11/27 Summary: "Nice Brains Finish Last"
From Scientific American
(Summary)
Based on the reactions to economic inequity, humans can be categorized into three: prosocials, who value economic equity, individuals, who are concerned with maximizing their own resources, and competitive, whose crucial outcome is that they have more than other people. According to a study, whether or not they got more money than others, prosocials’ amygdalae, which in the brain are associated with feelings of stress, were activated, while the individualists’ ones were activated only when they were the sufferers. Another study using a brain imaging technique also showed the same result. Furthermore, by using a common depression questionnaire, the researchers found having a prosocial pattern of brain activation was associated with more depression, as psychiatrists have long suggested. The hope is that they can inhibit stress by using the prefrontal cortex, associated with regulation of these depression although participants in this study were between 18 and 26 while the cortex becomes mature around age 26. (155 words)
