Individual differences in the anterior insula are associated with the likelihood of financially helping versus harming others

Greening, Steven G.; Norton, Loretta; Virani, Karim; Ty, Ambrose; Mitchell, Derek; Finger, Elizabeth

doi:10.3758/s13415-013-0213-3

Cited by 16 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Previous studies found that greater empathy‐related neural responses in the AI promoted prosocial behaviors [Hein et al, ; Masten et al, ]. For example, participants with greater activation in the AI were less likely to financially harm a charity [Greening et al, ]. Given the evidence mentioned above, the AI might play a crucial role in integrating altruistic goals in the deceptive decision‐making process.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

The good lies: Altruistic goals modulate processing of deception in the anterior insula

Liu

Dynowski

et al. 2017

Human Brain Mapping

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When it comes to lies, the beneficiaries of one's dishonesty play an important role in the decision-making process. Altruistic lies that are made with the intention of benefiting others are a specific type of lies and very common in real life. While it has been shown that altruistic goals influence (dis)honest behaviors, the neural substrates of this effect is still unknown. To reveal how the brain integrates altruistic goals into (dis)honest decisions, this study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the neural activity of participants in a real incentivized context while they were making (dis)honest decisions. We manipulated the beneficiaries of individuals' decisions (self vs. a charity) and whether the choices of higher payoffs involved deception or not. While finding that participants lied more often to benefit charities than for themselves, we observed that the altruistic goal of benefiting a charity, compared with the self-serving goal, reduced the activity in the anterior insula (AI) when lying to achieve higher payoffs. Furthermore, the degree of altruistic goal-induced reduction of AI activity was positively correlated with the degree of altruistic goal-induced reduction of honesty concerns. These results suggest that the AI serves as a neural hub in modulating the effect of altruistic goals on deception, which shed light on the underlying neural mechanism of altruistic lies. Hum Brain Mapp, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

The good lies: Altruistic goals modulate processing of deception in the anterior insula

Liu

Dynowski

et al. 2017

Human Brain Mapping

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“…Although we observed only a marginally significant univariate effect between the CS+ and CS− in right S1, this analysis is orthogonal to the individual differences approach that is the focus of the current study. Indeed, a number of papers have found individual differences in brain activity despite an absence of univariate effects [ 48 , 49 , 50 ].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual Differences in Anticipatory Somatosensory Cortex Activity for Shock is Positively Related with Trait Anxiety and Multisensory Integration

2016

Self Cite

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Anxiety is associated with an exaggerated expectancy of harm, including overestimation of how likely a conditioned stimulus (CS+) predicts a harmful unconditioned stimulus (US). In the current study we tested whether anxiety-associated expectancy of harm increases primary sensory cortex (S1) activity on non-reinforced (i.e., no shock) CS+ trials. Twenty healthy volunteers completed a differential-tone trace conditioning task while undergoing fMRI, with shock delivered to the left hand. We found a positive correlation between trait anxiety and activity in right, but not left, S1 during CS+ versus CS− conditions. Right S1 activity also correlated with individual differences in both primary auditory cortices (A1) and amygdala activity. Lastly, a seed-based functional connectivity analysis demonstrated that trial-wise S1 activity was positively correlated with regions of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), suggesting that higher-order cognitive processes contribute to the anticipatory sensory reactivity. Our findings indicate that individual differences in trait anxiety relate to anticipatory reactivity for the US during associative learning. This anticipatory reactivity is also integrated along with emotion-related sensory signals into a brain network implicated in fear-conditioned responding.

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“…Neural responses in the AI predicted affective empathy for beneficiaries, while temporoparietal junction (TPJ) activity was associated with the degree of cognitive perspective taking, suggesting that these distinct paths of social cognition and psychological mechanisms differentially lead to intraindividual and interindividual heterogeneities in charitable giving. Indeed, there was specific neural evidence of a correlation between individual differences in helpful decisions and the neural activation of AI, ACC, and TPJ ( Greening et al, 2014 ), and neural mechanisms of individual differences in empathy and pro-social behaviors were further revealed by reinforcement learning theory ( Lockwood et al, 2016 ). However, how affective empathy is linked to pro-social behaviors in charitable giving and the neural circuitry underlying empathy in terms of multi-faceted cognitive and emotional process remain poorly understand.…”

Section: Empathy/charitable Givingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Neural Basis of and a Common Neural Circuitry in Different Types of Pro-social Behavior

Luo

2018

Front. Psychol.

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Pro-social behaviors are voluntary behaviors that benefit other people or society as a whole, such as charitable donations, cooperation, trust, altruistic punishment, and fairness. These behaviors have been widely described through non self-interest decision-making in behavioral experimental studies and are thought to be increased by social preference motives. Importantly, recent studies using a combination of neuroimaging and brain stimulation, designed to reveal the neural mechanisms of pro-social behaviors, have found that a wide range of brain areas, specifically the prefrontal cortex, anterior insula, anterior cingulate cortex, and amygdala, are correlated or causally related with pro-social behaviors. In this review, we summarize the research on the neural basis of various kinds of pro-social behaviors and describe a common shared neural circuitry of these pro-social behaviors. We introduce several general ways in which experimental economics and neuroscience can be combined to develop important contributions to understanding social decision-making and pro-social behaviors. Future research should attempt to explore the neural circuitry between the frontal lobes and deeper brain areas.

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Individual differences in the anterior insula are associated with the likelihood of financially helping versus harming others

Cited by 16 publications

References 45 publications

The good lies: Altruistic goals modulate processing of deception in the anterior insula

The good lies: Altruistic goals modulate processing of deception in the anterior insula

Individual Differences in Anticipatory Somatosensory Cortex Activity for Shock is Positively Related with Trait Anxiety and Multisensory Integration

The Neural Basis of and a Common Neural Circuitry in Different Types of Pro-social Behavior

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