Psychological Science ›› 2018, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (1): 225-230.

Previous Articles     Next Articles

The Neural Mechanism and Biology Basics of Cooperation and Competition and the Performance of Patients

Yi-Qin LINHui XIE2,XIA LiSheng 3   

  • Received:2017-02-27 Revised:2017-05-25 Online:2018-01-20 Published:2018-01-20
  • Contact: Yi-Qin LIN

正常人以及精神障碍人群在合作与竞争中的表现

蔺义芹1,谢慧1,夏礼胜2,张丹丹1   

  1. 1. 深圳大学
    2. 深圳大学信息工程学院
  • 通讯作者: 蔺义芹

Abstract: Cooperation is generally defined as involving a group of individuals working together to attain a common goal. In contrast, competition involves one person attempting to outperform another and facilitating the realization of results that benefited to themselves. Cooperation and competition are two key components of social interaction and the two resolutions for conflict. Cooperation contribute to constructive interpersonal relationships while competition may lead to the destructive interpersonal relationships. However, cooperation and competition are important for our daily life, study and business work. In recent years, there are more and more literature to investigate cooperation and competition, however, on the one hand, those focused on human social interaction and the neural mechanism about cooperation and competition is less. On the other hand, fewer researchers investigate cooperation and competition of patients with psychological and psychiatric disorders. The current review summarizes recent researches on cooperation and competition, from the perspective of psychology and society, focused on the neural mechanism, biology basics and the difference between patients’ cooperation and competition, hoping to provide theoretical basis for the rehabilitation training of patients. From the paper, we illuminate the neural mechanism of cooperation and coopetition. Both cooperation and coopetition could result in activation of a common frontoparietal network and the anterior insula. Moreover, distinct regions were found to be selectively associated with cooperation and competition, notably the orbitofrontal cortex in the former and the inferior parietal and medial prefrontal cortices in the latter. We all know that cooperation is divided into reciprocated cooperation and unreciprocated cooperation, unreciprocated cooperation was associated with greater activity in bilateral anterior insula and amygdala compared with reciprocated cooperation. Furthermore, the strength of functional connectivity between anterior insula and lateral orbitofrontal cortex could predicted subsequent defection. When it comes to the biology basics of cooperation and coopetition, researchers argue that oxytocin is associated with cooperation. It, generally speaking, could promote individuals’ cooperative behavior. At the same time, testosterone concentrations are modulated by competition outcome, for example, the testosterone concentrations of winners increases relative to losers in a competitive situation. Besides, changes in testosterone in response to victory or defeat will feedback to influence future dominance-related behaviors. For instance, a rise in testosterone may facilitate competitive behavior, the decrease in testosterone may promote submissive behaviors. In addition, this paper summarizes some researches about the patients’ cooperation and competition, such as anxiety disorders, depressive disorder and personality disorder patients. Besides, these similarities and differences in cooperative and competitive performance are drawn between those patients. We find that diminished cooperativeness may occur in almost all major psychiatric disorders, except to anxiety disorders. However, the tendency to avoid competition only appear in depressive disorder rather than anxiety disorders or personality disorder patients (unpublished data). On the contrary, psychopathy are characteristic of the tendency to compete, suggesting that this abnormality in social behavior may be specific for depressive disorder. Lastly, we try to give some advice on the analysis and research about cooperation and competition, hoping researchers to realize the influence of situation, individual difference and social class, thereby, improving the reliability and generalizability of experimental results.

Key words: cooperation, competition, neural mechanism, biology basics, people with mental disorders.

摘要: 合作与竞争是社会互动的两种主要形式,也是冲突解决的两种方法,对人际交往具有重要作用,一直以来都受到研究者的广泛关注。但是从心理与社会学角度研究合作与竞争的文献却相对较少,而对于精神障碍人群在合作与竞争中异常表现的原因目前也存在争议。本文从心理与社会学的角度出发,对合作与竞争的神经机制和生物基础进行综合论述,并对精神障碍人群在合作与竞争两种社会互动中的表现进行比较,试图为精神障碍人群在人际交往中的康复训练提供理论依据。

关键词: 合作 竞争 神经机制 生物基础 精神障碍人群

CLC Number: