Abstract
Pro-social behaviors have been adequately studied by neuroscientists. However, few neural studies have focused on the social evaluation of pro-social behaviors, and none has compared the neural correlates of different pro-social decision evaluations. By fourth-party evaluation of third-party punishment/help dictator game paradigm, we explored the third-party pro-social behaviors and derived feedback-related negativity (FRN) from the electroencephalogram. Different from previous event-related potentials (ERP) studies, we simultaneously focused on two different third-party pro-social behaviors, which were called third-party help and third-party punishment. For the first time, we compared the different neural processes of fourth-party evaluation on third-party help and punishment. Behavioral results showed that fourth-party bystanders appreciated the help behavior of the third party even more than the punishment behavior. ERP results revealed that fourth-party bystanders’ FRN amplitudes were modulated by the third-party behaviors. Under the assignment condition (70:30) with help/punishment magnitude 45 and (90:10) with magnitude 80, the third-party help elicited a larger FRN than third-party punishment; whereas under the condition (90:10) with help/punishment magnitude 45, the difference between FRN amplitudes disappeared. These results indicated that fourth-party bystanders ultimately agreed more with helpful third parties; however, after they witnessed the norm violation, they expected the third parties to punish the norm violators immediately. This phenomenon appears only when the third-party actors can achieve justice between norm violators and victims.
Highlights
The evaluation of pro-social behaviors accurately reflects the ethical standards of a society
To understand the possible explanatory and modulatory factors of fourth-party evaluation of pro-social behaviors, our study examines the interplay between pro-social behavior types, fourth-party evaluations, and the feedback-related negativity (FRN) component
We examined the relation between the fourth-party evaluation, pro-social behavior types, and the FRN component associated with anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)-dependent responses toward unexpected outcomes (Hauser et al, 2014)
Summary
The evaluation of pro-social behaviors accurately reflects the ethical standards of a society. Behavioral and experimental economics have achieved some insights on the social evaluation of pro-social behaviors using the experimental paradigm, in which the fourth-party bystanders may evaluate third-party help or third-party punishment behaviors (Raihani and Bshary, 2015). Existing neuroscience studies have examined the motivations, brain processes, and even genetic factors of third parties who punished norm violators (Strobel et al, 2011; Qu et al, 2014) and helped the victims (Hu et al, 2015). The current study aims to classify the brain processes of fourth-party bystanders when evaluating third-party pro-social behaviors by assessing neuronal markers (electroencephalogram: EEG). It investigates the neural differences between the evaluations of pro-social help and punishment
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