A recent study published in the open-access journal PLOS Biology suggests that being stressed while witnessing injustice may lead to altruistic behavior, as reported on May 14 by researchers Huagen Wang from Beijing Normal University, China, and colleagues.
Research indicates that it requires more cognitive effort to punish others than it does to assist them. When people are stressed while observing an act of injustice, studies show that they are more likely to act selflessly and help the victim rather than punish the offender.This is in line with the ideas that suggest that different brain networks are responsible for quick, intuitive decisions and slow, deliberate decisions. However, it is not clear how a bystander’s brain decides whether to help or punish others in stressful situations.
To gain a better understanding of the brain processes that drive third-party intervention in the face of injustice, Wang and his team enrolled 52 participants to take part in a simulated third-party intervention task while in an fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scanner. During the task, the participants observed someone making decisions about how to distribute money between themselves and another character, who had tThe study involved participants who were asked to make decisions in unfair situations. They had to choose whether to take money from one person or give money to another. About half of the participants were asked to submerge their hands in ice water for three minutes before making their decisions to induce stress.
The researchers found that acute stress had an impact on decision-making, especially in situations where the participant witnessed someone keeping most of the money that was meant to be shared with someone else. They observed increased activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) – a brain region associated with thinking about others and making decisions – when the participants were stressed.Researchers found that when people are under acute stress, they are less likely to seek punishment for an offender and are more inclined to help the victim instead. They concluded that this indicates that punishing others requires more thought and cognitive control, while helping a victim is more instinctive and requires less mental effort. This supports the idea that stressed individuals are more likely to act cooperatively and generously, as they focus their cognitive resources on assisting the victim rather than seeking revenge on the offender.The authors state that “Acute stress shifts third-party intervention from punishing the perpetrator to helping the victim.”
