竞争任务下面孔吸引力对结果评价的影响

Facial Attractiveness Affects Outcome Evaluation in the Competitive Task: An ERP Study

选取在校男大学生24名,采用改编的竞争任务和ERP技术,操控不同吸引力的女性面孔图片,记录男性参与者在评价竞争任务结果时的脑电特征,考察作为竞争对手的女性的面孔吸引力是否影响男性对竞争任务结果的评价。结果显示,在与高面孔吸引力同伴竞争条件下,输钱和赢钱结果反馈引发的FRN以及P300波幅差异更大。这说明面孔吸引力影响竞争任务结果的评价。

Facial attractiveness refers to the index of the target characters＇ faces causing other people＇s pleasure, and plays an important role in people＇s social behavior. Previous studies used game, investment and other tasks to investigate the impact of facial attractiveness on fair distribution, trust, investment and so on. It remains unclear whether or not facial attractiveness affect the outcome evaluation in competitive tasks. 24 male college students took part in the EPR experiment. The participants competed with a different attractive female confederate to complete a gambling game. Each of them chucked one dice sequentially and randomly. The dice points of the participants was greater than the opponent is the winner, they would win 50 Yuan in the trial; otherwise the trial is lost, they would lose 50 Yuan. The final reward would be portioned out equally between them. After they chucked the two dices, a feedback screen informed about whether they win or loss. Competitive outcome feedback was included in the final statistical analyses. For FRN analysis, we measured the average amplitude in the 270~320 ms time window for monetary feedback. P300 amplitude was quantified as the positive peak in the time window of 340--420 ms after feedback onset. The results of FRN showed that the competitive outcome difference of FRN amplitudes were greater in the condition of high facial attractiveness than low facial attractiveness. The main effect of competitive outcome was not significant, but further comparison found that FRN was greater after losses than gains; the results of P300 analysis showed that, the main effect of competition outcome was significant, indicating that P300 was greater after gains than losses. The interaction between facial attractiveness and competition outcome was significant. The simple effects test showed that the competitive outcome difference of P300 amplitudes were greater in the condition of high facial attractiveness than low facial attractiveness. These findings show that facial attractiveness has an impact on the outcome evaluation of FRN and P300 in the competitive task. Facial attractiveness affects early FRN, because when individuals compete with high facial attractiveness partners, individuals have high expectations for high facial attractiveness partners. When the expectation is not in conformity with the actual result, individuals will have a feeling of disappointment, frustration, and also have a greater inner conflict. In the later stage of outcome evaluation, the late P300 may be a product of multiple evaluations of feedback stimuli and is influenced by social attention resources. In this study, the subjects competed with high facial attractiveness partners, the participants were more motivated, input more attention resources. Therefore, the P300 amplitude was greater in the condition of high facial attractiveness than low facial attractiveness. This further confirms the existence of the ＂beauty reward＂ effect in the social environment.