Associative Learning of Social Value in Dynamic Groups

Abstract

Despite humans living in societies that regularly demand engaging with multiple people simultaneously, we know little about social learning in group settings. In two experiments, we combine a Pavlovian learning framework with dyadic economic games to test whether blocking mechanisms support value-based social learning in the gain (altruistic dictators) and loss (greedy robbers) domains. Participants first learn about individual dictators. In a second task, dictators make splits collectively with a partner. Results reveal that since the presence of the dictator already predicts the outcome, participants do not learn to associate value with the partner. This social blocking effect was not observed in the loss domain: robbers’ partners who could steal the participant’s money but refrained from doing so acquired highly positive value—biasing subsequent behavior. These findings reveal how Pavlovian mechanisms support efficient social learning, while also elucidating that violations of social expectations can attenuate how readily this mechanism is recruited.

Why we don’t always punish: Preferences for non-punitive responses to moral violations

“…This illustrates that participants’ preferences to punish a perpetrator attenuates as their own compensation increases. Replicating previous work 5,37 , once participants are fully compensated, punishment is no longer the most preferred response. This effect was observed for all fairness levels (see supplement).…”

“…Given that punishment has been shown to be a highly preferred response to severe fairness violations 1 , we initially restricted our analysis to the most unfair offers ($0.90, $0.10). Using a logistic mixed-effects model, we tested our hypothesis based on previous work 5,37 that increasing compensation for the self would result in less punitive behavior towards Player A (we report maximal models for all analyses 39,40 ). In partial compensation trials with minimal compensation, participants unsurprisingly prefer maximal punishment since that option maximizes one’s own payout (Fig.…”

“…Participants played a modified version of a well-vetted economic paradigm known as the Justice Game 5,37 (JG). In the JG, participants are paired with a unique anonymous player every trial and the two players must agree on how to split a sum of money.…”

Resolving uncertainty in a social world

“…Depending on whether the new information is consistent or inconsistent with those priors—and whether it accords with or deviates from other strong learned social associations (cf. blocking 101,102 )—it can serve to narrow or broaden our distribution of subsequent expectations (i.e., posteriors) about an individual’s motives and likely actions, thereby decreasing or increasing our uncertainty about that individual.…”

Self-Reported Childhood Experiences in Enriched Environments Uniquely Predict Prosocial Behavior and Personality Traits in Adulthood

“…What domain-specific psychological mechanisms would be sensitive to the cues that are present in enriched childhood environments? Perhaps mechanisms that specialize in learning social expectations, norms (Haley & Fessler, 2004;McAuliffe, McCullough, & Burton-Chellew, 2019), and locally optimal social strategies (Burton-Chellew, El Mouden, & West, 2017;Ezaki, Horita, Takezawa, & Masuda, 2016;FeldmanHall et al, 2017;Gillan, Otto, Phelps, & Daw, 2015). It is conceivable that enriched environments chronically activate such mechanisms, causing children to develop strong moral motivations and tendencies toward impersonal prosociality, especially in response to experience with the supernormal levels of cooperative social interactions that are possible in the modern world (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010).…”