Costly apologies communicate conciliatory intention: an fMRI study on forgiveness in response to costly apologies
Costly apologies communicate conciliatory intention: an fMRI study on forgiveness in response to costly apologies
复制标题
昂贵的道歉传达了和解的意图：针对昂贵道歉的宽恕的功能磁共振成像研究
DOI：
10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2018.01.004
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发表时间：
2018
影响因子：
5.1
通讯作者：
H.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Ohtsubo;Y.;Matsunaga;M.;Tanaka;T.;Suzuki;K.;Kobayashi;F.;Shibata;E.;Hori;R.;Umemura;T.;& Ohira;H.
和解是我们社会生活的一个组成部分。然而，如果受害者认为他/她的违法者进一步剥削的风险是不可忽视的，受害者很可能难以原谅违法者。因此，和解的一个关键因素是违法者真诚道歉。理论和实证研究表明，违法者可以通过付出巨大的代价来使他们的道歉可信。因此，我们假设，与不昂贵的道歉相比，昂贵的道歉（即，简单地说“对不起”），将有效地传达违法者的和解意图。在一项功能性磁共振成像（fMRI）研究中，参与者被要求想象一个朋友犯了一个轻微的人际越轨行为（例如，让参与者站起来），然后以昂贵的方式道歉，以不昂贵的方式道歉，或者根本不道歉。与非代价道歉和非代价道歉相比，代价道歉（和解意图的信号）更强烈地激活了心理理论网络（即，双侧颞顶交界、楔前叶、内侧前额叶皮质）。此外，我们没有观察到任何显着差异的大脑反应，以非昂贵的道歉和非道歉控制。这些结果突出表明，代价高昂的信号在人类交流中，特别是在人类缔造和平中的重要性。
Reconciliation is an integral part of our social lives. Nevertheless, if a victim perceives the risk of further exploitation by his/her transgressor as non-negligible, the victim may well have difficulty forgiving the transgressor. Therefore, a key ingredient of reconciliation is the transgressor's sincere apology. Theoretical and empirical studies have shown that transgressors can make their apologies credible by incurring a substantial cost. Therefore, we hypothesized that costly apologies, compared to non-costly apologies (i.e., simply saying “sorry”), would effectively communicate a transgressor's conciliatory intention. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, participants were asked to imagine a friend committing a mild interpersonal transgression (e.g., standing up the participant) and then apologizing in a costly fashion, apologizing in a non-costly fashion, or not apologizing at all. Compared to non-costly apologies and non-apologies, costly apologies (signals of conciliatory intention) more strongly activated the theory-of-mind network (i.e., bilateral temporoparietal junction, precuneus, medial prefrontal cortex). Moreover, we did not observe any significant differences in brain responses to non-costly apologies and non-apology controls. These results underscore the importance of costly signals in human communication and in human peace-making in particular.