Modulation of Conscientiousness on Medial Frontal Negativity in Negative Emotions: an ERP Study on Ultimatum Game

Abstract

The event-related potential technique was used to explore whether the medial frontal negativity (MFN) was impacted by conscientiousness in different emotional states. We found that compared to negative emotions and fair offers, larger MFN amplitudes were found in positive emotions and unfair offers; in negative emotions and unfair offers, conscientiousness and the amplitude of MFN had a positive relationship, related to positive emotions and fair offers. The results reveal that the MFN reflected the cognitive evaluate process of decision-making situations and positive emotions benefited the cognition of different situations; conscientiousness enhanced the economic incomes by weakening the MFN in negative emotions and unfair situation. This study provides psychophysiological evidence which has high ecological validity of the difference of MFN in real-life interaction task.