Some victims of repeated betrayal continue, much to the dismay of their friends, to reconcile with the one who hurt them. But a new study reveals that the length of a relationship can affect which region of the brain is used to make decisions, shedding light on how trust works.
The study, conducted by sociologists in California and appearing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, involved an online experiment in which each subject received $8.
The subject could either keep the money or give it to an anonymous partner.
What the subjects did not know was that the "partner" was actually a computer, programmed to sometimes betray the subject early in the game and sometimes later.
If the subject gave the money away, the value would triple, and the "partner" had the choice to keep all the money - thus committing an act of betrayal - or give half back to the subject.
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