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Roles of trait resilience, flexibility, and volitional self-control in social adaptation: An fMRI study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

S. Tei*
Affiliation:
Department Of Psychiatry, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan Institute Of Applied Brain Sciences, Waseda University, Saitama, Japan School Of Human And Social Sciences, Tokyo International University, Saitama, Japan
J. Fujino
Affiliation:
Department Of Psychiatry, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan Department Of Psychiatry And Behavioral Sciences, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan
*
*Corresponding author.

Abstract

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Introduction

Resilience and cognitive flexibility are considered as pre-adaptive traits that help individuals to deal with environmental and social distress. Although they may alleviate emotional impulses and/or support volitional self-control (VSC), these cognitive mechanisms remain insufficiently explored.

Objectives

To better understand resilience and flexibility, we built a mechanistic framework to explain variations in socially adaptive responses under distressing situations (cooperation dilemma) using economic and social decision-making paradigms.

Methods

Twenty-four university students (7 females) were enrolled. We used ego-resiliency (ER) and Machiavellian (Mach) questionnaires to measure resilience and flexibility, and applied third-party punishment (TPP) and ultimatum game (UG), as well as moral dilemma (MD) tasks to derive VSC-associated brain activity using 3T-functional magnetic resonance imaging. Mediation analysis was used to investigate whether these pre-adaptive trait levels explain cooperative decision-making (invested sum in TPP and acceptance rate of unfair offers in UG), together with VSC-associated brain activity during MD. The regions of interest included the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and temporoparietal junction (TPJ).

Results

Pre-adaptive traits were a statistically significant mediator for two different models. There was an indirect effect of 1) ER on the relationship between OFC activity strength and TPP scores, and 2) Mach on the relationship between DLPFC/TPJ and UG (p < 0.05).

Conclusions

Although recruitment is still ongoing, our results suggested that trait resilience and flexibility may help other-regarding and goal-directed motivation shifts. They may align self-interests with collective interests and support VSC, thereby adjusting peoples’ behaviors within social contexts and cultivating social intelligence.

Disclosure

No significant relationships.

Type
Abstract
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Psychiatric Association
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