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The human amygdala in social judgment

Author

Listed:
  • Ralph Adolphs

    (University of Iowa College of Medicine)

  • Daniel Tranel

    (University of Iowa College of Medicine)

  • Antonio R. Damasio

    (University of Iowa College of Medicine
    The Salk Institute for Biological Studies)

Abstract

Studies in animals have implicated the amygdala in emotional1,2,3, and social4,5,6, behaviours, especially those related to fear and aggression. Although lesion7,8,9,10, and functional imaging11,12,13,14, studies in humans have demonstrated the amygdala's participation in recognizing emotional facial expressions, its role in human social behaviour has remained unclear. We report here our investigation into the hypothesis that the human amygdala is required for accurate social judgments of other individuals on the basis of their facial appearance. We asked three subjects with complete bilateral amygdala damage to judge faces of unfamiliar people with respect to two attributes important in real-life social encounters: approachability and trustworthiness. All three subjects judged unfamiliar individuals to be more approachable and more trustworthy than did control subjects. The impairment was most striking for faces to which normal subjects assign the most negative ratings: unapproachable and untrustworthy looking individuals. Additional investigations revealed that the impairment does not extend to judging verbal descriptions of people. The amygdala appears to be an important component of the neural systems that help retrieve socially relevant knowledge on the basis of facial appearance.

Suggested Citation

  • Ralph Adolphs & Daniel Tranel & Antonio R. Damasio, 1998. "The human amygdala in social judgment," Nature, Nature, vol. 393(6684), pages 470-474, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:393:y:1998:i:6684:d:10.1038_30982
    DOI: 10.1038/30982
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Fen Xu & Dingcheng Wu & Rie Toriyama & Fengling Ma & Shoji Itakura & Kang Lee, 2012. "Similarities and Differences in Chinese and Caucasian Adults' Use of Facial Cues for Trustworthiness Judgments," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(4), pages 1-9, April.
    2. Fatima Maria Felisberti & Louisa Pavey, 2010. "Contextual Modulation of Biases in Face Recognition," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(9), pages 1-9, September.
    3. Sara Santos & Inês Almeida & Bárbara Oliveiros & Miguel Castelo-Branco, 2016. "The Role of the Amygdala in Facial Trustworthiness Processing: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses of fMRI Studies," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(11), pages 1-28, November.
    4. Katarina Gospic & Erik Mohlin & Peter Fransson & Predrag Petrovic & Magnus Johannesson & Martin Ingvar, 2011. "Limbic Justice—Amygdala Involvement in Immediate Rejection in the Ultimatum Game," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(5), pages 1-8, May.
    5. Mattarozzi, Katia & Colonnello, Valentina & De Gioia, Francesco & Todorov, Alexander, 2017. "I care, even after the first impression: Facial appearance-based evaluations in healthcare context," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 68-72.
    6. Tamami Nakano & Takuto Yamamoto, 2022. "You trust a face like yours," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-6, December.
    7. Hsieh, Tien-Shih & Kim, Jeong-Bon & Wang, Ray R. & Wang, Zhihong, 2020. "Seeing is believing? Executives' facial trustworthiness, auditor tenure, and audit fees," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1).
    8. Ronnie Bryan & Pietro Perona & Ralph Adolphs, 2012. "Perspective Distortion from Interpersonal Distance Is an Implicit Visual Cue for Social Judgments of Faces," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(9), pages 1-9, September.

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