Dokument: The (In)Stability of Social Preferences: Neuroendocrine Mechanisms and Methodological Perspectives
| Titel: | The (In)Stability of Social Preferences: Neuroendocrine Mechanisms and Methodological Perspectives | |||||||
| URL für Lesezeichen: | https://docserv.uni-duesseldorf.de/servlets/DocumentServlet?id=72512 | |||||||
| URN (NBN): | urn:nbn:de:hbz:061-20260319-140137-9 | |||||||
| Kollektion: | Dissertationen | |||||||
| Sprache: | Englisch | |||||||
| Dokumententyp: | Wissenschaftliche Abschlussarbeiten » Dissertation | |||||||
| Medientyp: | Text | |||||||
| Autor: | Lüpken, Luca Marie [Autor] | |||||||
| Dateien: |
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| Beitragende: | Prof. Dr. Kalenscher, Tobias [Betreuer/Doktorvater] Prof. Dr. Gerhard Jocham [Gutachter] | |||||||
| Stichwörter: | stress, cortisol, noradrenaline, rationality, social preferences, intergroup conflict, amygdala | |||||||
| Dewey Dezimal-Klassifikation: | 100 Philosophie und Psychologie » 150 Psychologie | |||||||
| Beschreibung: | Social behavior is not stable, but highly flexible and arises from interactions between neurobiological mechanisms and social-emotional context. Stress is one of the crucial drivers. The effect of stress on social behavior suggests that social preferences are less stable than economic models assume, thereby challenging the fundamental assumption of choice consistency. The studies in this dissertation examined how stress neuromodulators influence social behavior and choice consistency, how neural substrates enable flexible social behavior, and how methodological limitations constrain our inferences. Across two psychopharmacological studies, we showed that the main stress neuromodulators, cortisol and noradrenaline, influence social behavior in a context-dependent manner. Under salient threat, cortisol promoted cooperative behavior toward one's own group, and noradrenaline promoted hostility toward other groups. In contrast, in more neutral settings, social behavior and choice consistency remained unchanged. These results illustrate that stress does not exert uniform effects on social behavior but may tip the scale toward either cooperation or conflict depending on the balance between cortisol and noradrenaline, the situational demands, and the social relationships involved. To further explore the neural basis of prosocial behavior, in a further study we examined individuals with selective lesions of the basolateral amygdala (BLA). The results demonstrated that the BLA plays a central role in flexibly adapting prosocial behavior to social-emotional distance. This speculatively suggests a possible role for the BLA in the observed stress effects. Finally, we took a methodological perspective and showed that common measures of choice consistency lack reliability. This calls into question prior conclusions and underscores how much robust results depend on methodological decisions. In a time of increasing global violence, it is crucial to understand the neurobiological underpinnings that drive social behavior toward cooperation or conflict, and methodological rigor is indispensable for meaningful insights. | |||||||
| Lizenz: |  Dieses Werk ist lizenziert unter einer Creative Commons Namensnennung 4.0 International Lizenz | |||||||
| Fachbereich / Einrichtung: | Mathematisch- Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät » WE Psychologie | |||||||
| Dokument erstellt am: | 19.03.2026 | |||||||
| Dateien geändert am: | 19.03.2026 | |||||||
| Promotionsantrag am: | 02.10.2025 | |||||||
| Datum der Promotion: | 03.03.2026 |
