The role of loss aversion in social conformity: psychological and neural representations

Abstract The impact of others' choices on decision-making is influenced by individual preferences. However, the specific roles of individual preferences in social decision-making remain unclear. In this study, we examine the contributions of risk and loss preferences as well as social influence in decision-making under uncertainty using a gambling task. Our findings indicate that while both individual preferences and social influence affect decision-making in social contexts, loss aversion plays a dominant role, especially in individuals with high loss aversion. This phenomenon is accompanied by increased functional connectivity between the anterior insular cortex and the temporoparietal junction. These results highlight the critical involvement of loss aversion and the anterior insular cortex–temporoparietal junction neural pathway in social decision-making under uncertainty. Our findings provide a computational account of how individual preferences and social information collectively shape our social decision-making behaviors.