Neuroeconomics, Social and Affective Neuroscience
Reading Group
@ Northwestern University
The purpose of the reading group is to foster
interdisciplinary research at
1. Choice under uncertainty:
Does our brain track expected utility, size or riskiness of outcomes, i.e. the most
basic ingredients in economic theory? If not, what do we keep track of when
choosing among options under uncertainty? Do we have intrinsic preferences to
avoid ambiguity?
2. Social games, fairness and cultural norms: Do we have intrinsic preferences
for fair outcomes in social interactions? Does the brain track fairness?
3. Consumption versus savings decisions: Which parts of the brain are involved
in the decision to save (postpone consumption) and which parts are involved in
the decision to consume right away? Are there two "selves" inside our
brain, one being the patient, "long-term planner" and the other the
"impatient" self?
4. Preference construction: How do we form preferences over goods? Does our
brain track each attribute of the good? How do we aggregate over these
attributes to come up with the utility of a good?
5. Individual or cultural differences in decision-making: Why are some people
more willing to take risk than others? Why are there many more male
entrepreneurs than female entrepreneurs, for instance?
Organizers:
Joan
Chiao, Assistant Professor of Psychology (jchiao@northwestern.edu)
Camelia M. Kuhnen, Assistant Professor of Finance, Kellogg School of Management (c-kuhnen@kellogg.northwestern.edu)
Jennifer
Richeson, Associate Professor of Psychology and African-American Studies (jriches@northwestern.edu)
E-mail list: If you wish to receive updates regarding future meetings of the reading group, you may want to add yourself to our mailing list, NEUROECONOMICS @ listserv.it.northwestern.edu. Only members of the group can send messages to the list. To subscribe, send an e-mail to listserv@listserv.it.northwestern.edu without any subject line. Type the following command in the message: SUBSCRIBE NEUROECONOMICS YourFirstname YourLastname
(If you have any trouble with this, please consult Northwestern’s “How To” Listserve Reference.)
Events:
The 2008 annual meeting of
the Society for Neuroeconomics
will take place in Park City, Utah, during September 25-28. You can see the
program and conference details here.
The Center for Neural Science
at NYU hosted the symposium Neuroeconomics: Decision Making and the Brain,
during January 11 - 13, 2008. You can see the schedule here.
The 2007 annual meeting of
the Society for Neuroeconomics
took place in
Schedule for 2007-2008 Spring Quarter:
|
Date |
Topic |
Papers |
Location |
|
Tuesday, April 15 5:30pm-6:30pm |
Learning –
Introduction |
Charness, G. and Levin, D. (2005). When optimal choices feel wrong: A laboratory study of bayesian updating, complexity, and affect, American Economic Review, 25(4), 1300-1309. Pessiglione, M., |
Swift 414 |
|
Tuesday, April 29 5:30pm-6:30pm |
Reinforcement
Learning |
Paper to be
discussed: Charness, G. and Levin, D. (2005). When optimal choices feel wrong: A laboratory study of bayesian updating, complexity, and affect, American Economic Review, 25(4), 1300-1309.
Background reading
if you wish to know more about reinforcement learning: Sutton, R.S. and Barto, A.G. (1998) Reinforcement
learning: An introduction, MIT Press. |
Swift 414 |
|
TBA |
|
|
|
Topics discussed in prior quarters:
Winter 2007-2008
|
Date |
Topic |
Papers |
Location |
|
Tuesday, January 15 5:30pm-6:30pm |
Social comparison |
Fliessbach, K., Weber, B., Trautner, P., Dohmen, T., Sunde, U., Elger,
C.E, Falk, A. Social
comparison affects reward-related brain activity in the human
ventral striatum,
Science, 318, 1305-1308 |
Swift 231 |
|
Tuesday, January 29 5:30pm-6:30pm |
Social status |
Mendes, W., Blascovich, J., Major, B., Seery, M. (2001). Challenge and threat responses during downward and upward social comparisons, European Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 31 (5) , 477 – 497 PLUS: Presentation
by Dr. Joan Chiao of her lab’s recent work on
social status and social comparison. |
Swift 231 |
|
Tuesday, February
12 5:30pm-6:30pm |
Social status |
Huberman, B., Ball, S., Eckel, C., Grossman, P., Zame, W. (2001). Status in markets, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 116, No. 1, 161-188 Zizzo, D. (2002) Between utility and cognition: the neurobiology of relative position, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Vol. 48, 71–91 |
Swift 231 |
|
Tuesday, February
26 5:30pm-6:30pm |
Social
status/comparison |
Brain storming session. Each participant is invited to present a research idea related to social comparison, status or social interactions. (If time permits: brief presentation by Cami Kuhnen and Agnieszka Tymula on preliminary results about the role of rank on effort provision and optimal incentives.) |
Swift 231 |
Fall 2007-2008
|
Date |
Topic |
Papers |
Location |
|
Tuesday, October 2, 5:30pm-6:30pm |
Social and moral
preferences I |
Delgado, M.R., Frank, R.H., Phelps, E.A. (2005) Perceptions of moral character modulate the neural systems of reward during the trust game, Nature Neuroscience 8, 1611 – 1618 Bohnet, I. and Zeckhauser, R. (2004). Trust, risk and betrayal. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 55: 467-484. |
Swift 231 |
|
Tuesday, October
16, 5:30pm-6:30pm |
Social and moral
preferences II |
Seymour, B., Singer, T., & Dolan, R. (2007). The neurobiology of punishment. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 8, 300-311. |
Swift 231 |
|
Tuesday, October
30, 5:30pm-6:30pm |
Social and moral
preferences III |
Moll J, Krueger F, Zahn R, Pardini M, de Oliveira-Souza R, Grafman J. (2006). Human fronto-mesolimbic networks guide decisions about charitable donation. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 103(42):15623-8.
Harbaugh WT, Mayr
U, Bernhard, H., Fischbacher, U., Fehr, E., 2006. Parochial altruism in humans. Nature 442, 912-915. Goette, L., Huffman, D., Meier, S., 2006. The Impact of Group Membership on Cooperation and Norm Enforcement: Evidence using Random Assignment to Real Social Groups. American Economic Review 96, 212-216. |
Swift 414 |
|
Tuesday, November
13, 5:30pm-6:30pm |
Social and moral
preferences IV |
Presentations of work in progress by members of the neuroeconomics reading group . Please email Cami Kuhnen if you’d like to present your ideas. Just for fun, you can read this neat summary of neuroeconomics of social preferences: Fehr, E. and Camerer, C. , 2007. Social neuroeconomics: the neural circuitry of social preferences. Forthcoming, Trends in Cognitive Sciences |
Swift 231 |
|
Tuesday, November
27, 5:30pm-6:30pm |
Temptation and
impulsivity |
Knoch, D. and Fehr, E., 2007. Resisting
the Power of Temptations - The Right Prefrontal Cortex and Self-Control. |
Swift 231 |
Spring 2007-2008
|
Date |
Topic |
Papers |
Location |
|
Tuesday February 20,2007 5:00pm-6:00pm |
Neuroeconomics – Overview of Main Research Questions |
Review paper on neuroeconomics (a great background article for all papers we will cover that link neuroscience to economic decision-making): Camerer, C., Loewenstein, G. and Prelec, D. (2005) How neuroscience can inform economics Journal of Economic Literature , XLIII, 9-64 Why neuroeconomics may not be so useful to economists: Gul, F. and Pesendorfer,
W. (2005) The case
for mindless economics, Working paper, |
Swift 210 |
|
Tuesday March 6, 2007 5:00pm-6:00pm |
The Neuroeconomics of Risk and Reward - Part I: Expected Utility In
the Brain, and the Role of Affect on Risk and Reward Processing |
Review paper that briefly summarizes all papers listed for the March 6, and March 20 sessions: Kuhnen, C. (2007) On Money, Risk and the Brain, Working paper. 1) Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Tranel, D. and Damasio, A. (1997): Deciding advantageously before knowing the advantageous strategy. Science, 275, 1293-1295 2) Knutson, B., Rick, S. , Wimmer, G. E., Prelec, D. and Loewenstein, G. (2007). Neural predictors of purchases. Neuron, 53, 147-156 3)
Knutson, B., 4) Kuhnen, C. M. and Knutson, B. (2005). The neural basis of financial risk taking. Neuron, 47, 763-770 5) Lo, A. and Repin, D. V. (2002). The psychophysiology of real-time financial risk processing. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14, 323-339 6) Preuschoff, K. and Bossaerts, P. and Quartz, S. (2006). Neural differentiation of expected reward and risk in human subcortical structures. Neuron, 51, 381-390 7) Shiv, B., Loewenstein, G. , Bechara, A., Damasio, H. and Damasio, A. (2005). Investment behavior and the negative side of emotion. Psychological Science 16(6), 593-616 |
Swift 210 |
|
Tuesday March 20,
2007 5:00pm-6:00pm |
The Neuroeconomics of Risk and Reward - Part II: Prospect Theory In
the Brain |
1) De Martino, B., Kumaran, D., Seymour, B. and Dolan, R. (2006). Frames, biases and rational decision-making in the human brain. Science, 313, 684-687 2) Tom, S., Fox, C. R., Trepel, C., Poldrack, R. A. (2007). The neural basis of loss-aversion in decision-making under risk. Science, 315, 515-518. |
Swift 210 |
|
Tuesday, April 17,
2007 5:00pm-6:00pm |
Neuroscience and
Social Interactions – Part I: Altruism, Fairness
and Trust in Economic Decision-Making |
1) Fehr, E., Fischbacher, U. and Kosfeld, M. (2005). Neuroeconomic Foundations of Trust and Social Preferences, Forthcoming in the American Economic Review. 2) Kosfeld, M., Heinrichs, M., Zak, P. J., Fischbacher, U. and Fehr, E. (2005). Oxytocin Increases Trust in Humans, Nature, 435, 673-676 3) de Quervain, D., Fischbacher, U., Treyer, V., Schellhammer, M., Schnyder, U., Buck, A., Fehr, E. (2004) The Neural Basis of Altruistic Punishment, Science, 305,1254-1258 4) Knoch, D., Pascual-Leone, A., Meyer, K., Treyer V. and Fehr, E. (2006). Diminishing Reciprocal Fairness by Disrupting thr Right Prefrontal Cortex, Science, 314, 912-915 5) Camerer, C. and Fehr, E. (2006). When Does 'Economic Man' Dominate Social Behavior?. Science, Vol. 311, 6 |
Swift 231 (Please note the location change) |
|
Tuesday, May 1,
2007 5:00pm-6:00pm |
Neuroscience and
Social Interactions – Part II: Cultural
Differences |
1) Singer, T. and Fehr, E. (2005). The Neuroeconomics of Mind Reading and Empathy, AEA Papers and Proceeding, Vol. 95, 2 2) Levinson, J.D. and Peng, K. (2006). Valuing Cultural Differences in Behavioral Economics, Working paper |
Swift 231 |
|
Tuesday, May 22,
2007 5:00pm-6:00pm |
The Neuroeconomics of Intertemporal
Choice |
1) McClure, S. M., Laibson, D. I., Loewenstein, G., Cohen, J. D. Separate Neural Systems Value Immediate and Delayed Monetary Rewards, Science, 306, 503-507, 2004 2)
Frederick,
S., Loewenstein, G. and O’Donoghue, T. Time
discounting and time preference: A critical review, Journal of Economic
Literature, 40, 351-401, 2002 3)
Mischel, W., Shoda, Y., and Rodriguez, M. L. Delay
of gratification in children. Science, 244, 933-938, 1989 |
Swift 231 |
|
Tuesday, June 5,
2007 5:00pm-6:00pm |
NeuroMarketing: How do people form preferences over
goods? |
1) Knutson, B., Rick, S. , Wimmer, G. E., Prelec, D. and Loewenstein, G. (2007). Neural predictors of purchases. Neuron, 53, 147-156 2) McClure, S.M., Li, J., Tomlin, D., Cypert, K.S., Montague, L.M., and Montague, P.R. (2004). Neural correlates of behavioral preference for culturally familiar drinks. Neuron 44, 379–387 3) Erk, S., Spitzer, M., Wunderlich, A. P., Galley, L., Walter, H. (2002). Cultural objects modulate reward circuitry. Neuroreport. 13(18):2499-2503 |
Swift 231 |
