Relationship between personality traits and brain reward responses when playing on a team.
Cooperation is an integral part of human social life and we often build teams to achieve certain goals. However, very little is currently understood about emotions with regard to cooperation. Here, we investigated the impact of social context (playing alone versus playing on a team) on emotions while winning or losing a game. We hypothesized that activity in the reward network is modulated by the social context and that personality characteristics might impact team play. We conducted an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment that involved a simple game of dice. In the team condition, the participant played with a partner against another two-person team. In the single-player condition, the participant played alone against another player. Our results revealed that reward processing in the right amygdala was modulated by the social context. The main effect of outcome (gains versus losses) was associated with increased responses in the reward network. We also found that differences in the reward-related neural response due to social context were associated with specific personality traits. When playing on a team, increased activity in the amygdala during winning was a unique function of openness, while decreased activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and ventral striatum during losing was associated with extraversion and conscientiousness, respectively. In conclusion, we provide evidence that working on a team influences the affective value of a negative outcome by attenuating the negative response associated with it in the amygdala. Our results also show that brain reward responses in a social context are affected by personality traits related to teamwork.
Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Carmen
C
Morawetz
Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Evgeniya
E
Kirilina
Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Christian-Albrecht University Kiel, Kiel, Germany.
Juergen
J
Baudewig
Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Hauke R
HR
Heekeren
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D005717:Games, Experimental; D006126:Group Processes; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D010551:Personality / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time; D012201:Reward; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires