# Project 3 The Neural and Affective Mechanisms of Socially Risky Learning

> **NIH NIH P20** · BROWN UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $399,280

## Abstract

Project Summary 
Our long-term goal is to elucidate the fundamental neurobiological mechanisms supporting social learning. 
Many of our everyday social decisions require constant assessments of other individuals, such as whether they 
can be trusted. These decisions are inherently risky, as it is often uncertain, especially with strangers, how 
outcomes will unfold. Despite this, the mechanisms governing social risky learning remain largely unexplored. 
A hypersensitivity to risk and uncertainty—a hallmark symptom of anxiety that often results in a pronounced 
and maladaptive bias toward making risk-avoidant choices—provides an ideal test bed to probe the 
mechanisms governing social risky learning. The objective of this project is to innovatively merge 
methodologies and insights from associative learning models and neuroecononmics to examine the functional 
properties of the brain-behavior relationships that mediate social learning under uncertainty, while also 
identifying how alterations in these learning mechanisms shift socially risky behavior in maladaptive ways. Our 
central hypothesis is that a social learning model can capture the neurobiological mechanisms governing both 
healthy and maladaptive social risk taking. Our specific aims will 1) discover how social value (e.g. 
trustworthiness) is behaviorally and neurally instantiated in uncertain environments, 2) determine the role of 
affect in biasing these social learning processes, and 3) uncover knowledge about the relationship between 
anxiety and social learning and how it can lead to maladaptive socially risky choices. By providing a 
computational account of this relationship, we may show that social risky avoidant behavior emerges at the 
level of value assignment learning. Such a finding would highlight that individuals avoid socially risky choices 
because of a failure in affective learning. This contribution is significant since it will elucidate both optimal 
behavioral patterns and dysfunction and pathology during social learning—findings that may reveal potential 
biomarkers to aid in diagnosis and targeted interventions in those suffering from anxiety. Finally, the proposed 
research is innovative because it harnesses emerging computational, neuroscience, and theoretical knowledge 
on nonsocial learning in order to develop a deeper understanding of social risk-taking and its link with anxiety. 
!

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10246480
- **Project number:** 5P20GM103645-09
- **Recipient organization:** BROWN UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Oriel FeldmanHall
- **Activity code:** P20 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $399,280
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2013-08-15 → 2022-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10246480

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10246480, Project 3 The Neural and Affective Mechanisms of Socially Risky Learning (5P20GM103645-09). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-21 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10246480. Licensed CC0.

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