Sacred values, those that really matter to us, guide individual and group decisions in life. We rarely trade off these sacred values in exchange for material benefits. The study of decisions over sacred values is difficult because outcomes cannot typically be realized in a laboratory, Instead, based on personal integrity as a proxy for sacredness, this study gave individuals the opportunity to sell-out on their personal values for real cash. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to assess to what areas of the brain were involved and under what conditions were people not prepared to sell out at all.

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