Zapping the Brain Makes People Obey Social Norms [1]

 

LiveScience - Tanya Lewis, 10/03/13

 

Electrically stimulating the brain can make people comply with social rules more or less, depending on whether they could be punished.Credit: Human brain image [2] via Shutterstock

 

"The complexity of human interactions is so big, so independent, that our society wouldn’t function without norms, said study researcher Christian Ruff, an economics professor at the University of Zurich, in Switzerland. "Even though humans are very good at following norms [3], we're always tempted to break them. We need punishment threats to follow correctly," Ruff told LiveScience.

A previous study using function magnetic resonance imaging showed that the right lateral prefrontal cortex (rLPFC) is activated when people follow social norms to avoid being punished. Ruff and colleagues wondered if stimulating this area could make people more or less sensitive to the threat of punishment [4].

More: LiveScience.com [5]