Stress bestimmt den Alltag vieler Menschen. Doch wie wirkt er sich im sozialen Miteinander aus? Die Vergleichende Psychologie kommt zu verschiedenen Ergebnissen - von Aggressivität bis hin zu Hilfsbereitschaft. Verantwortlich dafür sind verschiedene Botenstoffe im Gehirn. 1/3

Aber was genau passiert in unserem Körper, wenn wir gestresst sind? Und wie wirkt sich Stress auf unser soziales Miteinander aus? In unserer Reihe “Forschung im Fokus” blickt Tobias Kalenscher (@kalenscher.bsky.social), Professor für Vergleichende Psychologie an der @hhu.de, auf das Thema. 2/3

New paper out in Autism! Last year, we showed that Autistic adults are more generous toward strangers than neurotypical people. But this finding raised the question: was this true generosity or just an artefact of task design? Quick answer: true generosity! ... journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

New paper out in the Journal of Neuroscience! What happens when the brain’s “social reward” circuits go off track? Rats overexpressing human DISC1 show specific deficits in social reward learning, but intact nonsocial learning, … doi.org/10.1523/JNEU...

🧠✨ Düsseldorf Symposium on Decision Neuroscience. 📅 Sept 26, 2025 | 📍 Düsseldorf A one-day, high-level event with leading speakers on dopamine, empathy, prosociality & neuroforecasting. 💸 Free! | 🌍 In person + online @hhu.de @socforneuroecon.bsky.social @decisionneurop.bsky.social

Yesterday I talked to David Cooper of The Last Show about our recent paper published in PNAS. Listen here (starting around minute 51): open.spotify.com/episode/2tt9...

New blog post! I summarize our recent paper (www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...) how stress concurrently fosters ingroup support and outgroup competition, and what this has to do with societal polarization and conflict. Us Versus Them | Psychology Today www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-...

Read Stress enhances cooperation within groups while simultaneously increasing hostility toward outsiders on Kudos: www.growkudos.com/publications...

Acute stress can enhance cooperation within groups while simultaneously increasing hostility toward outsiders, driven by distinct neurochemical pathways. doi.org/g9s8sw

1/4 New paper in @pnas.org! How does stress affect our social decisions in conflict? More aggression (fight-or-flight)? Or more altruism (tend-and-befriend)? Our new study suggests: it’s not either/or, stress promotes both at once, depending on the neurochemical balance and the social context. 🧠

Why are we generous to some people but not to others? And which brain mechanisms govern our decision to be generous toward others? In our latest research, published in @pnas.org (www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...), we report steeper social discounting after human basolateral amygdala (BLA) lesions.

Postdoc position 2025: for more information, please visit www.psychologie.hhu.de/en/research-...

3-year postdoc position (100% fte, TVL-E13) in human fMRI and psychopharmacology at the Institute of Experimental Psychology, Comparative Psychology, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany. Applications are invited for a 3-year postdoc position in the Comparative Psychology research group

Is it Bad to leave Twitter? No. Here are 7+ years of insights from my lab’s research that explain why. Featuring work w/ @williambrady.bsky.social @killianmcloughlin.bsky.social 🧵