Cognitive and motivational bases of social decision making

I will present experimental work on the role of non standard motives and emotions, such as sympathy, care and power, in economic decision making. The first part of my talk will focus on how widespread social feelings, such as “homophily” (i.e., “love for similar others”) and friendship, could be used as coordination devices to solve one-shot decision problems involving strategic complements (e.g., stag hunts) and substitutes (entry games). The second part will focus on ways to experimentally induce well-known psychological motives, such as care and power, and on their differential impact on decisions. Throughout, I will emphasize the evidence suggesting that motivation (e.g., preferences) and cognition (e.g., beliefs/inferences) are dissociable yet interacting forces in mediating the impact of these motives and emotions on social decision making, both at the behavioral and neural level.