Activity in the amygdala elicited by unfair divisions predicts social value orientation

Personality differences related to how equally people prefer to share rewards modulate amygdala activity, reports this fMRI study. This suggests that these personality differences are more likely to be due to automatic emotional processing. 'Social value orientation' characterizes individual differences in anchoring attitudes toward the division of resources. Here, by contrasting people with prosocial and individualistic orientations using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we demonstrate that degree of inequity aversion in prosocials is predictable from amygdala activity and unaffected by cognitive load. This result suggests that automatic emotional processing in the amygdala lies at the core of prosocial value orientation.