Gains and losses in reputation: Neural substrates, the role of dopamine, and reward prediction errors.

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Hauke Reiner Heekeren
• Subject Area: Human Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience
• Term: from 2014 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 257093479

Our reputation is important to us; we feel good when we find out that people think highly of us, and we feel bad when we find out that people think poorly of us. Behavioral research has demonstrated that reputation can be considered as a commodity, similar to goods or money, in that people will take action to obtain gains or avoid losses in reputation. Importantly however, the way in which the human brain processes social feedback regarding one's reputation is currently unclear. Is reputation processed like other non-social commodities, or in a unique way, with neural substrates reserved just for social phenomena? With this in mind, we propose to investigate three aspects of how humans process gains and losses in reputation, and relate this to the better-understood processing of non-social monetary reward and loss. We first aim to characterize the neural underpinnings of processing gains and losses in reputation. Second, we will investigate the role of the neurotransmitter dopamine in reputation processing. Last, we will examine whether gains or losses in reputation can be explained within the "prediction error" framework from reinforcement learning theory. If our hypotheses are correct, our results will elucidate the processing of social feedback at the neural and behavioral levels, and will demonstrate similarities and differences with the processing of non-social monetary rewards and losses.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants