In contrast to logical criteria of rationality, which can be assessed entirely by reference to the system of preferences, substantive criteria of rational choice refer to an independent evaluation of the outcomes of decisions. One of these substantive criteria is the experienced hedonic utility of outcomes. Research indicates that people are myopic in their decisions, may lack skill in predicting their future tastes, and can be led to erroneous choices by fallible memory and incorrect evaluation of past experiences. Theoretical and (...) practical implications of these challenges to the assumption of economic rationality are discussed. (shrink)

Linking the process of rational decision making to emotions, an award-winning scientist who has done extensive research with brain-damaged patients notes the dependence of thought processes on feelings and the body's survival-oriented regulators. 50,000 first printing.

The psychological and neurobiological processes underlying moral judgement have been the focus of many recent empirical studies1–11. Of central interest is whether emotions play a causal role in moral judgement, and, in parallel, how emotion-related areas of the brain contribute to moral judgement. Here we show that six patients with focal bilateral damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), a brain region necessary for the normal generation of emotions and, in particular, social emotions12–14, produce an abnor- mally ‘utilitarian’ pattern of (...) judgements on moral dilemmas that pit compelling considerations of aggregate welfare against highly emotionally aversive behaviours (for example, having to sacrifice one person’s life to save a number of other lives)7,8. In contrast, the VMPC patients’ judgements were normal in other classes of moral dilemmas. These findings indicate that, for a selective set of moral dilemmas, the VMPC is critical for normal judgements of right and wrong. The findings support a necessary role for emotion in the generation of those judgements. (shrink)

Social cognitive neuroscience examines social phenomena and processes using cognitive neuroscience research tools such as neuroimaging and neuropsychology. This review examines four broad areas of research within social cognitive neuroscience: (a) understanding others, (b) understanding oneself, (c) controlling oneself, and (d) the processes that occur at the interface of self and others. In addition, this review highlights two core-processing distinctions that can be neurocognitively identified across all of these domains. The distinction between automatic versus controlled processes has long been important (...) to social psychological theory and can be dissociated in the neural regions contributing to social cognition. Alternatively, the differentiation between internally-focused processes that focus on one's own or another's mental interior and externally-focused processes that focus on one's own or another's visible features and actions is a new distinction. This latter distinction emerges from social cognitive neuroscience investigations rather than from existing psychological theories demonstrating that social cognitive neuroscience can both draw on and contribute to social psychological theory. (shrink)