Effect of Social Influence on Effort-Allocation for Monetary Rewards

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 10; no. 5; p. e0126656
• Main Authors: Gilman, Jodi M., Treadway, Michael T., Curran, Max T., Calderon, Vanessa, Evins, A. Eden
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 11.05.2015; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Addictions; Adolescent; Adult; Autism; Choice Behavior; Consent; Cost allocation; Cost benefit analysis; Decision Making; Female; Humans; Male; Medical research; Medicine; Neurosciences; Peer relationships; Peers; Probability; Psychiatry; Psychology; Reinforcement; Reward; Schizophrenia; Social Environment; Studies; Surveys and Questionnaires; Teenagers; Young Adult; Young adults; New York; United States > US; Massachusetts
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0126656

Though decades of research have shown that people are highly influenced by peers, few studies have directly assessed how the value of social conformity is weighed against other types of costs and benefits. Using an effort-based decision-making paradigm with a novel social influence manipulation, we measured how social influence affected individuals' decisions to allocate effort for monetary rewards during trials with either high or low probability of receiving a reward. We found that information about the effort-allocation of peers modulated participant choices, specifically during conditions of low probability of obtaining a reward. This suggests that peer influence affects effort-based choices to obtain rewards especially under conditions of risk. This study provides evidence that people value social conformity in addition to other costs and benefits when allocating effort, and suggests that neuroeconomic studies that assess trade-offs between effort and reward should consider social environment as a factor that can influence decision-making.