Abstract
Although economic decision-making is commonly characterized as a purely rational phenomenon, it is clear that real-world decision-making is influenced by emotions. Yet, relatively little is known about the neural correlates of this process. To explore this issue, 20 participants underwent fMRI scanning while engaged in the Prisoner’s Dilemma game under partner-directed sympathy, anger and neutral emotion conditions. Participants were most and least likely to cooperate after sympathy and anger induction, respectively, with the neutral condition eliciting intermediate cooperation rates. Moreover, the sympathy condition elicited quicker responses for cooperation than defection choices, whereas this pattern was reversed in the anger and neutral conditions. Left amygdala activation showed a positive correlation with cooperation rates and self-reports of partner directed sympathy in the sympathy condition. In the anger condition, left putamen activation was positively correlated with cooperation rates and negatively correlated with self-reports of partner directed anger strength. These findings indicate that while the left amygdala activation may be indicative of emotion enhancement and increase of cooperative behavior, the left putamen may help to suppress an emotion to overcome anger and engage in cooperation.
Highlights
Human choice often involves tension between cooperation and non-cooperation
A significant repeated measures ANOVA [F(2, 36) = 6.97, p = 0.003, ηp2 = 0.279] with post hoc comparisons between the emotion conditions showed that the cooperation rate increased significantly from neutral to sympathy [t(19) = 2.79, p = 0.012, dz = 0.624], and decreased from neutral to anger at a trend level [t(19) = −2.07, p = 0.052, dz = 0.463]
Cooperation increased from anger to sympathy conditions [t(19) = 4.13, p = 0.001, dz = 0.923]
Summary
Human choice often involves tension between cooperation and non-cooperation. Actions to combat climate change provide a relevant real-world example. As an individual, if I bear the cost and reduce my carbon footprint (cooperate), and my neighbor continues to pollute (defect), he will reap a greater benefit than myself. I choose to continue polluting (defect), and my neighbor bears the cost of reducing carbon emissions (cooperate), I will reap the greatest benefit. If we both choose to continue polluting (defecting), we will both suffer . These types of choices are often formulated and studied in the laboratory as variations of the Prisoner’s Dilemma game (Oskamp and Perlman, 1965)
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