Prof Giorgio Coricelli | Brain, emotion and decision-making: Learning from regret and envy

This seminar is free to attend and is open to all, both within and outside the University. If you wish to attend in person or via Zoom, please register your interest to attend via the Zoom portal using the link above. Exact location details will be shared prior to the event via email.

We are delighted to announce that the Centre for Human Brain Health (CHBH) will welcome Professor Giorgio Coricelli, Professor of Economics and Psychology at University of Southern California, to present a hybrid CHBH Seminar on the above date. Attendance is possible either in person (exact location details will be shared prior to the event via email), or online via Zoom, if you wish to attend in person or via Zoom, please register your interest to attend via the Zoom portal using the link above. Exact location details will be shared prior to the event via email. 

To arrange a 1:1 meeting with the speaker, please state your interest when registering to attend via the link above.

CHBH Event Host
Dr Clayton Hickey

Brain, emotion and decision-making: Learning from regret and envy

Abstract

In decision-making when we choose among alternatives, we may have the opportunity to compare the consequences of our choices with the consequences of foregone options, or with the consequences of choices other people made. In a private context, the unfavourable counterfactual comparison between obtained and foregone outcomes (what might have been) can generate regret. In a social environment, unfavourable social comparison might generate interpersonal negative counterfactuals and elicit envy. We hypothesize that private and social counterfactuals share similar features – because both support learning – but social evaluations have distinguishing characteristics, such as keeping track of our social ranking. I will discuss the theoretical implications of incorporating counterfactual processing of values into the process of choice, and into adaptive models of decision-making.

Speaker Biography

Giorgio Coricelli is a Professor of Economics and Psychology at the University of Southern California. He studies human behaviours emerging from the interplay of cognitive and emotional systems. His research agenda includes two main projects. The first one concerns the role of emotions in decision-making, and the second is aimed at investigating the relational complexity in social interaction. His objective is to apply robust methods and findings from behavioural decision theory to study the brain structures that contribute to forming judgments and decisions, both in an individual and a social context. His work has been published in Science, Nature Neuroscience, PNAS.

This seminar is free to attend and is open to all, both within and outside the University. If you wish to attend in person or via Zoom, please register your interest to attend via the Zoom portal using the link above. Exact location details will be shared prior to the event via email.