The Growing From Adolescence to Adulthood Influences the Decision Strategy to Unfair Situations

Emerged evidence has uncovered the differences in cognition and decision characteristics between adolescents and adults. Nevertheless, the neural mechanism that accounts for the differences between the two groups is still left unveiled. Using the event-related potential (ERP) and functional brain networks, the present study investigated the neural mechanism underpinning decision-making differences between adults and adolescents in the ultimatum game (UG). The results revealed that despite a higher medial frontal negativity (MFN) in response to unfair offers as compared to fair ones in adults, no difference was found in adolescents. Comparing the MFN with N1, one of the early ERP components, we found a larger MFN in adults but an opposite tendency in adolescents. The network analysis revealed that when responding to the unfair offers, the enhanced linkages are observed to be locally confined in the occipital cortex for adolescents, while the increased long-range linkages between the prefrontal and occipital areas could be found for adults. Taken together, our findings suggested that adolescents tend to the interest of offers while the adults prefer the rule of fairness in the context of unfairness. The social experience for the fairness establishment reshapes the two groups with different brain activities.