Why we stay with our social partners: Neural mechanisms of stay/leave decision-making

Abstract

How do we decide to keep interacting (e.g., stay) with a social partner or to switch (e.g., leave) to another? This paper investigated the neural mechanisms of stay/leave decision-making. We hypothesized that these decisions fit within a framework of value-based decision-making, and explored four potential mechanisms underlying a hypothesized bias to stay. Twenty-six participants underwent functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) while completing social and nonsocial versions of a stay/leave decision-making task. On each trial, participants chose between four alternative options, after which they received a monetary reward. Crucially, in the social condition, reward magnitude was ostensibly determined by the generosity of social partners, whereas in the nonsocial condition, reward amounts were ostensibly determined in a preprogrammed manner. Results demonstrated that participants were more likely to stay with options of relatively high expected value, with these values updated through Reinforcement Learning mechanisms and represented neurally within ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Moreover, we demonstrated that greater brain activity in ventromedial prefrontal cortex, caudate nucleus, and septo-hypothalamic regions for social versus nonsocial decisions to stay may underlie a bias towards staying with social partners in particular. These findings complement existing social psychological theories by investigating the neural mechanisms of actual stay/leave decisions. ARTICLE HISTORY

The psychology of partner choice

“…Given the role of vmPFC in representing decision-related value signals, this suggests that vmPFC combines information about reward value and generosity when making a partner choice decision. Indeed, similar vmPFC activation was found in other work comparing social vs. non-social partner choice (Heijne, Rossi, & Sanfey, 2017). Here, participants chose one of four possible partners or slot machines that varied in expected value provided on each trial.…”

Functional Neuroimaging of Human Hypothalamus in Socioemotional Behavior: A Systematic Review

“…The hypothalamus has also been shown to mediate the decision to keep interacting with a social partner or to switch to another [ 64 ]. Participants’ social stay decisions, which were apparently biased by rewards determined by the intentional generosity of social partners, as compared with non-prosocial decisions, where rewards were determined by an unintentional algorithmic process, were associated with activity of the septo-hypothalamic area along with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and caudate nucleus.…”

Theory of brain complexity and marital behaviors: The application of complexity science and neuroscience to explain the complexities of marital behaviors

“…Overall, the suggested brain networks in Table 1 include neural networks such as love, marital satisfaction, and positive illusion that are clearly related to marital behaviors and have a strong background in the marriage literature. Other suggested networks include networks such as goal-directed behavior networks and decision-making networks that were paid less attention to in the marriage studies, but some evidence suggests that they are related to marital behaviors (e.g., Ortigue et al, 2010;Heijne et al, 2018), and the results of the field section of the current study highlighted the need of paying attention to these networks. For example, making the proper staying/leaving decisions in a specific marital relationship requires the utilizing of different brain decision-making systems (Heijne et al, 2018) to consider different aspects of this critical decision (e.g., economic and moral aspects).…”

“…and benefit signals from amygdala and NAcc, respectively, are compared in vmPFC Stay/leave decision-making: (e.g., d, h, i, l, n, o) vmPFC, caudate nucleus, and septo-hypothalamic regions, striatum(Heijne et al, 2018) …”