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Perceived moral traits of others differentiate the neural activation that underlies inequity-aversion.

ABSTRACT: We have a social preference to reduce inequity in the outcomes between oneself and others. Such a preference varies according to others. We performed functional magnetic resonance imaging during an economic game to investigate how the perceived moral traits of others modulate the neural activities that underlie inequity-aversion. The participants unilaterally allocated money to three partners (good, neutral, and bad). During presentation of the good and neutral partners, the anterior region of the rostral medial frontal cortex (arMFC) showed increased functional connectivity with the caudate head and the anterior insula, respectively. Following this, participants allocated more money to the good partner, and less to the bad partner, compared with the neutral partner. The caudate head and anterior insula showed greater activation during fair allocation to the good and unfair allocation to the neutral partners, respectively. However, these regions were silent during allocations to the bad partner. Therefore, the arMFC-caudate/insula circuit encompasses distinct neural processes that underlie inequity-aversion in monetary allocations that the different moral traits of others can modulate.

SUBMITTER: Nakatani H

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5322339 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Perceived moral traits of others differentiate the neural activation that underlies inequity-aversion.

Nakatani Hironori H Ogawa Akitoshi A Suzuki Chisato C Asamizuya Takeshi T Ueno Kenichi K Cheng Kang K Okanoya Kazuo K

Scientific reports 20170223

We have a social preference to reduce inequity in the outcomes between oneself and others. Such a preference varies according to others. We performed functional magnetic resonance imaging during an economic game to investigate how the perceived moral traits of others modulate the neural activities that underlie inequity-aversion. The participants unilaterally allocated money to three partners (good, neutral, and bad). During presentation of the good and neutral partners, the anterior region of t ...[more]

PMID: 28230155

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Project description:Adults and children are willing to sacrifice personal gain to avoid both disadvantageous and advantageous inequity. These two forms of inequity aversion follow different developmental trajectories, with disadvantageous inequity aversion emerging around 4 years and advantageous inequity aversion emerging around 8 years. Although inequity aversion is assumed to be specific to situations where resources are distributed among individuals, the role of social context has not been tested in children. Here, we investigated the influence of two aspects of social context on inequity aversion in 4- to 9-year-old children: (1) the role of the experimenter distributing rewards and (2) the presence of a peer with whom rewards could be shared. Experiment 1 showed that children rejected inequity at the same rate, regardless of whether the experimenter had control over reward allocations. This indicates that children's decisions are based upon reward allocations between themselves and a peer and are not attempts to elicit more favorable distributions from the experimenter. Experiment 2 compared rejections of unequal reward allocations in children interacting with or without a peer partner. When faced with a disadvantageous distribution, children frequently rejected a smaller reward when a larger reward was visible, even if no partner would obtain the larger reward. This suggests that nonsocial factors partly explain disadvantageous inequity rejections. However, rejections of disadvantageous distributions were higher when the larger amount would go to a peer, indicating that social context enhances disadvantageous inequity aversion. By contrast, children rejected advantageous distributions almost exclusively in the social context. Therefore, advantageous inequity aversion appears to be genuinely social, highlighting its potential relevance for the development of fairness concerns. By comparing social and nonsocial factors, this study provides a detailed picture of the expression of inequity aversion in human ontogeny and raises questions about the function and evolution of inequity aversion in humans.

Dataset Information

Perceived moral traits of others differentiate the neural activation that underlies inequity-aversion.

Publications

Perceived moral traits of others differentiate the neural activation that underlies inequity-aversion.

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