Titel
Higher subjective socioeconomic status is linked to increased charitable giving and mentalizing-related neural value coding
Autor*in
Anita Tusche
Queen's Neuroeconomics Laboratory, Departments of Psychology and Economics, Queen's University
Philipp Kanske
Clinical Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology, Technische Universität Dresden
... show all
Abstract
Socioeconomic status (SES), a concept related to an individual's economic and social position relative to others, can shape social interactions like altruistic behaviors. However, little is known about the exact neurocognitive mechanisms that link SES with altruism. Our study aimed to provide a comprehensive account of the sociocognitive and neural mechanisms through which SES affects charitable giving – an important variant of human altruism. To this end, participants completed a charitable donation task while their brain activity was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We also assessed participants’ socio-cognitive ability to infer other people's mental states (i.e., mentalizing) – a driver of prosocial behavior – in an independent social task. Behaviorally, we found that both charitable giving and social cognition were status-dependent, as subjective SES positively predicted donations and mentalizing capacity. Moreover, the link between SES and charitable giving was mediated by individuals’ mentalizing capacity. At the neural level, a multivariate pattern analysis of fMRI data revealed that higher subjective SES was associated with stronger value coding in the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ). The strength of this value representation predicted charitable giving and was linked to mentalizing. Furthermore, we observed an increased negative functional coupling between rTPJ and left putamen with higher SES. Together, increased charitable giving in higher-status individuals could be explained by status-dependent recruitment of mentalizing-related value coding and altered functional connectivity in the brain. Our findings provide insights into the socio- and neurocognitive mechanisms explaining why and when higher SES leads to prosociality, which might ultimately inform targeted interventions to promote prosocial behavior in human societies.
Stichwort
Social statusSocial decision-makingValuationTheory of mindMulti-voxel pattern analysis (mvpa)Decoding analysis
Objekt-Typ
Sprache
Englisch [eng]
Persistent identifier
Erschienen in
Titel
NeuroImage
Band
279
ISSN
1053-8119
Erscheinungsdatum
2023
Publication
Elsevier BV
Erscheinungsdatum
2023
Zugänglichkeit
Rechte
Rechteangabe
© 2023 The Authors
Universität Wien | Universitätsring 1 | 1010 Wien | T
+43-1-4277-0