Women's Preference for a Male Acquaintance Enhances Social Reward Processing of Material Goods in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex

PLoS One. 2015 Aug 24;10(8):e0136168. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0136168. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

Men, like the male of many animal species, use gifts to build satisfactory relationships with a desired woman. From the woman's perspective, all gifts are not always equally rewarding; the reward value of a gift depends on two factors: (1) the giver and (2) the type of the gift (the gift's social meaning). In this study, we investigated how these two factors interactively determine the reward value of a gift. Specifically, we examined how the neural processing for understanding a gift's social meaning is modulated by preferences for the giver. We performed a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study in which a female participant was asked to judge a gift from a male she was acquainted with in real life. We examined the interactive effects between (1) the female participant's attitude toward the male acquaintance (liked vs. uninteresting) and (2) the type of the gift (romantic [e.g., bouquet, earrings, and perfumes] vs. non-romantic [e.g., pencils, memo pad, and moneybox]). We found that preference for an acquaintance selectively modulated activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in response to romantic gifts, compared to non-romantic gifts. In contrast, if the woman was indifferent toward an acquaintance, no activity modulation was observed in this area for the same gifts. In addition, the ACC showed functional connectivity with the supplementary motor area/dorsal ACC (SMA/dACC), an area within the dorsal mediofrontal cortex, suggesting that it integrates action monitoring and emotional and cognitive processing in decision-making. These results suggest that attitude toward an opposite sex member has a modulatory role in recognizing the social meaning of material goods--preference for the member is a powerful modulator of social reward processing.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Brain Mapping / psychology
  • Cerebral Cortex / physiology*
  • Cognition / physiology
  • Decision Making / physiology
  • Echo-Planar Imaging
  • Emotions / physiology*
  • Female
  • Gift Giving
  • Humans
  • Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
  • Interpersonal Relations*
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
  • Male
  • Motivation / physiology
  • Reward
  • Social Behavior*

Grants and funding

This work was supported by MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) Kakenhi grants to TM (#24653160 and #24659546). It was also supported by a grant of MEXT-Supported Program for the Strategic Research Foundation at Private Universities, 2013-2017. The MEXT website can be found at http://www.mext.go.jp/english/. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.