Why do we honor our obligations to others?

We measured participants' brain activity while they played an interactive game designed to model social trust. We identified several distinct types of motivations underlying decisions to honor a relationship partner’s trust such as ensuring that rewards were split equally across both players and avoiding disappointing their partner. Each of these different motivations were associated with unique patterns of brain activation within the same network of regions.

Authors

Jeroen M. van Baar, Luke J. Chang, Alan G. Sanfey

Publication

Nature Communications

April 2, 2019

Research paper

Why do we honor our obligations to others?

April 2, 2019

Research paperPress Release

Authors

Jeroen M. van Baar, Luke J. Chang, Alan G. Sanfey

Project communication

Press

Funding for this research was generously provided by: