Social Neuroscience M3

Conformity

A form of social influence involving changing one's behavior or beliefs to match group norms It's difficult to determine if conformity reflects private acceptance of group norms (i.e., informational social influence) or mere public compliance with them (i.e., normative social influence) demonstrating behavioral signs of conformity in physical privacy (e.g., having participants respond anonymously) does not necessarily reflect private acceptance of a social norm Results could reflect the fact that our behavior is influenced not just by the actual presence of others, but by their imagined or implied presence too

Oxytocin

A hormone involved in attachment formation that acts on certain receptors of the brain Reduces stress and increases trust with strangers released by the posterior pituitary that stimulates uterine contractions during childbirth and milk ejection during breastfeeding Also released with female and male orgasm Oxytocin and vasopressin are released when in love by the pituitary gland and produced by the hypothalamus Receptors are found in amygdala and nucleus accumbens Oxytocin's action in central amygdala is associated with stress reducing anxiolytic effects Higher levels of oxytocin predict generosity When administered nasally it reduces amygdala response to fear and reduced levels cortisol GG carriers are more socially sensitive and more empathetic, less likely to have autism and lower stress response. More likely to develop unipolar depression and adult anxious attachment with childhood neglect. They are better able to read social cues but less resilient to long term social stressors Very high levels can cause social anxiety as they need to be affiliated closely to others

Neuroscience and Love

A loved one can relieve stress or pain and can be rewarding ( activity in striatum and nucleus accumbens) When they held partner's hand, they were less reactive to sad or scary films Unconditional nature of love The activity for a familiar acquaintance was greater than for a loved one Regions in critical social assessment (others intentions) are deactivated while regions involved in rewards and attachment are activated Falling in love - lack of control, mood elation, sleeplessness, the craving and intrusive thoughts about the loved one( similar to OCD) enables us to put aside inhibitions and abandon comfort zones like neglecting family or friends to spend time with partner Testosterone levels are lower in males and higher in females during early stages of a romantic relationship Plasma oxytocin are high in initial stages of love and correlate with signs of affection and relationship related worries

strange situation test

A measure of attachment during infancy in which the infant experiences separations and reunions with a stranger and with an attachment figure Behavior is scored according to how baby deals with stress and the way it responds to the mother during reunion

Public goods game

A multi-player game in which people may choose to contribute different amounts to a common pot of money, but everybody receives the same benefits irrespective of what they put in

hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis

A neural pathway that is activated during stress and produces changes in stress related hormones like cortisol Oxytocin modulates the HPA by reducing release of stress hormones Males are more likely to affiliate with females during stress but females are less likely to affiliate with males and choose females Dopaminergic disruption in medial prefrontal cortex can lead to preference of not mating

Status

A perceived measure of the social worth or social rank of a person or Group

Tracking sociometric popularity

Brain regions involved in tracking value (VMPFC, amygdala, ventral striatum) and social cognition (e.., DMPFC, precuneus, left and right TPJ) automatically track others' sociometric popularity

Brain- to- Brain Coupling

Communication allows us to transmit ideas and memories between brains measured by comparing fMRI response times series (how activity rose and fell over time) at corresponding points in the Speaker's brain and each Listener's brain observed in brain regions involved in producing and understanding speech, as well as regions involved in understanding beliefs, desires, and goals (e.g., RTPJ, precuneus, MPFC) Listeners who understood the story better showed greater similarity between the Speaker's brain and the Listener's brain is associated with better the communication

The Source Effect

Disgust responses increase with increasing social distance, such that disgusting material (e.g., vomit, urine, feces) emanating from unfamiliar others elicits greater disgust reactions, as measured by physiological responses, behavior, and self-report, relative to disgusting material emanating from more familiar others Sharing someone's bodily fluids becomes more disgusting as that person becomes less familiar

Appeasement behavior

Display signals that convey defeat Cowering You win Sorry

Parochial altruism

Selfless behavior and a concern for the well being of Us, but not Them Helping Ingroup members - anterior ínsula (emotional experience and pain perception) Not helping out group members - ventral striatum ( reward) - pleasure in others misfortune

Moral Dumbfounding

maintaining a moral belief despite not being able to construct evidence in support An inarticulable but firm conviction that something is morally wrong (or right)

attachment

the powerful Social bond of love between a caregiver and child (or between any two individuals) Found in all animal species Causes separation distress and proximity seeking behavior This may be due to the sense of security associated with attachment relationships and the wider benefits of a secure relationship on mental and physical health

Imprinting

the process by which animals (mostly birds) recognize and seek proximity with a mother figure or form strong attachments during a critical period very early in life

Social Identity Shape Distance Perception

threatening things appear CLOSER to us than they actually are Spiders are estimated to be closer to us than neutral objects, and this effect is especially strong for spider-phobics Yankees fans perceived the Red Sox (threat) stadium to be illusorily closer to them Non-Yankees fans correctly indicated that the Red Sox stadium was farther away from them than the Orioles stadium NYU students perceived Columbia University as closer to them when it was portrayed as threatening to NYU There doesn't have to be a history of conflict or stereotypes towards out-groups for you to see them and think about them differently. outgroups- more threatening and appear closer

altruism

unselfish concern for the welfare of others Selfless Based on reward processing (ventral striatum) and mentalizing (mPFC/rTPJ) helping others at some cost to oneself, and it may come about in a population by helping others who are likely to help us

Power

The capacity to influence another person or group

Loneliness

A perceived social isolation and/or lack of intimacy, more akin to a trait than a state but can differ from social exclusion or rejection from others It can come from shyness or social anxiety Perceived isolation more than actual isolation can lead to hyperviligance to social threats that lead to further isolation Lonely people judge social images as less pleasant Non lonely people activated TPJ in non social images to mentalize whether lonely people did not and activated visual cortex Loneliness leads to cognitive decline and risk of Alzheimer's on elderly Greater activity in HPA and body's defense system from infection Warm baths or objects help lonely people activate ventral striatum as it mimics pleasant touch

warrior gene

A polymorphism of the MAOA (monamine oxidase A) gene linked to low activity of the enzyme product, and associated with increased aggression (particularly in males) children with this show anti-social reduced volume in amygdala

medial pre optic area (mPOA)

A region of hypothalamus that in many mammalian species triggers parental behavior by responding to pregnancy related hormonal changes Causes a craving like state to want to work to be given a pup to take care of Occurs by decreasing amygdala responsiveness and enhancing the dopaminergic pathways Reward areas are activated when looking at ones infant and humans are less dependent on mPOA or pregnancy related hormonal changes Transition from aversion to attraction Crying is aversive (activates anterior ínsula and amygdala) but is down graded by prefrontal cortex and linked activity in reward centers (nucleus accumbens)

Utilitarian theories

A theory of ethics that evaluates the rightness or wrongness of an action based on the consequences of that action. Controlled cognitive processing Cognitive load selectively interferes with utilitarian moral judgments Damage to the VMPC ( emotional processing) increases utilitarian moral judgments

Prisoner's Dilemma

A two player game in which the best individual strategy is non cooperation but the best collective strategy is cooperation Betrayal (defection) is the optimal individual solution The dilemma arises because the best collective decision is for both players to cooperate People often choose the best collective decision (mutual cooperation), rather than the best individual solution (defect), suggesting that they are considering the interests of the other player. Mutual cooperation was the most common outcome (even though it isn't the best individual option) it was associated with greater activity in reward-related brain areas (e.g., OFC, ventral striatum) less mutual cooperation due to less activity in reward-related brain areas compared with the human-partner condition When the participant cooperates, and their partner defects, increased activity in the insula and amygdala

ultimatum game

A two player game with a proposed and responder: in which one player proposes a split of money and a responder either accepts the money (and obtains the agreed split) or rejects it (and both players get nothing) To maximize his/her earnings, the Responder should always accept the Proposer's offer, since the alternative is to get nothing... but people often reject unfair offers. Unfair treatment triggers emotional responses (e.g. anger) Insula and ACC activity interpreted as negative emotional response (e.g., disgust) Emotional arousal (as measured by skin conductance response) is correlated with punishment (rejecting offers) Fairness and Social Decision-Making People expect to be treated fairly and have negative emotional responses when they are treated unfairly. This leads to punishment, sometimes even at their own expense People were more likely to accept unfair offers from a computer than from a human

Trust Game

A two player game with a trustee and investor, the trustee decides how much money to invest and the investor decides how much to return Oxytocin patients had higher levels of trust in terms of money invested and cooperation with in group and a defensive reaction to our groups

securely attached

A type of attachment characterized by proximity seeking with the attachment figure and distress at separation Babies get upset when mom leaves and super happpy when she comes back Most infants are like this Mothers are able to accurately respond to infants signals Mother infant attachment predicted neural activity in nucleus accumbens - increased oxytocin in blood Reduced amygdala activity

game theory

A type of mathematical model that captures how an individual's success in making decisions is influenced by the decision of others Humans tend not to maximize their own gain, but act towards a collective good Decisions take into account social norms (fairness) and unfair decisions tend to be punished, even if the cost of punishment is personally disadvantageous suggest that humans tend not to maximize their own gain, but to act towards the collective good.

Social pain and loneliness

Activation in anterior cingulate cortex and anterior ínsula Involved in pain perception GG Polymorphism of oxytocin is related with more sensitivity to social exclusion Reactive aggression and social threats to pain when infants are separated from mothers Analgesic response from Tylenol or Opioids relieves both types of pain Social support reduces physical pain Experiencing social and physical pain elicit overlapping fMRI responses in the dACC and Anterior Insula (AI)

instrumental aggression

Aggression that is self initiated and goal directed To show social dominance over others psychopath have this type Displaced aggression - aggressive act from a higher status person to a Lower status person Boss- men - wife - children

alturistic punishment

An act of punishment that has no direct benefit to the punisher but comes at a cost to the punisher Punishment for mon cooperation

Minimal Groups Paradigm

An experimental paradigm in which researchers create groups based on arbitrary and seemingly meaningless criteria and then examine how the members of these "minimal groups" perceive and behave toward one another random assignment Participants then assessed a continuum of face morphs that ranged from human to doll faces These faces were either described as in-group (e.g., under-estimators, if you were told you were an under-estimator) or out-group (e.g., over-estimators, if you were told you were an under-estimator) Morphs said to depict out-group members had to "have more humanness" in order to be perceived as having minds Morphs of in-group faces begin to look human at 61% human/39% doll Morphs of out-group faces begin to look human at 67% human/33% doll Collective identification modulates inter-group bias in mind perception: People who identify more strongly with their in-group show stronger inter-group bias

Grief

An intense feeling of loss that occurs as a result of permanent separation (normally death from a loved one)

aggression

Any behavior directed towards another individual that is carried out with the proximate ( immediate) intent to cause harm damage to the ventral striatal region of the basal ganglia and the dopamine system in this region has been linked to the production of aggressive displays

antisocial behavior

Any behavior that violates the social norms of a particular culture Right in the eyes of the perpetrator but wrong in terms of the law Patients with lesions to the orbitofrontal cortex and/or ventromedial prefrontal cortex may exhibit antisocial tendencies.

damage to orbitofrontal cortex and ventromedial prefrontal cortex

Base moral judgements on a rational basis like cost -benefits (utilitarian) Autistic people don't regard intention

Neuro-economics

Explains, using neural mechanisms, how individuals and groups make economic decisions such as assigning value to competing choices, exchange and reciprocity, and making best use of limited resources

dyadic interaction

Face to face interactions Cooperation: sharing of commodities and knowledge, helping behavior Non cooperation - keeping commodities and knowledge to oneself Individuals working in groups Increase chance of surviving by sharing skills

Kin-mediated reconciliation

Friendly behavior by an aggressor's kin can substitute for direct reconciliation by the aggressor himself/herself baboons who have recently been attacked by other baboons respond not only to reconciliatory grunts from their attacker following aggression but also respond to reconciliatory grunts from a close relative of their attacker, but not to an individual unrelated to their attacker. Ravens become distressed by apparent dominance reversals between third parties -intervene in affiliative interactions (e.g., preening) between other pairs of individuals initiating a bond, even at their own peril and without immediate benefits to the intervenor - don't just understand relationships between competitors, but they strategically try to interfere between relationships between third parties to prevent others from increasing their own status

The role of intention in moral judgment

Greater RTPJ (ToM) responses during accidental harm judgments correlated with lower blame assignments Attempted (but failed) harms are judged nearly as harshly as actual harms, people judge accidental harms to be less wrong The RTPJ is consistently active during moral judgments = strongly recruited when people excuse accidental harms Disrupting activity in the RTPJ makes people judge attempted (but unsuccessful) harms as more morally permissible RTPJ is critical for integrating mental states into moral judgments, particularly for attempted harms

indirect reciprocity

Helping others who may never be met again or who you have never interacted with before for reputation enhancement

Psychopathy

High levels of aggression that are not tempered by any sense of guilt or empathy with the victim reduced amygdala activity during aversive conditioning reduced autonomic activity to fear and sadness in others psychopaths perform normally on moral dilemmas such as the Trolley and Footbridge Dilemmas but indifference to the consequences of an aggressive act The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and ventromedial prefrontal cortex are reduced and their connections with the amygdala are implicated in making emotionally guided decisions After a lesion to the left frontal lobe, Gage was noted to be 'irreverent, indulging at times in grossest profanity'.

Vasopressin

Hormone also involves in attachment formation males have greater sensitivity than Females (antidiuretic hormone) hormone released by posterior pituitary; raises blood pressure and enables kidneys to conserve water

Social Bonds

Hypothetical links between known people that induce a sense of happiness or well-being in the presence of the bonded other and a sense of wanting or longing (perhaps even distress) in their absence Bonds can develop from contact and pro social interactions, but ultimately they need not depend upon them Attachment is a powerful bond that used to describe a child and a mother but now extends to romantic relationships ( being in love)

payoff matrix

In game theory, a matrix that lists the costs and benefits to each player based on the different independent decision options

Testosterone

Male sex hormone A hormone that affects brain development and also directly acts on neurons to affect behavior linked to anger, aggression, and social dominance high levels of testosterone are associated both with acts of competition and aggression and with the outcome of these acts. reduced levels of both trust

A theory of dual-process morality (Josh Greene)

Moral reasoning involves automatic emotional responses, as well as more controlled cognitive reasoning Both dilemmas recruit utilitarian reasoning The footbridge dilemma also elicits a pre-potent, negative emotional response, which wins out, and drives moral disapproval People tend to disapprove of the action in the footbridge version because the harmful action elicits a prepotent negative emotional response Intuitive emotional processing is associated with deontological moral judgment more "personal" nature of the harm The 'switch' dilemma does not elicit much emotion, so utilitarian reasoning wins out approve of the action in the switch version as emotion does not counteract decision Controlled cognitive processing is associated with utilitarian moral judgment

Representation of Knowledge about Social and Nonsocial Hierarchies

Neural activity in the posterior hippocampus and VMPFC tracked the emergence of hierarchical knowledge in a domain-general fashion

Social decision-making

Neural basis of cooperation and fairness involves a network of brain regions, including those involved in emotions (e.g. the insula), cognitive control (e.g. lateral prefrontal cortex), and reward (e.g. the ventral striatum).

Functional Localizer 2: Social Cognition Task

Participants viewed trait adjectives ("helpful") Social cognition trials: Judged to what extent that adjective described a particular group member or to what extent the other group member would ascribe that adjective to the participant himself/herself Control trials: Judged to what extent the adjective contained straight lines rather than curved lines Social cognition > control trials contrast identified regions involved in judging other people's mental states and traits (dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, precuneus, temporoparietal junction)

freeloader/free rider

People who receive the benefits of cooperation but do not contribute to the group themselves Sanctions are usually assigned to them. Such as social exclusion or fines These norms require what is fair and right

antisocial personality disorder (ASPD)

Psychological disorder characterized by guiltlessness, law-breaking, exploitation of others, irresponsibility, and deceit. A psychiatric category characterized by a 'pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others' sociopathy low variant MAOA gene

neuroethics

The application of neuroscientific findings to ethical issues The ability to control behavior is central to the commonsense notion of 'free will' Controlled actions are intentional

Care facilitation hypothesis:

Reduced aversive responses to disgust-elicitors from close others may attenuate avoidance responses that would otherwise interfere with providing care and maintaining social bonds Social closeness does not always intensify our emotional reactions to those around us. Rather, how emotional responses are modulated by social relationships depends on the underlying functions of the emotions in question.

Direct relationships

Relationships that you yourself are directly involved in Social relationships are important for humans' survival and reproductive fitness Social affiliation is a basic human need. When we feel socially isolated, we feel distress. This motivates us to seek out and maintain social connections Direct social influence effects (i.e., interpersonal influence effects that unfold within dyads) are well-established e.g., emotion contagion from one individual to another, mimicry

Prairie voles

Rodent that is monogamous and forms pair bonding which is a long enduring attachment with a sexual partner They have responsibilities like parental care and nest guarding They choose familiar voles Monogamous have far more receptors for oxy and vasopressin More vasopressin in males As it elevated anxiety and allows them to protect family

Conventional norms

Rules of conduct that are agreed via consensus Group conformity, authority Not necessarily privately agreed by ppl

moral norms

Rules of conduct that are based on personal welfare Depend of socio cognitive processes like empathy, fairness, and mentalizing 4 year old children know not to break them because they hurt others Convey the moral wisdom and the experience of the human community

Smiling face or angry face

Smile - Activation of striatum and ventral tegmental area -positive feedback for secure attachment Reduced in avoidment attachment as they have less regard with a smile Angry Left amygdala activation in avoidant attachment had increased sensitivity in social punishment and have less efficient emotional regulation of social stimuli ( in prefrontal cortex)

Learning and representing social hierarchies

Some brain regions (e.g., VMPFC, hippocampus) are involved in both social and non-social hierarchy learning The amygdala seems to play a role in learning about social, but not non-social, hierarchies Individual differences in the gray matter volume of the amygdala predicted individual differences in performance on the social hierarchy learning task

Matching hypothesis

States that people are more likely to form long-standing relationships with those who are as equally physically attractive as they are

Triangular theory of love

Sternberg's idea that three components 1.intimacy- feelings of warmth, closeness 2.passion- sexual attraction 3. commitment-resolve to maintain bond in various combinations can explain all the forms of human love Consummate love has all three Passion without intimacy or commitment is infatuation Passionate component of love only lasts for the first six months to three years of a relationship which is enough time to ensure conception Relationships continue to endure from other aspects of love like intimacy and commitment

periaqueductal gray (PAG)

Structure of the mid brain tegmentum important for regulating pain; stimulation produces an analgesic effect. And involved in defensive rage generates a reactive 'fight' response to a threat Amygdala regulates aggression of Fight (aggression)or flight (fear)

Trust

The belief that others will behave fairly towards us We are capable of it by understating others have similar mental states as us Shifts over time form reward mechanism being triggered by the interaction itself, even before the outcome is known

Love

The emotion that is associated with being in an attachment relationship Not straightforward to define as the love we have for our family is different to that of a girlfriend or boyfriend Evolutionary function : to form or maintain attachment like ensuring parental care

Sociometric Popularity/Status

The extent to which each group member is collectively liked Emerges due to asymmetries(# of friends) in liking ties between group members Individuals with higher sociometric popularity attract more attention and affiliative behavior from other group members -we are particularly attuned to the mental states of high sociometric status others in humans, sociometric popularity may have similar consequences to dominance-based status (e.g., heightened behavioral relevance; attract more attention) Activity in brain regions involved in processing the motivational significance and affective value of stimuli tracked the sociometric popularity of the person being viewed we automatically deduce others' sociometric status (regardless of whether we ourselves like them or not), and if someone is high status, motivational processes are triggered that may incentivize interacting with those individuals and bias attention towards them

Responsibility

The extent to which someone can be held to account for his/her actions

Normative social influence

The influence of other people that comes from the desire to avoid their disapproval and other social sanctions (ridicule, barbs, ostracism) Involves publicly complying with a norm without privately accepting it (e.g., conforming because you do not want to be singled out or embarrassed) Asch's Conformity Experiment-Participant often gives in to the wrong answer even though they know it's wrong

Informational social influence

The influence of other people that results from taking their comments or actions as a source of information about what is correct, proper, or effective Involves publicly complying with a norm because you privately accept it (i.e., you believe the norm is correct)

Utilitarian

The moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome - maximized positive outcomes for minimized negative ones End point rather than process

reciprocal altruism

The notion that we provide help to others in order to obtain help from others in the future Help towards unrelated individuals when threatened or used as an economic concept of trade Cognitive process needed : ability to remember between conspecifics and remember previous behavior

sexual selection

The presence of a trait is selected for during evolution because it attracts mating partners, being generous can help enhance one's reputation and bring mating success by demonstrating wealth and ability to provide

Westermarck effect

The tendency not to be sexually attracted, as adults, to people who we knew in the earliest years of life (6 yrs) as they are likely to be from our kin

empathy-altruism model

The theory that the motivation to help is based on empathic concern for others or primarily other-oriented rather than self oriented Medial prefrontal cortex responds to other people only when considered similar to ones self Donating to charity activated the ventral and dorsal striatum and ínsula ( reward) Lateral óbitofrontal cortex activated when decision not to donate

kin selection

The theory that we help others who are related to us, as they are helping their shared traits survive

Representing distance from the self

There appears to be a common neural code for distance from oneself in space, time, and social ties in inferior parietal cortex Response patterns in a portion of the right inferior parietal lobule (IPL) encoded relative distance from the self in space, time and social ties in the same way

Functional Localizer 1: Monetary Incentive Delay Task

To identify brain regions involved in processing the affective value Cue signifies if this is a 'reward trial' or 'neutral trial' Cue indicates whether or not the participant could earn rewards (money) Reward trials > neutral trials contrast identified regions involved in the anticipation and receipt of reward (ventromedial prefrontal cortex, ventral striatum, amygdala)

Tracking interactions between third parties

Tracking others' reputations and managing our own requires us to monitor and encode interactions and relationships beyond those that we participate in directly As adults, we're incredibly preoccupied with tracking others' reputations: Most of our conversations (2/3 by some estimates) focus on social topics we track interactions between third parties to inform our own preferences and behaviors from an extremely young age Babies always pick nice puppet Chimpanzees, like humans, "eavesdrop" on social interactions between third parties in order to infer the reputation of strangers chimpanzees developed a preference to gesture more to the generous donor to request food for themselves Humans and members of certain other highly social species monitor and encode interactions and relationships between third parties, and sometimes even strategically manipulate those relationships to benefit ourselves

insecure anxious attachment

Type of attachment characterized by extreme distress at separation the attachment style for a minority of infants; the infant may exhibit insecure attachment through various behaviors, such as avoiding contact with the caregiver, or by alternating between approach and avoidance behaviors Elevated stress response one children and show more promiscuous sexual behavior when mature The behavior of pups depends on Forster mother and is dependent on epigenetics( alterations is ways genes are expressed) Worry partner doesn't love them and show heightened vigilance to support or criticism

insecure-avoidant attachment

Type of attachment that is ambivalent towards figure of attachment and avoids contact when reuniting a pattern of attachment in which an infant avoids connection with the caregiver, as when the infant seems not to care about the caregiver's presence, departure, or return Mothers are neglectful in their care Activated amygdala and prefrontal regions which may be related to emotional regulation Less activity In nucleus accumbens and orbifrontal cortex Difficulty trusting others

Behavioral immune system hypothesis

Unfamiliar people are more likely to carry novel germs, whereas people more familiar to you are more likely to have developed antibodies to similar germs Increased disgust responses to unfamiliar others could reflect heightened activity of the "behavioral immune system" in situations where our physical immune system would be particularly vulnerable, such as during exposure to disease vectors emanating from unfamiliar others

Familiar faces engages brain systems involved in social cognition

Viewing personally familiar faces elicits greater activity in brain regions associated with social cognition and modeling other minds (e.g., temporoparietal junction, medial prefrontal cortex, precuneus) Person knowledge is spontaneously retrieved when encountering familiar individuals through the engagement of brain regions involved in social cognition

theory of mind network

a network of brain areas involved in representing the beliefs and intentions of others Temporo- parietal junction (TPJ) Medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC)

dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

a region of the prefrontal cortex involved in working memory, motor planning, organization, and regulation DLPFC normally plays a role in inhibiting responses based on self-interest (i.e., accepting any offer, even if it's unfair) to promote fairness TMS over (DLPFC) in the Responder's brain increases tendency to accept unfair offers, but not the perception of fairness.

tit-for-tat strategy

a strategy in which cooperation leads to cooperation and non cooperation leads to non cooperation on a trial-by-trial basis It's trusting and forgiving - solution maximizes benefits of cooperation without risks of exploitation the individual's first move is cooperative and thereafter the individual mimics the other person's behavior, whether cooperative or competitive

reactive aggression

aggressive behavior that is responsive to a threat and impulsive To defend ourselves and status/ well-being

induction

casual influence of social ties on the spread of behaviors and emotions emotional contagion and behavioral mimicry shifting norms based on standards of those around you

moral emotions

emotions that have moral implications because of our instant judgement of the situation that evokes them(guilt, shame, moral disgust, anger) Moral disgust - an emotion arising from a judgement about the moral standing of another person relative to oneself in terms of their general disposition to engage in acts that are deemed to be wrong Involve not only regions specialized for emotions but also regions implicated in higher cognition (lateral prefrontal cortex) and mentalizing Activated mPFC, STS, (theory or mind and mentalizing) Kids with autism rely less on emotion during moral decisions making and activate the amygdala less

Confounding

friends are exposed to the same contexts that systematically impact their behavior

Deontological theories

hold that the moral status of actions does not depend only on their consequences but also characteristics of the act itself Intuitive emotional processing

Moral decision-making

how people decide between various options with real consequences for themselves or others Emotions can sometimes drive moral judgments

Moral judgments

how people evaluate/judge/assess acts in terms of their moral wrongness/rightness, blameworthiness/praiseworthiness underpinned by different sources of knowledge: emotional reaction ( gut instinct; e.g. based on empathic concern for others) consensual norms ( the law), reasoned decisions (e.g. based on comparisons between costs and benefits). These different sources of knowledge may sometimes conflict with each other (requiring effortful control), and different individuals may give different weightings to the importance of these different factors.

vmPFC (ventromedial prefrontal cortex)

involved in emotional processing Greater VMPFC activity also associated with increased relationship duration and perceived partner support studies have implicated the VMPFC in safety signaling and fear extinction orbitofrontal/ventromedial prefrontal cortex (contextual modulation of emotions).

Indirect Social Influence

our influence extends beyond those with whom we interact directly happiness, tastes in popular media, divorce, obesity, alcohol and drug use, political mobilization and cooperative tendencies spread throughout our social networks, and this spread exhibits a striking empirical regularity ("3 degree of influence rule") Your behavior significantly influences, and is influenced by, your friends, friends of your friends and friends of your friends' friends (i.e., up to 3 "degrees of separation" in your social network) but not farther Interpersonal influence spreads (within limits) throughout our social networks such that people to whom we're only connected indirectly (i.e., through other people) influence us and are influenced by us

social influence modulates the neural computation of value

paradigm where participants rated the attractiveness of faces before and after learning about how their peers ostensibly rated each face Attractiveness ratings are known to be malleable to social influence Brain regions involved in computing subjective value have been well-characterized (e.g., orbiofrontal cortex — OFC, ventral striatum) Activity in these brain regions increases with the perceived attractiveness of faces perceived norms actually influence how we perceive and value the stimuli (and not just outward attempts to "fit in") Even though participants themselves initially found all of the faces included in these analyses to be equivalently attractive, reward-related brain regions (OFC; ventral striatum/ nucleus accumbens) responded more strongly to faces that their peers supposedly found more attractive, and less strongly to faces that their peers supposedly found less attractive other people's opinions can shape the neural computation of value informational and normative social influence is at play

Trolley Dilemma and Footbridge Dilemma

problems involving decisions about letting a small number of people die to save a larger number, provide evidence that emotions play a powerful role in deciding the most moral course of action. Most people switch the flip killing one person but done push the fat man off which would save 5 people because they don't feel personal emotional guilt Trolley dilema is impersonal - control and behavior/ prefrontal cortex and inferior parietal lobe - cost-benefit Footbridge dilema is personal (emotional) - activated amygdala and posterior cingulate cortex - (social cognition) STS and mPFC Autistic kids tend to pick footbridge dilema as it's more utilitarian And place blames on accidental harm too

Montane voles

promiscuous rodents that have no parental care, they show no preference with unknown vole or familiar vole

social support

relationships with people and groups that can provide us with emotional comfort and personal and financial resources a photograph of a social support figure may prime associated psychological constructs the activation of these constructs is sufficient to dampen pain experience Decreased activity in the dACC and AI (i.e. decreases in pain-related neural activity) Increased activity in the VMPFC (possibly reflecting 'safety signaling')

Homophily

similar people are more likely to become friends common like=social tie = bond

Anger

the irate reaction likely to result from frustration of violating social norms It's an emotion as a response to situation but a trait that varies across individuals Social anxiety pays less attention to angry faces as they fear them Perception of injustice and unfairness causes this ventral striatum (linked to anger) disruption of a certain class of dopamine receptors (D2) disrupts anger recognition in humans aggression and displays of anger serve adaptive social functions (establishing dominance, maintaining social order). associated with lack of goal attainment due to the perceived improper/unfair actions of other people. Expressions of anger signal disapproval and possible aggressive intentions.

Social distance

the perceived difference or similarity between oneself and another person The closeness or familiarity of a social relationship Vicarious emotional experience (e.g., "feeling" others' pain) tends to decrease with increasing social distance decreased emotional contagion between strangers: An endocrine stress response evoked when in the presence of strangers ("stranger danger" response) Blocking social stress response either pharmacologically or through a shared social experience, causes emotional contagion to occur between unfamiliar mice and between human strangers It is more pleasurable to observe friends receiving rewards than to observe strangers receiving rewards (less ventral striatum activity)