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Neurobiological Mechanisms of Responding to Injustice
Open accessAbstract
People are particularly sensitive to injustice. Accordingly, deeper knowledge regarding the processes that underlie the perception of injustice, and the subsequent decisions to either punish transgressors or compensate victims, is of important social value. By combining a novel decision-making paradigm with functional neuroimaging, we identified specific brain networks that are involved with both the perception of, and response to, social injustice, with reward-related regions preferentially involved in punishment compared with compensation. Developing a computational model of punishment allowed for disentangling the neural mechanisms and psychological motives underlying decisions of whether to punish and, subsequently, of how severely to punish. Results show that the neural mechanisms underlying punishment differ depending on whether one is directly affected by the injustice, or whether one is a third-party observer of a violation occurring to another. Specifically, the anterior insula was involved in decisions to punish following harm, whereas, in third-party scenarios, we found amygdala activity associated with punishment severity. Additionally, we used a pharmacological intervention using oxytocin, and found that oxytocin influenced participants' fairness expectations, and in particular enhanced the frequency of low punishments. Together, these results not only provide more insight into the fundamental brain mechanisms underlying punishment and compensation, but also illustrate the importance of taking an explorative, multimethod approach when unraveling the complex components of everyday decision-making. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The perception of injustice is a fundamental precursor to many disagreements, from small struggles at the dinner table to wasteful conflict between cultures and countries. Despite its clear importance, relatively little is known about how the brain processes these violations. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, we combine methods from neuroscience, psychology, and economics to explore the neurobiological mechanisms involved in both the perception of injustice as well as the punishment and compensation decisions that follow. Using a novel behavioral paradigm, we identified specific brain networks, developed a computational model of punishment, and found that administrating the neuropeptide oxytocin increases the administration of low punishments of norm violations in particular. Results provide valuable insights into the fundamental neurobiological mechanisms underlying social injustice.
Overview
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Written from the paper’s full text.
TL;DR
In a novel Justice Game with fMRI and intranasal oxytocin, participants preferred punishment over compensation, and punishment decisions dissociated into willingness to punish and severity. Anterior insula tracked willingness to punish especially in second-party contexts, amygdala tracked severity in third-party contexts, and oxytocin increased low punishments and fairness expectations.
Key findings
- Participants spent more chips in second-party punishment (M = 38.07, SD = 23.55) than third-party punishment (M = 23.52, SD = 18.47) and compensation (M = 13.93, SD = 11.63); punishment exceeded compensation, t(53) = 6.06, p < 0.001.
- Ventral striatum activity was higher for punishment versus compensation decisions, while temporal parietal junction activity was associated with deciding not to punish.
- The computational model best fit was Model 4 (LL = 162, AIC = 333, R² = 0.68, accuracy = 46%), supporting separable willingness-to-punish and punishment-severity parameters; anterior insula correlated with willingness to punish in second-party games, and amygdala correlated with punishment severity in third-party games.
- Oxytocin did not affect mean punishment or compensation (F(1,52) = 0.12, p = 0.742) but increased low punishments in second-party games (interaction p = 0.050) and, in third-party games, more strongly as the amount taken increased (p = 0.017); oxytocin-group participants more often changed expectations to expect no chips (12/27 vs 3/27, χ²(1) = 7.45, p = 0.006).
Methods
- Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled between-subjects design with 55 males (28 oxytocin); behavioral analyses used 54 participants, and neuroimaging/model analyses used 53 participants.
- The Justice Game comprised 144 trials across second-party punishment, third-party punishment, and third-party compensation conditions, with preprogrammed fair and unfair Taker choices; fMRI data were analyzed with GLMs and ROI analyses in anterior insula, amygdala, and DLPFC.
- A computational utility model with parameters for willingness to punish and punishment severity was fit by minimizing residual sum of squares and compared with Nash equilibrium and inequity aversion models.
Limitations
- Stated: the lack of oxytocin effects on compensation may be due to restriction of range; neural interactions may require larger sample sizes; DLPFC involvement in third-party punishment needs larger-sample follow-up.
- Stated: inferring psychological processes from brain activity requires caution.
- Evident: all participants were male, limiting generalizability; the exploratory correlational ROI analyses cannot establish causal mechanisms.
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Claims the paper makes
40 Own result · 24 Not checked yet · 12 Own interpretation · 5 Own method
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“By combining a novel decisionmaking paradigm with functional neuroimaging, we identified specific brain networks that are involved with both the perception of, and response to, social injustice, with reward-related regions preferentially involved in punishment compared with compensation.”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Abstract
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Results show that the neural mechanisms underlying punishment differ depending on whether one is directly affected by the injustice, or whether one is a third-party observer of a violation occurring to another.”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Abstract
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Specifically, the anterior insula was involved in decisions to punish following harm, whereas, in third-party scenarios, we found amygdala activity associated with punishment severity.”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Abstract
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“By combining a novel decisionmaking paradigm with functional neuroimaging, we identified specific brain networks that are involved with both the perception of, and response to, social injustice, with reward-related regions preferentially involved in punishment compared with compensation.”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Abstract
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Specifically, the anterior insula was involved in decisions to punish following harm, whereas, in third-party scenarios, we found amygdala activity associated with punishment severity.”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Abstract
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Repeated-measures multivariate ANOVAs with participants' mean levels of punishment and compensation behavior as dependent variables, confirmed that participants were willing to incur costs to both punish and compensate in response to unfairness, and also that behavior differed across game types (F (2,51) ϭ 24.05, p Ͻ 0.001, partial 2 ϭ 0.49).”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Results for decisions to punish violators and compensate victims
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Although there are no dramatic differences in the fit of the three versions of the model, Model 4 is the best performing (LL ϭ 162, AIC ϭ 333, R 2 ϭ 0.68, accuracy ϭ 46%; Table 1).”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Computational punishment model development and estimation procedures
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Oxytocin administration did not affect mean levels of punishment or compensation (F (1,52) ϭ 0.12, p ϭ 0.742, partial 2 ϭ 0.002).”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Results for decisions to punish violators and compensate victims
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Oxytocin administration did not significantly increase activity in the bilateral AIns in third-party punishment games”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Neuroimaging results
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“estimates for both second-and third-party games significantly lower for participants in the oxytocin versus placebo group”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Results for computational modeling of second-and third-party punishment
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- It may state two separate claims as one. 14
- Probably not a substantial claim. 14
- The quote only partly states this claim. 1
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Repeated-measures multivariate ANOVAs with participants' mean levels of punishment and compensation behavior as dependent variables, confirmed that participants were willing to incur costs to both punish and compensate in response to unfairness, and also that behavior differed across game types (F (2,51) ϭ 24.05, p Ͻ 0.001, partial 2 ϭ 0.49).”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Results for decisions to punish violators and compensate victims
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Additionally, we used a pharmacological intervention using oxytocin, and found that oxytocin influenced participants' fairness expectations, and in particular enhanced the frequency of low punishments.”
- Also stated in: § Significance Statement · plain
“Using a novel behavioral paradigm, we identified specific brain networks, developed a computational model of punishment, and found that administrating the neuropeptide oxytocin increases the administration of low punishments of norm violations in particular.”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Abstract
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
- Also stated in: § Significance Statement · plain
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“12 of 27 participants in the oxytocin group changed their beliefs after treatment, now expecting other players to take no chips at all, whereas only 3 of 27 participants in the placebo group changed their expectations”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Frequency and severity of punishment.
plainn = 27 ·- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“No neural activity correlated with individual estimates of parameter ␣, nor with interactions between treatment and estimates of or ␣.”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Neuroimaging results
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“Recent neuroscientific work suggests that punishment is not a single, unitary, process, but rather comprises distinct subcomponents (Krueger and Hoffman, 2016).”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Significance Statement
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Krueger and Hoffman, 2016
hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“This timing conforms to other studies showing that effects of oxytocin are present between 30 and 60 min after intranasal administration (Baumgartner et al., 2008;De Dreu et al., 2010, 2011;Stallen et al., 2012).”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Procedure
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Baumgartner et al., 2008
- Not checked yetcites De Dreu et al., 2010, 2011
- Not checked yetcites Stallen et al., 2012
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
In the paper
“One account of punishment in response to unfairness posits that punishment is driven by social preferences for equitable outcomes (Fehr and Schmidt, 1999).”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Significance Statement
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Fehr and Schmidt, 1999
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“whereas the final determination of appropriate punishment actions has been suggested to critically depend on the DLPFC (Knoch et al., 2006;Buckholtz et al., 2008Buckholtz et al., , 2015;;Treadway et al., 2014;Zhong et al., 2016).”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Region-of-interest analyses for model parameters
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Knoch et al., 2006
- Not checked yetcites Buckholtz et al., 2008
- Not checked yetcites Treadway et al., 2014
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“Many studies first demonstrated oxytocin as promoting specifically prosocial behavior, but recent work has suggested a more complex role (Ma et al., 2016), potentially also relevant to negative, punishment, behavior (Krueger et al., 2013;Daughters et al., 2017).”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Significance Statement
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Ma et al., 2016
- Not checked yetcites Krueger et al., 2013
- Not checked yetcites Daughters et al., 2017
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“Experimental work in economics has shown that this deliberate act elicits very negative emotions in the person from whom the resources are taken, and that this is typically experienced as a stronger norm violation than receiving an unfair share of resources (Bosman and Van Winden, 2002;Ben-Shakhar et al., 2007;Korenok et al., 2014), hence our use of this manipulation.”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > The Justice Game
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Bosman and Van Winden, 2002
- Not checked yetcites Ben-Shakhar et al., 2007
- Not checked yetcites Korenok et al., 2014
boosteddirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“However, alternative accounts suggest that affective experiences, such as anger, envy, or retaliation, are key drivers in sanctioning norm violators (Rabin, 1993;Dufwenberg and Kirchsteiger, 2004;Pedersen et al., 2013).”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Significance Statement
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Rabin, 1993
- Not checked yetcites Dufwenberg and Kirchsteiger, 2004
- Not checked yetcites Pedersen et al., 2013
hedgeddirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
In the paper
“We avoided directly using the terms”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > The Justice Game
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Pedersen et al., 2013
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The quote only partly states this claim.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“These findings align well with previous neuroimaging work on fairness and unfairness, providing support for the validity of our novel task”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Neuroimaging results
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Sanfey et al., 2003
- Not checked yetcites Tabibnia et al., 2008
- Not checked yetcites Harle ´et al., 2012
boostedcorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“suggesting there may not be a one-to-one mapping between parameter and sensitivity to unfairness, but that the final decision to punish may also depend on other factors, such as whether one is hurt directly”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Oxytocin enhances a "corrective" punishment
hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“we developed a novel behavioral task and a new computational model of punishment that allowed us to study both the psychological and neural mechanisms underlying punishment and compensation in response to norm violations”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Oxytocin enhances a "corrective" punishment
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“Second, we tested performance of Inequity Aversion model (AI), a prominent model of social preferences that argues that people value equality and demonstrate a preference that everyone receives the same amount, even if this is zero (Fehr and Schmidt, 1999).”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Computational punishment model development and estimation procedures
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Fehr and Schmidt, 1999
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Possibly therefore, pure fairness considerations (as represented here by model-derived AIns activation) play a decisive role in second-party punishment situations, whereas additional contextual information is integrated in punishment decisions in third-party contexts, when others are harmed (possibly involving the DLPFC).”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Punishment preferred to compensation
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“the TPJ, an area associated with perspective-taking”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Punishment preferred to compensation
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Carter and Huettel, 2013
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“To find significant interactions between treatment and parameter correlates at the neural level larger sample sizes may be required.”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Oxytocin enhances a "corrective" punishment
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“These prespecified brain regions included the amygdala, the anterior insula (AIns) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC).”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Region-of-interest analyses for model parameters
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Another advantage of the development of the computational model is that this allows us to test whether the willingness to punish and the decision of how severely to punish are separable processes.”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Computational punishment model development and estimation procedures
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“a reasonable interpretation is that individuals' willingness to punish depends on their fairness considerations, with individuals' fairness preferences being stronger when one was directly involved than when another person was the victim”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Punishment preferred to compensation
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Gu ¨rog ˘lu et al., 2010
- Not checked yetcites Corradi-Dell'Acqua et al., 2013
- Not checked yetcites Zhong et al., 2016
hedgedcorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“The DLPFC is known for its role in integrating information and response selection”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Punishment preferred to compensation
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Ridderinkhof et al., 2004
boosted- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The present findings not only provide more insight into the fundamental brain mechanisms underlying punishment and compensation, but also demonstrate how combining a computational approach with neuroimaging methods can help disentangling the psychological motives underlying complex decision-making processes.”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Oxytocin enhances a "corrective" punishment
boostedcorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“with regard to punishment decisions, oxytocin had a systematic effect at both the behavioral and neural levels”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Oxytocin enhances a "corrective" punishment
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“previous work on third-party punishment in hypothetical criminal contexts has found this area involved in integrating information about the responsibility of the wrongdoer and the amount of harm done”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Punishment preferred to compensation
What the sources say
- Not checked yetcites Buckholtz et al., 2015
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“We conducted our analyses only on these three brain regions, as we had strong a priori hypothesis about these areas in particular.”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Region-of-interest analyses for model parameters
boosted- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
The paper relies on this without support.
People are particularly sensitive to injustice.
“People are particularly sensitive to injustice.”
The paper relies on this without support.
Violations of social norms trigger an emotional response in the victims of such violations and can also lead to strong responses from third parties.
“In fact, violations of social norms, standards of behavior that are based on widely shared beliefs about how one should behave, not only trigger an emotional response in the”
The paper relies on this without support.
Relatively little is known about how the brain processes violations of social norms.
“Despite its clear importance, relatively little is known about how the brain processes these violations.”
The paper relies on this without support.
The amount of chips taken by the Taker indexes the magnitude of the social norm violation.
“the more that was taken from the victim”
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“recent research has shown that, in a scenario in which an observer punishes transgressors due to social norm violation (i.e., third-party punishment), the willingness to punish severely was associated with increased amygdala activity (Stallen et al., 2018)”
From A neurobiological association of revenge propensity during intergroup conflict (2020) · cites this paper as Stallen et al., 2018
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.
Rated minor: it would not touch a result — a value no result rests on, a p-value that stays on the same side of the significance level, or a conflict that is clerical, resolved elsewhere in the paper, or outside its own findings.
In the paper
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Computational punishment model development and estimation procedures
“s p,i Ͻ 200 Ϫ s t Ϫ s p,i in third-party games.”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Computational punishment model development and estimation procedures
“x Ͻ 200 in third-party games, with x ʦ {10, 20, …}.(5)”
Rated minor: it would not touch a result — a value no result rests on, a p-value that stays on the same side of the significance level, or a conflict that is clerical, resolved elsewhere in the paper, or outside its own findings.
In the paper
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Computational punishment model development and estimation procedures
“AIC M ϭ 2k Ϫ 2LL ϩ 2k(k ϩ 1)/(N Ϫ k Ϫ 1), (7”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Frequency and severity of punishment.
“Model 4 4 15,687 162 333 0.678”
Rated minor: it would not touch a result — a value no result rests on, a p-value that stays on the same side of the significance level, or a conflict that is clerical, resolved elsewhere in the paper, or outside its own findings.
In the paper
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > The Justice Game
“a response scale, which consisted of a row of numbers from 1 to 100, in steps of 10”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Computational punishment model development and estimation procedures
“x Ͻ 200 in third-party games, with x ʦ {10, 20, …}.(5)”
Rated minor: it would not touch a result — a value no result rests on, a p-value that stays on the same side of the significance level, or a conflict that is clerical, resolved elsewhere in the paper, or outside its own findings.
In the paper
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Materials and Methods
“Neuroimaging data and computational model analyses were conducted with 53 participants (27 oxytocin), as neuroimaging data of one participant in the oxytocin group was lost due to technical problems.”
§ Neurobiological mechanisms of responding to injustice > Materials and Methods
“behavioral analyses were conducted with 54 participants (mean age ϭ 21.2 years, SD ϭ 2.4 years; 27 oxytocin).”
Citations
Cites
A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation
Fehr, E., & Schmidt, K. M. (1999) · The Quarterly Journal of Economics · doi:10.1162/003355399556151 · Cited by 11,264
Nash, J. (1951) · The Annals of Mathematics · doi:10.2307/1969529 · Cited by 7,002
Nash, J. F. (1989) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511528231.007 · Cited by 5,662
Incorporating Fairness into Game Theory and Economics
Rabin, M. (2011) · Princeton University Press eBooks · doi:10.2307/j.ctvcm4j8j.15 · Cited by 4,614
The neural basis of economic decision-making in the Ultimatum Game.
Sanfey, A. G., Rilling, J. K., Aronson, J. A., Nystrom, L. E., & Cohen, J. D. (2003) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1082976 · Cited by 3,375
Self-citationThird-party punishment and social norms
Fehr, E., & Fischbacher, U. (2004) · Evolution and Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/s1090-5138(04)00005-4 · Cited by 2,417
Bartra, O., McGuire, J. T., & Kable, J. W. (2013) · NeuroImage · doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.02.063 · Cited by 1,927
cocor: A Comprehensive Solution for the Statistical Comparison of Correlations
Diedenhofen, B., & Musch, J. (2015) · PLOS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0121945 · Cited by 1,919
A theory of sequential reciprocity
Dufwenberg, M. A., & Kirchsteiger, G. (2003) · Games and Economic Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.geb.2003.06.003 · Cited by 1,895
Social effects of oxytocin in humans: context and person matter
Bartz, J. A., Zaki, J., Bolger, N., & Ochsner, K. N. (2011) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2011.05.002 · Cited by 1,581 · cited 1×
“These results therefore do not support the notion of oxytocin as a general enhancer of empathy and prosocial, altruistic, decisions (Bartz et al., 2011).”
Result
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- 10.2307/2117561 · DOI
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Items 101–101 of 101
RETRACTED Comparative Analysis of Sentiments in Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders
Kumar, A., & Jaiswal, U. C. (2026) · ADCAIJ ADVANCES IN DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE JOURNAL · doi:10.14201/adcaij.r31469
Retracted
Metadata
- Authors
- Stallen, M., Rossi, F., Heijne, A., Smidts, A., De Dreu, C. K. W., & Sanfey, A. G.
- Affiliations
- Leiden University (NL)
- University of California San Diego (US)
- Radboud University Nijmegen (NL)
- Erasmus University Rotterdam (NL)
- Venue
- The Journal of Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Society for Neuroscience
- Published
- 2018-02-19
- Volume
- 38
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 2944-2954
- ISSN
- 0270-6474 (ISSN-L)
- 1529-2401
- PMC
- PMC6596077
- OpenAlex
- W2788810732
- Semantic Scholar
- aea67e7dd595fa5973a5eaac11a11d1ffcb8fca4
- Cited by
- 102
- References
- 47
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 5
- FWCI
- 18.94
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Leiden Repository (Leiden University) (submittedVersion)
- EUR Research Repository (Erasmus University Rotterdam) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- RePub (Erasmus University Rotterdam) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Radboud Repository (Radboud University) (submittedVersion)
- Radboud Repository (Radboud University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
- ERIM Top-Core Articles
- Funders
- Erasmus Research Institute of Management
- FP7 Ideas: European Research Council (313454)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
- Keywords
- social injustice, punishment decisions, compensation decisions, fairness, third-party punishment, anterior insula, amygdala, oxytocin, reward processing, norm violation
- MeSH terms
- Brain, Computer Simulation, Decision Making, Double-Blind Method, Humans, Male, Oxytocin, Punishment, Reward, Social Justice, Compensation and Redress, Young Adult
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
A language model drew the claims from the paper on 2026-10-09, under version 3 of the claim definition (model deepseek-v4.1-flash, prompt extract-v3).
A second model labelled each claim on 2026-10-09 (model jev-1.13-20260917, definition revision gold-guideline-v0.2).
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
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