A study published in PLOS Biology by Huagen Wang and colleagues from Beijing Normal University suggests that being stressed while witnessing injustice may push the brain towards altruism. The researchers found that when people are stressed and witness an act of injustice, they tend to behave selflessly, preferring to help the victim rather than punish the offender. This aligns with theories proposing that different brain networks drive intuitive, fast decisions and deliberate, slow decisions, but how the brain makes the trade-off between helping and punishing in stressful situations is not fully understood.
To investigate the neural processes driving third-party intervention in the face of injustice, the researchers recruited 52 participants to complete a simulated third-party intervention task in an fMRI scanner. Participants watched as someone decided how to distribute cash between themselves and another character, who had to passively accept the proposal. The participants then decided whether to take money away from the first character or give money to the second. Some participants were subjected to acute stress by submerging their hands in ice water for three minutes before starting the task.
The results showed that acute stress affected decision-making in extremely unfair situations, where the participant witnessed someone keeping the majority of the cash meant to be split with someone else. Stressed participants showed higher activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) – a brain region linked to mentalizing and decision-making – when choosing to punish an offender. Computational modeling revealed that acute stress reduces bias towards punishment, increasing the likelihood of helping a victim instead. This suggests that punishing others requires more cognitive effort and deliberation than helping a victim.
The researchers suggest that stressed individuals tend to act more cooperatively and generously, possibly because they devote more cognitive resources to deciding how to help the victim rather than punishing the offender. They found that acute stress shifted third-party intervention from punishing the perpetrator to helping the victim. This indicates that acute stress may alter decision-making processes in injustice scenarios, leading individuals to prioritize helping others over punishing wrongdoers. Further research in this area may provide valuable insights into the effects of stress on social behavior and altruism.