title: The brain's functional network architecture reveals human motives.
abstract: Goal-directed human behaviors are driven by motives. Motives are, however, purely mental constructs that are not directly observable. Here, we show that the brain's functional network architecture captures information that predicts different motives behind the same altruistic act with high accuracy. In contrast, mere activity in these regions contains no information about motives. Empathy-based altruism is primarily characterized by a positive connectivity from the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) to the anterior insula (AI), whereas reciprocity-based altruism additionally invokes strong positive connectivity from the AI to the ACC and even stronger positive connectivity from the AI to the ventral striatum. Moreover, predominantly selfish individuals show distinct functional architectures compared to altruists, and they only increase altruistic behavior in response to empathy inductions, but not reciprocity inductions.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems Research, Department of Economics, University of Zurich, Switzerland. grit.hein@econ.uzh.ch ernst.fehr@econ.uzh.ch.
authors.forename: Grit
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hein
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems Research, Department of Economics, University of Zurich, Switzerland. Division of Systems Neuroscience of Psychopathology, Translational Research Center, University Hospital of Psychiatry, University of Bern, Switzerland. Japanese Science and Technology Agency, PRESTO, Japan.
authors.forename: Yosuke
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Morishima
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems Research, Department of Economics, University of Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Susanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Leiberg
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Pusan National University, Pusan, South Korea.
authors.forename: Sunhae
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sul
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems Research, Department of Economics, University of Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Ernst
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Fehr
mesh_terms: D000533:Altruism; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D004645:Empathy / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D009042:Motivation / Q000502:physiology*; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology*; D012919:Social Behavior; D055815:Young Adult