Neurocognitive Underpinnings of Aggressive Predation in Economic Contests

Abstract

Competitions are part and parcel of daily life and require people to invest time and energy to gain advantage over others and to avoid (the risk of) falling behind. Whereas the behavioral mechanisms underlying competition are well documented, its neurocognitive underpinnings remain poorly understood. We addressed this using neuroimaging and computational modeling of individual investment decisions aimed at exploiting one's counterpart (“attack”) or at protecting against exploitation by one's counterpart (“defense”). Analyses revealed that during attack relative to defense (i) individuals invest less and are less successful; (ii) computations of expected reward are strategically more sophisticated (reasoning level k = 4 vs. k = 3 during defense); (iii) ventral striatum activity tracks reward prediction errors; (iv) risk prediction errors were not correlated with neural activity in either ROI or whole-brain analyses; and (v) successful exploitation correlated with neural activity in the bilateral ventral striatum, left OFC, left anterior insula, left TPJ, and lateral occipital cortex. We conclude that, in economic contests, coming out ahead (vs. not falling behind) involves sophisticated strategic reasoning that engages both reward and value computation areas and areas associated with theory of mind.

Political games of attack and defence

“…Some studies in political psychology also suggest that a rigid cognitive style and low 'need for cognition' are more prevalent among those endorsing rightist rather than leftist ideologies [10,12,17]. We showed that sophisticated reasoning and perspective taking modulate the aggressiveness of attack, but not defence [60][61][62]. If adhering to conservative ideology is associated with cognitive rigidity more than endorsing liberal ideology, one would expect reactionaries to be relatively more aggressive attackers than progressives, and defence to not differ between modernists and conservatists.…”

“…Typically, compared with defence, investments in attack are less frequent and lower overall, yet investments in both attack and defence substantially exceed equilibrium levels: with an endowment of e = 10, investments greater than 6 should never occur theoretically yet are frequently observed in laboratory experiments (figure 2a,b). Because conflict intensity is higher, attackers and defenders earn less than predicted (figure 2c), and collective welfare is reduced more than would be expected under rational-choice theory (figure 2d ) [59][60][61][62]. Rational-choice theory is traditionally premised on the threefold assumption that people (i) hold selfish preferences, (ii) have unlimited information processing capacity, and (iii) assume selfishness and unlimited processing capacity in others.…”

“…Computational modelling using a cognitive hierarchies framework (figure 3a) [78][79][80] revealed that individuals engage in more sophisticated reasoning about their rival during attack (versus defence) [62,81]. Such sophisticated reasoning during attack (versus defence) was associated with neural activation in the temporo-parietal junction and inferior frontal gyrus, regions typically associated with cognitive control and perspective taking [62] (figure 3b).…”

“…Computational modelling using a cognitive hierarchies framework (figure 3a) [78][79][80] revealed that individuals engage in more sophisticated reasoning about their rival during attack (versus defence) [62,81]. Such sophisticated reasoning during attack (versus defence) was associated with neural activation in the temporo-parietal junction and inferior frontal gyrus, regions typically associated with cognitive control and perspective taking [62] (figure 3b). Moreover, temporarily disrupting the functionality of the inferior frontal gyrus with theta burst stimulation increased the frequency of attack (but not defence, figure 3c) and reduced attackers' (but not defenders') tracking of their rival's history of play [60].…”

“…Our model provides an explanation in terms of the agent's position in the political conflict that, in theory, can vary independently of political ideology [97] (see figure 1a,b). Relative to defence, attack associates with more sophisticated reasoning, more activity in brain regions linked to perspective taking and cognitive control [60][61][62], and appears more under the influence of neurohormones like oxytocin and testosterone [59,70,71]. It follows that the link between political ideology and neural activity in the mentalizing networks or levels of oxytocin and testosterone depends, first and foremost, on the individual's position in a political game of attack and defence.…”