Oscar Wilde once said, "One can survive everything nowadays, except death, and live down anything, except a good reputation." All well and witty, but for those of us who aren't Victorian cads, reputation matters. It's the bedrock that our social lives are built upon and people go to great lengths to build and maintain a solid one. A new study shows that our ability to do this involves the right half of our brain, and particularly an area called the lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC).
Disrupting the neurons in this area hampers a person's ability to build a reputation while playing psychological games. They can still act selflessly, and they still know what they would need to do in order to garner good repute. They just find it difficult to resist the temptation to cheat, even though they know it will cost them their status among other players. Most of us ...
