甚至愿意实施伤害。已经确定了支持服从的重要情境因素，例如与受害者的接近程度。相对较少的工作关注强制如何影响个体认知，或者识别个体差异的认知因素，这些因素是屈服于强制的基础。在这里，我们使用 fMRI 来研究与在强制下意志过程的变化相关的神经系统，这些意志过程与代理权和责任感有关。参与者要么自由选择，要么由实验者指示，给另一个参与者轻微的电击，要么不这样做。我们之前已经表明，强制会减少时间绑定，这被提议作为代理权的一种隐性代理测量。我们测试了在强制下降低的代理权如何与自由选择和强制之间的神经活动差异相关。与之前的研究和在 MRI 扫描仪外执行任务的参与者不同，平均而言，强制对参与者的代理权没有影响。然而，内侧前额叶的活动与强制下更大的代理权有可靠的关联。使用明确的责任评级也发现了类似的关联。我们的发现表明，内侧前额叶过程，可能与行动规划和执行过程中的意志有关，可能有助于在强制下保持问责感。此外，在自由选择下给予更多电击的参与者在与社会认知相关的大脑区域中，在自由选择试验期间的活动减少。可能，这反映了参与者在自由选择下从接受电击的人那里在认知上保持距离，而在强制下则没有观察到这种情况。
