Interbrain Synchrony in the Expectation of Cooperation Behavior: A Hyperscanning Study Using Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy.

Mingming Zhang,Mengxue Zheng,Huibin Jia

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.542093

Mingming Zhang, Mengxue Zheng + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.542093

Copy DOI

Abstract

Expectation of others’ cooperative behavior plays a core role in economic cooperation. However, the dynamic neural substrates of expectation of cooperation (hereafter EOC) are little understood. To fully understand EOC behavior in more natural social interactions, the present study employed functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) hyperscanning to simultaneously measure pairs of participants’ brain activations in a modified prisoner’s dilemma game (PDG). The data analysis revealed the following results. Firstly, under the high incentive condition, team EOC behavior elicited higher interbrain synchrony (IBS) in the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) than individual EOC behavior. Meanwhile, the IBS in the IFG could predict the relationship between empathy/agreeableness and EOC behavior, and this prediction role was modulated by social environmental cues. These results indicate the involvement of the human mirror neuron system (MNS) in the EOC behavior and the different neural substrates between team EOC and individual EOC, which also conform with theory that social behavior was affected by internal (i.e., empathy/agreeableness) and external factors (i.e., incentive). Secondly, female dyads exhibited a higher IBS value of cooperative expectation than male dyads in the team EOC than the individual EOC in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC), while in the individual EOC stage, the coherence value of female dyads was significantly higher than that of male dyads under the low incentive reward condition in the rIFG. These sex effects thus provide presumptive evidence that females are more sensitive to environmental cues and also suggest that during economic social interaction, females’ EOC behavior depends on more social cognitive abilities. Overall, these results raise intriguing questions for future research on human cooperative behaviors.

Highlights

Expectation of cooperation concerns how we think that another person is going to cooperate (Ng and Au, 2016)
According to the “theory of social representations,” the sex effect in the current study demonstrated that males and females execute different “representations systems” during economic social interaction, while females’ EOC behavior depends on more social cognitive abilities
interbrain synchrony (IBS) in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) predicts the relationship between empathy/agreeableness and EOC behavior

Summary

Introduction

Expectation of cooperation (hereafter EOC) concerns how we think that another person is going to cooperate (Ng and Au, 2016). Some studies have reported that agreeableness predicts cooperation in different economic games (Ben-Ner et al, 2004; Pothos et al, 2011; Volk et al, 2011) It appears that agreeableness is positively associated with pro-social behavioral tendencies and at least accounts for some specific aspects of cooperation (Zettler et al, 2013). This effect can be extended to the sex effects modulating the relationship between EOC and cooperative outcome because females are generally considered pro-social and moral, while males are more likely to exhibit self-individual tendencies (Gregory et al, 2010; Lafko, 2015). Previous studies have confirmed that females expect more cooperation behaviors from their partners than males (Bogaert et al, 2011)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion