The Status Importance Scale: Development and validation of a self-report questionnaire for measuring how much people care about status.

Although substantial research indicates that considerations about status can lead to anxiety and other negative outcomes, a valid measure of the importance individuals attribute to status is lacking. This paper introduces the Status Importance Scale (SIS), a mono-factorial 10-item self-report questionnaire that quantifies how important a person deems status to be. Five studies validate the scale showing that it has excellent internal reliability and acceptable test-retest reliability, it correlates with several related measures (supporting convergent validity), it shows little correlation with theoretically unrelated constructs (supporting discriminant validity), it is the best predictor of conspicuous consumption compared with other potential candidates (supporting concurrent validity), and it can help predicting which activities one gives importance to (further supporting concurrent validity). Finally, as hypothesized by previous literature, the last study reveals that the SIS can predict status anxiety. The SIS can contribute to research regarding important phenomena such as the detrimental psychological effects of income inequality.

The traps of adaptation: Addiction as maladaptive referent-dependent evaluation.

Referent-dependent evaluation theories propose that the ongoing context influences how the brain attributes value to stimuli. What are the implications of these theories for understanding addiction? The paper asks this question by casting this disorder as a form of maladaptive referent-dependent evaluation. Specifically, addiction is proposed to arise from the establishment of an excessive reference point following repeated drug consumption. Several key aspects of the disorder emerge from this perspective, including withdrawal, tolerance, enhanced craving, negative mood, and diminished stimulus discriminability. As highlighted in the paper, this formulation has important analogies with classical accounts of addiction, such as set point theories and associative learning theories. Moreover, this picture fits with the pattern of striatal dopaminergic activity observed in addiction, a key neural signature of the disorder. Overall, the referent-dependent evaluation approach emerges as a useful add-on to the theoretical toolkit adopted to interpret addiction. This also supports the idea that referent-dependent evaluation might offer a general framework to understand various disorders characterised by disrupted motivation.

Deconstructing the Conspiratorial Mind: the Computational Logic Behind Conspiracy Theories.

In the social sciences, research on conspiracy theories is accumulating fast. To contribute to this research, here I introduce a computational model about the psychological processes underlying support for conspiracy theories. The proposal is that endorsement of these theories depends on three factors: prior beliefs, novel evidence, and expected consequences. Thanks to the latter, a conspiracy hypothesis might be selected because it is the costliest to reject even if it is not the best supported by evidence and by prior beliefs (i.e., even if it is not the most accurate). In this way, the model implies a key role for motivated reasoning. By examining the social conditions that favour the success of conspiracy theories, the paper embeds the model, whose focus is primarily psychological, within the broader social context, and applies this analysis to probe the role of conspiracy theories within contemporary Western societies. Altogether, the paper argues that a computational outlook can contribute to elucidate the socio-psychological dynamics underlying the attractiveness of conspiracy theories.

A reference-based theory of motivation and effort allocation.

Motivation is key for performance in domains such as work, sport, and learning. Research has established that motivation and the willingness to invest effort generally increase as a function of reward. However, this view struggles to explain some empirical observations-for example, in the domain of sport, athletes sometimes appear to lose motivation when playing against weak opponents-this despite objective rewards being high. This and similar evidence highlight the role of subjective value in motivation and effort allocation. To capture this, here, we advance a novel theory and computational model where motivation and effort allocation arise from reference-based evaluation processes. Our proposal argues that motivation (and the ensuing willingness to exert effort) stems from subjective value, which in turns depends on one's standards about performance and on the confidence about these standards. In a series of simulations, we show that the model explains puzzling motivational dynamics and associated feelings. Crucially, the model identifies realistic standards (i.e., those matching one's own actual ability) as those more beneficial for motivation and performance. On this basis, the model establishes a normative solution to the problem of optimal allocation of effort, analogous to the optimal allocation of neural and computational resources as in efficient coding.

The Computations of a Traumatized Mind: A Latent Cause Model of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

ABSTRACT: In cognitive psychology, a recent perspective based on the notion of latent cause (LC) has offered new insight on how learning and memory work. Here I explore the implications of this novel perspective to understand posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The proposal is that, because of a propensity to interpret events as manifestations of multiple LCs (a propensity facilitated by experiencing traumas in childhood), PTSD patients form an LC associated with the trauma and that this LC is responsible for typical symptoms of the illness (specifically, intrusive symptoms and associated fear). Later, after the trauma, some patients develop a second LC, now associated with the presence of trauma-related cues combined with absence of danger. Development of the latter LC would interfere with extinction and explain why, for some patients, exposure to trauma-related cues (even when supported by interventions such as exposure protocols) fails to provide much improvement. This proposal has potential clinical implications, raising the possibility that some patients might benefit from exposure to mildly painful aspects of the trauma in conjunction with trauma-related cues.

Prisoner of the present: Borderline personality and a tendency to overweight cues during Bayesian inference.

Recent work has examined the computational mechanisms underlying borderline personality (BP). However, this research has been confined to specific tasks. A computational analysis of BP's mental processes as they broadly unfold in everyday life is lacking. Here, a computational model of BP is proposed, which describes patients' everyday-life mental experience at large. Grounded on Bayesian inference, the proposal is that BP sufferers attribute excessive weight to cues considered to infer life contexts (e.g., to infer whether a cooperation or competition context is ongoing). Remarkably, model simulations demonstrate that this idea accounts for several characteristics of BP, from extreme oscillations in identity, affect, and behavior, to dysfunctional interpersonal cycles. Altogether, the article offers a framework to interpret the broad, everyday life computational mechanisms underlying BP. This can inspire theoretical and empirical research and can help understanding how clinical interventions for BP work, thus contributing to refine such interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

I want to believe: delusion, motivated reasoning, and Bayesian decision theory.

Introduction: Several arguments suggest that motivated reasoning (occurring when beliefs are not solely shaped by accuracy, but also by other motives such as promoting self-esteem or self-protection) is important in delusions. However, classical theories of delusion disregard the role of motivated reasoning. Thus, this role remains poorly understood.Methods: To explore the role of motivated reasoning in delusions, here we propose a computational model of delusion based on a Bayesian decision framework. This proposes that beliefs are not only evaluated based on their accuracy (as in classical theories), but also based on the cost (in terms of reward and punishment) of rejecting them.Results: The model proposes that, when the values at stake are high (as often it is the case in the context of delusion), a belief might be endorsed because rejecting it is evaluated as too costly, even if the belief is less accurate. This process might contribute to the genesis of delusions.Conclusions: Our account offers an interpretation of how motivated reasoning might shape delusions. This can inspire research on the affective and motivational processes supporting delusions in clinical conditions such as in psychosis, neurological disorders, and delusional disorder.

Decision-making ability, psychopathology, and brain connectivity.

Decision-making is a cognitive process of central importance for the quality of our lives. Here, we ask whether a common factor underpins our diverse decision-making abilities. We obtained 32 decision-making measures from 830 young people and identified a common factor that we call "decision acuity," which was distinct from IQ and reflected a generic decision-making ability. Decision acuity was decreased in those with aberrant thinking and low general social functioning. Crucially, decision acuity and IQ had dissociable brain signatures, in terms of their associated neural networks of resting-state functional connectivity. Decision acuity was reliably measured, and its relationship with functional connectivity was also stable when measured in the same individuals 18 months later. Thus, our behavioral and brain data identify a new cognitive construct that underpins decision-making ability across multiple domains. This construct may be important for understanding mental health, particularly regarding poor social function and aberrant thought patterns.

The Link Between COVID-19, Anxiety, and Religious Beliefs in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Research has shown that stress impacts on people's religious beliefs. However, several aspects of this effect remain poorly understood, for example regarding the role of prior religiosity and stress-induced anxiety. This paper explores these aspects in the context of the recent coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). The latter has impacted dramatically on many people's well-being; hence it can be considered a highly stressful event. Through online questionnaires administered to UK (n = 140) and USA (n = 140) citizens professing either Christian faith or no religion, this paper examines the impact of the coronavirus crisis upon common people's religious beliefs. Anxiety about the coronavirus and prior religiosity showed an interaction effect upon change in religious beliefs (t(276) = 2.27, p = .024): for strong believers higher anxiety about coronavirus was associated with increased strengthening of religious beliefs (r = .249), while for non-believers higher anxiety about coronavirus was associated with increased scepticism towards religious beliefs (r = - .157). These observations are consistent with the notion that stress-induced anxiety enhances support for an individual's existing ideology already embraced before a stressful event occurs. This study sheds light on the psychological and cultural implications of the coronavirus crisis, which represents one of the most serious health emergencies in recent times.

A Reference-Dependent Computational Model of Anorexia Nervosa.

Influential accounts interpret anorexia as arising from perfectionism, dichotomous thinking, and poor control expressed in a variety of life domains, resulting in low self-esteem. In this context, restraining eating would allow patients to re-establish some control and self-esteem. Although this view has offered important insight, one shortcoming is that constructs such as perfectionism, control, and dichotomous thinking, remain poorly specified. To clarify these constructs, we propose a computational model of anorexia. This relies on previous theories of evaluation, which highlight its reference-dependent nature: when attributing a value to an outcome, our brain automatically assesses the outcome relative to its context. Following these theories, the model proposes that a high reference point explains general characteristics such as perfectionism, dichotomous thinking, low self-esteem, and low sense of control. These characteristics would result specifically in anorexia when the sense of control regarding body shape, compared with other life domains, is relatively high. The model raises the possibility that reference effects also might explain why patients pursue extremely low weight; exposure to skinny body images-one product of obsessive dieting-might change the reference point for their own body, hence leading to extremely low body weight, staunch refusal to gain weight, and body misperceptions. The model contributes to clarify key concepts adopted in the literature and their relation. Such computational formulation might help to foster theoretical debate, formulating novel empirical predictions, and integrate psychological and neuroscientific perspectives on anorexia.

Distinct Processing of Aversive Experience in Amygdala Subregions.

BACKGROUND: The amygdala is an anatomically complex medial temporal brain structure whose subregions are considered to serve distinct functions. However, their precise role in mediating human aversive experience remains ill understood. METHODS: We used functional magnetic resonance imaging in 39 healthy volunteers with varying levels of trait anxiety to assess distinct contributions of the basolateral amygdala (BLA) and centromedial amygdala to anticipation and experience of aversive events. Additionally, we examined the relationship between any identified functional subspecialization and measures of subjective reported aversion and trait anxiety. RESULTS: Our results show that the centromedial amygdala is responsive to aversive outcomes but insensitive to predictive aversive cues. In contrast, the BLA encodes an aversive prediction error that quantifies whether cues and outcomes are worse than expected. A neural representation within the BLA for distinct threat levels was mirrored in self-reported subjective anxiety across individuals. Furthermore, high trait-anxious individuals were characterized by indiscriminately heightened BLA activity in response to aversive cues, regardless of actual threat level. CONCLUSIONS: Our results demonstrate that amygdala subregions are distinctly engaged in processing of aversive experience, with elevated and undifferentiated BLA responses to threat emerging as a potential neurobiological mediator of vulnerability to anxiety disorders.

Correction: A unifying Bayesian account of contextual effects in value-based choice.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005769.].

Reference effects on decision-making elicited by previous rewards.

Substantial evidence has highlighted reference effects occurring during decision-making, whereby subjective value is not calculated in absolute terms but relative to the distribution of rewards characterizing a context. Among these, within-choice effects are exerted by options simultaneously available during choice. These should be distinguished from between-choice effects, which depend on the distribution of options presented in the past. Influential theories on between-choice effects include Decision-by-Sampling, Expectation-as-Reference and Divisive Normalization. Surprisingly, previous literature has focused on each theory individually disregarding the others. Thus, similarities and differences among theories remain to be systematically examined. Here we fill this gap by offering an overview of the state-of-the-art of research about between-choice reference effects. Our comparison of alternative theories shows that, at present, none of them is able to account for the full range of empirical data. To address this, we propose a model inspired by previous perspectives and based on a logistic framework, hence called logistic model of subjective value. Predictions of the model are analysed in detail about reference effects and risky decision-making. We conclude that our proposal offers a compelling framework for interpreting the multifaceted manifestations of between-choice reference effects.

The role of expecting feedback during decision-making under risk.

Sometimes choice is followed by outcome feedback and other times it is not. It remains unknown whether humans prefer gambling when they expect feedback to be revealed. Regarding this question, decision-making theories make alternative predictions. Some theories have proposed that choice is influenced by whether one expects to be disappointed in the future. Given that feedback is sometimes disappointing, these theories predict increased aversion towards gambling when feedback is expected compared to when feedback is not expected. The opposite effect is predicted by theories of curiosity, which postulate reduction of uncertainty as an important behavioural drive. Given that feedback reduces uncertainty, these theories predict that gambling will be favoured when feedback is expected. To examine whether expecting feedback influences gambling behaviour, we recorded functional neuroimaging data while participants performed a novel decision-making task requiring to chose between a sure option and a gamble. Crucially, participants expected to receive feedback in some trials but not in other trials. Consistent with theories of curiosity, we found that expecting feedback increased gambling propensity. At the neural level, at option presentation the increased value of gambling during feedback was reflected in activity in the ventral striatum. This suggests that, together with its established role in signalling reward, the ventral striatum also processes a form of epistemic value. Our study demonstrates that gambling becomes more attractive when feedback is expected and suggests that striatal activity could signal the value of feedback information.

The role of the hippocampus in weighting expectations during inference under uncertainty.

Making inference under uncertainty requires an optimal weighting of prior expectations and observations. How this weighting is realized in the brain remains elusive. To investigate this, we recorded functional neuroimaging data while participants estimated a number based on noisy observations. Crucially, the prior expectation about the variability of observations (an expected variability) was manipulated. Consistent with normative models, when novel observations were characterized by higher expected or observed variability, participants' estimates relied more on expectations than novel observations and were characterized by higher stochasticity. Activity in hippocampus increased when novel evidence was characterized by higher expected or observed variability. Response in superior parietal cortex reflected a precision-weighted prediction error signal (i.e., the distance between observations and expectations) that was modulated by hippocampal activity. Our findings implicate the hippocampus during inference under uncertainty, suggesting a role in weighting prior representations over observations and in modulating responsivity of superior parietal cortex to prediction error.

Risk preference and choice stochasticity during decisions for other people.

In several contexts, such as finance and politics, people make choices that are relevant for others but irrelevant for oneself. Focusing on decision-making under risk, we compared monetary choices made for one's own interest with choices made on behalf of an anonymous individual. Consistent with the previous literature, other-interest choices were characterized by an increased gambling propensity. We also investigated choice stochasticity, which captures how much decisions vary in similar conditions. An aspect related to choice stochasticity is how much decisions are tuned to the option values, and we found that this was higher during self-interest than during other-interest choices. This effect was observed only in individuals who reported a motivation to distribute rewards unequally, suggesting that it may (at least partially) depend on a motivation to make accurate decisions for others. Our results indicate that, during decision-making under risk, choices for other people are characterized by a decreased tuning to the values of the options, in addition to enhanced risk seeking.

Hierarchical Active Inference: A Theory of Motivated Control.

Motivated control refers to the coordination of behaviour to achieve affectively valenced outcomes or goals. The study of motivated control traditionally assumes a distinction between control and motivational processes, which map to distinct (dorsolateral versus ventromedial) brain systems. However, the respective roles and interactions between these processes remain controversial. We offer a novel perspective that casts control and motivational processes as complementary aspects - goal propagation and prioritization, respectively - of active inference and hierarchical goal processing under deep generative models. We propose that the control hierarchy propagates prior preferences or goals, but their precision is informed by the motivational context, inferred at different levels of the motivational hierarchy. The ensuing integration of control and motivational processes underwrites action and policy selection and, ultimately, motivated behaviour, by enabling deep inference to prioritize goals in a context-sensitive way.

Value encoding in the globus pallidus: fMRI reveals an interaction effect between reward and dopamine drive.

The external part of the globus pallidus (GPe) is a core nucleus of the basal ganglia (BG) whose activity is disrupted under conditions of low dopamine release, as in Parkinson's disease. Current models assume decreased dopamine release in the dorsal striatum results in deactivation of dorsal GPe, which in turn affects motor expression via a regulatory effect on other nuclei of the BG. However, recent studies in healthy and pathological animal models have reported neural dynamics that do not match with this view of the GPe as a relay in the BG circuit. Thus, the computational role of the GPe in the BG is still to be determined. We previously proposed a neural model that revisits the functions of the nuclei of the BG, and this model predicts that GPe encodes values which are amplified under a condition of low striatal dopaminergic drive. To test this prediction, we used an fMRI paradigm involving a within-subject placebo-controlled design, using the dopamine antagonist risperidone, wherein healthy volunteers performed a motor selection and maintenance task under low and high reward conditions. ROI-based fMRI analysis revealed an interaction between reward and dopamine drive manipulations, with increased BOLD activity in GPe in a high compared to low reward condition, and under risperidone compared to placebo. These results confirm the core prediction of our computational model, and provide a new perspective on neural dynamics in the BG and their effects on motor selection and cognitive disorders.

The value of novelty in schizophrenia.

Influential models of schizophrenia suggest that patients experience incoming stimuli as excessively novel and motivating, with important consequences for hallucinatory experience and delusional belief. However, whether schizophrenia patients exhibit excessive novelty value and whether this interferes with adaptive behaviour has not yet been formally tested. Here, we employed a three-armed bandit task to investigate this hypothesis. Schizophrenia patients and healthy controls were first familiarised with a group of images and then asked to repeatedly choose between familiar and unfamiliar images associated with different monetary reward probabilities. By fitting a reinforcement-learning model we were able to estimate the values attributed to familiar and unfamiliar images when first presented in the context of the decision-making task. In line with our hypothesis, we found increased preference for newly introduced images (irrespective of whether these were familiar or unfamiliar) in patients compared to healthy controls and this to correlate with severity of hallucinatory experience. In addition, we found a correlation between value assigned to novel images and task performance, suggesting that excessive novelty value may interfere with optimal learning in patients, putatively through the disruption of the mechanisms regulating exploration versus exploitation. Our results suggest excessive novelty value in patients, whereby even previously seen stimuli acquire higher value as the result of their exposure in a novel context - a form of 'hyper novelty' which may explain why patients are often attracted by familiar stimuli experienced as new.

Better than expected: the influence of option expectations during decision-making.

Our choices often arise from a consideration of options presented in a sequence (e.g. the products in a supermarket row). However, whether the precise sequential order of option presentation affects decision-making remains poorly understood. A recent model of choice proposes that, in a set of options presented sequentially, those that are better than expected will be perceived as more valuable, even when options are objectively equivalent within the set. Inspired by this proposal, we devised a novel decision-making task where we manipulated the order of option presentation together with expectations about option value. Even when we compared trials that were exactly equivalent except for option order, we observed a striking preference for options that were better than expected. Our findings show that expectations about options affect which option will be favoured within a sequence, an influence which is manifested as a preference for better-than-expected options. The findings have potential practical implications, as for example they may help policymakers in devising nudge strategies that rely on ad hoc option orders.