Andrew Delton: UCSB Department of Psychology and Center for Evolutionary Psychology

Members of social species routinely make decisions that involve welfare allocations—decisions that impact the welfare of two or more parties. These decisions often involve welfare tradeoffs such that increasing one organism’s welfare comes at the expense of another organism’s welfare. In this talk, I present preliminary evidence that the mind computes a variable—a welfare tradeoff ratio—that is used to regulate this kind of social decision-making. By consulting this variable, an organism can determine when it is and is not appropriate to cede personal welfare on behalf of another. I also summarize an initial empirical test of the role of welfare tradeoff ratios in reciprocity and how the emotions of anger and gratitude might function to recalibrate welfare tradeoff ratios within reciprocal relationships. The larger theme of this talk is that thinking in terms of neurocomputational variables such as welfare tradeoff ratios helps to explain how complex behaviors—such as cooperation, generosity, and aggression—can arise from a physical device such as the human brain.