14 DAY TRIAL // Does the mere value of the wage satisfy a man? A new British research published in Science shows the levels of satisfaction felt by a man are also connected to how much his peers gain compared to him.
Brain scans showed that receiving more money than a co-worker turns on the "reward center" in the men, a finding challenging the traditional economic theory saying that the only counting factor is the absolute size of the gain: the relative size of a person's earnings should be taken into account.
The team put 38 pairs of male subjects to accomplish the same simple task at the same time, being paid in case of positive results. Both men had to determine the number of dots appearing on a screen. The right answer came with a financial reward between 30 (?22) and 120 (?86) Euro. Each subject was informed about the results of their partners and how much cash they received.
By employing magnetic resonance tomographs, the team could determine the subjects' blood circulation during all these activities, high blood flow being correlated to increased activity of the brain cells in a specific area. "One area in particular, the ventral striatum, is the region where part of what we call the 'reward system' is located. In this area, we observed an activation when the player completed his task correctly." neuroscientist Dr Bernd Weber, co-author of the research, told BBC News.
At the same time, wrong answer and lack of reward were linked to decreased blood flow to the "reward region". Still, the ventral striatum nucleus "lit up" when volunteers gained money and even more significantly, if the subject received more money than his peer.
Thus, the stimulation of the reward center in the ventral striatum was related not only with the personal success, but also with the success of colleagues.
"While behavioral experiments have suggested relative rewards may play a role in economic motivation, It is the first time this hypothesis has been challenged using such an experimental approach." co-author Professor Dr Armin Falk, an economist, told BBC News.