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

> **NIH NIH P20** · BROWN UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $300,625

## 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:** 9994933
- **Project number:** 5P20GM103645-08
- **Recipient organization:** BROWN UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Oriel FeldmanHall
- **Activity code:** P20 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $300,625
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2013-08-15 → 2023-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9994933

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9994933, Project 3 The Neural and Affective Mechanisms of Socially Risky Learning (5P20GM103645-08). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9994933. Licensed CC0.

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