Enhancement in dopamine reduces generous behaviour in women

Abstract

Generosity is a human behavior common in social contexts. However, humans are not equally generous to everyone alike. Instead, generosity decreases as a function of social distance, an effect called social discounting. Studies show that such social discounting effect depends on diverse factors including personality traits, cultures, stress or hormonal levels. Recently, the importance of the neurotransmitter dopamine in regulating social interactions has been highlighted. However, it remains unclear how exactly dopamine agonist administration modulates generous behavior as a function of social discounting. Here, we investigate the causal effect of dopamine agonist administration on social discounting in a pharmacological intervention study. We employ a randomized, double-blind, within-subject design to investigate the impact of the D2/D3 receptor agonist pramipexole on social discounting by keeping gender constant. We apply hyperbolic social discount model to the data and provide evidence that women under pramipexole become less generous in general, especially towards close others. Our results highlight the crucial role of dopamine in social decision making.

Fig 1. DA receptor agonist pramipexole reduces generosity reference-point (V).

Comparisons between conditions show that parameter V representing the overall generosity levels especially to close others, is lower under DA than PLC (t(29) = -2.225, p = 0.034) (A). We observe that parameter k representing social discount showed a difference in trend (t(29) = -1.949, p = 0.061) (B). The condition-comparison between DA and PLC in parameter V and k (C). Error bars represent SEM. *p < 0.05.