Abstract
Societies are characterized by a shared system of social norms, which promotes cooperation among people. However, following social norms often means going against self-interest—imagine, for example, being required to choose whether or not to get richer from an unfair deal; ignoring social norms, on the other hand, may elicit disruptive antisocial behaviors that damage human relationships. Therefore, this type of value-based decisions is particularly tough and requires a complex trade-off between self- and other-regarding motivations. The advancement in cognitive neuroscience has shed light on the mechanisms underlying social norm compliance, describing the interplay between the emotional, reward, and self-control systems in shaping social norm preference (Fehr and Camerer, Evolution and Human Behavior 25(2), 63–87, 2007). The modulation of these systems, in particular self-control areas like dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), through TMS and tDCS has proven to be effective in modifying people’s behavior in socio-economic contexts (Knoch et al., Science 314(5800), 829–832, 2006; Knoch et al., Cerebral Cortex 18(9), 1987–1990, 2008; Ruff et al., Science 342(6157), 482–484, 2013). The scope of the current paper is to discuss the potential benefits of the enhancement of social norm compliance in the context of therapeutic interventions, along with the issues of methodological, theoretical, and moral nature that may arise when considering the very definition of social norm: indeed, the benchmark for deciding what is right and what is wrong is not always easy to determine in the social context, and thus, the implications of proposing interventions aimed at modulating social norm compliance, although definitely promising, should also be considered carefully.
Highlights
The scope of the current paper is to discuss the potential benefits of the enhancement of social norm compliance in the context of therapeutic interventions, along with the issues of methodological, theoretical and moral nature that may arise when considering the very definition of social norm: the benchmark for deciding what is right and what is wrong is not always easy to determine in the social context, and the implications of proposing interventions aimed at modulating social norm compliance, definitely promising, should be considered carefully
Similar effects have been demonstrated using cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) (Knoch et al, 2008). These findings suggest that the DLPFC modulates self-other regarding preferences: in particular, Knoch et al suggest that self control processes, underpinned by DLPFC, are necessary in order to overcome self-interested motivations of accumulating money and favour fairnessdriven choices
(2013) showed that changing the neural excitability of the right lateral prefrontal cortex through tDCS enhanced both voluntary and sanction-induced social norm compliance, suggesting that these results may be a starting point for developing interventions to deal with impairments in social behaviour
Summary
Individuals with psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder fail to conform to social norms. A very promising study by Ruff et al (2013) showed that changing the neural excitability of the right lateral prefrontal cortex through tDCS enhanced both voluntary and sanction-induced social norm compliance, suggesting that these results may be a starting point for developing interventions to deal with impairments in social behaviour Another recent study by Ligneul et al (2016) showed that activation of the rostromedial PFC was positively associated with positive (victory) and negatively with negative (defeat) prediction errors in a perceptual decision-making game where participants competed against others. Rejecting unfair deals in order to pursue fairness is a useful social norm-driven behavior; what is perceived as fair depends on a complex and individual-specific network of areas related to emotion, cognitive control, memory (Chang & Sanfey, 2009) This suggests that any interference with one of these systems may lead to a wrong interpretation of the situation or of our own current motivations. It is challenging to develop interventions when the dividing line between a right and a wrong answer can get blurred
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