[8] People may not only share emotions with others, but may also experience similar physiological arousal to others if they feel a sense of social connectedness to the other person.
[10] In neuroeconomics, the role social emotions play in game theory and economic decision-making is just starting to be investigated.
[11] After functional imaging—functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in particular—became popular roughly a decade ago, researchers have begun to study economic decision-making with this new technology.
While brain areas such as medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), superior temporal sulcus (STS), temporal poles (TP) and precuneus bordering with posterior cingulate cortex are activated in both adults and adolescents when they reason about intentionality of others, the medial PFC is more activated in adolescents and the right STS more in adults.
[14] Similar age effects were found with younger participants, such that, when participants perform tasks that involve theory of mind, increase in age is correlated with an increase in activation in the dorsal part of the MPFC and a decrease in the activity in the ventral part of the MPFC were observed.
[15] Studies that compare adults with adolescents in their processings of basic and social emotions also suggest developmental shifts in brain areas being involved.
Comparing with adolescents, the left temporal pole has a stronger activity in adults when they read stories that elicit social emotions.
[23] Using fMRI scans, researchers found that social emotions elicited by the offers may play a role in explaining the result.
[26] It shows that we not only feel hurtful when we become victims of unfairness, but we also find it psychologically rewarding to punish the wrongdoer, even at a cost to our own utility.
Pride, for instance, is a social emotion which involves the perceived admiration of other people, but research on the role it plays in moral behaviors yields problematic results.