Complex Social Scenarios Research Articles

A Taxonomy of Explanation Types and Need Indicators in Human–Agent Collaborations

In recent years, explanations have become a pressing matter in AI research. This development was caused by the increased use of black-box models and a realization of the importance of trustworthy AI. In particular, explanations are necessary for human–agent interactions to ensure that the user can trust the agent and that collaborations are effective. Human–agent interactions are complex social scenarios involving a user, an autonomous agent, and an environment or task with its own distinct properties. Thus, such interactions require a wide variety of explanations, which are not covered by the methods of a single AI discipline, such as computer vision or natural language processing. In this paper, we map out what types of explanations are important for human–agent interactions, surveying the field via a scoping review. In addition to the typical introspective explanation tackled by explainability researchers, we look at assistive explanations, aiming to support the user with their task. Secondly, we survey what causes the need for an explanation in the first place. We identify a variety of human–agent interaction-specific causes and categorize them by whether they are centered on the agent’s behavior, the user’s mental state, or an external entity. Our overview aims to guide robotics practitioners in designing agents with more comprehensive explanation-related capacities, considering different explanation types and the concrete times when explanations should be given.

Intraspecific variation in audience effects during outgroup conflict in a cooperatively breeding fish

Conspecific audiences have frequently been shown to affect behaviour during competitive interactions. However, research on audience effects has focused almost exclusively on how individual observers influence dyadic contests. Few studies have investigated more complex social scenarios, such as when groups defending a collective territory against outsiders can be monitored by neighbours. We used groups of the cooperatively breeding cichlid fish Neolamprologus pulcher to test experimentally how the presence of neighbours influences group and individual level defence behaviour towards a female intruder, as well as associated within-group interactions. In the presence of neighbours, groups performed more defensive acts and spent more time defending their territory, but the nature of the response to neighbour presence differed between group members. Dominant females attacked intruders more, while subordinate females produced aggressive displays of longer mean duration; dominant males also tended to increase mean display duration. Despite the significant audience effects on defence behaviour, neighbour presence did not lead to any discernible changes in within-group aggression, affiliation or submission during the intrusions. Our study expands the small current literature on audience effects in group-living species and thus contributes to a fuller understanding of within- and between-group social dynamics. • We assessed audience effects on collective defence and within-group interactions. • Groups increased their defensive efforts in the presence of neighbours. • The type of defensive behaviour that increased differed between group members. • Within-group behaviour during the intrusion was not affected by neighbour presence.

Paper in Medieval England: From Pulp to Fiction by Orietta Da Rold

Reviewed by: Paper in Medieval England: From Pulp to Fiction by Orietta Da Rold Megan L. Cook Orietta Da Rold. Paper in Medieval England: From Pulp to Fiction. Cam bridge Studies in Medieval Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. xx, 270. $99.99 cloth; $44.99 paper; $80.00 e-book. On April 13, 2019, a New York Times headline announced that "Cursive Seemed to Go the Way of Quills and Parchment. Now It's Coming Back." The article recounts how, since the requirement that cursive be taught to American schoolchildren was dropped in 2010, proponents have argued for its reinstatement, citing its use in historical documents and personal correspondence, its utility in note-taking, and its role in the development of cognitive and fine motor skills. These pro-cursive activists have had substantial success; as of 2022, more than twenty US states once again mandate that cursive be taught in elementary schools. The twenty-first-century story of cursive and the widespread adaptation of paper as a writing substrate in late medieval England might at first seem wholly separate phenomena. Yet it is clear that, to understand fully the function and value of either textual technology, one needs to understand the uses to which it is put, the symbolic value accorded it in the broader culture, and the conditions under which it might be accessed. Orietta Da Rold's excellent new study, Paper in Medieval England, demonstrates the [End Page 386] sometimes surprising ways that—much like modern-day cursive writing—paper's place in late medieval textual culture was varied, was situationally specific, and carried a wide range of potential connotations. Importantly, however, Da Rold also troubles the periodizing logic of the Times headline's implication that parchment, quills, and cursive are all equally obsolescent relics of a bygone age. Paper in Medieval England shows how paper sat alongside parchment in the workshops and saddlebags of scribes and merchants, valued for its affordability and portability even if its durability was sometimes questioned. This is not a story of one substrate's triumph over another, but one of affordance and mutual accommodation in ways that may not be immediately apparent without the sort of sustained attention to paper in its cultural context that Da Rold provides here. This attention yields compelling insights: one of Da Rold's most intriguing arguments is that paper and cursive script are mutually enhancing tools of communication. In a culture that increasingly valued quick writing and communication, they together allowed letters and other documents to be written and sent with new speed. This is just one of the ways in which this book sets out to "reject some of the most common mantras in paper history—low cost and low status—to tell more accurately the stories of paper across complex social and cultural scenarios" (21). To do so, Da Rold draws on multiple disciplines: economics, history, paleography, and codicology, as well as literary studies. At the core of her study is the "Mapping Medieval Paper in England" project, which catalogues hundreds of datable paper manuscripts from the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries. The substantial size of this corpus allows Da Rold to move decisively beyond the focus on a single manuscript or cluster of manuscripts that predominates in studies of early books, and to begin to chart larger patterns and trends in the use of paper in medieval England. The book's first chapter focuses on paper as a technology refined over time and as commodity that moved from Asia into Europe, finally becoming known and adopted for use in England during the thirteenth century. Da Rold shows that, while diplomatic correspondence on paper helped spread knowledge of the material throughout Europe, the most important vector in paper's availability in England was commercial links with Italy, particularly via the wool trade. Drawing on the "Mapping Medieval Paper" dataset to trace the presence of thirteenth-century paper in English archives, Da Rold argues that the most common early uses of paper were financial documents and correspondence, reflecting the basic fact that [End Page 387] "paper was associated with transportation and travel" (47). Instead of being disregarded as ephemeral, paper's...

The Mirroring Dance: Synchrony and Interaction Quality of Five Adolescents and Adults on the Autism Spectrum in Dance/Movement Therapy.

Background: Individuals on the autism spectrum are often described as having atypical social interactions. Ideally, interactional synchrony helps any interaction flow smoothly with each individual responding verbally, non-verbally, and/or emotionally within a short timeframe. Differences in interactional synchrony may impact how individuals on the autism spectrum experience social encounters.Method: This mixed methods pilot study examined interactional synchrony in five cases of adolescents and adults on the autism spectrum through secondary analysis of video of the participants in movement-based mirroring tasks during dance/movement therapy. Raters described the movement and interactions of the participants while they were leading and following mirroring and engaged in open-ended free dances with a partner. Videos were also scored on measures of affective engagement, flow of the interaction, and synchrony.Results: One of the most striking findings of this study was the difference between engagement in the instructions of the task and engagement with the partner: participants often followed the instructions for the mirroring tasks with little further social engagement with their partner. When participants did engage in moments of social initiation, attunement to the partner, and interactive behaviors, these did not develop into longer interactions. A paired t-test of the correlation coefficients for each participant showed that scores on synchrony and affective engagement were more strongly positively correlated in the less structured open-ended dance and in video clips of interactive behaviors, than in the videos of simply leading or following mirroring. Synchrony was also significantly more strongly positively correlated with the observed flow of the interaction than with observed affective engagement. With the small sample size, however, most of the correlation coefficients were not significant and should be tested on a larger sample.Discussion: Interpersonal synchrony may not be sufficient to effectively support social engagement when individuals on the autism spectrum simply follow instructions to synchronize their movements. Synchrony-based interventions may therefore need to include more complex open-ended social scenarios as interactional synchrony may then be more correlated with perceived interaction quality. Therapists may also need to partner with participants to model using non-verbal social behaviors to develop interactions within mirroring tasks.

Contextual Modulation of Binary Decisions in Dyadic Social Interactions

The present experimental design allowed binary decisions (i.e., to choose between proactive approaching or withdrawing behavior). These decisions were made on complex social interaction scenarios displayed on videos. The videos were taken from a first-person perspective. They were preceded by one sentence each that provided additional information about the context of the displayed scenario. The sentence preceding the video and the video jointly provided a context of emotional valence. That context varied from trial to trial. We observed that provocative and threatening videos produced predominantly fear and anger responses. Fear was associated with withdrawal decisions, while anger led to approach decisions. Negative contextual information increased the probability of approach decisions in aggressive provocative videos; positive contextual information enhanced the chance of approach decisions in socially positive videos. In neutral situations, displayed in videos, the probability of the approach behavior was reduced in case of negative contextual information. Yet, the probability for approach behavior was increased if positive contextual information preceded neutral videos. Our experimental setup provided a paradigm that can be adapted and accommodated for the examination of future research questions on social decisions in multidimensional, complex social situations.

Neural Responses of Pet Dogs Witnessing Their Caregiver's Positive Interactions with a Conspecific: An fMRI Study.

We have limited knowledge on how dogs perceive humans and their actions. Various researchers investigated how they process human facial expressions, but their brain responses to complex social scenarios remain unclear. While undergoing fMRI, we exposed pet dogs to videos showing positive social and neutral nonsocial interactions between their caregivers and another conspecific. Our main interest was how the dogs responded to their caregivers (compared to a stranger) engaging in a pleasant interaction with another dog that could be seen as social rival. We hypothesized that the dogs would show activation increases in limbic areas such as the amygdala, hypothalamus, and insula and likely show higher attention and arousal during the positive caregiver–dog interaction. When contrasting the social with the nonsocial interaction, we found increased activations in the left amygdala and the insular cortex. Crucially, the dogs’ hypothalamus showed strongest activation when the caregiver engaged in a positive social interaction. These findings indicate that dogs are sensitive to social affective human–dog interactions and likely show higher valence attribution and arousal in a situation possibly perceived as a potential threat to their caregiver bonds. Our study provides a first window into the neural correlates of social and emotional processing in dogs.

Desarrollo de territorios costeros turísticos en México mediante la autogestión con base sistémica

La zona costera turística representa escenarios de reproducciones sociales complejas, ya que el desarrollo del turismo de playas se ha dado por un modelo de aprovechamiento que soslaya el sistema ecológico que lo soporta. Esto se atribuye a una inadecuada planeación, la desarticulación gubernamental y la generalización de la problemática social y ambiental de las costas. Las playas, como elementos costeros, presentan particularidades sociales y ambientales que requieren metodologías que regulen su variedad. En este sentido, este trabajo tiene como objetivo proponer el uso del Enfoque Sistémico (utilizando la Metodología de Sistemas Suaves) para un acercamiento a la gestión costera desde una perspectiva local. Los resultados obtenidos fueron un diagnóstico participativo y un modelo conceptual de autogestión para las playas de Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca. Se encontró que, a partir de estudios locales que otorguen un papel protagónico a la comunidad para el aprovechamiento sustentable de las costas, mejora la vinculación entre lo social y lo ambiental.

The Association Between Parent Engagement and Child Outcomes in Social Skills Training Programs: Discovering the Secret Agent Society in Partnership

AbstractPrevious research in clinical, community, and school settings has demonstrated positive outcomes for the Secret Agent Society (SAS) social skills training program. This is designed to help children on the autism spectrum become more aware of emotions in themselves and others and to ‘problem-solve’ complex social scenarios. Parents play a key role in the implementation of the SAS program, attending information and support sessions with other parents and providing supervision, rewards, and feedback as their children complete weekly ‘home mission’ assignments. Drawing on data from a school-based evaluation of the SAS program, we examined whether parents’ engagement with these elements of the intervention was linked to the quality of their children’s participation and performance. Sixty-eight 8–14-year-olds (M age = 10.7) with a diagnosis of autism participated in the program. The findings indicated that ratings of parental engagement were positively correlated with children’s competence in completing home missions and with the quality of their contribution during group teaching sessions. However, there was a less consistent relationship between parental engagement and measures of children’s social and emotional skill gains over the course of the program.

Delineating the social valuation network in adolescents.

Adolescents strive for peer approval, and an increased sensitivity to peers’ opinions is normative. However, among vulnerable adolescents, peer evaluation can be detrimental, contributing to affective disorders. It is, therefore, critical to improve our understanding of neural underpinnings of peer evaluation. Prior research has investigated averaged neural responses to peer acceptance or rejection, neglecting to probe trial-by-trial computations that mirror real-time updating of daily activities. In non-social decision-making, a common neural valuation system centered on the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) has emerged, which evaluates different reward types on a common scale to guide choices. However, it is unclear whether the mPFC also tracks complex social scenarios involving peer feedback. To address this gap, we acquired fMRI data from 55 healthy adolescents during the Chatroom Task, which probes peer evaluation, and implemented a computational approach to characterize trial-by-trial social value, thereby allowing us to interrogate the neural correlates of social value. Consistent with our hypothesis, social value signals were encoded in the mPFC. Interestingly, analyses also revealed a wider social-specific valuation network including the precuneus and amygdala. Understanding how adolescents make social decisions and neural markers associated with it, may, ultimately, help us clarify promising targets for intervention.

Hacia una autogestión sustentable de playas turísticas desde un Enfoque Sistémico

Coastal zones are important for the development of human activities, their use has transcended by the goods and services that provide for society ranging from support, climate regulation and economic use to recreation. So tourism should be an example of good and service provided by the coasts that involves economic and recreational purposes, but also for environmental conservation and responsible social use. The use of beaches as tourist spaces, derived an important socio-environmental dynamic that has not always been beneficial for the environment. The urban growth and the massification of these spaces has caused pollution and environmental pressure on coastal environments, especially in the beaches that had a traditional growth lacking in planning. The coastal zone for tourist activity represents complex social reproduction scenarios that must be studied from methodologies that allow the involvement of the multiple actors involved to improve the management of these spaces. In this sense, it is considered that the connection between the socio-environmental peculiarities of the coasts should be based on local studies that allow giving a leading role to the community towards a sustainable use of the coasts. For this reason, the case of Puerto Escondido Oaxaca is taken as an example, with the aim of developing a management proposal based on the Soft Systems Methodology for sustainable self-management. This methodology, due to its flexibility, allowed generating a participatory diagnosis to create improvement proposals. The results show a conceptual model of self-management as an approach to the improvement of beach management, using these beaches in Oaxaca as an example. Keywords: Tourist beaches, Self-management, Systemic Approach.

Bodily sensations in social scenarios: Where in the body?

Bodily states are fundamental to emotions’ emergence and are believed to constitute the first step in the chain of events that culminate in emotional awareness. Recent works have shown that distinct topographical maps can be derived to describe how basic and more complex emotions are represented in the body. However, it is still unclear whether these bodily maps can also extend to emotions experienced specifically within social interactions and how these representations relate to basic emotions. To address this issue, we used the emBODY tool to obtain high-resolution bodily maps that describe the body activation and deactivation experienced by healthy participants when presented with social scenarios depicting establishment or loss of social bonds. We observed patterns of activation/deactivation for each single social scenario depending on the valence, but also a common activation of head, chest and deactivation of limbs for positive and negative social scenarios, respectively. Furthermore, we show that these maps are comparable to those obtained when taking the perspective of a third person, suggesting the existence of common body representation of social emotions for the self and other person evaluation. Finally, we showed that maps related to complex social scenarios are strongly correlated with bodily states experienced in basic emotions, suggesting that the patterns of body activation/deactivation observed for social scenarios might arise from a complex interaction of the basic emotions that these experiences elicit.

Adaptation to different communicative contexts: an eye tracking study of autistic adults

BackgroundLearning through social observation (i.e., watching other people interact) lays the foundation for later social skills and social cognition. However, social situations are often complex, and humans are only capable of attending to one aspect of a scene at a time. How do people choose where to allocate their visual resources when viewing complex social scenarios? For typically developing (TD) individuals, faces are often given priority. Depending upon context, however, it may be more useful to attend to other aspects of the environment, such as hands, tools, or background objects. Previous studies reported reduced face looking in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but modulation of visual attention in response to contextual differences (e.g., according to social richness, or the presence/absence of communicative behaviors between two people) has only briefly been explored. In this study, we used eye-tracking technology to test the extent to which ASD adults and TD adults use social context to guide their gaze behavior.MethodsFifty-five adults participated (28 with ASD). The location and duration of participants’ gaze were recorded while they watched a series of naturalistic social videos. Half of the videos depicted two people engaging in non-verbal communication (rich social scenes) while playing with toys. The other half depicted two people playing with toys separately, not interacting with each other (lean social scenes).ResultsASD and TD adults both increased their attention to faces in communicative contexts (rich social scenes) as compared to non-communicative contexts (lean social scenes). However, TD adults increased their attention to faces significantly more when watching two people communicate than did ASD adults, who increased their attention to a lesser degree. Further analysis revealed that ASD adults persisted in looking at hands and toys, even when observing two people communicate in a rich social scene.ConclusionsDiminished gaze to faces when observing two people communicating may lead to fewer opportunities for social learning and subsequent reductions in social knowledge. Naturalistic measures of contextual modulation could help identify areas of need for individuals learning about the social world and could become treatment targets to improve everyday social learning.

Conditional Coordination Games on Cyclic Social Influence Networks

Coordinated decision making is one of the fundamental attributes of intelligent behavior, and game theory has long served as a framework within which to model interactive decision making, especially for scenarios where decision makers are motivated to compete for the distribution of scarce resources. It is not obvious, however, that the standard game-theoretic framework is appropriate for complex social scenarios where agents are influenced by the attitudes and opinions of others and, consequently, the opportunity exists to make coordinated decisions in the pursuit of coherent group behavior. Noncooperative game theory is founded on the premise that choices ought to be strategically rational—agents make best-replies to the expected actions of others. However, when modeling groups whose members are responsive to social influence, a relevant notion of behavior is for them to coordinate rather than compete. The combination of conditional game theory and Bayesian network theory provides a framework within which to formalize a theory of coordinated decision making under social influence. As originally developed, however, conditional game theory applies only to acyclical networks involving unilateral influence propagation. This paper extends the theory to account for networks with cycles, where agents are able to exert multilateral influence on each other. The Markov convergence theorem establishes conditions for convergence to steady-state coordinated decisions, and demonstrates its use with a bilateral collaboration scenario. In addition, this paper provides a mathematical analysis of several canonical network topologies.

Spatially Integrated Social Sciences with Qualitative GIS to Support Impact Assessment in Mining Communities

Spatially integrated social science is a broad term used to describe the integration of space and place in social science research using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). It includes qualitative GIS approaches, such as geo-ethnology and geo-narratives, which combine qualitative social data with GIS and represent an emerging approach with significant potential for facilitating new insights into the dynamic interactions between mining companies and host communities. Mine operations are unique in their complexity, both in terms of the dynamic and diverse nature of issues and the requirement to integrate knowledge, theories, and approaches from a range of disciplines. In this paper we describe the potential for spatially integrated social science using qualitative GIS to understand the social impacts of mining. We review current literature and propose a framework that incorporates quantitative and qualitative knowledge across social and biophysical domains within a multi-user approach. We provide examples to illustrate how our approach could support past, present, and future assessment of socio-environmental systems in large-scale mining. We conclude by discussing the need for a multi-disciplinary approach to support decision makers and local stakeholders in considering complex social and environmental scenarios.

A review on trust propagation and opinion dynamics in social networks and group decision making frameworks

On-line platforms foster the communication capabilities of the Internet to develop large-scale influence networks in which the quality of the interactions can be evaluated based on trust and reputation. So far, this technology is well known for building trust and harnessing cooperation in on-line marketplaces, such as Amazon (www.amazon.com) and eBay (www.ebay.es). However, these mechanisms are poised to have a broader impact on a wide range of scenarios, from large scale decision making procedures, such as the ones implied in e-democracy, to trust based recommendations on e-health context or influence and performance assessment in e-marketing and e-learning systems. This contribution surveys the progress in understanding the new possibilities and challenges that trust and reputation systems pose. To do so, it discusses trust, reputation and influence which are important measures in networked based communication mechanisms to support the worthiness of information, products, services opinions and recommendations. The existent mechanisms to estimate and propagate trust and reputation, in distributed networked scenarios, and how these measures can be integrated in decision making to reach consensus among the agents are analysed. Furthermore, it also provides an overview of the relevant work in opinion dynamics and influence assessment, as part of social networks. Finally, it identifies challenges and research opportunities on how the so called trust based network can be leveraged as an influence measure to foster decision making processes and recommendation mechanisms in complex social networks scenarios with uncertain knowledge, like the mentioned in e-health and e-marketing frameworks.

Aspects of alcohol use disorder affecting social cognition as assessed using the Mini Social and Emotional Assessment (mini-SEA)

BackgroundAlcohol Use Disorder (AUD) is associated with problems with processing complex social scenarios. Little is known about the relationship between distinct AUD-related factors (e.g., years of problematic drinking), aspects of cognitive function and dysfunction in individuals diagnosed with AUD, and the relative impact these may have on social cognition. AimsTo explore differences in social cognition between a group of participants diagnosed with AUD and controls, using a clinical measure, the Mini Social and Emotional Assessment (mini-SEA). The mini-SEA was used to evaluate social and emotional understanding through a facial emotional recognition task and by utilising a series of social scenes some of which contain a faux pas (social error). MethodsEighty-five participants (individuals with AUD and controls) completed demographic questions and a general cognitive and social cognitive test battery over three consecutive days. ResultsBetween group analyses revealed that the participants with AUD performed less well on the faux pas test, and differences were also revealed in the emotional facial recognition task. Years of problematic alcohol consumption was the strongest predictor of poor ToM reasoning. ConclusionThese results suggest a strong link between AUD chronicity and social cognition, though the direction of this relationship needs further elucidation. This may be of clinical relevance to abstinence and relapse management, as basic social cognition skills and ability to maintain interpersonal relationships are likely to be crucial to recovery.

Bystander Responses to Bias‐Based Bullying in Schools: A Developmental Intergroup Approach

AbstractResearch on bystanders' responses to bullying shows the valuable contribution that prosocial or defender behaviors can have in reducing bullying in schools. In this article, we propose that a developmental intergroup approach (i.e., a developing understanding of social identities and related intergroup processes) is required to understand fully when and why children and adolescents help bullied peers in diverse contexts. First, we review theory and evidence on intergroup social exclusion to demonstrate the strength of a developmental intergroup approach when understanding responses to complex social scenarios in childhood and adolescence. Then, we review recent evidence that demonstrates the importance of examining group membership, group identity, and group norms to understand children's and adolescents' responses as bystanders in the context of bias‐based bullying. Finally, we consider implications for school‐based interventions and next steps for research.

Using metaphor and montage to analyse and synthesise diverse qualitative data: exploring the local worlds of ‘early school leavers’

Growing interest in mixed method approaches to social research, alongside calls to expand methodological toolboxes to include the use of visual, mobile, sensory and observational methods, are generating diverse forms of research data that represent a range of ways of knowing. We discuss a study that used multiple methods to explore the circumstances of ‘early school leavers’ and show how we utilised the metaphor of pinboard logic and techniques of montage to guide the analysis, synthesis and interpretation of hetergeneous data. Pinboard logic enabled us to frame, assemble and contextualise data for analysis and interpretation, while montage suggests how these various ‘bits’ of data can be linked to develop insights into complex social scenarios. These analytic strategies accommodated the diverse expressive practices that young people used to describe their experiences, and allowed us to explore the varied circumstances associated with young people disengaging from educational opportunities.

Social evolution and inclusive fitness theory: an introduction

Social behavior has long puzzled evolutionary biologists, since the classical theory of natural selection maintains that individuals should not sacrifice their own fitness to affect that of others. Social Evolution and Inclusive Fitness Theory argues that a theory first presented in 1963 by William D. Hamilton—inclusive fitness theory—provides the most fundamental and general explanation for the evolution and maintenance of social behavior in the natural world. James Marshall guides readers through the vast and confusing literature on the evolution of social behavior, introducing and explaining the competing theories that claim to provide answers to questions such as why animals evolve to behave altruistically. Using simple statistical language and techniques that practicing biologists will be familiar with, he provides a comprehensive yet easily understandable treatment of key concepts and their repeated misinterpretations. Particular attention is paid to how more realistic features of behavior, such as nonadditivity and conditionality, can complicate analysis. Marshall highlights the general problem of identifying the underlying causes of evolutionary change, and proposes fruitful approaches to doing so in the study of social evolution. Social Evolution and Inclusive Fitness Theory describes how inclusive fitness theory addresses both simple and complex social scenarios, the controversies surrounding the theory, and how experimental work supports the theory as the most powerful explanation for social behavior and its evolution.

Neural correlates of the empathic perceptual processing of realistic social interaction scenarios displayed from a first-order perspective

The neural processing of impulsive behavior is a central topic in various clinical and non-clinical contexts. To investigate neural and behavioral correlates of the empathic processing of complex social scenarios, especially considering ecological validity of the experimental procedure, we developed and investigated a video stimulus inventory. It includes realistic neutral, social-positive, and reactive–aggressive action scenarios. Short video-clips showing these social scenarios from a first-person perspective triggering different emotional states were presented to a non-clinical sample of 20 young adult male participants during fMRI measurements. Both affective interaction conditions (social-positive and reactive–aggressive) were contrasted against a neutral baseline condition and against each other. Behavioral evaluation data largely confirmed the validity of the emotion-inducing stimulus material. Reactive–aggressive and social-positive interaction scenarios produced widely overlapping fMRI activation patterns in hetero-modal association cortices, but also in subcortical regions, such as the peri-aqueductal gray. Reactive–aggressive compared to social-positive scenarios yielded a more anterior distribution of activations in pre-motor and inferior frontal brain regions associated to motor-preparation and inhibitory control processing as well as in the insula associated to pain- and/or aversion-processing. We argue that there are both principally common neural networks recruited for the processing of reactive–aggressive and social-positive scenarios, but also exclusive network parts in particular involved depending on individual socialization.