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The role of social cognition in decision making

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Frith, Chris D, Singer, Tania·2008·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
DOI 10.1098/rstb.2008.0156PMC PMC2581783
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Abstract

Successful decision making in a social setting depends on our ability to understand the intentions, emotions and beliefs of others. The mirror system allows us to understand other people's motor actions and action intentions. ‘Empathy’ allows us to understand and share emotions and sensations with others. ‘Theory of mind’ allows us to understand more abstract concepts such as beliefs or wishes in others. In all these cases, evidence has accumulated that we use the specific neural networks engaged in processing mental states in ourselves to understand the same mental states in others. However, the magnitude of the brain activity in these shared networks is modulated by contextual appraisal of the situation or the other person. An important feature of decision making in a social setting concerns the interaction of reason and emotion. We consider four domains where such interactions occur: our sense of fairness, altruistic punishment, trust and framing effects. In these cases, social motivations and emotions compete with each other, while higher-level control processes modulate the interactions of these low-level biases.

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Frith, C. D., & Singer, T.
Affiliations
  • Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging (GB)
  • University of Zurich (CH)
Corresponding author
Frith, Chris D
ORCID
Venue
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Publisher
The Royal Society
Published
2008-10
Volume
363
Issue
1511
Pages
3875-3886
ISSN
  • 0962-8436 (ISSN-L)
  • 1471-2970
DOI
10.1098/rstb.2008.0156
PMC
PMC2581783
OpenAlex
W2111726859
Cited by
361
References
26
Citations by year
2026: 26 · 2025: 30 · 2024: 18 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 16 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 36 · 2018: 20 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 23 · 2015: 13 · 2014: 27 · 2013: 18 · 2012: 24
FWCI
2.30
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
  • Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion)
  • MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
  • Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • Wellcome Trust
  • European Science Foundation
  • National Research Foundation
  • Danmarks Grundforskningsfond
  • Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/E511112/1)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
Keywords
social cognition, decision-making, mirror system, empathy, theory of mind, reason and emotion, fairness, altruistic punishment, trust, framing effects, social motivation
MeSH terms
Brain, Cognition, Decision Making, Humans, Models, Biological, Social Behavior, Models, Economic

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