Social Decision-Making: Insights from Game Theory and Neuroscience

Abstract

problem-solving. However, we suggest that the FPC function is restricted to the processing of simple cognitive branching, whereby only a single task can be maintained in a pending state at any one time. This hypothesis places severe serial and recursive constraints on human reasoning, problem-solving, and complex decisionmaking. Consistent with this view, it appears unlikely that the human brain has evolved to solve complex problems such as deciding the next move in a game of chess. Selective pressure to survive in a physically challenging environment may place other demands before the need for such higher cognitive faculties. Nevertheless, a capacity-limited FPC function may have endowed humans with two key adaptive advantages: on the one hand, an ability to pursue long-term behavioral plans and at the same time respond to demands of the physical or social environments; on the other hand, to explore any potential gain from the interposition of new task sets within ongoing behavioral routines or from the contingent recombination of previously established behavioral plans, as in genetic recombination mechanisms. Thus, the frontopolar cortex may have played an even more critical role in the gradual formation of complex behavioral and cognitive routines such as tool use in individuals and societies, that is, in human creativity rather than complex decision-making and reasoning. By combining the models and tasks of Game Theory with modern psychological and neuroscientific methods, the neuroeconomic approach to the study of social decision-making has the potential to extend our knowledge of brain mechanisms involved in social decisions and to advance theoretical models of how we make decisions in a rich, interactive environment. Research has already begun to illustrate how social exchange can act directly on the brain's reward system, how affective factors play an important role in bargaining and competitive games, and how the ability to assess another's intentions is related to strategic play. These findings provide a fruitful starting point for improved models of social decision-making, informed by the formal mathematical approach of economics and constrained by known neural mechanisms.

The mentalizing network orchestrates the impact of parochial altruism on social norm enforcement

“…Although recent studies have fundamentally improved our knowledge of how the brain modulates norm compliance [Baumgartner et al, 2008[Baumgartner et al, , 2009Delgado et al, 2005;Harbaugh et al, 2007;King-Casas et al, 2005;Rilling et al, 2002;Spitzer et al, 2007] and norm enforcement [Buckholtz et al, 2008;de Quervain et al, 2004;Fehr and Camerer, 2007;Knoch et al, 2006Knoch et al, , 2008Rangel et al, 2008;Sanfey, 2007;Sanfey et al, 2003;Strobel et al, 2011] they do not examine the parochial nature of this phenomena. There is also an important literature examining the neural circuitry of the cognitions involved in the evaluation of faces from distinct races [Cunningham et al, 2004;Golby et al, 2001;Phelps et al, 2000], the judgment of people belonging to other races [Eberhardt, 2005;Freeman et al, 2010;Ito and Bartholow, 2009;Lieberman et al, 2005;Richeson et al, 2003], prejudice [Beer et al, 2008], the evaluation of very poor and ''disgusting'' outgroups such as addicts and beggars in dirty clothes [Harris and Fiske, 2006], and the general evaluation of ingroup-outgroup interactions [Mathur et al, 2010;Van Bavel et al, 2008] but none of the individuals in these studies had to make costly punishment decisions that involved real costs and benefits for themselves or for others.…”

Business Ethics: The Promise of Neuroscience

“…Using social cognitive neuroscience and neuroeconomic lenses, the view of trust, cooperation, and fairness has been enriched by a brain-based perspective and explanations (Fehr, 2008;Van IJzendoorn and BakermansKranenburg, 2012;Yoder and Decety, 2014). Many of these studies are framed as a monetary exchange situation in which individuals participate in an economic game (Glimcher et al, 2009;Sanfey, 2007). For trust and related behavior, such as cooperation or fairness, neural activation occurs in regions of the brain important for memory and emotional reactions (amygdala), regions involved in memory and learning, and error and conflict detection (cortical regions), those involved in body movement, learning, and memory (caudate nucleus), and regions important for feelings of reward (nucleus accumbens, ventral striatum) (Adolphs, 2003;King-Casas et al, 2005;Rilling et al, 2004b).…”

Social comparison in the brain: A coordinate‐based meta‐analysis of functional brain imaging studies on the downward and upward comparisons

“…Although there exists many other plausible accounts, our findings may be accounted for by the RL theory, holding that reward delivered in different modalities are evaluated by a common metric in the brain to guide decision making Sanfey, 2007]. In this regard, downward comparison might signal positive norm prediction errors coded in the VS and vmPFC and trigger pleasant feelings (e.g., schadenfreude).…”