Sex differences in mesolimbic effective connectivity: Money versus funny compensation during service recovery

IF 2.9 3区医学 Q1 BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Biological Psychology Pub Date : 2025-08-11 DOI:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2025.109104

Chen-Ya Wang , Tai-Li Chou , Yu-Chen Chan

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Sex-based differences in service recovery —the actions taken by firms to address service failures —remain largely unexplored, particularly regarding their underlying neural mechanisms. This research investigates how men and women differ in mesolimbic network connectivity—specifically between the nucleus accumbens (NAc), amygdala, and midbrain—when exposed to various compensation strategies. We employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and dynamic causal modeling with parametric empirical Bayes (DCM-PEB) analysis to measure effective connectivity across four service recovery scenarios: monetary compensation with humor (MH), monetary compensation with apology (MA), humor-only (H), and apology-only (CON). The results revealed sex-specific effective connectivity, with monetary compensation engaging the NAc and non-monetary compensation involving the amygdala differently in men and women. Women exhibited stronger midbrain-to-NAc connectivity in the MH condition, suggesting that humor enhances their perception of monetary reward. In contrast, men showed stronger midbrain-to-NAc connectivity in the MA condition, indicating that apologies more effectively engage their reward-related circuits. Additionally, men displayed stronger amygdala-to-midbrain connectivity in the humor-related conditions (H, MH), while women exhibited stronger connectivity in the humor-only condition (H), reflecting sex-specific emotional processing strategies. Notably, men exhibited enhanced NAc-to-amygdala connectivity in both apology-based (MA, CON) and non-monetary conditions (H, CON), reflecting consistent integration of reward and emotional processing. These findings provide neural evidence of sex-based differences in service recovery. Future research could examine cultural and individual differences in humor perception, apology effectiveness, and compensation sensitivity to further refine personalized service recovery approaches based on sex-specific neural mechanisms.

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中脑边缘有效连通性的性别差异：服务恢复中的金钱补偿与搞笑补偿。

基于性别的服务恢复差异——公司为解决服务故障而采取的行动——在很大程度上仍未被探索，特别是关于其潜在的神经机制。这项研究调查了当暴露于不同的补偿策略时，男性和女性在中边缘网络连接上的差异——特别是伏隔核（NAc）、杏仁核和中脑之间的连接。我们采用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）和动态因果模型与参数经验贝叶斯（DCM-PEB）分析来衡量四种服务恢复方案的有效连通性：幽默货币补偿（MH）、道歉货币补偿（MA）、幽默(H)和道歉（CON）。结果显示了性别特异性的有效连接，在男性和女性中，货币补偿涉及NAc和非货币补偿涉及杏仁核的方式不同。在MH条件下，女性表现出更强的中脑到nac的连接，这表明幽默增强了她们对金钱奖励的感知。相比之下，在MA条件下，男性表现出更强的中脑到nac的连接，这表明道歉更有效地激活了他们的奖励相关回路。此外，男性在与幽默相关的条件下表现出更强的杏仁核-中脑连通性（H， MH），而女性在仅幽默的条件下表现出更强的连通性(H)，这反映了性别特异性的情绪处理策略。值得注意的是，男性在基于道歉（MA， CON）和非金钱条件（H， CON）的情况下，都表现出了更强的nac -杏仁核连接，反映了奖励和情绪处理的一致整合。这些发现提供了基于性别的服务恢复差异的神经证据。未来的研究将进一步探讨幽默感知、道歉效果和补偿敏感性的文化和个体差异，以进一步完善基于性别特异性神经机制的个性化服务补偿方法。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Biological Psychology 医学-行为科学

CiteScore

4.20

自引率

11.50%

发文量

146

审稿时长

3 months

期刊介绍： Biological Psychology publishes original scientific papers on the biological aspects of psychological states and processes. Biological aspects include electrophysiology and biochemical assessments during psychological experiments as well as biologically induced changes in psychological function. Psychological investigations based on biological theories are also of interest. All aspects of psychological functioning, including psychopathology, are germane. The Journal concentrates on work with human subjects, but may consider work with animal subjects if conceptually related to issues in human biological psychology.