BUT YOU'RE AT THE SWITCH:

Scientists discover brain trigger for selfish behaviour (Roger Highfield, 06/10/2006, Daily Telegraph)

Scientists have found that they can make people selfish and egotistical by turning off a brain region at the flick of a switch, providing new insight into social behaviour.

They set out to show that activation of the area of the brain known as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) triggers self-control.

The scientists used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation on subjects, in which a weak magnetic field was used to temporarily disable the DLPFC.

Then they took part in a bargaining game in which two individuals had to agree on the division of a given amount of money.

One person proposed an offer and the other could either accept or reject it — but rejection meant that neither got any money.

The researchers found that suppressing the right side of the DLPFC made the volunteers more likely to accept unfair offers instead of rejecting them in order to punish the "proposer" for not sharing more equally.

Subjects who had the right DLPFC turned off were far less able to keep their selfish impulses under control, though they still knew what was fair and what was not.

Oddly enough, reading Ayn Rand and SciFi novels tended to turn off the right side.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 5, 2006 9:38 PM