Cargando…

Manipulation of Pro-Sociality and Rule-Following with Non-invasive Brain Stimulation

Decisions are often governed by rules on adequate social behaviour. Recent research suggests that the right lateral prefrontal cortex (rLPFC) is involved in the implementation of internal fairness rules (norms), by controlling the impulse to act selfishly. A drawback of these studies is that the ass...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Gross, Jörg, Emmerling, Franziska, Vostroknutov, Alexander, Sack, Alexander T.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5789006/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29379072
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-19997-5
_version_ 1783296183631872000
author Gross, Jörg
Emmerling, Franziska
Vostroknutov, Alexander
Sack, Alexander T.
author_facet Gross, Jörg
Emmerling, Franziska
Vostroknutov, Alexander
Sack, Alexander T.
author_sort Gross, Jörg
collection PubMed
description Decisions are often governed by rules on adequate social behaviour. Recent research suggests that the right lateral prefrontal cortex (rLPFC) is involved in the implementation of internal fairness rules (norms), by controlling the impulse to act selfishly. A drawback of these studies is that the assumed norms and impulses have to be deduced from behaviour and that norm-following and pro-sociality are indistinguishable. Here, we directly confronted participants with a rule that demanded to make advantageous or disadvantageous monetary allocations for themselves or another person. To disentangle its functional role in rule-following and pro-sociality, we divergently manipulated the rLPFC by applying cathodal or anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Cathodal tDCS increased participants’ rule-following, even of rules that demanded to lose money or hurt another person financially. In contrast, anodal tDCS led participants to specifically violate more often those rules that were at odds with what participants chose freely. Brain stimulation over the rLPFC thus did not simply increase or decrease selfishness. Instead, by disentangling rule-following and pro-sociality, our results point to a broader role of the rLPFC in integrating the costs and benefits of rules in order to align decisions with internal goals, ultimately enabling to flexibly adapt social behaviour.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-5789006
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2018
publisher Nature Publishing Group UK
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-57890062018-02-08 Manipulation of Pro-Sociality and Rule-Following with Non-invasive Brain Stimulation Gross, Jörg Emmerling, Franziska Vostroknutov, Alexander Sack, Alexander T. Sci Rep Article Decisions are often governed by rules on adequate social behaviour. Recent research suggests that the right lateral prefrontal cortex (rLPFC) is involved in the implementation of internal fairness rules (norms), by controlling the impulse to act selfishly. A drawback of these studies is that the assumed norms and impulses have to be deduced from behaviour and that norm-following and pro-sociality are indistinguishable. Here, we directly confronted participants with a rule that demanded to make advantageous or disadvantageous monetary allocations for themselves or another person. To disentangle its functional role in rule-following and pro-sociality, we divergently manipulated the rLPFC by applying cathodal or anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Cathodal tDCS increased participants’ rule-following, even of rules that demanded to lose money or hurt another person financially. In contrast, anodal tDCS led participants to specifically violate more often those rules that were at odds with what participants chose freely. Brain stimulation over the rLPFC thus did not simply increase or decrease selfishness. Instead, by disentangling rule-following and pro-sociality, our results point to a broader role of the rLPFC in integrating the costs and benefits of rules in order to align decisions with internal goals, ultimately enabling to flexibly adapt social behaviour. Nature Publishing Group UK 2018-01-29 /pmc/articles/PMC5789006/ /pubmed/29379072 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-19997-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Gross, Jörg
Emmerling, Franziska
Vostroknutov, Alexander
Sack, Alexander T.
Manipulation of Pro-Sociality and Rule-Following with Non-invasive Brain Stimulation
title Manipulation of Pro-Sociality and Rule-Following with Non-invasive Brain Stimulation
title_full Manipulation of Pro-Sociality and Rule-Following with Non-invasive Brain Stimulation
title_fullStr Manipulation of Pro-Sociality and Rule-Following with Non-invasive Brain Stimulation
title_full_unstemmed Manipulation of Pro-Sociality and Rule-Following with Non-invasive Brain Stimulation
title_short Manipulation of Pro-Sociality and Rule-Following with Non-invasive Brain Stimulation
title_sort manipulation of pro-sociality and rule-following with non-invasive brain stimulation
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5789006/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29379072
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-19997-5
work_keys_str_mv AT grossjorg manipulationofprosocialityandrulefollowingwithnoninvasivebrainstimulation
AT emmerlingfranziska manipulationofprosocialityandrulefollowingwithnoninvasivebrainstimulation
AT vostroknutovalexander manipulationofprosocialityandrulefollowingwithnoninvasivebrainstimulation
AT sackalexandert manipulationofprosocialityandrulefollowingwithnoninvasivebrainstimulation