They said the study offers scientific support for the long-held assumption that people get a psychological boost from having a good reputation.

"We found that these seemingly different kinds of rewards－a good reputation versus money－are biologically coded by the same neural structure, the striatum," said Dr. Norihiro Sadato of the Japanese National Institute for Physiological Sciences in Okazaki, Japan.

"This provides the biological basis of our everyday experience that personal reputation is felt as rewards," Sadato said in an e-mail.

The fact that the social reward is biologically coded suggests that "the need to belong ... is essential for humans," said Sadato, whose study appears in the journal Neuron.

No fleet-feet, but robot soccer players learn gameThey're not quite the automatons and androids of popular culture, but the small sporting robots on the field in Germany are no less entertaining.

Some move about on three wheels; others plod slowly and deliberately on two or four legs. These robots come in a multitude of designs－ranging from thumb-sized midgets to 80-centimeter (more than 2-foot) giants.

Their common aim? To win the annual RoboCup German Open at the Hannover Trade Fair by getting the ball into their opponents' goal.

The contest, which began on April 22 and concluded on April 25, was part of a wider effort to educate the public about how far robot technology has developed and how it is used in everyday life.

The RoboCup－now in its seventh year－is part of the "Mobile Robots & Autonomous Systems" showcase for the technology. Other robots on display offer everything from security to faster manufacturing.