Source: SfN
The
stress hormone cortisol reduces altruistic behavior and alters activity
in brain regions linked to social decision making—but only in people
who are better at imagining others’ mental states, according to new
research published in The Journal of Neuroscience.
In
a study from Universität Hamburg, participants decided how much money
to donate to a selection of charities before and after completing a
stressful public-speaking task while researchers monitored their brain
activity with fMRI.
To
simulate the personal cost of making an altruistic decision, the
participants received a portion of the money they did not donate. Before
the stressful task, people with higher mentalizing ability, or the
ability to imagine others’ mental states, donated more money than people
with low mentalizing ability.
In
people with high mentalizing ability, increased levels of the stress
hormone cortisol decreased donations; cortisol had no effect on people
with low mentalizing ability.
The
researchers could predict how high mentalizers would choose to donate
based on activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), a brain
region involved in social decision making. Yet higher levels of
cortisol infringed on this pattern, indicating stress reduced the neural
representation of donations in the DLPFC.
These
results reveal cortisol might alter the activity of the DLPFC, which
has a more pronounced effect on people who rely on mentalizing to make
social decisions.
About this neuroscience and altruism research news
Author: Press Office
Source: SfN
Contact: Press Office – SfN
Image: The image is credited to Schulreich et al
Original Research: Closed access.
“Altruism
under stress: cortisol negatively predicts charitable giving and neural
value representations depending on mentalizing capacity” by Schulreich et al. Journal of Neuroscience
