School Seminar Series - Professor Gavan McNally, The University of New South Wales
Punishment: How risk and aversion shape our choices and actions
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Description

Punishment: How risk and aversion shape our choices and actions
Punishment is learning about the adverse consequences of our actions. Although once a prominent topic in the study of psychology and learning, interest in punishment waned. Meanwhile, the use of old (fines, sanctions, boycotts, social exclusion, incarceration) and new (dislikes, unfollowing) punishers to shape human behavior continues unabated. I will describe experiments directed toward answering three questions about punishment: Under what conditions is punishment learned? What is learned during punishment? And how does punishment guide behavior? The answers to these questions help distinguish punishment from other forms of aversive learning, speak to understanding compulsive behaviours, and provide insights into the nature of decision processes in aversive learning.
Speaker Biography
I am Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at UNSW. My research is concerned with the fundamental psychological and brain mechanisms for learning and motivation, and how these apply to clinical conditions such as addictions, anxiety disorders, and mood disorders. This research spans human and non-human animals. We are interested in identifying these mechanisms, at the cellular, circuit, and systems level. We are also interested in translating this fundamental information into next generation treatments of psychological conditions.
Our work is funded by the ARC and NHMRC. I am Senior Editor at The Journal of Neuroscience, Associate Editor at Neurobiology of Learning & Memory, Consulting Editor at Behavioral Neuroscience, and Editorial Board member at Behavioral Pharmacology and Addiction Neuroscience. I was made Fellow of the American Psychological Association, The Association for Psychological Science, and of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia.
Location
Zoom