Bias and control in social decision-making

Abstract

Social decisions are crucial in our life. Many of these include interactions between agents in scenarios of varying complexity, where trust and cooperation are essential and multiple sources of information influence our choices. In this chapter we review the contributions from social neuroscience to understanding the sources of bias and control mechanisms in social decisions, integrating insights from diverse methodologies and analyses. These biases include individual influences (both stable and transient) and other stimulus-driven factors, such as social stereotypes, emotion displays, or information regarding personality traits. This information modulates different stages of processing, with control-related influences playing crucial roles to override conflicts between automatic tendencies and goals.