One con conflict ’ The price of your soul : neural evidence for the non-utilitarian representation of sacred values

(189 articles) cognition (333 articles) behaviour Articles on similar topics can be found in the following collections Email alerting service here right-hand corner of the article or click Receive free email alerts when new articles cite this article-sign up in the box at the top Sacred values, such as those associated with religious or ethnic identity, underlie many important individual and group decisions in life, and individuals typically resist attempts to trade off their sacred values in exchange for material benefits. Deontological theory suggests that sacred values are processed based on rights and wrongs irrespective of outcomes, while utilitarian theory suggests that they are processed based on costs and benefits of potential outcomes, but which mode of processing an individual naturally uses is unknown. The study of decisions over sacred values is difficult because outcomes cannot typically be realized in a laboratory, and hence little is known about the neural representation and processing of sacred values. We used an experimental paradigm that used integrity as a proxy for sacredness and which paid real money to induce individuals to sell their personal values. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we found that values that people refused to sell (sacred values) were associated with increased activity in the left temporopar-ietal junction and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, regions previously associated with semantic rule retrieval. This suggests that sacred values affect behaviour through the retrieval and processing of deontic rules and not through a utilitarian evaluation of costs and benefits. 1. INTRODUCTION Sacred values include fundamental religious beliefs, core constructs of national and ethnic identities and moral norms. These values motivate many important individual and group decisions in life. Decisions bounded by them range from purchasing consumer goods such as kosher foods, patronizing Christian businesses, investing in socially responsible mutual funds, to deciding whom to marry. Disagreements over sacred values also contribute to many political and military conflicts and may also underlie some acts of political violence [1,2]. Thus, understanding how sacred values are represented and processed in the human mind has far-reaching implications for policymakers. By definition, personal sacred values are values for which individuals resist trade-offs with other values, particularly economic or materialistic incentives [3].