How a person chooses between food and money
People make decisions every day — from what to wear in the morning to what to watch on TV in the evening. But how do decisions differ when it comes to essentials and money? A group of neuroscientists from the Ruhr University Bochum investigated this question. They confirmed different strategies when choosing between primary and secondary rewards. The main factor is impulsiveness.
Led by Professor Burkhard Plöger from the Bergmannsheil University Hospital, the team investigated the mechanisms underlying human decision-making when it comes to so-called primary rewards such as food, as opposed to secondary rewards such as money.
They offered 28 subjects, according to their preferences, French fries or schnitzel, strawberry cake or candy bars, as well as money and allowed the subjects to choose whether they wanted a certain amount of the product immediately or a larger amount later.
The experiment suggested waiting two days, two weeks, one, three and six months, and one year. The longer subjects decided to wait, the greater the reward in the form of more money or food. Throughout the study, participants were connected to a magnetic resonance imaging scanner, which recorded brain activity.
“We were able to show that food decisions are made more impulsively. In other words, products that are immediately available are chosen more often than more of the same products that can be purchased later, explains neuroscientist Marius Markmann. — With money, things are different. Here people prefer to wait to receive a larger amount of money. This is due to the fact that the value of money remains stable over time, while the cost of food depends on its perishability.»
The observed differences were also reflected in brain activity during decision-making.
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As it turns out, when choosing an amount of money, the human brain appears to engage areas that are responsible for monitoring actions. On the other hand, when eating food, areas of the brain that are important for making decisions in a social environment are activated.
“However, the differences in brain networks were smaller than we expected. This suggests that decisions about food and money are made by the human brain using similar processing patterns,” emphasizes the researchers Pleger.
Many analyzes have already shown that the human brain responds differently to so-called primary rewards, such as food, and for secondary rewards such as money. How this translates into human behavior has been less studied to date.
“We found a lever in impulsivity: primary rewards, such as food, lead to more impulsive decisions,” Markmann emphasizes. “Our result is consistent with the results of other studies. Impulsive people showed poorer self-control, consumed more calories, and ate more frequently. They were also more likely to be addicted to the Internet, social networks, smartphones, and gambling.”