AI Article Synopsis
- Motivational cues, whether appetitive (reward-related) or aversive (punishment-related), influence how people make value-based decisions and can alter the intensity and direction of their actions.
- A study comparing males and females found that while both sexes are similarly influenced in the direction of their actions by these cues, only males showed an increased intensity of response to appetitive cues.
- The findings suggest that biological sex plays a significant role in how motivation impacts decision-making, highlighting the need for future research to consider sex differences in these processes.
Article Abstract
Motivational (i.e., appetitive or aversive) cues can bias value-based decisions by affecting either direction and intensity of instrumental actions. Despite several findings describing important interindividual differences in these biases, whether biological sex can also play a role is still up to debate. By comparing females and males in both appetitive and aversive Pavlovian-to-Instrumental Transfer paradigms we found that, while motivational cues similarly bias the direction of instrumental actions in both sexes, the intensity of such actions is increased by the cue in male participants only. The present results constitute compelling evidence that a crucial motivational bias of daily actions directed to obtaining rewards or avoiding punishments is modulated by biological sex. This evidence sheds new light on the role of sex in motivational processes that underlie decision-making, highlighting the importance of considering sex as a crucial factor in future research on this topic.
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Source |
|---|---|
| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11461879 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41539-024-00246-6 | DOI Listing |
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