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The computational and neural substrates of moral strategies in social decision-making

Individuals employ different moral principles to guide their social decision-making, thus expressing a specific ‘moral strategy’. Which computations characterize different moral strategies, and how might they be instantiated in the brain? Here, we tackle these questions in the context of decisions a...

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Autores principales: van Baar, Jeroen M., Chang, Luke J., Sanfey, Alan G.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6445121/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30940815
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09161-6
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author van Baar, Jeroen M.
Chang, Luke J.
Sanfey, Alan G.
author_facet van Baar, Jeroen M.
Chang, Luke J.
Sanfey, Alan G.
author_sort van Baar, Jeroen M.
collection PubMed
description Individuals employ different moral principles to guide their social decision-making, thus expressing a specific ‘moral strategy’. Which computations characterize different moral strategies, and how might they be instantiated in the brain? Here, we tackle these questions in the context of decisions about reciprocity using a modified Trust Game. We show that different participants spontaneously and consistently employ different moral strategies. By mapping an integrative computational model of reciprocity decisions onto brain activity using inter-subject representational similarity analysis of fMRI data, we find markedly different neural substrates for the strategies of ‘guilt aversion’ and ‘inequity aversion’, even under conditions where the two strategies produce the same choices. We also identify a new strategy, ‘moral opportunism’, in which participants adaptively switch between guilt and inequity aversion, with a corresponding switch observed in their neural activation patterns. These findings provide a valuable view into understanding how different individuals may utilize different moral principles.
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spelling pubmed-64451212019-04-03 The computational and neural substrates of moral strategies in social decision-making van Baar, Jeroen M. Chang, Luke J. Sanfey, Alan G. Nat Commun Article Individuals employ different moral principles to guide their social decision-making, thus expressing a specific ‘moral strategy’. Which computations characterize different moral strategies, and how might they be instantiated in the brain? Here, we tackle these questions in the context of decisions about reciprocity using a modified Trust Game. We show that different participants spontaneously and consistently employ different moral strategies. By mapping an integrative computational model of reciprocity decisions onto brain activity using inter-subject representational similarity analysis of fMRI data, we find markedly different neural substrates for the strategies of ‘guilt aversion’ and ‘inequity aversion’, even under conditions where the two strategies produce the same choices. We also identify a new strategy, ‘moral opportunism’, in which participants adaptively switch between guilt and inequity aversion, with a corresponding switch observed in their neural activation patterns. These findings provide a valuable view into understanding how different individuals may utilize different moral principles. Nature Publishing Group UK 2019-04-02 /pmc/articles/PMC6445121/ /pubmed/30940815 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09161-6 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 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
van Baar, Jeroen M.
Chang, Luke J.
Sanfey, Alan G.
The computational and neural substrates of moral strategies in social decision-making
title The computational and neural substrates of moral strategies in social decision-making
title_full The computational and neural substrates of moral strategies in social decision-making
title_fullStr The computational and neural substrates of moral strategies in social decision-making
title_full_unstemmed The computational and neural substrates of moral strategies in social decision-making
title_short The computational and neural substrates of moral strategies in social decision-making
title_sort computational and neural substrates of moral strategies in social decision-making
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6445121/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30940815
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09161-6
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