Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2024-04-23
Abstract： Prosocial behavior is suggested to be a central feature of human life and there is an ongoing debate regarding whether individuals have, therefore, developed a general intuitive tendency to act prosocially or not. Although previous studies have found various indicators of intuitive prosociality from different perspectives, evidence on the potential causal relationship between processing mods and prosocial behavior is mixed. The social heuristics hypothesis (SHH), as a theoretical framework to address this conflicting issue, suggests that associations between processing mode and prosocial behavior are complex and multifaceted, influenced by individual variability and the contexts in which it occurs. A previous study has revealed that intuitive prosocial behavior is more likely to emerge in a perceived emergency that require immediate response. We expected that processing mode (intuition vs. deliberation) will impact people’s decision-making in different helping situations.
The study focused on charitable giving. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), we examined the neural mechanisms underlying the effects of processing mode and emergency on helping behaviors. We explored whether a neural signature that rapidly encodes the motivational salience of an event, the P3, can be regulated by processing mode × situation interaction or not. Participants were required to allocate varying amounts of money between themselves and charities they initially labelled as emergency or non-emergency situation that promoted intuitive or deliberative decision making. Each participant received 70 CNY. An instruction on the screen explained that the task required participants to “Accept” or “Reject” donation offers affecting their 70 CNY. To manipulate processing mode, each participant completed fast donation sessions where they were instructed to make decisions as fast as possible, and slow donation sessions where they were instructed to stop and reflect for at least 5 seconds before deciding. EEG signals were recorded during decision making.
The behavioral results indicated that both average contributions and average acceptance rates were affected by emergency, with emergency events eliciting more helping behavior compared to non-emergency events. Moreover, participants considered the offer costliness when making decisions. In emergency situations, participants were more likely to accept high-cost offers than in the non-emergency situations. The ERP components analysis revealed that: a) In the early stages, intuitive processing induced a more negative anterior N1 (AN1) compared to deliberative processing; b) Deliberative processing was associated with a more positive P2 compared to intuitive processing; c) In non-emergency situations, deliberative processing induced a more positive P3 compared to intuitive processing, whereas no significant differences were observed between processing mode in emergency situations.
These results suggest that prosocial behavior is affected by both the emergency of event and the costliness of the offer. As costs increase, individuals are more inclined to help in emergency situations than in non-emergency situations. Furthermore, processing mode affects individual’s early attention and the evaluation of stimuli. Stimuli in intuition condition can capture more early attention, while stimuli in deliberation condition receive more thorough processing. Notably, deliberative processing of non-emergency events involves greater decision-making conflicts and consumes more psychological resources. Overall, these findings shed light on the connection between processing mode and human prosociality, and extend our understanding of the social heuristics hypothesis.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Prosociality is a central feature of human beings and a major focus of research across the natural and social sciences. Most theoretical models of prosociality share a common assumption: Humans are instinctively selfish, and prosocial behaviors require exerting reflective control over these basic instincts. However, the intuitive model of prosociality has recently contradicted this view. This model assumes that the understanding of prosociality should be revised to include the possibility that, in many cases, prosocial behavior -- instead of requiring active control over our impulses -- represents an impulse of its own. The intuitive model of prosociality is supported by at least three markers: (1) behavioral signs of automaticity, (2) neural signatures of reward seeking, and (3) early development. Furthermore, based on social heuristics hypothesis, we explained human’s intuitive prosociality and analyzed the context and the individual factors which affect human’s intuitive prosocial behavior. These observations provided a new perspective for researchers and challenged them to reconsider the roots of prosociality.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Trust games were widely used as a classic paradigm of trust measurement. However, the accuracy of the results of the trust game had been questioned by scholars in the field all the time, making precise trust measurement an important topic for exploration. The controversy mainly includes the following two aspects. On the one hand, the appropriateness of the trust game paradigm has yet to be verified. The controversy over paradigm changes further reveals that social preferences and risk preferences might have an impact on the level of investment trust, thereby reducing the internal validity of the trust game. On the other hand, the correlation between the level of the investment trust in trust games and the trust measured by the survey is very low, which can be explained by differences in attitudes and behaviours, differences in measurement types, and the limitations of trust measured by the survey and trust game. Although trust game face with some controversy, in general, it is still a suitable method for trust measuring. Future research should focus on the following points: Verifying the scientificity of the changes in the paradigm of trust game; Clarifying the low correlation between trust game and trust measured by survey; Expanding the measurement dimensions of trust game; Improving the ecological validity of trust game.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Investigating the subjectivity of moral intuition helps guide people to better deal with moral disputes. This article prioritizes a summary of the background for moral dilemmas, based on which the relationship between moral intuition and emotional factors. With an emphasis on its supportive evidence, it further explains the subjectivity of moral intuition with the Modular Myopia Hypothesis. One of the research hotspots of contemporary moral psychology is to use “the Trolley problem” thought experiment to explore how people would make moral decisions when facing a dilemma. Brain imaging and neuropathology research evidence show that the emotional response caused by the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and amygdala affect people’s moral judgments. In the moral dilemma, moral intuition leads to deontological judgments, and moral reasoning leads to utilitarian judgments. The research on the Trolley Problem identified that personal force and means/side effects are two important factors affecting people’s intuitive judgment, but only the combination of these two factors would produce a stable impact. With the harm occurs as a mere side effect of personal force, it is relatively morally acceptable. So is when harm is used as a means to achieve a greater good, with no personal force. Nevertheless, harming as a means to achieve a goal with personal force is considered to be less acceptable than the previous ones. These studies show that moral intuition is strongly subjective. In the Trolley Problem, moral intuition is highly vigilant to the use of personal force and intentional harm, but less sensitive to harm caused by personal force or side effects. Researcher proposed Modular Myopia Hypothesis under the framework of dual processing theory to explain the impact of personal force, means, and side effects on moral intuition. The hypothesis believes that there is a cognitive subsystem present in the human brain. It is a “module” that monitors our planned behavior and sound an emotional alert when it detects a harmful event in an action plan. However, this action-plan inspector is a relatively simple, “single-channel” system that is not able to keep track of multiple causal chains simultaneously. Therefore, when people intended to harm others to achieve a goal, the harm plan is located on the primary causal chain, the monitoring mechanism in the cognitive subsystem can detect and release an emotional alarm bell, alert to harmful behaviors. By contrast, if the harm is caused as a side effect, the harm is located on the secondary causal chain. Due to the limitation of the cognitive resources of the monitoring and reviewing system, the harmful side effect escapes monitoring, failing to trigger emotional alarms, as the system is “myopic”, unable to recognize the harm caused by side effects. Modular Myopia Hypothesis shows that in similar moral situations, seemingly irrelevant ethical factors may become the key to trigger people’s emotional alarms in the brain, leading to completely different judgments and thus reducing the reliability of moral intuition. Without moral intuition as an objective reminder, one should not just rely on intuition as the sole basis for action in the face of moral disputes in real life.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Working memory training (WMT) induces neuroplasticity, but its specific mechanism remains unclear. In order to explore the spatio-temporal characteristics of brain function changes induced by WMT, the findings of 37 fMRI papers on WMT in normal population over the last 20 years were investigated with a step-by-step approach, including 5 methods and the following 6 steps, as well as with two assumptions based on the two theories— “Extended Parieto-Frontal Integration Theory” (ExtPFIT) and “neuro efficiency hypothesis”. Step 1, the changes of activation pattern and function connectivity in various brain regions before and after WMT among the 37 papers were compared using descriptive review, frequency analysis and Chi-square test. It was found that 5 association areas, 7 macro regions and 3 sub-regions of the brain were changed by WMT. Especially, the number of articles reporting decreased activation in 3 sub-regions—superior frontal gyrus, inferior parietal lobule and cingulate gyrus was more than that reporting increased activation in them, and this difference was statistically significant. Step 2, 26 out of the 37 papers were used to conduct meta-analysis with activation likelihood estimation method, and it showed that 3 sub-regions with the statistically significant effects in their decreased activation were middle frontal gyrus (BA6 and 8), superior frontal gyrus (BA6) and anterior cingulate gyrus (BA24 and 32). Step 3, based on the comprehensive results of qualitative and quantitative research analyses, a spatio-temporal model of decreased distribution in brain regions of WMT was proposed, and there were 5 results and their discussions obtained with the said model. Step 4, 31 out of the 37 papers were analyzed using non-parametric tests to check the factors that possibly regulated the training effect of WMT, which showed that the respective effect of task type and time of the training on brain activation had statistically significant. Step 5, according to the above analyses, 3 conclusions were drawn regarding the spatio-temporal characteristics of the neuroplasticity induced by WMT in normal population, i.e. 1) WMT can either weaken or enhance the brain activities, and the weakening effect appears more prominent. In addition, updating and shorter time of WMT tend to induce more weakening effects; 2) Such changes occur mostly in the frontal-parietal association area, but also possibly in the temporal lobe, occipital lobe, cingulate gyrus, striatum and other association areas, which reflects the whole brain functional association within a certain range. It highlights the spatial characteristics of the neuroplasticity, which fits in easily with ExtPFIT; 3) The 4 sub-regions of the middle frontal gyrus, superior frontal gyrus, inferior parietal lobule and cingulate gyrus (anterior in particular) in decreased activation mainly reflect the spatial characteristics of the neuroplasticity which fits in easily with “neural efficiency hypothesis” and “smarter brains may be slightly lazier”. Step 6, it was proposed that further research of the neuroplasticity induced by WMT was to possibly focus on low brain activity on its plasticity, distinguish the temporal characteristics of the training effect reflected in 4 sub-regions of middle frontal gyrus, superior frontal gyrus, inferior parietal lobule and cingulate gyrus (anterior in particular), as well as to probe the comprehensive influencing factors that increase or decrease the brain activities.
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology Subjects: Psychology >> Physiological Psychology submitted time 2021-09-10
Abstract： " Working memory training (WMT) has induced neuroplasticity, but its specific mechanism remains unclear. In order to explore the spatio-temporal characteristics of brain function changes induced by WMT in normal population, the findings of 37 fMRI studies on WMT in normal population over the last 20 years were summarized with a step-by-step approach and two assumptions based on two theories, Extended Parieto-Frontal Integration Theory(ExtPFIT) and neuro efficiency hypothesis. First, the changes in activation pattern and function connectivity of the various brain regions before and after WMT were compared using descriptive review, frequency analysis and Chi-square test. It showed that there were 5 networks, 7 macroscopic areas and 3 sub-regions in brain involved in WMT. Especially, the activation in 3 respective sub-regions of superior frontal gyrus, inferior parietal lobule and cingulate gyrus was weakened more than their activation enhanced, and this difference was statistically significant. Then, 26 studies among them were used to conduct meta-analysis with activation likelihood estimation method, and it showed that 3 sub-regions with the statistically significant effect were middle frontal gyrus (BA6 and 8), superior frontal gyrus (BA6) and anterior cingulate gyrus (BA24 and 32). Next, based on the comprehensive results of qualitative and quantitative research analysis, a spatio-temporal model of decreased distribution in brain regions was proposed, and 5 results and their discussion were obtained with the said model. In addition, 33 studies among them were analyzed using non-parametric tests to check the factors that possibly regulated the training effect of WMT, which showed that the task type and time of WMT had statistically significant effects on brain activation. According to the above analysis, four conclusions were drawn regarding the neuroplasticity induced by WMT in normal population, i.e. 1) WMT could either weaken or enhance the brain activities, and the weakening effect appeared to be more prominent; 2) such changes occurred mostly in the frontal-parietal network, but also in the temporal network, occipital network, cingulate gyrus, striatum and other network, which reflected the whole-brain functional connectivity within a certain range. In addition, updating and shorter time of WMT tended to induce more weakening effects; 3) 3 sub-regions of the middle frontal gyrus, superior frontal gyrus and anterior cingulate gyrus highlighted the spatial characteristics, and the other three sub-regions of superior frontal gyrus, inferior parietal lobule and cingulate gyrus mainly reflected the temporal characteristics of neuroplasticity induced by WMT; 4) ExtPFIT and neural efficiency hypothesis respectively supported the spatial-temporal characteristics of neuroplasticity induced by WMT. Finally, it was proposed that future further research of neuroplasticity induced by WMT need to distinguish the training effect reflected in 3 sub-regions of superior frontal gyrus, inferior parietal lobule and cingulate gyrus, and to explore the comprehensive influencing factors that increase or decrease the acitivation of brains induced by WMT.
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2020-08-29
Abstract： "
Hits
YES
Hits
Downloads
Comment