Neurocognitive Underpinnings of Aggressive Predation in Economic Contests.

Competitions are part and parcel of daily life and require people to invest time and energy to gain advantage over others and to avoid (the risk of) falling behind. Whereas the behavioral mechanisms underlying competition are well documented, its neurocognitive underpinnings remain poorly understood. We addressed this using neuroimaging and computational modeling of individual investment decisions aimed at exploiting one's counterpart ("attack") or at protecting against exploitation by one's counterpart ("defense").

Relief from incidental fear evokes exuberant risk taking.

Incidental emotions are defined as feelings that are unrelated to a decision task at hand and thereby not normatively relevant for making choices. The precise influence and formal theoretical implications of incidental emotions regarding financial risk taking are still largely unclear. An effect of incidental emotion on decision-making would challenge the main extant formal theoretical economic models because such models do not allow for an effect of incidental emotions.

Neural dynamics of social tie formation in economic decision-making.

The disposition for prosocial conduct, which contributes to cooperation as arising during social interaction, requires cortical network dynamics responsive to the development of social ties, or care about the interests of specific interaction partners. Here, we formulate a dynamic computational model that accurately predicted how tie formation, driven by the interaction history, influences decisions to contribute in a public good game. We used model-driven functional MRI to test the hypothesis that brain regions key to social interactions keep track of dynamics in tie strength.

Oxytocin tempers calculated greed but not impulsive defense in predator-prey contests.

Human cooperation and competition is modulated by oxytocin, a hypothalamic neuropeptide that functions as both hormone and neurotransmitter. Oxytocin's functions can be captured in two explanatory yet largely contradictory frameworks: the fear-dampening (FD) hypothesis that oxytocin has anxiolytic effects and reduces fear-motivated action; and the social approach/avoidance (SAA) hypothesis that oxytocin increases cooperative approach and facilitates protection against aversive stimuli and threat. We tested derivations from both frameworks in a novel predator-prey contest game.

Neural correlates of dynamically evolving interpersonal ties predict prosocial behavior.

There is a growing interest for the determinants of human choice behavior in social settings. Upon initial contact, investment choices in social settings can be inherently risky, as the degree to which the other person will reciprocate is unknown. Nevertheless, people have been shown to exhibit prosocial behavior even in one-shot laboratory settings where all interaction has been taken away.

On the nature, modeling, and neural bases of social ties.

Purpose: This chapter addresses the nature, formalization, and neural bases of (affective) social ties and discusses the relevance of ties for health economics. A social tie is defined as an affective weight attached by an individual to the well-being of another individual ('utility interdependence'). Ties can be positive or negative, and symmetric or asymmetric between individuals.