Impulsive choice and altruistic punishment are correlated and increase in tandem with serotonin depletion.
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Human cooperation may partly depend on the presence of individuals willing to incur personal costs to punish noncooperators. The psychological factors that motivate such 'altruistic punishment' are not fully understood; some have argued that altruistic punishment is a deliberate act of norm enforcement that requires self-control, while others claim that it is an impulsive act driven primarily by emotion. In the current study, we addressed this question by examining the relationship between impulsive choice and altruistic punishment in the ultimatum game. As the neurotransmitter serotonin has been implicated in both impulsive choice and altruistic punishment, we investigated the effects of manipulating serotonin on both measures. Across individuals, impulsive choice and altruistic punishment were correlated and increased following serotonin depletion. These findings imply that altruistic punishment reflects the absence rather than the presence of self control, and suggest that impulsive choice and altruistic punishment share common neural mechanisms.
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Decisions to punish unfairness at a personal cost are associated with impulsivity.
“Indeed, decisions to punish unfairness at a personal cost are associated with impulsivity 99, and serotonin appears to play an important role in regulating striatal responses that influence punishment decisions 97.”
From The social brain and reward: Social information processing in the human striatum (2014) · cites this paper as [99]
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Self-citation
- Authors
- Crockett, M. J., Clark, L., Lieberman, M. D., Tabibnia, G., & Robbins, T. W.
- Affiliations
- University of Cambridge (GB)
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- Carnegie Mellon University (US)
- Venue
- Emotion
- Published
- 2010-12
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 855-862
- ISSN
- 1528-3542 (ISSN-L)
- 1931-1516
- PMC
- PMC3009596
- OpenAlex
- W2095060325
- Cited by
- 159
- References
- 57
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 21 · 2012: 13
- FWCI
- 33.44
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Emotion (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Medical Research Council/the Wellcome Trust
- JT McDonnell Collaborative Research Network
- Gates Cambridge Trust
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Keywords
- impulsive choice, altruistic punishment, serotonin depletion, ultimatum game, self-control, cooperation, norm enforcement, impulsivity, neural mechanisms
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Altruism, Amino Acids, Choice Behavior, Double-Blind Method, Female, Games, Experimental, Humans, Impulsive Behavior, Male, Punishment, Serotonin, Tryptophan
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