Abnormal causal attribution leads to advantageous economic decision-making: a neuropsychological approach

Timothy R Koscik; Daniel Tranel

doi:10.1162/jocn_a_00398

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Abnormal causal attribution leads to advantageous economic decision-making: a neuropsychological approach

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Abnormal causal attribution leads to advantageous economic decision-making: a neuropsychological approach

Timothy R Koscik and Daniel Tranel

Journal of cognitive neuroscience, Vol.25(8), pp.1372-1382

08/2013

DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_00398

PMCID: PMC3696434

PMID: 23574584

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http://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_00398View

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Abstract

People tend to assume that outcomes are caused by dispositional factors, for example, a person's constitution or personality, even when the actual cause is due to situational factors, for example, luck or coincidence. This is known as the "correspondence bias." This tendency can lead normal, intelligent persons to make suboptimal decisions. Here, we used a neuropsychological approach to investigate the neural basis of the correspondence bias, by studying economic decision-making in patients with damage to the ventromedial pFC (vmPFC). Given the role of the vmPFC in social cognition, we predicted that vmPFC is necessary for the normal correspondence bias. In our experiment, consistent with expectations, healthy (n = 46) and brain-damaged (n = 30) comparison participants displayed the correspondence bias during economic decision-making and invested no differently when given dispositional or situational information. By contrast, vmPFC patients (n = 17) displayed a lack of correspondence bias and invested more when given dispositional than situational information. The results support the conclusion that vmPFC is critical for normal social inference and the correspondence bias. The findings help clarify the important (and sometimes disadvantageous) role of social inference in economic decision-making.

Humans

Middle Aged

Prefrontal Cortex - physiopathology

Brain Injuries - complications

Male

Tomography, X-Ray Computed

Neuropsychological Tests

Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Economics, Behavioral

Analysis of Variance

Cognition Disorders - etiology

Adult

Female

Aged

Decision Making - physiology

Brain Injuries - pathology

Details

Title: Subtitle: Abnormal causal attribution leads to advantageous economic decision-making: a neuropsychological approach
Creators: Timothy R Koscik - University of Iowa College of Medicine, USA. t.koscik@utoronto.ca
Daniel Tranel
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Journal of cognitive neuroscience, Vol.25(8), pp.1372-1382
DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_00398
PMID: 23574584
PMCID: PMC3696434
NLM abbreviation: J Cogn Neurosci
ISSN: 0898-929X
eISSN: 1530-8898
Publisher: United States
Grant note: P50 NS019632 / NINDS NIH HHS R01 DA022549 / NIDA NIH HHS P50 NS19632 / NINDS NIH HHS
Language: English
Date published: 08/2013
Academic Unit: Neurology; Psychiatry; Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
Record Identifier: 9984002352002771

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