title: How beliefs about self-creation inflate value in the human brain.
abstract: Humans have a tendency to overvalue their own ideas and creations. Understanding how these errors in judgement emerge is important for explaining suboptimal decisions, as when individuals and groups choose self-created alternatives over superior or equal ones. We show that such overvaluation is a reconstructive process that emerges when participants believe they have created an item, regardless of whether this belief is true or false. This overvaluation is observed both when false beliefs of self-creation are elicited (Experiment 1) or implanted (Experiment 2). Using brain imaging data we highlight the brain processes mediating an interaction between value and belief of self-creation. Specifically, following the creation manipulation there is an increased functional connectivity during valuation between the right caudate nucleus, where we show BOLD activity correlated with subjective value, and the left amygdala, where we show BOLD activity is linked to subjective belief. Our study highlights psychological and neurobiological processes through which false beliefs alter human valuation and in doing so throw light on a common source of error in judgements of value.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London London, UK ; Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, Institute of Neurology, University College London London, UK.
authors.forename: Raphael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Koster
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London London, UK ; Affective Brain Lab, Department of Experimental Psychology Research, University College London London, UK.
authors.forename: Tali
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sharot
authors.affiliation: Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, Institute of Neurology, University College London London, UK.
authors.forename: Rachel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge Cambridge, UK.
authors.forename: Benedetto
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: De Martino
authors.affiliation: Harvard Business School, Harvard University Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Michael I
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Norton
authors.affiliation: Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, Institute of Neurology, University College London London, UK.
authors.forename: Raymond J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Dolan
keywords: amygdala; caudate nucleus; fMRI; hippocampus; medial temporal lobe