Social Reward, Social Decision, and Social Learning

In recent years, the study of the neural mechanisms underlying social behavior has gained significant attention within the field of neuroeconomics. During this time, core ideas and theoretical frameworks developed through the study of decision-making and learning in non-social contexts have been adapted and extended to social contexts. New paradigms have been introduced to measure social behaviors, new models and theories have been proposed to explain these behaviors, and experimental evidence has accumulated to validate these theories and elucidate the neural substrates underpinning social computations in humans.This chapter highlights recent advances in the study of social processes using a neuroeconomics-based approach, focusing on important findings through computational modeling and neuroimaging methods. We begin by outlining the neural structures involved in processing various social rewards. Next, we discuss how values are computed and represented in the brain when making decisions that involve other people’s outcomes. We then examine the motivations behind these decisions, in two specific cases: altruistic and fairness-driven, decisions. Finally, we explore how individuals update their knowledge and beliefs about whom they interact with, and how they should interact - a process known as social learning. We categorize social learning into two broad types: learning about others and learning from others.