Abstract
Maximizing tendency is a central decision-making concept that has increasingly drawn attention from the scientific community. It refers to individuals’ predisposition to look for the best option instead of settling for something that merely passes an internal threshold of acceptability. Although this maximizing strategy intuitively increases individual benefits, it also has been linked to various negative outcomes, including decreased well-being and low life satisfaction, and it varies considerably across populations. However, the neuroanatomical characteristics underlying this heterogeneity remain poorly understood. To address this knowledge gap, a 13-item Maximization Scale and magnetic resonance imaging technique were respectively used in this study to estimate individual maximizing tendency and structural morphological information on a sample of healthy adults (n = 69). Furthermore, voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analysis was conducted to investigate the associations between gray matter volume (GMV) and maximizing tendency through univariate and multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA). Univariate analysis did not determine an association between maximizing tendency and whole-brain GMV; by contrast, MVPA revealed that maximizing tendency could be successfully predicted by the GMVs of the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), right insula, and right cerebellum. These findings suggest the critical role of the morphological characteristics of the cortical-subcortical circuitry in individuals’ maximizing tendency.
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This research was supported by the Ministry of Education Project of Humanities and Social Science, China (20YJC190027); China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2020M672662).
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Author contributions included data collection, acquisition, and processing (HZ, SW, YW, JF), statistical analysis (HZ, JF), interpretation of results (HZ, JF), drafting the manuscript work or revising it critically for important intellectual content (HZ, JF), and approval of final version to be published and agreement to be accountable for the integrity and accuracy of all aspects of the work (all authors).
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Zhang, H., Wei, S., Wang, Y. et al. Neuroanatomical substrates of maximizing tendency in decision-making: a voxel-based morphometric study. Brain Imaging and Behavior 16, 1938–1945 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-022-00656-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-022-00656-3