When people matter more than money: An ERPs study

In the present study, we showed that, in a social gambling task, individuals are influenced more by the type of social interaction than by the pattern of gains and losses. More precisely, the neural responses, as well as the level of pleasantness/unpleasantness following gains and losses, are modulated by social interaction factors. Here we present an Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) study in which three groups of participants were compared. Subjects were engaged in gambling tasks differing with regard to social factors: in a first condition, there was no social context; in a second condition, participants compared their outcomes with those of another individual; in a third condition, participants competed for a limited amount of money with another contender. In all conditions, all participants were revealed the outcome of an unselected alternative (non-obtained outcome) prior to the payoff associated with their selected option (obtained outcome). In addition, affective ratings were measured after the outcomes were presented. In the group without social context, ERPs results replicated previous findings. Interestingly, the P200 was modulated by varying social contexts, suggesting that attentive resources allocated to payoffs in comparison and competitive situations are decreased presumably in favor of social cues. Furthermore, Feedback Related Negativity (FRN) was predictive of the subjective feeling of pleasantness/unpleasantness following monetary outcomes. The present data provide information about neural and cognitive processing underlying economic decision-making when other individuals are involved.