Similarities and differences between obesity and addiction are a prominent topic of ongoing research. We conducted an activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis on 87 studies in order to map the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) response to reward in participants with obesity, substance addiction and non-substance (or behavioural) addiction, and to identify commonalities and differences between them. Our study confirms the existence of alterations during reward processing in obesity, non-substance addiction and substance addiction. Specifically, participants with obesity or with addictions differed from controls in several brain regions including prefrontal areas, subcortical structures and sensory areas. Additionally, participants with obesity and substance addictions exhibited similar blood-oxygen-level-dependent fMRI hyperactivity in the amygdala and striatum when processing either general rewarding stimuli or the problematic stimuli (food and drug-related stimuli, respectively). We propose that these similarities may be associated with an enhanced focus on reward--especially with regard to food or drug-related stimuli--in obesity and substance addiction. Ultimately, this enhancement of reward processes may facilitate the presence of compulsive-like behaviour in some individuals or under some specific circumstances. We hope that increasing knowledge about the neurobehavioural correlates of obesity and addictions will lead to practical strategies that target the high prevalence of these central public health challenges.

From the time we are children, we are taught to say "thank you" and "I'm sorry." These communications are central to many social interactions, and the failure to say them often leads to conflict in relationships. Research has documented that, alongside the impact they can have on relationships, apologies and thanks can also impact material outcomes as small as restaurant tips and as significant as settlements of medical malpractice lawsuits. But, it is trivial to utter the words; how can such "cheap talk" carry so much value? In this article, we propose a "responsibility exchange theory" that explains why these communications are not costless, and which draws connections between four forms of communication that have not previously been connected: thanking, apologizing, bragging, and blaming. All four of these communications relay information about credit or blame, and thus introduce image-based costs and benefits for both the communicator and the recipient of communication: Each of the four communications involves a tradeoff between appearing competent and appearing warm. By formalizing these social psychological insights with a utility-based approach to modeling communication, and by applying game theoretic analysis, we offer new insights about social communication. We test several of the model's novel predictions about strategic communication in two experiments: The first involves hypothetical choices in a scenario study, and the second involves real choices in a live interaction. We end with a discussion of the theory's place in the literature and consider extended predictions and applications as examples of future directions for research.

Although fcrs-fMRI is a nascent method still undergoing evaluation with respect to established standards, the interactive software is nonetheless a promising tool for non-invasive exploration of individual functional connectivity networks in neurosurgical practice, both for well-known networks and for those less typically addressed.

From the time we are children, we are taught to say “thank you” and “I’m sorry.” These communications are central to many social interactions, and the failure to say them often leads to conflict in relationships. Research has documented that, alongside the impact they can have on relationships, apologies and thanks can also impact material outcomes as small as restaurant tips and as significant as settlements of medical malpractice lawsuits. But, it is trivial to utter the words; how can such “cheap talk” carry so much value? In this paper, we propose a “responsibility exchange theory” that explains why these communications are not costless, and which draws connections between four forms of communication that have not previously been connected: thanking, apologizing, bragging, and blaming. All four of these communications relay information about credit or blame, and thus introduce image-based costs and benefits for both the communicator and the recipient of communication: Each of the four communications involves a tradeoff between appearing competent and appearing warm. By formalizing these social psychological insights with a utility-based approach to modeling communication, and by applying game theoretic analysis, we offer new insights about social communication. We test several of the model’s novel predictions about strategic communication in two experiments: The first involves hypothetical choices in a scenario study, and the second involves real choices in a live interaction. We end with a discussion of the theory’s place in the literature and consider extended predictions and applications as examples of future directions for research.

We examine whether belief-based preferences-caring about what transgressors believe-play a crucial role in punishment decisions: Do punishers want to make sure that transgressors understand why they are being punished, and is this desire to affect beliefs often prioritized over distributive and retributive preferences? We test whether punishers derive utility from three distinct sources: material outcomes (their own and the transgressor's payoff), affective states (the transgressor's suffering), and cognitive states (the transgressor's beliefs about the cause of that suffering). In a novel, preregistered experiment (N = 1,959) we demonstrate that consideration for transgressors' beliefs affects punishment decisions on its own, regardless of the considerations for material outcomes (distributional preferences) and affective states (retributive preferences). By contrast, we find very little evidence for pure retributive preferences (i.e., to merely inflict suffering on transgressors). We also show that people who would otherwise enact harsh punishments, are willing to punish less severely, if by doing so they can tell the transgressor why they are punishing them. Finally, we demonstrate that the preference for affecting transgressors' beliefs cannot be explained by deterrence motives (i.e., to make transgressors behave better in the future).

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We investigate whether giving workers autonomy through delegation of contract choice intrinsically motivates effort. In a novel laboratory experiment that controls for contract preferences and outcomes, principals can either choose the contract under which agents work on a real-effort task, or delegate the contract choice to the agents. We evaluate whether agents exert higher effort when they are allowed to choose the contract versus when the contract is imposed on them. We find no difference between the two conditions, even after controlling for baseline ability and for locus of control. Because our design excludes the possibility that preferences play a role, and because workers engaged in a real-effort task, this result casts doubt on an intrinsic link between the autonomy granted through delegation and the motivation of employees in the workplace. Our results do not deny, however, the possible instrumental benefits of autonomy (which did not play a role in our design) and their potentially powerful impact on motivation.

Individuals tend to underprepare for rare, catastrophic events because of biases in risk perception. A simple form of broad bracketing—presenting the cumulative probability of loss over a longer time horizon—has the potential to alleviate these barriers to accurate risk perception and increase protective actions such as purchasing flood insurance. However, it is an open question whether broad bracketing effects last over time: There is evidence that descriptive probability information is ignored when decisions are based on “experience” (repeatedly and in the face of feedback), which characterizes many protective decisions. Across six incentive-compatible experiments with high stakes, we find that the broad bracketing effect does not disappear or change size when decisions are made from experience. We also advance our understanding of the mechanisms underlying broad bracketing, finding that, while cumulative probability size is a strong driver of the effect, this is dampened for larger brackets leading people to be less sensitive to probability size.