Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (United States) and Trinity College, Dublin (Ireland) have found the first physiological evidence thatthe brain responds to inequality like a true Robin Hood.
The results of the research, which are published in the journalNature, show that lThe reward centers in the human brain respond more strongly when a “poor” person receives a financial reward than when a “rich” person does.. Even if the brain being observed is that of the “rich” person.
Scientists have long known that human beingswe don’t like inequality. “Tell two people who work in the same business that their salaries are different and problems will arise,” says John O? Doherty, a co-author of the study. What was not so clear until now is where this aversion to inequality comes from. “In this study we see that it is not only the result of the application of a social rule or convention, there is also something about the basic processing of rewards in the brain that reflects these considerations”, explains Thomas N. Mitchell, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Institute. Professor of Neuroscience from Trinity College, who has also participated in the research.
The brain processes rewards – food, money, or pleasant music, which create positive responses in the body – in areas such asventromedial prefrontal cortex (CVMPF)and theventral striatum. Mitchell and his colleagues analyzed with the help of images offunctional magnetic resonance imaginghow these two areas responded in 40 volunteers as they were presented with a series of money exchange scenarios. Thus, in one of the cases the participant was told that 50 dollars would be given to him and 20 to another person; In a second scenario, the student could earn only $ 5 and the other person 50. In addition, before going through the scan, each participant within a pair was randomly assigned to one of two situations: they obtained $ 50 at the beginning of the scan. experiment (“rich”) or began without a penny in his pocket (“poor”), clearly financially disadvantaged.
The experiments showed that people who started out “poor” had a stronger brain reaction to situations that brought them money and did not react to money given to other people. However, the subjects who started the experiment with fifty dollars had a more intense brain reaction when the “poor” subjects raised money than when they did it themselves. “In other words,their brains liked others to get money more than they liked to get them“The researchers explain. Scientists now know that these brain areas not only process self-interest, but also respond to rewards from other individuals. The next step is to try to understand how these changes translate into behavior.
