I. van Beest

Social Information as a Cue for Tacit Coordination

Whereas earlier research on tacit coordination has mainly demonstrated how people use environmental information to achieve coordination success, the present research investigates how people tacitly coordinate their decisions by using information about the people they have to coordinate with (i.e., social information). We demonstrate that when people have to tacitly match their decisions, they focus on the characteristics they share with one another to achieve coordination success (Study 1). By contrast, when mismatching is required, people focus on interpersonal differences as a basis for coordination (Study 2). Moreover, we show that social information only facilitates coordination when there is a clear association between such information and the available choice options (Study 3). Finally, in matching situations, people prefer co-players who are similar to themselves, whereas, in mismatching situations, people prefer dissimilar co-players (Study 4). These results provide converging evidence that social information can serve as an effective cue for tacit coordination.

Behavioral and neural reactions to emotions of others in the distribution of resources

This study investigated the neural mechanisms involved in the interpersonal effects of emotions—i.e., how people are influenced by other peoples emotions. Participants were allocators in a version of the dictator game and made a choice between two offers after receiving written emotional expressions of the recipients. The results showed that participants more often made a self-serving offer when dealing with an angry recipient than when dealing with a happy or disappointed recipient. Compared to disappointment, expressions of anger increased activation in regions associated with self-referential thinking (anterior medial prefrontal cortex, aMPFC) and (emotional) conflict (anterior cingulate cortex). We found increased activation in temporoparietal junction for receiving happy reactions in comparison with receiving angry or disappointed reactions. This study thus emphasizes that distinct emotions have distinct effects on people in terms of behavior and underlying neurological mechanisms.