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Volume 38, Issue 3., March, 2022

Neuro-Behavioral Dynamic Prediction of Interpersonal Cooperation and Aggression

 Wei Wang1,2 • Chao Fu3 • Xiangzeng Kong3 • Roman Osinsky4 • Johannes Hewig5 • Yiwen Wang1,3

1 School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China

2 Department of Mathematics, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana 61801, USA

3 School of Economics and Management, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350108, China

4 Department of Differential Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Osnabruck University, 49074 Osnabrück, Germany

5 Department of Psychology, University of Würzburg, 97070 Würzburg, Germany

Abstract
How to quickly predict an individual’s behavioral choices is an important issue in the field of human behavior research. Using noninvasive electroencephalography, we aimed to identify neural markers in the prior outcome-evaluation stage and the current option-assessment stage of the chicken game that predict an individual’s behavioral choices in the subsequent decision-output stage. Hierarchical linear modeling-based brain-behavior association analyses revealed that midfrontal theta oscillation in the prior outcome-evaluation stage positively predicted subsequent aggressive choices; also, beta oscillation in the current option-assessment stage positively predicted subsequent cooperative choices. These findings provide electrophysiological evidence for the three-stage theory of decision-making and strengthen the feasibility of predicting an individual’s behavioral choices using neural oscillations.

Keywords
Chicken game; Cooperation; Aggression; Decision-making; Neural oscillations; Brain-behavior associations