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)
2026 & IN PRESS
9 papersSocial media and smartphone use are associated with blunted striatal reward response in early adolescence
Using statistical learning to navigate signed social networks.
Deviations from normative emotion representation predict social and affective dysfunction.
Errors in social network knowledge predict how ties evolve in the future
Affective valence as a computational signal for learning value
Medial temporal lobe encodes cognitive maps of real-world social networks
The emotional cost of political engagement
Emotion and choice: the integral role of emotion in constructing value
2025
9 papersMental abstraction aids group cohesion in large social networks
Politically extreme individuals exhibit similar neural processing despite ideological differences
Separable neural signals for reward and emotion prediction errors.
Knowledge of information cascades through social networks facilitates strategic gossip.
Abstract cognitive maps for complex social systems
Early insight into social network structure predicts climbing the social ladder
Prosociality
Goals bias face perception
Advantageous and disadvantageous inequality aversion can be taught through vicarious learning of others’ preferences
2024
3 papersReplay shapes abstract cognitive maps for efficient social navigation.
Keeping an eye out for change: anxiety disrupts adaptive resolution of policy and epistemic uncertainty
Tweeting under uncertainty: characterizing the relationship between uncertain language and negative emotions in a naturalistic context.
2023
5 papersAbstract cognitive maps of social network structure aid adaptive inference.
Prefrontal cortex state representations shape human credit assignment.
Uncertainty aversion predicts the neural expansion of semantic representations
Conceptual representations of uncertainty predict risky decision-making
Shared neural representations and temporal segmentation of political content predict ideological similarity.
2022
3 papers2021
8 papersLatent motives guide structure learning during adaptive social choice
Emotion prediction errors guide socially adaptive behavior
The computational challenges of social learning
Cognitive map of social features enable flexible inference in social networks
Clarifying the link between music and social bonding by measuring prosociality in context.
The polarized mind in context: interdisciplinary approaches to the psychology of political polarization
Intolerance of uncertainty modulates brain-to-brain synchrony during politically polarized perception
Anxiety, gender, and social media consumption predict COVID-19 emotional distress.
2020
4 papersHippocampus guides adaptive learning during dynamic social interactions
Emotional responses to prosocial messages increase willingness to self-isolate during the COVID-19 pandemic
Anxiety impedes adaptive social learning under uncertainty.
Punishing the privileged: selfish offers from high-status allocators elicit greater punishment from third-party arbitrators
2019
6 papersWhy 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 functional roles of the amygdala and prefrontal cortex in processing uncertainty
Resolving uncertainty in a social world
The social neuroscience of cooperation
Viewing adaptive social decision-making through the lens of associative learning.
2018
7 papersSocial regulation of survival circuits through learning
Social learning: emotions aid in optimizing goal-directed social behavior
Norms and the flexibility of moral action.
Learning moral values: another’s desire to punish enhances one's own punitive behavior
Tolerance to ambiguous uncertainty increases prosocial behavior
Dissociable contributions of the prefrontal cortex in group-based cooperation
Stimulus generalization as a mechanism for learning to trust
2017
2 papers2016
3 papers2015
5 papersThe effects of social context and acute stress on decision-making under uncertainty
The neuroscience of moral cognition: from dual processes to dynamic systems
Empathic concern drives costly altruism
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
2014
2 papers2013 & EARLIER
4 papersAlexithymia decreases altruism in real social decisions
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
Neural activity associated with monitoring the oscillating threat value of a phylogenetic stimulus
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