No Future for Egotists – That’s What Their Brain Says

Summary: A new neuroimaging study reveals people who consider themselves to be egotistical have no increased activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex when they think about the distant future. By contrast, altruistic people have increased activity in this region when asked to consider the consequences of the distant future.

Source: University of Geneva.

Some people are worried about the future consequences of climate change, while others consider them too remote to have an impact on their well-being. Researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, examined how these differences are reflected in our brains. With the help of neuro-imaging, the scientists found that people deemed “egotistical” do not use the area of the brain that enables us to look into and imagine the distant future. In “altruistic” individuals, on the other hand, the same area is alive with activity. The research results, published in the journal Cognitive, Affective & Behavioural Neuroscience, may help psychologists devise exercises that put this specific area of the brain to work. These could be used to improve people’s ability to project themselves into the future and raise their awareness of, for example, the effects of climate change.

The concerns experienced by human beings are built on their values, which determine whether individuals prioritize their personal well-being or put themselves on an equal footing with their peers. In order to encourage as many people as possible to adopt “sustainable” behaviour, it is thus necessary that they feel the consequences of climate change are relevant to them. Some individuals – who are more self-centred – do not worry about the consequences, believing that these potential disasters are too far off.

“We wondered what magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could teach us about how the brain processes information about the future impact of climate change, and how this mechanism differs depending on the self-centeredness of the individual,” says Tobias Brosch, professor in the Psychology Section at UNIGE’s Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences (FPSE).

Are egoists only afraid of what directly concerns them?

The UNIGE psychologists turned to the report drawn up by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, where they identified predictions about the outcomes of climate change, such as a reduction in drinking water supplies, an increase in border conflicts and a spike in natural disasters. They then assigned a year in the future to each of these effects, stating when it would come to pass.

Brosch’s team invited a panel of participants to complete a standardized questionnaire to measure the value hierarchies, marking the selfish or altruistic tendencies of each individual. One by one, the participants underwent an MRI before being shown the dated consequences of the events; they then had to answer two questions on a scale of 1 to 8: Is it serious? Are you afraid?

“The first result we obtained was that for people with egotistical tendencies, the near future is much more worrying than the distant future, which will only come about after they are dead. In altruistic people, this difference disappears, since they see the seriousness as being the same”, explains Brosch.

Selfishness makes the brain lazy

The psychologists then focused on the activity in the ventromedial pre-frontal cortex (vmPFC), an area of the brain above the eyes that is used when thinking about the future and trying to visualize it. “We found that with altruistic people, this cerebral zone is activated more forcefully when the subject is confronted with the consequences of a distant future as compared to the near future. By contrast, in an egotistical person, there is no increase in activity between a consequence in the near future and one in the distant future,” says Brosch.

vmpfc
The psychologists then focused on the activity in the ventromedial pre-frontal cortex (vmPFC), an area of the brain above the eyes that is used when thinking about the future and trying to visualize it. NeuroscienceNews.com image is for illustrative purposes only.

This particular region of the brain is mainly used for projecting oneself into the distant future. The absence of heightened activity in a self-centred person indicates the absence of projection and the fact that the individual does not feel concerned by what will happen after his or her death. Why, then, should such people adopt sustainable forms of behaviour?

Set your projection capabilities to work

These outcomes, which can be applied to areas other than climate change, demonstrate the importance of being able to think about the distant future in order to adapt one’s behaviour to the future constraints of the world. “We could imagine a psychological training that would work on this brain area using projection exercises,” suggests Brosch. “In particular, we could use virtual reality, which would make the tomorrow’s world visible to everyone, bringing human beings closer to the consequences of their actions.”

About this neuroscience research article

Source: Tobias Brosch – University of Geneva
Publisher: Organized by NeuroscienceNews.com.
Image Source: NeuroscienceNews.com image is image is for illustrative purposes only.
Original Research: Abstract for “Not my future? Core values and the neural representation of future events” by Tobias Brosch, Yoann Stussi, Olivier Desrichard, and David Sander in Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience. Published March 19 2018.
doi:10.3758/s13415-018-0581-9

Cite This NeuroscienceNews.com Article

[cbtabs][cbtab title=”MLA”]University of Geneva “No Future for Egotists – That’s What Their Brain Says.” NeuroscienceNews. NeuroscienceNews, 26 April 2018.
<https://neurosciencenews.com/egotism-future-8890/>.[/cbtab][cbtab title=”APA”]University of Geneva (2018, April 26). No Future for Egotists – That’s What Their Brain Says. NeuroscienceNews. Retrieved April 26, 2018 from https://neurosciencenews.com/egotism-future-8890/[/cbtab][cbtab title=”Chicago”]University of Geneva “No Future for Egotists – That’s What Their Brain Says.” https://neurosciencenews.com/egotism-future-8890/ (accessed April 26, 2018).[/cbtab][/cbtabs]


Abstract

Not my future? Core values and the neural representation of future events

Individuals with pronounced self-transcendence values have been shown to put greater weight on the long-term consequences of their actions when making decisions. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we investigated the neural mechanisms underlying the evaluation of events occurring several decades in the future as well as the role of core values in these processes. Thirty-six participants viewed a series of events, consisting of potential consequences of climate change, which could occur in the near future (around 2030), and thus would be experienced by the participants themselves, or in the far future (around 2080). We observed increased activation in anterior VMPFC (BA11), a region involved in encoding the personal significance of future events, when participants were envisioning far future events, demonstrating for the first time that the role of the VMPFC in future projection extends to the time scale of decades. Importantly, this activation increase was observed only in participants with pronounced self-transcendence values measured by self-report questionnaire, as shown by a statistically significant interaction of temporal distance and value structure. These findings suggest that future projection mechanisms are modulated by self-transcendence values to allow for a more extensive simulation of far future events. Consistent with this, these participants reported similar concern ratings for near and far future events, whereas participants with pronounced self-enhancement values were more concerned about near future events. Our findings provide a neural substrate for the tendency of individuals with pronounced self-transcendence values to consider the long-term consequences of their actions.

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  1. Эта область мозга в основном используется для проецирования себя в отдаленное будущее. Отсутствие повышенной активности у эгоцентричного человека указывает на отсутствие проекции и на то, что индивидуум не чувствует себя обеспокоенным тем, что произойдет после его или ее смерти. Центр Аджна…связан с сознанием и ментальных телом, которые в свою очередь связаны с ментальным подпланом Космического физического плана. Там существуют поля времени где содержится требуемая информация! Технология получения информации из полей времени довольно устарела. Есть более совершенные методы получения информации …из нулевых точек планов ( например).

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