scholarly journals Affective biases encoded by the central arousal systems dynamically modulate inequality aversion in human interpersonal negotiations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel AJ Murphy ◽  
Catherine J Harmer ◽  
Michael Browning ◽  
Erdem Pulcu
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Ultimatum Game ◽  
Cognitive Model ◽  
Negative Influence ◽  
Inequality Aversion ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Facial Emotions ◽  
Model Free ◽  
Interactive Decision Making

AbstractNegotiating with others about how finite resources should be distributed is an important aspect of human social life. However, little is known about mechanisms underlying human social-interactive decision-making. Here, we report results from a novel iterative Ultimatum Game (UG) task, in which the proposer’s facial emotions and offer amounts were sampled probabilistically based on the participant’s decisions, creating a gradually evolving social-interactive decision-making environment. Our model-free results confirm the prediction that both the proposer’s facial emotions and the offer amount influence human choice behaviour. These main effects demonstrate that biases in facial emotion recognition also contribute to violations of the Rational Actor model (i.e. all offers should be accepted). Model-based analyses extend these findings, indicating that participants’ decisions are guided by an aversion to inequality in the UG. We highlight that the proposer’s facial responses to participant decisions dynamically modulate how human decision-makers perceive self–other inequality, relaxing its otherwise negative influence on decision values. In iterative games, this cognitive model underlies how offers initially rejected can gradually become more acceptable under increasing affective load, and accurately predicts 86% of participant decisions. Activity of the central arousal systems, assessed by measuring pupil size, encode a key element of this model: proposer’s affective reactions in response to participant decisions. Taken together, our results demonstrate that, under affective load, participants’ aversion to inequality is a malleable cognitive process which is modulated by the activity of the pupil-linked central arousal systems.

Dynamic modulation of inequality aversion in human interpersonal negotiations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Murphy ◽  
Catherine Harmer ◽  
Michael Browning ◽  
Erdem Pulcu
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Ultimatum Game ◽  
Cognitive Model ◽  
Negative Influence ◽  
Inequality Aversion ◽  
Choice Behaviour ◽  
Facial Emotions ◽  
Human Choice ◽  
Model Free ◽  
Interactive Decision Making

Abstract Negotiating with others about how finite resources should be distributed is an important aspect of human social life. However, little is known about mechanisms underlying human social-interactive decision-making in gradually evolving environments. Here, we report results from a novel iterative Ultimatum Game (UG) task, in which the proposer’s facial emotions and offer amounts were sampled probabilistically based on the participant’s decisions. Our model-free results confirm the prediction that both the proposer’s facial emotions and the offer amount should influence human choice behaviour. Model-based analyses extend these findings, indicating that participants’ decisions in the UG are guided by aversion to inequality. We highlight that the proposer’s facial affective reactions to participant decisions dynamically modulate how human decision-makers perceive self–other inequality, relaxing its otherwise negative influence on decision values. In iterative games, this cognitive model underlies how offers initially rejected can gradually become more acceptable under increasing affective load, and accurately predicts ~ 86% of participant decisions. Furthermore, modelling human choice behaviour isolated the role of the central arousal systems, assessed by measuring pupil size, during interpersonal negotiations. We demonstrate that pupil-linked central arousal systems selectively encode a key component of subjective decision values that relate to the magnitude of self–other inequality. Taken together, our results demonstrate that, under affective influence, aversion to inequality is a malleable cognitive process.

scholarly journals Value computations underlying human proposer behaviour in the Ultimatum Game

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erdem Pulcu ◽  
Masahiko Haruno
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Ultimatum Game ◽  
Social Value Orientation ◽  
Social Decision ◽  
Optimal Decisions ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
Social Decision Making

AbstractInteracting with others to decide how finite resources should be allocated between parties which may have competing interests is an important part of social life. Considering that not all of our proposals to others are always accepted, the outcomes of such social interactions are, by their nature, probabilistic and risky. Here, we highlight cognitive processes related to value computations in human social interactions, based on mathematical modelling of the proposer behavior in the Ultimatum Game. Our results suggest that the perception of risk is an overarching process across non-social and social decision-making, whereas nonlinear weighting of others’ acceptance probabilities is unique to social interactions in which others’ valuation processes needs to be inferred. Despite the complexity of social decision-making, human participants make near-optimal decisions by dynamically adjusting their decision parameters to the changing social value orientation of their opponents through influence by multidimensional inferences they make about those opponents (e.g. how prosocial they think their opponent is relative to themselves).

scholarly journals Expect the Worst! Expectations and Social Interactive Decision Making

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 572
Author(s):  
Cinzia Giorgetta ◽  
Alessandro Grecucci ◽  
Michele Graffeo ◽  
Nicolao Bonini ◽  
Roberta Ferrario ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Ultimatum Game ◽  
High Expectation ◽  
Social Decision ◽  
Interactive Decision Making ◽  
Within Subjects ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Decision Making ◽  
Expectation Condition

Psychological studies have demonstrated that expectations can have substantial effects on choice behavior, although the role of expectations on social decision making in particular has been relatively unexplored. To broaden our knowledge, we examined the role of expectations on decision making when interacting with new game partners and then also in a subsequent interaction with the same partners. To perform this, 38 participants played an Ultimatum Game (UG) in the role of responders and were primed to expect to play with two different groups of proposers, either those that were relatively fair (a tendency to propose an equal split—the high expectation condition) or unfair (with a history of offering unequal splits—the low expectation condition). After playing these 40 UG rounds, they then played 40 Dictator Games (DG) as allocator with the same set of partners. The results showed that expectations affect UG decisions, with a greater proportion of unfair offers rejected from the high as compared to the low expectation group, suggesting that players utilize specific expectations of social interaction as a behavioral reference point. Importantly, this was evident within subjects. Interestingly, we also demonstrated that these expectation effects carried over to the subsequent DG. Participants allocated more money to the recipients of the high expectation group as well to those who made equal offers and, in particular, when the latter were expected to behave unfairly, suggesting that people tend to forgive negative violations and appreciate and reward positive violations. Therefore, both the expectations of others’ behavior and their violations play an important role in subsequent allocation decisions. Together, these two studies extend our knowledge of the role of expectations in social decision making.

scholarly journals Model-based and model-free pain avoidance learning

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 239821281877296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Wang ◽  
Sang Wan Lee ◽  
John O’Doherty ◽  
Ben Seymour ◽  
Wako Yoshida
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Learning Strategy ◽  
Cognitive Model ◽  
Good Evidence ◽  
Avoidance Task ◽  
Free System ◽  
Model Based ◽  
Model Free ◽  
Pain Outcomes ◽  
The Face

Background: While there is good evidence that reward learning is underpinned by two distinct decision control systems – a cognitive ‘model-based’ and a habitbased ‘model-free’ system, a comparable distinction for punishment avoidance has been much less clear. Methods: We implemented a pain avoidance task that placed differential emphasis on putative model-based and model-free processing, mirroring a paradigm and modelling approach recently developed for reward-based decision-making. Subjects performed a two-step decision-making task with probabilistic pain outcomes of different quantities. The delivery of outcomes was sometimes contingent on a rule signalled at the beginning of each trial, emulating a form of outcome devaluation. Results: The behavioural data showed that subjects tended to use a mixed strategy – favouring the simpler model-free learning strategy when outcomes did not depend on the rule, and favouring a model-based when they did. Furthermore, the data were well described by a dynamic transition model between the two controllers. When compared with data from a reward-based task (albeit tested in the context of the scanner), we observed that avoidance involved a significantly greater tendency for subjects to switch between model-free and model-based systems in the face of changes in uncertainty. Conclusion: Our study suggests a dual-system model of pain avoidance, similar to but possibly more dynamically flexible than reward-based decision-making.

scholarly journals Social Value Orientation Modulates Fairness Processing During Social Decision-Making: Evidence From Behavior and Brain Potentials

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinmu Hu ◽  
Xiaoqin Mai
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Ultimatum Game ◽  
Value Orientation ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Social Value ◽  
Social Value Orientation ◽  
Social Decision ◽  
Frontal Negativity ◽  
Social Decision Making

Abstract Social value orientation (SVO) characterizes stable individual differences by an inherent sense of fairness in outcome allocations. Using the event-related potential (ERP), this study investigated differences in fairness decision-making behavior and neural bases between individuals with prosocial and proself orientations using the Ultimatum Game (UG). Behavioral results indicated that prosocials were more prone to rejecting unfair offers with stronger negative emotional reactions compared with proselfs. ERP results revealed that prosocials showed a larger P2 when receiving fair offers than unfair ones in a very early processing stage, whereas such effect was absent in proselfs. In later processing stages, although both groups were sensitive to fairness as reflected by an enhanced medial frontal negativity (MFN) for unfair offers and a larger P3 for fair offers, prosocials exhibited a stronger fairness effect on these ERP components relative to proselfs. Furthermore, the fairness effect on the MFN mediated the SVO effect on rejecting unfair offers. Findings regarding emotional experiences, behavioral patterns, and ERPs provide compelling evidence that SVO modulates fairness processing in social decision-making, whereas differences in neural responses to unfair vs. fair offers as evidenced by the MFN appear to play important roles in the SVO effect on behavioral responses to unfairness.

scholarly journals Reviewing Stranger on the Internet: The Role of Identifiability through “Reputation” in Online Decision Making

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 110
Author(s):  
Mirko Duradoni ◽  
Stefania Collodi ◽  
Serena Coppolino Perfumi ◽  
Andrea Guazzini
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Ultimatum Game ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Self Disclosure ◽  
Quantitative Evidence ◽  
Web Technologies ◽  
Social Acts ◽  
Good Reputation ◽  
The Stranger

The stranger on the Internet effect has been studied in relation to self-disclosure. Nonetheless, quantitative evidence about how people mentally represent and perceive strangers online is still missing. Given the dynamic development of web technologies, quantifying how much strangers can be considered suitable for pro-social acts such as self-disclosure appears fundamental for a whole series of phenomena ranging from privacy protection to fake news spreading. Using a modified and online version of the Ultimatum Game (UG), we quantified the mental representation of the stranger on the Internet effect and tested if people modify their behaviors according to the interactors’ identifiability (i.e., reputation). A total of 444 adolescents took part in a 2 × 2 design experiment where reputation was set active or not for the two traditional UG tasks. We discovered that, when matched with strangers, people donate the same amount of money as if the other has a good reputation. Moreover, reputation significantly affected the donation size, the acceptance rate and the feedback decision making as well.

scholarly journals The influence of emotion regulation on social interactive decision-making.

Emotion ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 815-821 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mascha van't Wout ◽  
Luke J. Chang ◽  
Alan G. Sanfey
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Emotion Regulation ◽  
Interactive Decision Making
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