Wired to Punish? Electroencephalographic Study of the Resting-state Neuronal Oscillations Underlying Third-party Punishment

Dual-System Collaborative Model of Prosocial Risky Behavior and Cognitive Computation: A Review

Prosocial risky behavior (PRB) refers to actions taken at personal risk for the benefit of others or societal welfare, combining risk-taking with prosocial intent, and involving the integrated processing of individual risk and social preferences. Building upon the review and evaluation of the definitions of PRB, existing research tools, theoretical models, and neural mechanisms, this paper elucidates the synergistic interaction and mechanisms of the emotional drive and cognitive reasoning systems in PRB. It constructs a dual-system collaborative model for PRB. Furthermore, to address the shortcomings of existing PRB research tools, such as limited cross-domain applicability and low reliability, this paper designs a PRB research paradigm within the economic decision-making domain. Combined with the dual-system collaborative model of PRB, this paper proposes a cognitive computational modeling concept for PRB and preliminarily verifies its reliability. Future research should conduct cross-cultural studies, utilizing cognitive neuroscientific technologies, to explore the cultural differences in the mechanisms underlying PRB, thereby enhancing the cross-cultural interpretive power of the constructed dual-system collaborative model of PRB. This broadens the theoretical explanatory pathways and research dimensions of PRB.

Height matters: An EEG study of the relative height disadvantage promoting third-party punishment

The study employed event-related potential (ERP), time-frequency analysis, and functional connectivity to comprehensively explore the influence of male's relative height on third-party punishment (TPP) and its underlying neural mechanism. The results found that punishment rate and transfer amount are significantly greater when the height of the third-party is lower than that of the recipient, suggesting that male's height disadvantage promotes TPP. Neural results found that the height disadvantage induced a smaller N1. The height disadvantage also evoked greater P300 amplitude, more theta power, and more alpha power. Furthermore, a significantly stronger wPLI between the rTPJ and the posterior parietal and a significantly stronger wPLI between the DLPFC and the posterior parietal were observed when third-party was at the height disadvantage. These results imply that the height disadvantage causes negative emotions and affects the fairness consideration in the early processing stage; the third-party evaluates the blame of violators and makes an appropriate punishment decision later. Our findings indicate that anger and reputation concern caused by height disadvantage promote TPP. The current study holds significance as it underscores the psychological importance of height in males, broadens the perspective on factors influencing TPP, validates the promoting effect of personal disadvantages on prosocial behavior, enriches our understanding of indirect reciprocity theory, and extends the application of the evolution theory of Napoleon complex.

The promoting effect of the absence of second-party's punishment power on third-party punishment in maintaining social fairness norms: An EEG hyper-scanning study

Third-party punishment (TPP) plays an irreplaceable role in maintaining social fairness. Punishment power is a significant area of study within economic games. However, the impact of whether or not the second-party possesses punishment power on TPP remains unexplored. The present study utilizes the high temporal resolution of EEG and time-frequency analysis, intra-barin functional connectivity analysis, inter-brain synchronization (IBS) analysis, and granger causality analysis(GCA) to comprehensively explore the neural mechanism of TPP from the perspective of third-party individual's decision-making and IBS in the real-time social interaction. Time-frequency results found that, the absence of the punishment power activated more theta-band and alpha-band power compare to when second-party has punishment power. When second-party has no punishment power, functional connection results observed stronger functional connectivity in theta band for medium unfair offers between rTPJ and PFC. Dual-brain analysis revealed that when the second-party has no punishment power, there is a significantly higher IBS in the alpha band between the frontal and frontal-central lobes of the second-party and the parietal and parietal occipital lobes of the third-party. GCA results further showed that the direction of IBS from third-party to second-party was significantly stronger than from second-party to third-party. This study demonstrates that the absence of the second-party's punishment power promote TPP, and similar cognitive process of thinking on how to maintain social fairness enhances IBS. The current study emphasizes the influence of punishment power on TPP, broadens the research perspective and contributes crucial insights into maintain social fairness.

The shorter a man is, the more he defends fairness: relative height disadvantage promoting third-party punishment-evidence from inter-brain synchronization

Third-party punishment occurs in interpersonal interactions to sustain social norms, and is strongly influenced by the characteristics of the interacting individuals. During social interactions, height is the striking physical appearance features first observed, height disadvantage may critically influence men's behavior and mental health. Herein, we explored the influence of height disadvantage on third-party punishment through time-frequency analysis and electroencephalography hyperscanning. Two participants were randomly designated as the recipient and third party after height comparison and instructed to complete third-party punishment task. Compared with when the third party's height is higher than the recipient's height, when the third party's height is lower, the punishment rate and transfer amount were significantly higher. Only for highly unfair offers, the theta power was significantly greater when the third party's height was lower. The inter-brain synchronization between the recipient and the third party was significantly stronger when the third party's height was lower. Compared with the fair and medium unfair offers, the inter-brain synchronization was strongest for highly unfair offers. Our findings indicate that the height disadvantage-induced anger and reputation concern promote third-party punishment and inter-brain synchronization. This study enriches research perspective and expands the application of the theory of Napoleon complex.

Group environment modulates how third parties assess unfairly shared losses and unfairly shared gains: neural signatures from ERPs and EEG oscillations

INTRODUCTION

Through its long-term evolution and development, human society has gradually formed stable and effective norms to maintain normal social production and social activities. Altruistic punishment is indispensable in maintaining social norms. Altruistic punishment includes second-party and third-party punishment, and third-party punishment refers to punishing violators by unbiased bystanders who have not suffered damage to their interests. Cooperation is an important form of human social interaction. Third parties play an essential role in maintaining social cooperation. Third parties' behaviors in maintaining cooperative norms may be related to their social environment.

METHOD

We used the prisoner's dilemma (PD) game and distinguished between the gain and loss contexts of the economy to explore how the group environment modulates the cognitive neural mechanisms and psychological processing of the third-party punishment decision. Twenty-six college students (Mage = 19.88 ± 1.58) participated in the experiment; data from four participants were excluded from analyses of the EEG data due to large artifacts.

RESULTS

The behavioral results show that the degree of punishment from the third party in a loss context was greater than in a gain context. ERP analysis results show that the third party applied a lower P300 in the loss context. The loss context induced a greater N100 than the gain context in the individual environment. At the same time, alpha-band power activated by the individual environment was greater than that activated by the group environment under the gain context.

CONCLUSION

These results suggest that a third party maintaining the norms of social cooperation in different contexts will adjust punishment decisions according to the environment, and this process is mainly dominated by the negative emotions caused by environment.

Electrophysiological correlates of third-party punishment: ERP study

Human societies benefit from social norms that increase cooperation and support social order. Hence, the understanding of effective mechanisms enforcing norms is crucial. One of such mechanisms is "third-party punishment" (TPP) - a form of social punishment that could be delivered by a third-party, not directly affected by the actions of the norm violator. Previous electrophysiological studies (ERP) reported that perceived violations of norms evoked the medial frontal negativity in third-parties. The current study further probed the link between the medial frontal negativity (MFN) and actual TPP of norm violation, as it was not shown directly before. Participants played a dictator game as third-parties, being able to select different levels of punishment of an unfair violator's decisions. We replicated previous findings and showed the amplitude of the MFN correlated with the intensity of TPP (Fz, r = -0.516, p = 0.034, FCz, r = -0.509; p = 0.037). Overall, our findings further support the direct link between the MFN and the intensity of TPP.