Influences of State and Trait Affect on Behavior, Feedback-Related Negativity, and P3b in the Ultimatum Game.

The present study investigates how different emotions can alter social bargaining behavior. An important paradigm to study social bargaining is the Ultimatum Game. There, a proposer gets a pot of money and has to offer part of it to a responder. If the responder accepts, both players get the money a...

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Main Authors: Korbinian Riepl, Patrick Mussel, Roman Osinsky, Johannes Hewig
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2016-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC4704707?pdf=render
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spelling doaj-28332d71ab924d39b3951549d27ca80b2020-11-25T02:46:38ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032016-01-01111e014635810.1371/journal.pone.0146358Influences of State and Trait Affect on Behavior, Feedback-Related Negativity, and P3b in the Ultimatum Game.Korbinian RieplPatrick MusselRoman OsinskyJohannes HewigThe present study investigates how different emotions can alter social bargaining behavior. An important paradigm to study social bargaining is the Ultimatum Game. There, a proposer gets a pot of money and has to offer part of it to a responder. If the responder accepts, both players get the money as proposed by the proposer. If he rejects, none of the players gets anything. Rational choice models would predict that responders accept all offers above 0. However, evidence shows that responders typically reject a large proportion of all unfair offers. We analyzed participants' behavior when they played the Ultimatum Game as responders and simultaneously collected electroencephalogram data in order to quantify the feedback-related negativity and P3b components. We induced state affect (momentarily emotions unrelated to the task) via short movie clips and measured trait affect (longer-lasting emotional dispositions) via questionnaires. State happiness led to increased acceptance rates of very unfair offers. Regarding neurophysiology, we found that unfair offers elicited larger feedback-related negativity amplitudes than fair offers. Additionally, an interaction of state and trait affect occurred: high trait negative affect (subsuming a variety of aversive mood states) led to increased feedback-related negativity amplitudes when participants were in an angry mood, but not if they currently experienced fear or happiness. We discuss that increased rumination might be responsible for this result, which might not occur, however, when people experience happiness or fear. Apart from that, we found that fair offers elicited larger P3b components than unfair offers, which might reflect increased pleasure in response to fair offers. Moreover, high trait negative affect was associated with decreased P3b amplitudes, potentially reflecting decreased motivation to engage in activities. We discuss implications of our results in the light of theories and research on depression and anxiety.http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC4704707?pdf=render
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Korbinian Riepl
Patrick Mussel
Roman Osinsky
Johannes Hewig
spellingShingle Korbinian Riepl
Patrick Mussel
Roman Osinsky
Johannes Hewig
Influences of State and Trait Affect on Behavior, Feedback-Related Negativity, and P3b in the Ultimatum Game.
PLoS ONE
author_facet Korbinian Riepl
Patrick Mussel
Roman Osinsky
Johannes Hewig
author_sort Korbinian Riepl
title Influences of State and Trait Affect on Behavior, Feedback-Related Negativity, and P3b in the Ultimatum Game.
title_short Influences of State and Trait Affect on Behavior, Feedback-Related Negativity, and P3b in the Ultimatum Game.
title_full Influences of State and Trait Affect on Behavior, Feedback-Related Negativity, and P3b in the Ultimatum Game.
title_fullStr Influences of State and Trait Affect on Behavior, Feedback-Related Negativity, and P3b in the Ultimatum Game.
title_full_unstemmed Influences of State and Trait Affect on Behavior, Feedback-Related Negativity, and P3b in the Ultimatum Game.
title_sort influences of state and trait affect on behavior, feedback-related negativity, and p3b in the ultimatum game.
publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS)
series PLoS ONE
issn 1932-6203
publishDate 2016-01-01
description The present study investigates how different emotions can alter social bargaining behavior. An important paradigm to study social bargaining is the Ultimatum Game. There, a proposer gets a pot of money and has to offer part of it to a responder. If the responder accepts, both players get the money as proposed by the proposer. If he rejects, none of the players gets anything. Rational choice models would predict that responders accept all offers above 0. However, evidence shows that responders typically reject a large proportion of all unfair offers. We analyzed participants' behavior when they played the Ultimatum Game as responders and simultaneously collected electroencephalogram data in order to quantify the feedback-related negativity and P3b components. We induced state affect (momentarily emotions unrelated to the task) via short movie clips and measured trait affect (longer-lasting emotional dispositions) via questionnaires. State happiness led to increased acceptance rates of very unfair offers. Regarding neurophysiology, we found that unfair offers elicited larger feedback-related negativity amplitudes than fair offers. Additionally, an interaction of state and trait affect occurred: high trait negative affect (subsuming a variety of aversive mood states) led to increased feedback-related negativity amplitudes when participants were in an angry mood, but not if they currently experienced fear or happiness. We discuss that increased rumination might be responsible for this result, which might not occur, however, when people experience happiness or fear. Apart from that, we found that fair offers elicited larger P3b components than unfair offers, which might reflect increased pleasure in response to fair offers. Moreover, high trait negative affect was associated with decreased P3b amplitudes, potentially reflecting decreased motivation to engage in activities. We discuss implications of our results in the light of theories and research on depression and anxiety.
url http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC4704707?pdf=render
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