Reflected glory and failure: the role of the medial prefrontal cortex and ventral striatum in self vs other relevance during advice-giving outcomes

When advisors do not know what is best for advisees: Uncertainty inhibits advice giving

While seeking advice can be beneficial for advisees, advisors may not always possess the necessary knowledge to provide appropriate guidance. Poor-quality advice can mislead advisees rather than offering assistance. Despite the research interest in advisees, few studies have investigated advisors' psychological and behavioral responses, especially when they faced uncertainty regarding the optimal course of action for advisees. To fill this gap, we developed novel paradigms aiming at manipulating advisors' uncertainty, allowing for a systematic investigation of advisors' behavior, motivation, and emotion. Across four studies, we consistently found that advisors under uncertainty give less advice. Furthermore, we observed that uncertainty modulates advisors' motivation to influence, worry about harm to others, and/or sense of power. The motivation to influence and/or worry about harm to others can mediate the effect of uncertainty on advice giving. Besides, we identified nuanced distinctions in the effects of ambiguity and risk, two distinct types of uncertainty, on advisors' psychological processes. Our findings shed light on advisors' self-monitoring of the quality of their advice, thereby contributing to a deeper understanding of advisor-advisee communication from the perspective of advisors.

The impact of social hierarchies on neural response to feedback evaluations after advice giving

Advisors generally evaluate advisee-relevant feedback after advice giving. The response to these feedback-(1) whether the advice is accepted and (2) whether the advice is optimal-usually involves prestige. Prior literature has found that prestige is the basis by which individuals attain a superior status in the social hierarchy. However, whether advisors are motivated to attain a superior status when engaging in advice giving remains uncharacterized. Using event-related potentials, this study investigates how advisors evaluate feedback after giving advice to superior (vs. inferior) status advisees. A social hierarchy was first established based on two advisees (one was ranked as superior status and another as inferior status) as well as participants' performance in a dot-estimation task in which all participants were ranked as medium status. Participants then engaged in a game in which they were assigned roles as advisors to a superior or inferior status advisee. Afterward, the participants received feedback in two phases. In Phase 1, participants were told whether the advisees accepted the advice provided. In Phase 2, the participants were informed whether the advice they provided was correct. In these two phases, when the advisee was of superior status, participants exhibited stronger feedback-related negativity and P300 difference in response to (1) whether their advice was accepted, and (2) whether their advice was correct. Moreover, the P300 was notably larger when the participants' correct advice led to a gain for a superior-status advisee. In the context of advice giving, advisors are particularly motivated to attain a superior status when the feedback involving social hierarchies, which is reflected in higher sensitivity to feedback associated with superior status advisees at earlier and later stages during feedback evaluations in brains.

The influence of self-esteem on interpersonal and competence evaluations: electrophysiological evidence from an ERP study

Using event-related potentials, this study examined how self-esteem affects neural responses to competence (interpersonal) feedback when the need for relatedness (competence) is thwarted or met. Participants with low and high self-esteem acted as advisors who selected one of two options for a putative advisee. Subsequently, they passively observed the advisee, accepted, or rejected their advice (i.e. interpersonal feedback) and received correct or incorrect outcomes (i.e. competence feedback). When interpersonal feedback was followed by competence feedback, high self-esteem participants showed a smaller P3 following incorrect than correct outcomes, irrespective of whether the advice had been accepted or rejected. However, low self-esteem participants showed this P3 effect only when the advice was rejected, and the P3 difference disappeared when the advice was accepted. When competence feedback was followed by interpersonal feedback, both low self-esteem and high self-esteem individuals showed a larger P2 for rejection than for acceptance and a larger late potential component for incorrect than correct outcomes. These findings suggest that when interpersonal feedback is followed by competence feedback, low self-esteem and high self-esteem individuals have a desire for self-positivity. When competence feedback is followed by interpersonal feedback, they may have motives for self-change. Our findings shed light on the motivational mechanisms for self-esteem and feedback.

Towards a neurocomputational account of social controllability: From models to mental health

Controllability, or the influence one has over their surroundings, is crucial for decision-making and mental health. Traditionally, controllability is operationalized in sensorimotor terms as one's ability to exercise their actions to achieve an intended outcome (also termed "agency"). However, recent social neuroscience research suggests that humans also assess if and how they can exert influence over other people (i.e., their actions, outcomes, beliefs) to achieve desired outcomes ("social controllability"). In this review, we will synthesize empirical findings and neurocomputational frameworks related to social controllability. We first introduce the concepts of contextual and perceived controllability and their respective relevance for decision-making. Then, we outline neurocomputational frameworks that can be used to model social controllability, with a focus on behavioral economic paradigms and reinforcement learning approaches. Finally, we discuss the implications of social controllability for computational psychiatry research, using delusion and obsession-compulsion as examples. Taken together, we propose that social controllability could be a key area of investigation in future social neuroscience and computational psychiatry research.

Neural bases of loss aversion when choosing for oneself versus known or unknown others

Despite the ubiquitous interdependence between one's own decisions and others' welfare, and the controversial evidence on the behavioral effect of choosing for others, the neural bases of making decisions for another versus oneself remain unexplored. We investigated whether loss aversion (LA; the tendency to avoid losses over approaching equivalent gains) is modulated by (i) choosing for oneself, other individuals, or both; (ii) knowing or not knowing the other recipients; or (iii) an interaction between these factors. We used fMRI to assess the brain activations associated with choosing whether to accept or reject mixed gambles, either for oneself, for another player, or both, in 2 groups of 28 participants who had or had not briefly interacted with the other players before scanning. Participants displayed higher LA for choices involving their payoff compared with those affecting only the payoff of other, known, players. This "social" modulation of decision-making was found to engage the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and its inhibitory connectivity to the middle cingulate cortex. This pattern might underpin decision-making for known others via self-other distinction processes associated with dorsomedial prefrontal areas, with this in turn promoting the inhibition of socially oriented responses through the downregulation of the midcingulate node of the empathy network.

Influence of advisees' facial feedback on subsequent advice-giving by advisors: Evidence from the behavioral and neurophysiological approach

Previous work has demonstrated the interpersonal implications of advisees' decisions (acceptance or rejection) on advisors' advice-giving behavior in subsequent exchanges. Here, using an ERP technique, we investigated how advisees' facial feedback (smiling, neutral, or frowning) accompanying their decisions (acceptance or rejection) influenced advisors' feedback evaluation from advisees and their advice-giving in subsequent exchanges. Behaviorally, regardless of whether the advice was accepted or rejected, advisors who received smiling-expression feedback would show higher willingness rates in subsequent advice-giving decisions, while advisors who received frowning-expression feedback would show lower willingness rates. On the neural level, in the feedback evaluation stage, the FRN and P3 responses were not sensitive to facial feedback. In contrast, frowning-expression feedback elicited a larger LPC amplitude than neutral- and smiling-expression feedback, regardless of whether the advice was accepted or rejected. In the advice decision stage, advisors who received neutral-expression feedback showed a larger N2 in making decisions than advisors who received frowning-expression feedback only after the advice was rejected. Additionally, Advisors who received smiling- and neutral-expression feedback showed a larger P3 in making decisions than advisors who received frowning-expression feedback only after the advice was accepted. In sum, the current findings extended previous research findings by showing that the effect of advisees' facial expressions on the advisors' advice-giving existed in multiple stages, including both the feedback evaluation stage and the advice decision stage.

Social relationship modulates advisor's brain response to advice-giving outcome evaluation: Evidence from an event-related potential study

Introduction

Advice-giving is a double-edged sword in social interaction, which could bring benefits or considerable losses for the advisee. However, whether the social relationship affects the time course of advisor's brain response to outcome evaluation after the advice-giving remains unclear.

Methods

In the present study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the modulation of social relationships on advisor's outcome feedback processing after the advice-giving and related neural activities.

Results

The results showed larger feedback-related negativity (FRN) to a loss than to a gain both when the friends accepted and rejected the advice, whereas this effect only existed when the strangers rejected the advice, but not when they accepted it. In contrast, the P3 results demonstrated the enhanced neural sensitivity when the strangers accepted the advice than rejected it despite leading to a loss, while a larger P3 amplitude was found when the friends accepted the advice than rejected it and brought a gain. The theta oscillation results in the friend group revealed stronger theta power to loss when the advisee accepted the advice than rejected it. However, this effect was absent in the stranger group.

Discussion

These results suggested that outcome evaluation in advice-giving was not only influenced by feedback valence and social reward, but also modulated by social relationships. Our findings contributed to the understanding of the neural mechanisms of advice-giving outcome evaluation in a social context.

Blend in or stand out: social anxiety levels shape information-sharing strategies

Although living in social groups provides many benefits for group members, such groups also serve as a setting for social competition over rank and influence. Evolutionary accounts suggest that social anxiety plays a role in regulating in-group conflict, as individuals who are concerned about social threat may choose to defer to others to maintain the hierarchical status quo. Here, we examine how social anxiety levels are related to the advice-giving style an individual adopts: a competitive influence-seeking strategy or a defensive blend-in strategy. We begin by demonstrating that similarity to others drives activity in the brain's valuation system, even during a competitive advice-taking task. Then, in three behavioural experiments, we show that social anxiety levels are related to the tendency to give advice resembling the advice given by rival advisers and to refrain from status-seeking behaviour. Social anxiety was also associated with negative social comparisons with rival advisers. Our findings highlight the role of competing social goals in shaping information sharing.

Seven computations of the social brain

The social environment presents the human brain with the most complex information processing demands. The computations that the brain must perform occur in parallel, combine social and nonsocial cues, produce verbal and nonverbal signals and involve multiple cognitive systems, including memory, attention, emotion and learning. This occurs dynamically and at timescales ranging from milliseconds to years. Here, we propose that during social interactions, seven core operations interact to underwrite coherent social functioning; these operations accumulate evidence efficiently-from multiple modalities-when inferring what to do next. We deconstruct the social brain and outline the key components entailed for successful human-social interaction. These include (i) social perception; (ii) social inferences, such as mentalizing; (iii) social learning; (iv) social signaling through verbal and nonverbal cues; (v) social drives (e.g. how to increase one's status); (vi) determining the social identity of agents, including oneself and (vii) minimizing uncertainty within the current social context by integrating sensory signals and inferences. We argue that while it is important to examine these distinct aspects of social inference, to understand the true nature of the human social brain, we must also explain how the brain integrates information from the social world.

Exposure to money modulates neural responses to outcome evaluations involving social reward

Recent research suggests that exposure to monetary cues strengthens an individual's motivation to pursue monetary rewards by inducing the 'market mode' (i.e. thinking and behaving in accordance with market principles). Here, we examined the effect of market mode on social reward processes by means of event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants primed with monetary images or neutral images acted as advisors who selected one of two options for a putative advisee. Subsequently, all participants passively observed the advisee accepting or rejecting their advice and receiving a gain or loss outcome. After money priming, the feedback-related negativity (FRN) to the advisee's gain/loss outcome was larger following incorrect as compared to correct advice irrespective of whether the advice had been accepted or rejected. A smaller P3 following incorrect advice showed only when the advice was rejected. After neutral priming, the FRN was larger for incorrect relative to correct advice only when the advice had been rejected. However, the P3 was larger for correct relative to incorrect advice irrespective of the advisee's final choice. These findings suggest that the market mode facilitates early and automatic feedback processing but reduces later and controlled responding to outcomes that had been accepted.

The neural underpinnings of allocentric thinking in a novel signaling task

The ability to adopt the perspectives of others is fundamental to effective communication in social interactions. However, the neural correlates of allocentric thinking in communicative signaling remain unclear. We adapted a novel signaling task in which the signaler was given the target word and must choose a one-word signal to help the receiver guess the target. Behavioral results suggest that speakers can use allocentric thinking to choose signals that are salient from the perspective of the receiver rather than their own point of view. At the neural level, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data reveal that the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), ventral striatum, and temporal-parietal junction are more activated when signalers engage in allocentric than egocentric thinking. Moreover, functional connectivity between the mPFC and ventral striatum predicted individuals' perspective-taking ability during successful communication. These findings reveal that neural representations in the mPFC-striatum network support perspective-taking in complex social decision making, providing a new perspective on how the brain arbitrates between allocentric thinking and egocentric thinking in communication and social coordination.

Self-competence increases the willingness to pay for social influence

Theoretical works in social psychology and neuroscientific evidence have proposed that social rewards have intrinsic value, suggesting that people place a high premium on the ability to influence others. To test this hypothesis, we asked whether, and under what conditions, people are willing to forgo monetary reward for the sake of influencing others' decisions. In four experiments, online and lab-based participants competed with a rival for influence over a client. The majority of participants sacrificed some of their financial reward to increase their chance of being selected over their rival within the experiment. Willingness to pay was affected by the participant's current level of influence and performance, as participants were most likely to pay to promote their competence after having given good advice that had been ignored by the client using a situation where monetary incentives fail to explain human motivations, our experiments highlight the intrinsic value of social influence.

Neural reward-related reactions to monetary gains for self and charity

The aim of the present study was to examine the neural signatures of gaining money for self and charity. Young adults (N = 31, 21-24 years of age) underwent fMRI scanning while they performed a task in which they could earn money for themselves and for a self-chosen charity by selecting one of two options with unknown outcomes. The results showed elevated activity in the ventral striatum when gaining for the self only and for self and charity, but not when gaining for charity only. However, increased ventral striatal activity when gaining for charity only was correlated with participants' self-reported empathic concern and enjoyment when winning for charity. Empathic concern was also related to donating a larger proportion of earnings to charity after the MRI session. In short, these results reveal robust ventral striatal activity when gaining for oneself, but empathy-dependent individual differences in ventral striatal activity when gaining for charity.

Resolving uncertainty in a social world

Consider the range of social behaviours we engage in every day. In each case, there are a multitude of unknowns, reflecting the many sources of uncertainty inherent to social inference. We describe how uncertainty manifests in social environments (the thoughts and intentions of others are largely hidden, making it difficult to predict a person's behaviour) and why people are motivated to reduce the aversive feelings generated by uncertainty. We propose a three-part model whereby social uncertainty is initially reduced through automatic modes of inference (such as impression formation) before more control-demanding modes of inference (such as perspective-taking) are deployed to narrow one's predictions even more. Finally, social uncertainty is attenuated further through learning processes that update these predictions based on new information. Our framework integrates research across fields to offer an account of the mechanisms motivating social cognition and action, laying the groundwork for future experiments that can illuminate the impact of uncertainty on social cognition.

Gain-loss situation modulates neural responses to self-other decision making under risk

Although self-other behavioral differences in decision making under risk have been observed in some contexts, little is known about the neural mechanisms underlying such differences. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and the cups task, in which participants choose between risky and sure options for themselves and others in gain and loss situations, we found that people were more risk-taking when making decisions for themselves than for others in loss situations but were equally risk-averse in gain situations. Significantly stronger activations were observed in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and anterior insula (AI) when making decisions for the self than for others in loss situations but not in gain situations. Furthermore, the activation in the dmPFC was stronger when people made sure choices for others than for themselves in gain situations but not when they made risky choices, and was both stronger when people made sure and risky choices for themselves than for others in loss situations. These findings suggest that gain-loss situation modulates self-other differences in decision making under risk, and people are highly likely to differentiate the self from others when making decisions in loss situations.

Viewing Adaptive Social Choice Through the Lens of Associative Learning

Because humans live in a dynamic and evolving social world, modeling the factors that guide social behavior has remained a challenge for psychology. In contrast, much progress has been made on understanding some of the more basic elements of human behavior, such as associative learning and memory, which has been successfully modeled in other species. Here we argue that applying an associative learning approach to social behavior can offer valuable insights into the human moral experience. We propose that the basic principles of associative learning-conserved across a range of species-can, in many situations, help to explain seemingly complex human behaviors, including altruistic, cooperative, and selfish acts. We describe examples from the social decision-making literature using Pavlovian learning phenomena (e.g., extinction, cue competition, stimulus generalization) to detail how a history of positive or negative social outcomes influences cognitive and affective mechanisms that shape moral choice. Examining how we might understand social behaviors and their likely reliance on domain-general mechanisms can help to generate testable hypotheses to further understand how social value is learned, represented, and expressed behaviorally.

Win for your kin: Neural responses to personal and vicarious rewards when mothers win for their adolescent children

Mother-child relationships change considerably in adolescence, but it is not yet understood how mothers experience vicarious rewards for their adolescent children. In the current study, we investigated neural responses of twenty mothers winning and losing money for their best friend and for their adolescent child in a gambling task. During the task, functional neuroimaging data were acquired. We examined the activation patterns when playing for or winning for self, adolescent children and friends in four a-priori selected ROIs (nucleus accumbens, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, precuneus and temporo-parietal junction). Behaviorally, mothers indicated that they experienced most enjoyment when they gained money for their children and that their children deserved to win more, relative to friends and self. At the neural level, nucleus accumbens activity was stronger when winning versus losing. This pattern was not only found when playing for self, but also for friends and children, possibly reflecting the rewarding value of vicarious prosocial gains. In addition, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, precuneus, and temporo-parietal junction were more active when receiving outcomes for children and friends compared to self, possibly reflecting increased recruitment of mentalizing processes. Interestingly, activity in this network was stronger for mothers who indicated that their children and friends deserved to win more. These findings provide initial evidence that vicarious rewards for one’s children are processed similarly as rewards for self, and that activation in social brain regions are related to social closeness.

Sociality Mental Modes Modulate the Processing of Advice-Giving: An Event-Related Potentials Study

People have different motivations to get along with others in different sociality mental modes (i.e., communal mode and market mode), which might affect social decision-making. The present study examined how these two types of sociality mental modes affect the processing of advice-giving using the event-related potentials (ERPs). After primed with the communal mode and market mode, participants were instructed to decide whether or not give an advice (profitable or damnous) to a stranger without any feedback. The behavioral results showed that participants preferred to give the profitable advice to the stranger more slowly compared with the damnous advice, but this difference was only observed in the market mode condition. The ERP results indicated that participants demonstrated more negative N1 amplitude for the damnous advice compared with the profitable advice, and larger P300 was elicited in the market mode relative to both the communal mode and the control group. More importantly, participants in the market mode demonstrated larger P300 for the profitable advice than the damnous advice, whereas this difference was not observed at the communal mode and the control group. These findings are consistent with the dual-process system during decision-making and suggest that market mode may lead to deliberate calculation for costs and benefits when giving the profitable advice to others.

A Collaborator's Reputation Can Bias Decisions and Anxiety under Uncertainty

Informational social influence theory posits that under conditions of uncertainty, we are inclined to look to others for advice. This leaves us remarkably vulnerable to being influenced by others' opinions or advice. Rational agents, however, do not blindly seek and act on arbitrary information, but often consider the quality of its source before committing to a course of action. Here, we ask the question of whether a collaborator's reputation can increase their social influence and, in turn, bias perception and anxiety under changing levels of uncertainty. Human male and female participants were asked to provide estimations of dot direction using the random dot motion (RDM) perceptual discrimination task and were paired with transient collaborators of high or low reputation whom provided their own estimations. The RDM varied in degrees of uncertainty and joint performance accuracy was linked to risk of an electric shock. Despite providing identical information, we show that collaborating with a high reputation compared with a low reputation partner, led to significantly more conformity during the RDM task for uncertain perceptual decisions. Consequently, high reputation partners decreased the subjects' anxiety during the anticipatory shock periods. fMRI data showed that parametric changes in conformity resulted in increased activity in the ventromedial PFC, whereas dissent was associated with increased in activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC). Furthermore, the dACC and insula, regions involved in anticipatory pain, were significantly more active when collaborating with a low reputation partner. These results suggest that information about reputation can influence both cognitive and affective processes and in turn alter the neural circuits that underlie decision-making and emotion.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Humans look to others for advice when making decisions under uncertainty. Rational agents, however, do not blindly seek information, but often consider the quality of its source before committing to a course of action. Here, we ask the question of whether a collaborators' reputation can increase social influence and in turn bias perception and anxiety in the context of perceptual uncertainty. We show that when subjects are partnered with collaborators with a high reputation, this leads to increased conformity during uncertain perceptual decision-making and reduces anxiety when joint performance accuracy leads to an electric shock. Furthermore, our results show that information about reputation alters the neural circuits that underlie decision-making and emotion.

Neural computations underpinning the strategic management of influence in advice giving

Research on social influence has focused mainly on the target of influence (e.g., consumer and voter); thus, the cognitive and neurobiological underpinnings of the source of the influence (e.g., politicians and salesmen) remain unknown. Here, in a three-sided advice-giving game, two advisers competed to influence a client by modulating their own confidence in their advice about which lottery the client should choose. We report that advisers’ strategy depends on their level of influence on the client and their merit relative to one another. Moreover, blood-oxygenation-level-dependent (BOLD) signal in the temporo-parietal junction is modulated by adviser’s current level of influence on the client, and relative merit prediction error affects activity in medial-prefrontal cortex. Both types of social information modulate ventral striatum response. By demonstrating what happens in our mind and brain when we try to influence others, these results begin to explain the biological mechanisms that shape inter-individual differences in social conduct.

Though it's important to influence others' decisions, the neural correlates of persuasive strategies are not known. Here, authors show that people change their advice based on its accuracy and whether they are being listened to, and identify the distinct brain regions underpinning each strategy.

Differences in Behavior and Brain Activity during Hypothetical and Real Choices

Real behaviors are binding consequential commitments to a course of action, such as harming another person, buying an Apple watch, or fleeing from danger. Cognitive scientists are generally interested in the psychological and neural processes that cause such real behavior. However, for practical reasons, many scientific studies measure behavior using only hypothetical or imagined stimuli. Generalizing from such studies to real behavior implicitly assumes that the processes underlying the two types of behavior are similar. We review evidence of similarity and differences in hypothetical and real mental processes. In many cases, hypothetical choice tasks give an incomplete picture of brain circuitry that is active during real choice.