Bias and Control in Social Decision-Making (original) (raw)
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A neurocomputational account of the link between social perception and social action
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory), 2023
People selectively help others based on perceptions of their merit or need. Here, we develop a neurocomputational account of how these social perceptions translate into social choice. Using a novel fMRI social perception task, we show that both merit and need perceptions recruited the brain's social inference network. A behavioral computational model identified two non-exclusive mechanisms underlying variance in social perceptions: a consistent tendency to perceive others as meritorious/needy (bias) and a propensity to sample and integrate normative evidence distinguishing high from low merit/need in other people (sensitivity). Variance in people's merit (but not need) bias and sensitivity independently predicted distinct aspects of altruism in a social choice task completed months later. An individual's merit bias predicted contextindependent variance in people's overall other-regard during altruistic choice, biasing people towards prosocial actions. An individual's merit sensitivity predicted context-sensitive discrimination in generosity towards high and low merit recipients by influencing other-regard and self-regard during altruistic decision-making. This context-sensitive perception-action link was associated with activation in the right temporoparietal junction. Together, these findings point towards stable, biologically based individual differences in perceptual processes related to abstract social concepts like merit, and suggest that these differences may have important behavioral implications for an individual's tendency toward favoritism or discrimination in social settings.
The role of social cognition in decision making
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2008
Successful decision making in a social setting depends on our ability to understand the intentions, emotions and beliefs of others. The mirror system allows us to understand other people's motor actions and action intentions. 'Empathy' allows us to understand and share emotions and sensations with others. 'Theory of mind' allows us to understand more abstract concepts such as beliefs or wishes in others. In all these cases, evidence has accumulated that we use the specific neural networks engaged in processing mental states in ourselves to understand the same mental states in others. However, the magnitude of the brain activity in these shared networks is modulated by contextual appraisal of the situation or the other person. An important feature of decision making in a social setting concerns the interaction of reason and emotion. We consider four domains where such interactions occur: our sense of fairness, altruistic punishment, trust and framing effects. In these cases, social motivations and emotions compete with each other, while higher-level control processes modulate the interactions of these low-level biases.
In social environments, it is crucial that decision-makers take account of the impact of their actions not only for oneself, but also on other social agents. Previous work has identified neural signals in the striatum encoding value-based prediction errors for outcomes to oneself; also, recent work suggests that neural activity in prefrontal cortex may similarly encode value-based prediction errors related to outcomes to others. However, prior work also indicates that social valuations are not isomorphic, with social value orientations of decision-makers ranging on a cooperative to competitive continuum; this variation has not been examined within social learning environments. Here, we combine a computational model of learning with functional neuroimaging to examine how individual differences in orientation impact neural mechanisms underlying ‘other-value’ learning. Across four experimental conditions, reinforcement learning signals for other-value were identified in medial prefrontal cortex, and were distinct from self-value learning signals identified in striatum. Critically, the magnitude and direction of the other-value learning signal depended strongly on an individual's cooperative or competitive orientation toward others. These data indicate that social decisions are guided by a social orientation-dependent learning system that is computationally similar but anatomically distinct from self-value learning. The sensitivity of the medial prefrontal learning signal to social preferences suggests a mechanism linking such preferences to biases in social actions and highlights the importance of incorporating heterogeneous social predispositions in neurocomputational models of social behavior.
Neural representations of social valence bias economic interpersonal choices
2018
Prior personal information is highly relevant during social interactions. Such knowledge aids in the prediction of others, and it affects choices even when it is unrelated to actual behaviour. In this investigation, we aimed to study the neural representation of positive and negative personal expectations, how these impact subsequent choices, and the effect of mismatches between expectations and encountered behaviour. We employed functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging in combination with a version of the Ultimatum Game (UG) where participants were provided with information about their partners’ moral traits previous to their fair or unfair offers. Univariate and multivariate analyses revealed the implication of the supplementary motor area (SMA) and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) in the representation of expectations about the partners in the game. Further, these regions also represented the valence of expectations, together with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Importantly,...
Social Neuroscience Toward Understanding the Underpinnings of the Social Mind
Social Neuroscience. TOWARD UNDERSTANDING THE UNDERPINNINGS OF THE SOCIAL MIND, 2011
Edited by ALEXANDER TODOROV SUSAN T . FISKE DEBORAH A. PRENTICE Oxford University Press, Inc. The objective of this book is to introduce social cognitive neuroscience research that addresses questions of fundamental importance to social psychology, combining multiple methodologies in innovative ways. These methodologies include behavioral experiments, computer modeling, functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) experiments, event-related potential (ERP) experiments, and brain lesion studies. The book is divided into four sections. Th e first section deals with understanding and representing other people. The second section deals with representing social groups. The third section deals with the interplay of cognition and emotion in social regulation. The final section considers a range of novel questions that emerged in the context of social neuroscience research: understanding social exclusion as pain, deconstructing our moral intuitions, understanding cooperative exchanges with other agents, and the effect of aging on brain function and its implications for well-being.
The role of prediction in social neuroscience
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2012
Research has shown that the brain is constantly making predictions about future events. Theories of prediction in perception, action and learning suggest that the brain serves to reduce the discrepancies between expectation and actual experience, i.e., by reducing the prediction error. Forward models of action and perception propose the generation of a predictive internal representation of the expected sensory outcome, which is matched to the actual sensory feedback. Shared neural representations have been found when experiencing one's own and observing other's actions, rewards, errors, and emotions such as fear and pain. These general principles of the "predictive brain" are well established and have already begun to be applied to social aspects of cognition. The application and relevance of these predictive principles to social cognition are discussed in this article. Evidence is presented to argue that simple non-social cognitive processes can be extended to explain complex cognitive processes required for social interaction, with common neural activity seen for both social and non-social cognitions. A number of studies are included which demonstrate that bottom-up sensory input and top-down expectancies can be modulated by social information. The concept of competing social forward models and a partially distinct category of social prediction errors are introduced. The evolutionary implications of a "social predictive brain" are also mentioned, along with the implications on psychopathology. The review presents a number of testable hypotheses and novel comparisons that aim to stimulate further discussion and integration between currently disparate fields of research, with regard to computational models, behavioral and neurophysiological data. This promotes a relatively new platform for inquiry in social neuroscience with implications in social learning, theory of mind, empathy, the evolution of the social brain, and potential strategies for treating social cognitive deficits.
The Neurobiology of Trust: the Important Role of Emotions
There is accumulating evidence suggesting that emotions can have a strong impact on social decision-making. However, the neural mechanisms of emotional influences on choice are less well understood to date. Here, we integrate recent results from two independent, but related, research streams in Social Neuroeconomics and Social Neuroscience, which together identify the neural mechanisms involved in the influences of emotions on social choice. Specifically, research in Social Neuroeconomics has shown that social decisions, such as trust taking, involve commonly ignored emotional considerations in addition to economic considerations related to payouts. Cooperative social interactions are consistently associated with approach emotions and activation within core structures of the reward system, the ventromedial prefrontal Cortex (VMPFC) and the ventral Striatum (VS), reflective of a social reward bonus above and beyond financial gain. Uncooperative social interactions, on the other hand, are consistently associated with aversive emotions and activation within core structures of the avoidance system, the anterior insula and amygdala, reflective of an emotional penalty above and beyond financial loss. These results are paralleled by recent findings in Social Neuroscience that underline the role of emotions in social interactions. Positive social feedback is consistently associated with approach emotions and activation within core structures of the reward system, the VMPFC and the VS. On the other hand, negative social feedback is consistently associated with aversive emotions and activation within core structures of the avoidance system, the anterior insula and the amygdala. Jointly, results from Social Neuroeconomics and Social Neuroscience suggest that social decision-making partially relies on emotional brain systems that signal the magnitude of positive and negative anticipatory emotions about the pro- and anti-social intentions of interaction partners. Therefore, anticipatory emotions associated with social approval and rejection can have important, but often ignored, influences on social choices. These considerations call for the integration of emotions into theories of social decision-making.
Introduction to the Special Section on Social Neuroscience: Promise and caveats
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2003
This special issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Attitudes and Social Cognition is devoted to theory and research at the interface of social psychology and neuroscience. The 5 empirical articles represent the theoretical and methodological breadth of issues considered by social neuroscientists. The methods span brain lesion work to neuroendocrinology to psychophysiological indicators of brain activity to functional magnetic resonance imaging indicators of brain activity. The remaining 2 articles consider explicitly some of the promises and pitfalls of social neuroscience; these authors, although noting the power of neuroscience methods, remind readers of the serious challenges posed in trying to examine the biological processes underlying or associated with social psychological phenomena. These articles help to reveal the richness of social neuroscience and the power of neuroscientific methods to address processes and mechanisms that would not be possible with traditional social psychology methods.