Mindfulness training increases cooperative decision making in economic exchanges: Evidence from fMRI.

ABSTRACT: Emotions have been shown to exert influences on decision making during economic exchanges. Here we investigate the underlying neural mechanisms of a training regimen which is hypothesized to promote emotional awareness, specifically mindfulness training (MT). We test the hypothesis that MT increases cooperative economic decision making using fMRI in a randomized longitudinal design involving 8weeks of either MT or active control training (CT). We find that MT results in an increased willingness to cooperate indexed by higher acceptance rates to unfair monetary offers in the Ultimatum Game. While controlling for acceptance rates of monetary offers between intervention groups, subjects in the MT and CT groups show differential brain activation patterns. Specifically, a subset of more coopera

SUBMITTER: Kirk U 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4954868 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature