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Contribution Details

Type Journal Article
Scope Discipline-based scholarship
Title Computational and neurobiological foundations of leadership decisions
Organization Unit
Authors
  • Micah Goldsmith Edelson
  • Rafael Polania
  • Christian Ruff
  • Ernst Fehr
  • Todd Anthony Hare
Item Subtype Original Work
Refereed Yes
Status Published in final form
Language
  • English
Journal Title Science
Publisher American Association for the Advancement of Science
Geographical Reach international
ISSN 0036-8075
Volume 361
Number 6401
Page Range online
Date 2018
Abstract Text Decisions as diverse as committing soldiers to the battlefield or picking a school for your child share a basic attribute: assuming responsibility for the outcome of others. This responsibility is inherent in the roles of prime ministers and generals, as well as in the more quotidian roles of firmmanagers, schoolteachers, and parents. Here we identify the underlying behavioral, computational, and neurobiologicalmechanisms that determine the choice to assume responsibility over others. Leaders must take responsibility for others and affect the well-being of individuals, organizations, and nations. We identify the effects of responsibility on leaders’ choices at the behavioral and neurobiological level and document the widespread existence of responsibility aversion, i.e., a reduced willingness to make decisions if the welfare of others is at stake. In mechanistic terms, basic preferences towards risk, losses and ambiguity do not explain responsibility aversion which, instead, is driven by a second-order cognitive process reflecting an increased demand for certainty about the best choice when others’ welfare is affected. Finally, models estimating levels of information flow between brain regions processing separate choice components, provide the first step in understanding the neurobiological basis of individual variability in responsibility aversion and leadership scores. We identify and characterize the computations and neural mechanisms underlying choices to lead.
Free access at DOI
Official URL http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6401/eaat0036
Digital Object Identifier 10.1126/science.aat0036
Other Identification Number merlin-id:16663
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Keywords Multidisciplinary