Exploring the science
of our social world.
Featured publications
Science Advances
Science Advances
Early insight into social network structure predicts climbing the social ladder.
Aslarus et al. (2025)
Nature Human Behaviour
Nature Human Behaviour
Knowledge of information cascades through social networks facilitates strategic gossip.
Xia et al. (2025)
Nature Human Behaviour
Nature Human Behaviour
Replay shapes abstract cognitive maps for efficient social navigation.
Son et al. (2024)
PNAS
PNAS
Abstract cognitive maps of social network structure aid adaptive inference.
Son et al. (2023)
Science Advances
Science Advances
Shared neural representations and temporal segmentation of political content predict ideological similarity.
de Bruin et al. (2023)
Nature Human Behaviour
Nature Human Behaviour
Latent motives guide structure learning during adaptive social choice.
van Baar et al. (2021)
Nature Human Behaviour
Nature Human Behaviour
Emotion prediction errors guide socially adaptive behavior.
Heffner et al. (2021)
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
The computational challenges of social learning.
FeldmanHall & Nassar (2021)
PNAS
PNAS
Intolerance of uncertainty modulates brain-to-brain synchrony during politically polarized perception.
van Baar et al. (2021)
Social Cognitive Maps
12 papersErrors in social network knowledge predict how ties evolve in the future
Using statistical learning to navigate signed social networks.
Medial temporal lobe encodes cognitive maps of real-world social networks
Mental abstraction aids group cohesion in large social networks
Knowledge of information cascades through social networks facilitates strategic gossip.
Early insight into social network structure predicts climbing the social ladder
Abstract cognitive maps for complex social systems
Replay shapes abstract cognitive maps for efficient social navigation.
Abstract cognitive maps of social network structure aid adaptive inference.
Cognitive map of social features enable flexible inference in social networks
How does social network position influence prosocial behavior?
Emotion's Role in Decision-Making
16 papersDeviations from normative emotion representation predict social and affective dysfunction.
Affective valence as a computational signal for learning value
Emotion and choice: the integral role of emotion in constructing value
Separable neural signals for reward and emotion prediction errors.
Tweeting under uncertainty: characterizing the relationship between uncertain language and negative emotions in a naturalistic context.
A generalizable framework for assessing the role of emotion during choice
A probabilistic map of emotional experiences during competitive social interactions
Emotion prediction errors guide socially adaptive behavior
Anxiety, gender, and social media consumption predict COVID-19 emotional distress.
Emotional responses to prosocial messages increase willingness to self-isolate during the COVID-19 pandemic
Social learning: emotions aid in optimizing goal-directed social behavior
Emotion and decision-making under uncertainty: arousal predicts increased gambling during ambiguity but not risk
The effects of social context and acute stress on decision-making under uncertainty
Empathic concern drives costly altruism
Alexithymia decreases altruism in real social decisions
Neural activity associated with monitoring the oscillating threat value of a phylogenetic stimulus
Social and Moral Learning
37 papersSocial media and smartphone use are associated with blunted striatal reward response in early adolescence
Advantageous and disadvantageous inequality aversion can be taught through vicarious learning of others’ preferences
Goals bias face perception
Prosociality
Keeping an eye out for change: anxiety disrupts adaptive resolution of policy and epistemic uncertainty
Uncertainty aversion predicts the neural expansion of semantic representations
Prefrontal cortex state representations shape human credit assignment.
Conceptual representations of uncertainty predict risky decision-making
Following your group or your morals? the in-group promotes immoral behavior while the out-group buffers against it
Latent motives guide structure learning during adaptive social choice
Clarifying the link between music and social bonding by measuring prosociality in context.
The computational challenges of social learning
Hippocampus guides adaptive learning during dynamic social interactions
Anxiety impedes adaptive social learning under uncertainty.
Punishing the privileged: selfish offers from high-status allocators elicit greater punishment from third-party arbitrators
Why we don’t always punish: preferences for non-punitive responses to moral violations
Crowdsourcing punishment: individuals reference group preferences to inform their own punitive decisions
The social neuroscience of cooperation
Viewing adaptive social decision-making through the lens of associative learning.
Resolving uncertainty in a social world
The functional roles of the amygdala and prefrontal cortex in processing uncertainty
Social regulation of survival circuits through learning
Tolerance to ambiguous uncertainty increases prosocial behavior
Norms and the flexibility of moral action.
Learning moral values: another’s desire to punish enhances one's own punitive behavior
Dissociable contributions of the prefrontal cortex in group-based cooperation
Stimulus generalization as a mechanism for learning to trust
Associative learning of social value in dynamic groups
Moral chivalry: gender and harm sensitivity predict costly altruism
Episodic memories predict adaptive value-based decision-making
The neuroscience of moral cognition: from dual processes to dynamic systems
A neural network for moral decision-making
Reflected glory and failure: the role of the medial prefrontal cortex and ventral striatum in self vs shared relevance during advice giving outcomes
Fairness violations elicit greater punishment on behalf of another then for oneself.
Deconstructing the brain’s moral network: dissociable functionality in the temporoparietal junction and medial prefrontal cortex
Differential neural circuitry and self-interest in real vs hypothetical moral decisions
What we say and what we do: the relationship between real and hypothetical moral choices
Political Polarization
5 papersThe emotional cost of political engagement
Politically extreme individuals exhibit similar neural processing despite ideological differences
Shared neural representations and temporal segmentation of political content predict ideological similarity.
Intolerance of uncertainty modulates brain-to-brain synchrony during politically polarized perception
The polarized mind in context: interdisciplinary approaches to the psychology of political polarization
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