Chapter 7 Interacting with Others
Inter-dependent dyadic behaviours
- Dyadic interactions: face-to-face interactions
Cooperation
- Predicted upon trust (complex decision-making)
- Balance between short-term individual cost and long-term group benefits
- Motives for cooperation
o Intrinsic desire to help (empathy, fairness)
o Benefits of reciprocity (reward, pride, decreased personal distress)
o Fear for altruistic (financial) punishment for non-cooperation
An act that has no direct benefit to the punisher but comes at a cost to the
punisher (time, effort, risk of reprisal)
o Desire to socially conform
Altruism and helping behaviour
Altruism: helping behaviour that is considered ‘selfless’, in that no personal gain is obtained
Evolutionary biological approaches
- Kin selection: we help others who are related to us
o Survival chances of a trait (helping) vs survival of an individual
o Cost < r x Benefit
r = probability of inheriting trait
- Direct reciprocity: we provide help to others in order to obtain help from others in the future
o Requires distinguishing between conspecifics, and knowledge on previous behaviour
o Tit-for-tat: strategy in which cooperation leads to cooperation and non-cooperation
leads to non-cooperation on a trial-by-trial basis
Trusting and forgiving
Max benefits for cooperation without high risk for exploitation
- Sexual selection: presence of a trait is selected for during evolution because it attracts mating
partners
o Helping behaviour > enhancing own reputation by demonstrating wealth and ability
to provide > mating success (cost and benefits for altruist)
- Indirect reciprocity: helping others who may never be met again
o Reputation enhancement > selective cooperation (A helps B, C helps A)
o Misplaced reciprocity: A helps B, B helps C
Altruism in humans
- Only humans are fully capable of indirect reciprocity
o Consideration of reputations requires language, social norms and thinking about
what others think of us
- Reflecting on helping behaviour + control over decision
- Unconscious processes in social cognition to favour altruistic motives
- Piliavin: emergency > arousal > empathy
o Egoistic motive > reduce own distress
o Help or not: cognitive appraisal (cost/benefit analysis)
- Batson: empathy-altruism model
o The motivation to help is based on empathic concern for others
o Criticism: measure included self-reflected feelings/actions, and when asked to
‘include others in self’ this predicted helping, but empathy did not
Neural correlates
, - Mirror systems, mPFC > others similar to self
- fMRI
o Donating to charity > reward system (striatum), cognitive control (vmPFC)
o Higher IRI scores > higher lPFC activity in helping behaviour
lPFC: cognitive reappraisal and regulation
o Not donate: lOFC
o Valine allele of COMT gene > twice as much donations
- Mentalizing network
o rTPJ activity predicts self-reported altruistic tendencies
o mPFC activity is linked to degree of altruism and empathic feelings
- ERP patterns in children
o Late N200 + LRP components: cognitive control > related to helping
Parochial altruism
- Anterior insula: high cost of helping and high cost of non-helping ingroup
- Ventral striatum: not helping outgroup; pleasure in punishing/misfortune
- Striatum: punishing outgroup
- mPFC, TPJ: punishing ingroup for same violations; mentalizing
Game Theory and Social Decision-Making
OFC lesions: short-term decision-making for personal gain > socially non-cooperative, difficulty in
forming stable long-term relationships
Game theory: mathematical model that captures how individual’s success in making decisions is
influenced by those of others
- Nash equilibrium: optimal decision for an individual taking the decision of others into
account
- Neuro-economics: trade-off between monetary value and principles that one holds and
defends (social value)
Prisoner’s dilemma
- Two-player game in which the best individual strategy is non-cooperation, but the best
collective strategy is cooperation
- Payoff matrix: costs and benefits to each player based on the different independent decision
options
- In general: predominantly cooperation
o Tendency to care or rewarding
- Iterated version
o Multiple rounds > reward/punishment set-up
Ventral striatum and OFC/vmPFC
Computer agents > no striatum activity
o Unreciprocated cooperation > insula and amygdala activity >> anger, irritation,
disappointment
- Photographs of players
o Cooperative faces > FFA, insula, ventral striatum, TPJ
Reflects attributions of responsibility
Activity even greater when intentional cooperation (vs following orders)
o Social fairness is experienced as rewarding
Ultimatum game
- Pot of money + proposer > decides amount to give to responder > accept/reject offer
o Accept: split amount
Inter-dependent dyadic behaviours
- Dyadic interactions: face-to-face interactions
Cooperation
- Predicted upon trust (complex decision-making)
- Balance between short-term individual cost and long-term group benefits
- Motives for cooperation
o Intrinsic desire to help (empathy, fairness)
o Benefits of reciprocity (reward, pride, decreased personal distress)
o Fear for altruistic (financial) punishment for non-cooperation
An act that has no direct benefit to the punisher but comes at a cost to the
punisher (time, effort, risk of reprisal)
o Desire to socially conform
Altruism and helping behaviour
Altruism: helping behaviour that is considered ‘selfless’, in that no personal gain is obtained
Evolutionary biological approaches
- Kin selection: we help others who are related to us
o Survival chances of a trait (helping) vs survival of an individual
o Cost < r x Benefit
r = probability of inheriting trait
- Direct reciprocity: we provide help to others in order to obtain help from others in the future
o Requires distinguishing between conspecifics, and knowledge on previous behaviour
o Tit-for-tat: strategy in which cooperation leads to cooperation and non-cooperation
leads to non-cooperation on a trial-by-trial basis
Trusting and forgiving
Max benefits for cooperation without high risk for exploitation
- Sexual selection: presence of a trait is selected for during evolution because it attracts mating
partners
o Helping behaviour > enhancing own reputation by demonstrating wealth and ability
to provide > mating success (cost and benefits for altruist)
- Indirect reciprocity: helping others who may never be met again
o Reputation enhancement > selective cooperation (A helps B, C helps A)
o Misplaced reciprocity: A helps B, B helps C
Altruism in humans
- Only humans are fully capable of indirect reciprocity
o Consideration of reputations requires language, social norms and thinking about
what others think of us
- Reflecting on helping behaviour + control over decision
- Unconscious processes in social cognition to favour altruistic motives
- Piliavin: emergency > arousal > empathy
o Egoistic motive > reduce own distress
o Help or not: cognitive appraisal (cost/benefit analysis)
- Batson: empathy-altruism model
o The motivation to help is based on empathic concern for others
o Criticism: measure included self-reflected feelings/actions, and when asked to
‘include others in self’ this predicted helping, but empathy did not
Neural correlates
, - Mirror systems, mPFC > others similar to self
- fMRI
o Donating to charity > reward system (striatum), cognitive control (vmPFC)
o Higher IRI scores > higher lPFC activity in helping behaviour
lPFC: cognitive reappraisal and regulation
o Not donate: lOFC
o Valine allele of COMT gene > twice as much donations
- Mentalizing network
o rTPJ activity predicts self-reported altruistic tendencies
o mPFC activity is linked to degree of altruism and empathic feelings
- ERP patterns in children
o Late N200 + LRP components: cognitive control > related to helping
Parochial altruism
- Anterior insula: high cost of helping and high cost of non-helping ingroup
- Ventral striatum: not helping outgroup; pleasure in punishing/misfortune
- Striatum: punishing outgroup
- mPFC, TPJ: punishing ingroup for same violations; mentalizing
Game Theory and Social Decision-Making
OFC lesions: short-term decision-making for personal gain > socially non-cooperative, difficulty in
forming stable long-term relationships
Game theory: mathematical model that captures how individual’s success in making decisions is
influenced by those of others
- Nash equilibrium: optimal decision for an individual taking the decision of others into
account
- Neuro-economics: trade-off between monetary value and principles that one holds and
defends (social value)
Prisoner’s dilemma
- Two-player game in which the best individual strategy is non-cooperation, but the best
collective strategy is cooperation
- Payoff matrix: costs and benefits to each player based on the different independent decision
options
- In general: predominantly cooperation
o Tendency to care or rewarding
- Iterated version
o Multiple rounds > reward/punishment set-up
Ventral striatum and OFC/vmPFC
Computer agents > no striatum activity
o Unreciprocated cooperation > insula and amygdala activity >> anger, irritation,
disappointment
- Photographs of players
o Cooperative faces > FFA, insula, ventral striatum, TPJ
Reflects attributions of responsibility
Activity even greater when intentional cooperation (vs following orders)
o Social fairness is experienced as rewarding
Ultimatum game
- Pot of money + proposer > decides amount to give to responder > accept/reject offer
o Accept: split amount
