Social neuroeconomics: the neural circuitry of social preferences.

By Ernst Fehr, Colin F. Camerer. 2007

726 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Combining the methods of neuroscience and economics generates powerful tools for studying the brain processes behind human social interaction. We argue that hedonic interpretations of theories of social preferences provide a useful framework that generates interesting predictions and helps interpret brain activations involved in altruistic, fair and trusting behaviors. These behaviors are consistently associated with activation in reward-related brain areas, such as the striatum, and with prefrontal activity implicated in cognitive control, the processing of emotions, and integration of benefits and costs, consistent with resolution of a conflict between self-interest and other-regarding motives.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, General Decision Sciences, Safety Research

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Citations in the corpus

Theory of Mind: A Neural Prediction Problem (2013, neutral): “Because predictive coding is most familiar from the context of reward learning, there has been considerable interest in linking predictive coding to social reward learning (Behrens et al., 2009; Jones et al., 2011; Fehr and Camerer, 2007).”
Oxytocin shapes the neural circuitry of trust and trust adaptation in humans. (2008, positive): “Our work is based on the combination of neuroscientific tools with economic experiments which recently gained momentum through the neuroeconomics research agenda (Camerer et al., 2005; Cohen and Blum, 2002; De Quervain et al., 2004; Delgado et al., 2004; Fehr and Camerer, 2007; Glimcher, 2002; Glimc”
Equitable decision making is associated with neural markers of intrinsic value (2011, background): “Several studies now have demonstrated that these same regions also respond to observing prosocial action such as reciprocity and equitable resource distribution (20, 21), suggesting that prosociality may be imbued with intrinsic value (22).”
The role of prediction in social neuroscience (2012, background): “…striatum for the processing of social rewards, with these areas substantially overlapping with areas related to reinforcement learning and anticipation of monetary reward (Fehr and Camerer, 2007), further adding to the argument for shared neural representations for one’s own and others’ rewards.”
The Biology of Trust: Integrating Evidence From Genetics, Endocrinology, and Functional Brain Imaging (2012, background): “This game mimics a sequential economic exchange in the absence of contract enforcement institutions (Fehr & Camerer, 2007).”
The neuroscience of social decision-making. (2011, neutral): “That is, the subjective utility of mutual cooperation can exceed that of unilateral defection (Fehr & Camerer 2007).”
Trust: An Integrative Review from a Person–Situation Perspective (2015, background): “This corresponds with neurobiological evidence pointing to an involvement of reward-related brain areas in trust behavior (Delgado et al., 2005; Fehr & Camerer, 2007; King-Casas et al., 2005) as well as with recent research proposing an expressive in addition to an instrumental component of trust,…”
Dissociable neural representations of reinforcement and belief prediction errors underlie strategic learning (2012, background): “More broadly, our results add to the growing literature suggesting that neural systems underlying social and strategic interactions can be studied in a uni ﬁ ed computational framework with those of reward learning (19, 37).”
Leadership and individual differences: At the cusp of a renaissance (2012, methodology): “…underpinnings of microeconomic behavior as evidence by the work of Ernst Fehr and his collegues (e.g., de Quervain et al., 2004; Fehr, 2008; Fehr & Camerer, 2007; Fliessbach et al., 2007; Knoch, Pascual-Leone, Meyer, Treyer, & Fehr, 2006; Knoch, Schneider, Schunk, Hohmann, & Fehr, 2009;…”
The Neurobiology of Decision: Consensus and Controversy (2009, neutral): “Many, and perhaps most, of the human neuroimaging studies of decision making have involved social interactions and games, and several reviews have been dedicated to these studies (Fehr and Camerer, 2007; Lee, 2008; Montague and Lohrenz, 2007; Singer and Fehr, 2005).”
Mixed feelings: Theories of and evidence on giving (2010, result): “This is consistent with evidence, including from neural studies (e.g., Fehr and Camerer, 2007), associating norm compliance with positive feelings and violation of norms with negative feelings.”
The Wick in the Candle of Learning (2008, neutral): “…(Delgado, Locke, Stenger, & Fiez, 2003; Delgado, Nystrom, Fissell, Noll, & Fiez, 2000), including social rewards such as benevolent reciprocity (Fehr & Camerer, 2007; King-Casas et al., 2005), social cooperation (Rilling et al., 2002), altruistic punishment (de Quervain et al., 2004), and…”
Neuronal Reward and Decision Signals: From Theories to Data. (2015, background): “Good behavioral tools for assessing inequity are the ultimatum game in which rejection of unfair offers assesses disadvantageous inequity aversion, and the dictator game in which the reward fraction handed to the opponent reflects advantageous inequity aversion (83, 149).”