Citation

Shen B, Chen Y, He Z, Li W, Yu H, Zhou X. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 2023; 120(40): e2302484120.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, National Academy of Sciences)

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2302484120

PMID

37769254

Abstract

Two behavioral motivations coexist in transgressors following an interpersonal transgression-approaching and compensating the victim and avoiding the victim. Little is known about how these motivations arise, compete, and drive transgressors' decisions. The present study adopted a social interaction task to manipulate participants' (i.e., the transgressor) responsibility for another's (i.e., the victim) monetary loss and measure the participants' tradeoff between compensating the victim and avoiding face-to-face interactions with the victim. Following each transgression, participants used a computer mouse to choose between two options differing in the amount of compensation to the victim and the probability of face-to-face contact with the victim.

RESULTS showed that as participants' responsibility increased, 1) the decision weights on contact avoidance relative to compensation increased, and 2) the onset of the contact-avoidance attribute was expedited and that of the compensation attribute was delayed. These results demonstrate how competing social motivations following transgression evolve and determine social decision-making and shed light on how social-affective state modulates the dynamics of decision-making in general.

Language: en

Keywords

decision dynamics; mouse-tracking; multiattribute decision; social transgression; social-affective state