Align with the good ones in urgency: The Enhanced Prosocial social Influence under High Time Pressure

This paper employed computational models and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how prosocial influence affects prosocial decision-making in emergency contexts and the underlying neural mechanism. Participants need to make choices under different time pressures and social influences, that is, to help strangers reduce the number of electric shocks by sacrificing their own interests. In general, the prosocial influence is more pronounced under high time pressure than low time pressure because the conflict between self-interest and prosocial prior will decrease the effectiveness of prosocial influence when cognitive resources are sufficient. In line with the behavioral results, distinct neural correlates were observed for the effects of prosocial social influence on decision-making under high versus low time pressures. Under high time pressure, regions associated with empathy for pain, such as the insula (INS) and the medial cingulate gyrus (MCG) exhibited stronger activation in response to prosocial social influence compared to baseline social influence, and prosocial influence modulated the functional connectivity between the MCG (empathy-related) and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC, valuation-related). Under low time pressure, prosocial influence enhanced the activation of the caudate nucleus (CAU) and modulated the connectivity between the CAU and the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC), which represents a top-down cognitive control to balance between self-interest, others’ needs, and social influence.This paper offers valuable insights into the mechanisms of prosocial decision-making in emergency situations and underscores the importance of prosocial social influence in promoting prosocial behavior under time constraints.