We have used economic models for a long time to predict human behavior. But these models often struggle to explain some observed results. For example, why do people give money to others when they do not need to? Or why do people feel obliged to return a favor? These are questions that are difficult to explain with standard economic models, as people are more complicated than simply creatures out to obtain as much money as possible.

Alan Sanfey is Principal Investigator at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behavior. His research focuses on decision-making in social situations. ‘What we are trying to understand is what happens in the brain when we decide to trust another person. To do this, we let people negotiate while monitoring their brain activity. And usually even when a person knows they will never see their experimental partner again, they still feel the need to return a favor when the partner is generous to them in the experiment.’

Why is cognitive neuroscience so important in understanding trust for humanity? ‘The better we understand social decision-making, the more we are finding out about the factors that make people trust each other. Trust is a two-way street. By placing trust in someone, you demonstrate to that person that you have positive expectations of them, which often leads the other to want to meet these expectations. So by placing trust we can actually increase the likelihood that our generous acts will be reciprocated.’

Blog by: Jolene Meijerink