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   What will people do for money?   
      
      
       
   Apr 08, 2011 by Deborah Braconnier   
   (PhysOrg.com) -- At the April 4, 2011 annual meeting of the Cognitive   
   Neuroscience Society the subject of moral dilemmas and what people would   
   really do was addressed. In a study presented by Oriel FeldmanHall of   
   Cambridge University shows that when it    
   comes to moral studies, hypothetical scenarios do not work to determine the   
   complexities of what people's real decisions would be.   
      
   FeldmanHall's study showed that what people say they will do in a given   
   situation and what they really do are two very different things. If given a   
   hypothetical situation of a choice of giving someone an electrical shock for   
   money or walking away, most    
   people answered they would never be able to inflict pain on another person.   
   However, in a real-life scenario, with real money and real electric shocks,   
   the actions were much different. In FeldmanHall's study, subjects were placed   
   in an MRI scanner and then given the choice to either administer an electrical   
   shock to a person    
   located in another room and make money (one British pound) or not inflict pain   
   and receive no money. They also broke down that one pound into percentages   
   based on the severity of the shock, so they would receive the full pound for   
   administering a severe    
   shock and less for more mild shocks.   
      
   The subject in the MRI was shown a video of the person receiving the shock and   
   would either see just the person's hand jerk or be shown both the hand jerk   
   and the person's face. Each participant was given the choice to shock another   
   person 20 times, with    
   the opportunity to make 20 pounds.   
      
   In the hypothetical scenario, 64 percent of participants said they would never   
   administer a shock to someone else for money. However, in the real world that   
   number changed, and in a big way. When faced with real money, 96 percent chose   
   to shock the    
   person in the other room for money.   
      
   What seemed to make the difference in how many of those 20 chances the   
   participants took was what video they were watching. On average, those   
   watching just the hands jerk walked away with 15.77 pounds, but those watching   
   the faces as well, left with only    
   11.55 pounds.   
      
   The study also showed that when these individuals were presented with a moral   
   dilemma, they showed heightened activity in the insula, a part of the brain   
   believed to be attached to emotion. It is this lack of emotion and real   
   dilemma that FeldmanHall    
   believes is what is missing in traditional hypothetical dilemmas.   
      
   The hope of using these types of studies is to determine how the brain   
   dictates compassion and moral behavior in individuals.   
      
       
   More information:    
   via Wired   
      
       
       
       
    http://m.medicalxpress.com/news/2011-04-people-money.html   
      
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