000 02294 am a22003133u 4500
042 _adc
100 1 0 _aGross, Jörg
_eauthor
_92481
700 1 0 _aFaber, Nadira S.
_eauthor
_92482
700 1 0 _aKappes, Andreas
_eauthor
_92483
700 1 0 _aNussberger, Anne-Marie
_eauthor
_92484
700 1 0 _aCowen, Philip J
_eauthor
_92485
700 1 0 _aBrowning, Michael
_eauthor
_92486
700 1 0 _aKahane, Guy
_eauthor
_92487
700 1 0 _aSavulescu, Julian
_eauthor
_92488
700 1 0 _aCrockett, Molly J.
_eauthor
_92489
700 1 0 _aDe Dreu, Carsten K.W.
_eauthor
_92490
245 0 0 _aWhen Helping is Risky: The Behavioral and Neurobiological Tradeoff of Social and Risk Preferences
260 _c2021-11-01.
500 _a/pmc/articles/PMC7614101/
500 _a/pubmed/34705578
520 _aHelping others can entail risks for the helper. For example, when treating infectious patients, medical volunteers risk their own health. In such situations, helping-decisions should depend on the individual's valuation of others' well-being (social preferences) and the degree of personal risk the individual finds acceptable (risk preferences). We investigate how these distinct preferences are psychologically and neurobiologically integrated when helping is risky. We used incentivized decision-making tasks (Study 1, N=292, mean age=22.3±3.7, 142 female) and manipulated dopamine and norepinephrine levels in the brain by administering methylphenidate, atomoxetine, or placebo (Study 2, N=154, mean age=23.7±3.9, 77 female). We find that social and risk preferences are independent drivers of risky helping. Methylphenidate increased risky helping by selectively altering risk- rather than social preferences. Atomoxetine influenced neither risk nor social preferences and did not affect risky helping. This suggests that methylphenidate-altered dopamine concentrations affect helping decisions that entail a risk to the helper.
540 _a
540 _ahttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) International license.
546 _aen
690 _aArticle
655 7 _aText
_2local
786 0 _nPsychol Sci
856 4 1 _uhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1177/09567976211015942
_zConnect to this object online.
999 _c1988
_d1988