Younger adults are more prosocial than older adults in economic decision making results from the give and take game.

The present study was designed to investigate the disadvantageous and advantageous inequity aversion of young and older adults in situations which allowed them to maximize or minimize payoff inequalities. Given the very limited evidence regarding an actual age-related effect on inequity aversion, the purpose of this study was to examine this question using an economic game, "the Give-and-Take Game", which is able to circumvent certain limitations of the Ultimatum Game, to evaluate inequity aversion (i.e., a same behaviour which can be induced by opposite motivations: prosocial vs. pro-self vs. altruistic orientations). In the "Give-and-Take Game", a sum of money was randomly distributed between the participant and a dummy player. These distributions created monetary inequalities, advantageous either for the participant (to examine advantageous inequity aversion) or for the other player (to examine disadvantageous inequity aversion). Different response options were proposed to the participants to either maximize or minimize payoff inequalities between the players. This procedure not only allowed to differentiate individual's profiles with more prosocial vs. pro-self vs. altruistic orientations, but also to examine age-related effects on these profiles. The results showed that older adults showed a more important pro-self orientation compared to their younger counterparts. They more frequently selected the options which maximized their own payoffs and were less averse to advantageous inequity compared to young adults. In contrast, young adults showed a similar level of advantageous and disadvantageous inequity aversion. Older adults focused on the economic and competitive dimension of the game, which may have motivated them to maximize their own payoffs. Conversely, young adults took into account the social dimension of the game, focusing on a fair monetary distribution.

Being the chosen one: social inclusion modulates decisions in the ultimatum game. An ERP study.

In the present study, participants played a modified ultimatum game simulating a situation of inclusion/exclusion, in which either the participant or a rival could be selected to play as the responder. This selection was made either randomly by a computer (i.e. random pairing mode) or by the proposer (i.e. choice mode), based on physical appearance. Being chosen by the proposer triggered positive reciprocal behavior in participants, who accepted unfair offers more frequently than when they had been selected by the computer. Independently of selection mode, greater P200 amplitudes were found when participants received fair offers than when they received unfair offers and when unfair shares were offered to their rivals rather than to them, suggesting that receiving fair offers or observing a rival's misfortune was rewarding for participants. While participants generally showed more interest in the offers they themselves received (i.e. greater P300 responses to these offers), observing their rivals receive fair shares after the latter had been chosen by the proposer triggered an increase in P300 amplitude likely to reflect a feeling of envy. This study provides new insights into both the cognitive and affective processes underpinning economic decision making in a context of social inclusion/exclusion.

Fragile temporal prediction in patients with schizophrenia is related to minimal self disorders.

Patients with schizophrenia have difficulty in making sensory predictions, in the time domain, which have been proposed to be related to self-disorders. However experimental evidence is lacking. We examined both voluntary and automatic forms of temporal prediction in 28 patients and 24 matched controls. A visual cue predicted (temporal cue) or not (neutral cue) the time (400 ms/1000 ms) at which a subsequent target was presented. In both patients and controls, RTs were faster for targets presented after long versus short intervals due to the temporal predictability inherent in the elapse of time ("hazard function"). This RT benefit was correlated with scores on the EASE scale, which measures disorders of the self: patients with a high 'self-awareness and presence' score did not show any significant benefit of the hazard function, whereas this ability was preserved in patients with a low score. Moreover, all patients were abnormally sensitive to the presence of "catch" trials (unexpected absence of a target) within a testing block, with RTs actually becoming slower at long versus short intervals. These results indicate fragility in patients' ability to continuously extract temporally predictive information from the elapsing interval. This deficit might contribute to perturbations of the minimal self in patients.