Activity in the Nucleus Accumbens and Amygdala Underlies Individual Differences in Prosocial and Individualistic Economic Choices
Abstract
Much decision-making requires balancing benefits to the self with benefits to the group. There are marked individual differences in this balance such that individualists tend to favor themselves whereas prosocials tend to favor the group. Understanding the mechanisms underlying this difference has important implications for society and its institutions. Using behavioral and fMRI data collected during the performance of the ultimatum game, we show that individual differences in social preferences for resource allocation, so-called “social value orientation,” is linked with activity in the nucleus accumbens and amygdala elicited by inequity, rather than activity in insula, ACC, and dorsolateral pFC. Importantly, the presence of cognitive load made prosocials behave more prosocially and individualists more individualistically, suggesting that social value orientation is driven more by intuition than reflection. In parallel, activity in the nucleus accumbens and amygdala, in response to inequity, tracked this behavioral pattern of prosocials and individualists. In addition, we conducted an impunity game experiment with different participants where they could not punish unfair behavior and found that the inequity-correlated activity seen in prosocials during the ultimatum game disappeared. This result suggests that the accumbens and amygdala activity of prosocials encodes “outcome-oriented emotion” designed to change situations (i.e., achieve equity or punish). Together, our results suggest a pivotal contribution of the nucleus accumbens and amygdala to individual differences in sociality.
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Previous studies have linked inhibition of self-interest and top-down control of selfish behavior with right lateral prefrontal cortex, such as right lOFC and right dlPFC.
“Previous studies have linked inhibition of self-interest and top-down control of selfish behavior with right lateral prefrontal cortex 17 , such as right lOFC 18,19 and right dlPFC 20 .”
From Oxytocin modulates social value representations in the amygdala (2019) · cites this paper as [20]
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- Authors
- Haruno, M., Kimura, M., & Frith, C. D.
- Affiliations
- Japan Science and Technology Agency (JP)
- Tamagawa University (JP)
- 4University College London
- Venue
- Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
- Publisher
- MIT Press - Journals
- Published
- 2014-08-01
- Volume
- 26
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 1861-1870
- ISSN
- 0898-929X (ISSN-L)
- 1530-8898
- OpenAlex
- W2159825841
- Cited by
- 102
- References
- 41
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 2
- FWCI
- 21.35
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Wellcome Trust
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (24243028)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Keywords
- nucleus accumbens, amygdala, individual differences, social value orientation, prosocial behavior, individualism, ultimatum game, inequity aversion, cognitive load, punishment, social decision-making
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Amygdala, Cerebral Cortex, Choice Behavior, Female, Humans, Individuality, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Nucleus Accumbens, Social Behavior, Social Values, Young Adult, Functional Neuroimaging
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