Cognitive control promotes either honesty or dishonesty, depending on one’s moral default - EEG - JoN

Cognitive
control is crucially involved in making (dis)honest decisions. However, the
precise nature of this role has been hotly debated. Is honesty an intuitive response
or is willpower needed to override an intuitive inclination to cheat? A
reconciliation of these conflicting views proposes that cognitive control enables
dishonest participants to be honest, whereas it allows cheating for those who
are generally honest. Thus, cognitive control does not promote (dis)honesty per
se; it depends on one’s moral default. In the present study, we tested this
proposal using EEG in humans (males & females) in combination with an
external localizer task to mitigate the problem of reverse inference. Our
analysis revealed that the neural signature evoked by cognitive control demands
in the Stroop task can be used to estimate (dis)honest choices in an
independent cheating task, providing converging evidence that cognitive control
can indeed help honest participants to cheat, whereas it facilitates honesty
for cheaters.
In this repository you can find the data and scripts used in the study. For detailed information please consult the README file.

认知控制（Cognitive control）在个体做出诚实或不诚实决策的过程中发挥着至关重要的作用，然而其具体作用机制长期存在激烈学术争议。诚实究竟是一种直觉性反应，还是需要依靠意志力来抑制本能的作弊倾向？针对这两种对立观点的调和理论提出，认知控制可帮助原本不诚实的被试做出诚实选择，而对于本性诚实的被试，认知控制则会使其倾向于实施作弊行为。由此可见，认知控制本身并不会直接促进诚实或不诚实行为，其作用效果取决于个体的道德默认倾向。在本研究中，我们以人类被试（含男性与女性）为研究对象，借助脑电图（EEG）技术，并结合外部定位任务以规避反向推断的问题，对上述理论假设进行了检验。分析结果显示，斯特鲁普任务（Stroop task）中由认知控制需求所诱发的神经特征，可用于预测独立作弊任务中的诚实/不诚实选择，这为“认知控制确实能够帮助本性诚实的被试实施作弊，而对于惯于作弊的被试，认知控制则会促进其保持诚实”这一结论提供了一致性实证证据。
本代码仓库中包含本研究使用的实验数据与分析脚本，详细信息请参阅README文件。