Social Decision-Making under Uncertainty

Social interactions can be deeply rewarding, yet they are marked by social uncertainty. The uncertainty arises because we can never truly know another’s mind. As a species, humans find uncertainty aversive and excessive. Intolerance of uncertainty is a risk factor for emotional disorders. One way to resolve uncertainty in novel situations is to rely on memories of past similar experiences, yet this process is largely unexplored in social contexts. A novel social decision-making task showed that individuals recruit both memories and incremental experiences of social rewards to guide decisions under social uncertainty. Further, individuals with elevated depressive symptoms showed better integration of positive social memories if they also had high levels of autobiographical memory specificity. These findings suggest that successfully recalling past positive social experiences improves navigation of social uncertainty, and may confer preventative advantages for those with high levels of affective disorder symptoms.