Abstract
The somatic marker hypothesis (SMH) has been utilized to demonstrate the role of emotion and somatic state in decision-making under uncertainty over the past two decades. Despite some debate, the SMH has provided not only a neurobiological framework for understanding emotion and decision-making but also a good empirical support for ecological rationality and embodied emotion. Unlike the traditional maximizing rationality and bounded satisficing rationality, the ecological rationality stresses that emotions should be brought to the decision-making process. The embodied emotion furthermore emphasizes that emotions are embodied in the body and the brain. On the other hand, behavioral decision-making has spawned many new interdisciplines, including neuroeconomics. In this case, the SMH could act as a bridge to translate the ecological rationality and the embodied emotion into emerging neuroeconomics. Thus, this mini-review article aims to propose an integrated framework for introducing ecological rationality and embodied emotion into the field of neuroeconomics by virtue of insights from the SMH.
Highlights
Researchers in the social science field, especially economists, have held the view that individual decision-making is the pursuit of utility maximization and regarded the principles of logic, probability theory, and game theory as axioms of judgment and decision-making
With the advent of behavioral decision-making, the absoluteness and the predictability of decision-utility maximization have been challenged by increasing research
Decision-makers are described as perfectly rational calculators who aim at utility maximization
Summary
Researchers in the social science field, especially economists, have held the view that individual decision-making is the pursuit of utility maximization and regarded the principles of logic, probability theory, and game theory as axioms of judgment and decision-making According to these researchers, decision-makers are assumed to be completely rational. Research in the field of decision-making was once dominated by the hypothesis of the rational economic man Under this hypothesis, decision-makers are described as perfectly rational calculators who aim at utility maximization. We argue that the SMH can serve as a bridge for introducing key concepts of ecological rationality and embodied emotion into the burgeoning neuroeconomic research. For this propose, an integrative framework is presented. The purpose of this review article is to demonstrate that the SMH can bridge ecological rationality, embodied emotion, and neuroeconomics and to construct an integrated framework for applying ecological rationality and embodied emotion to neuroeconomics by virtue of core insights from the SMH
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