The Effective Factors Of Consideration Of Future Consequence: The Influence Of Conscientiousness And Neural Basis

In real life,people often face temporal dilemmas where they should value the immediate consequences versus future consequences of their actions and make decisions.In many cases,sacrificing short-term comfort（e.g.casually littering）to achieve long-term benefit（e.g.,throw garbage to the waste container）is crucial to both personal and social well-being.However,many people are often attracted by immediate rewards which leads to bad behavior such as addiction and aggression.Thus,understanding this individual difference is important.“The extent to which people value the long-term outcomes of their current behaviors and the extent to which they are affected by these outcomes”are called consideration of future consequence（CFC）.While the conception of CFC was initially considered as unidimensional,recent research supposes that a two-factor model may be more acceptable.The two factors are CFC-Future,which individuals scoring high on indicates a concentration on future consequences of their behaviors,and CFC-Immediate which individuals scoring high on reveals a preference to immediate consequences.After CFC was constructed,it has attracted numerous researchers to further explore its relationship with other mental variables such as self-control and delay discount,as well as behaviors such as health behavior,financial and ethical decision-making.As a trait closely related to people’s lives,CFC has been attractive to researchers.However,most research focuses on what CFC may influence while few studies devote to finding the effect of other factors on CFC,especially the impact of neural basis.Studies suggested that neural basis,previous experience,some other traits,executive function and sematic markers may have effect on CFC.But no studies were found to directly test these hypotheses.To fill in this gap,while neural basis and personality traits are two kinds of vital factors which may affect various traits,this study conducted two sub-research to explore the effect of these factors on CFC.To begin with,although CFC is a relatively stable construct,it may also change across time because of daily experience.According to the theories in personality psychology,high order personality traits which are general and abstract may influence low order ones which are domain specific.In other words,although CFC,which is a low order trait,may change across time,these changes could be predicted by some high order trait like conscientiousness in Big Five personality.Thus,one aim of the present research is to find if conscientiousness could predict the two dimensions of CFC across time.In addition,previous research has indicated that some brain regions,especially prefrontal cortex（PFC）,are responsible for certain personalities which share some similar constructs with CFC.Thus,the present study conducted a voxel-based morphometry（VBM）in whole brain and chose grey matter density（GMD）as an indication to find if the GMD in PFC is the neural marker of CFC-F and CFC-I.The last aim of the present study is to find if conscientiousness could mediate the relationship between PFC and CFC.Theoretically speaking,some mental variables may function as a mediator in the relationship between brain structures and the corresponding psychological structures.As conscientiousness is a higher order trait,PFC may influence CFC through it.Study 1 was a cross-lagged study aiming at testing if conscientiousness could predict the two dimensions of CFC across time.The data came from a series of research conducted by our team.All participants were undergraduate students（N=942,363 males）whose age ranged from 18 to 27 years（M=21.09,SD=1.07）.The cross-lagged study contained two measurement in which participants completed the scales of CFC and conscientiousness,and its duration was 6 months.Result showed that the cross-lagged model fitted the data well（χ2/df=2.393,RMSEA=.038,90%CI=[.032,.044],CFI=.970,TLI=.960,SRMR=.042）.Conscientiousness positively correlated to CFC-F in both time（T1:r=.53,p<.001;T2:r=.50,p<.001）,and negatively associated with CFC-I（T1:r=-.31,p<.001;T2:r=-.25,p<.001）.Cross-lagged effects were significant that conscientiousness in T1 could positively predict CFC-F（β=.20,p<.001）in T2,and negative predict CFC-I（β=-.16,p<.001）in T2.CFC-F and CFC-I could not predict conscientiousness over time.Study 2 further adopted a VBM to explore the neural marker of CFC and the mediating role of conscientiousness.In this study,all the participants（N=203,104females）were undergraduate students in Southwest University who aged from 17 to 31（M=20.23,SD=1.93）.All participants completed questionnaires and then they were scanned.The whole results contained two part.The first part was the result of VBM,which revealed that the grey matter density of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex（VMPFC,x=6,y=57,z=7.5;cluster size=436mm³,t=4.44,p<.05）was positively related to CFC-F.However,we did not find any regions related to CFC-I.Further,to test the stability of these results,a balanced 4-fold cross-validation based on machine learning was conducted.Result indicated that the data from VBM was stable（the correlation between predicted data and observed data was r₀=.31,p<.01）.To further identify if this correlation was different from zero,a permutation test was conducted and result showed that r₀ was significant（p<.001）.The second part was a mediating model which involved a bootstrap with 5000-time sampling.Results indicated that conscientiousness was positively related to the grey matter density of VMPFC（r=.21,p<.05）and CFC-F（r=.54,p<.05）,and the most important was it mediated the relationship between VMPFC and CFC-F（β=.11,Boot SE=.03,95%BootCI=[.05,.18]）.The ratio of indirect to total effect reached 11%.Because no region was found related to CFC-I,we only tested one hypothesized mediating model.In sum,Study 1 and Study 2 found that conscientiousness could positively predict CFC-F and negatively predict CFC-I across time;the grey matter density of VMPFC was positively related to CFC-F,but no region was found related to CFC-I;the higher grey matter density of VMPFVC not only could directly predict CFC-F,but also could enhance it by increasing conscientiousness.These results suggested that although CFC-F may vary across time,it could be predicted by conscientiousness.Because these two variables may share the same neural basis.Meanwhile,the brain structure may influence some low order traits by affecting certain high order traits.The present studies provided the initial evidence to support that VMPFC may be the neural marker of CFC-F,and further implied that high order personalities may play an importance role in affecting low order traits across time.