Journal
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 367, Issue 1589, Pages 650-656Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2011.0292
Keywords
delay discounting; cultural neuroscience; ventral striatum; dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; posterior parietal cortex
Categories
Funding
- NIA [R01 031310]
- National Research Foundation of Korea [인06A1602] Funding Source: Korea Institute of Science & Technology Information (KISTI), National Science & Technology Information Service (NTIS)
Ask authors/readers for more resources
People generally prefer to receive rewarding outcomes sooner rather than later. Such preferences result from delay discounting, or the process by which outcomes are devalued for the expected delay until their receipt. We investigated cultural differences in delay discounting by contrasting behaviour and brain activity in separate cohorts of Western (American) and Eastern (Korean) subjects. Consistent with previous reports, we find a dramatic difference in discounting behaviour, with Americans displaying much greater present bias and elevated discount rates. Recent neuroimaging findings suggest that differences in discounting may arise from differential involvement of either brain reward areas or regions in the prefrontal and parietal cortices associated with cognitive control. We find that the ventral striatum is more greatly recruited in Americans relative to Koreans when discounting future rewards, but there is no difference in prefrontal or parietal activity. This suggests that a cultural difference in emotional responsivity underlies the observed behavioural effect. We discuss the implications of this research for strategic interrelations between Easterners and Westerners.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available