Talk by Laura Kaltwasser (Berlin): "Biological and behavioral determinants of individual differences in cooperation"

Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology  

Colloquium

Laura Kaltwasser

(Humboldt University, Berlin)

5.11.2019 18:00 - 20:00 — GEMI, Raum 1.134

Biological and behavioral determinants of individual differences in

cooperation

Humans are not only interested in their own welfare, but also care about the well-being of others. Reciprocity contributes to the emergence of cooperation in an asocial world and prevents the invasion of egoistic behavior once a cooperative equilibrium is established. By means of increasing joint resources, cooperation may have provided an evolutionary benefit for our species. However, little is known about which biopsychological variables foster cooperation, and more specifically, why individuals differ in the ability to cooperate.

In this talk I would like to present research on neurobiological factors influencing cooperation behavior. More specifically, I will present four studies, which by means of structural equation modelling, link inter-individual differences in cooperation behavior to neurobiological factors such as spontaneous facial emotion expression and recognition, event-related potentials during socio-economic games and static and fluctuating hormonal markers. Results suggest stable inter-individual difference in cooperation behavior, which differ in terms of their shared variance with the different biological processes. Recent debates in the field of evolutionary psychology and neuroeconomics call for a careful re-assessment of the processes driving cooperation behavior in terms of nature and nurture, as well as in terms of state and trait.