[Rhodes22-list] No S*!t Sherlock! You Don't Say!

[Brad Haslett]

The statute of limitations has run out for my older boys, not that it would
help them now.  Here's the latest.  Brad

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 October 3, 2007 - 6:06 PM Threat of punishment can deter bad behaviour [image:
The study raises questions about how justice is meted out]

Image caption: The study raises questions about how justice is meted
out (Keystone)


 The fear of being punished makes people less likely to violate social
norms, according to a study by Swiss and German researchers.

Using scanning technology, the scientists were able to show which parts of
the brain react to the threat of punishment, highlighting that lesions in
these regions might lead to antisocial behaviour.



The study, published on Wednesday in the brain research journal Neuron,
aimed to understand the effects of potential punishment on the
decision-making process.



"Our societies have clear definitions of what is appropriate," said Ernst
Fehr, an economist at Zurich University and one of the authors. He points to
norms such as fairness, cooperation and honesty.



"Most people are willing to comply with these norms in the absence of
punishment," he told swissinfo. "But a significant minority will only do so
if threatened."



Fehr gives telling the truth as an example of a social norm that most people
understand. That doesn't stop anyone from lying at some point though.



The researchers focused on how prepared people were to comply with the
fairness norm using a money allocation game. A person had to decide how much
of a certain amount of money they were prepared to share with another.



In one case, there was no punishment for an unfair division of the funds,
while in the other the recipient could decide to financially punish the
giver.



The activation of certain areas of the brain when punishment was an option
was highlighted using so-called functional magnetic resonance imaging. This
technique can show neural activity by detecting blood flow in the brain.


Egoistic impulses



"People who primarily comply with a norm because of the threat of punishment
probably have to suppress their egoistic impulses more strongly, which then
activates this region of the frontal lobe more strongly," said Fehr.



"This result extends previous results we found showing that egoistic
decisions are more likely to be made if this area of the brain is suppressed
in its activity."



For the researchers, the implications of their study go beyond highlighting
that some people only respond to threats. In many young people, the regions
of the brain involved are not fully developed, perhaps explaining why
potential punishment does not prevent anti-social behaviour.



"Our findings suggest that courts should be more careful in determining the
penal responsibility of teenagers and young adults," added Fehr.



In most European countries – including Switzerland – this responsibility is
set at age 18, or even 20. In the United States, it is often much lower.


Psychopaths



The authors suggest that their findings could help understand psychopathic
behaviour. They say this is because people with lesions in the social
compliance circuitry highlighted by their research are incapable of behaving
in appropriate ways even though they understand social norms.



Fehr warns though that using scans to determine whether someone is dangerous
for society is not enough.



"I think that if the brain is permanently damaged, a criminal should not be
released," he told swissinfo. "But you do not lock someone up for life based
on a scan; it's just one possible element that can intervene in a
judgement."



He added that society plays a vital role in how norms are respected. "Our
biology allows us to comply with social norms. But these norms are
conditioned by society," he said.



swissinfo, Scott Capper



 FUNCTIONAL MRI

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is used to visualize brain
function, by visualizing changes in chemical composition of brain areas or
changes in the flow of fluids that occur over periods stretching from
seconds to minutes.



In the brain, blood flow is presumed to be related to neural activity, so
fMRI, like other imaging techniques, can be used to find out what the brain
is doing when subjects perform specific tasks or are exposed to specific
stimuli.



Procedure: a series of baseline images are taken of the brain region of
interest when the subject is at rest; the subject performs a task and a
second series is taken; then the first set of images is subtracted from the
second, and the areas that are most visible in the resulting image are
presumed to have been activated by the task.



LINKS

   - Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, Zurich
University<http://www.iew.uzh.ch/index.en.html>
    (http://www.iew.uzh.ch/index.en.html)
   - Neuron <http://www.neuron.org/> (http://www.neuron.org/)

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*URL of this story:*
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swissinfo.html?siteSect=105&sid=8277709