Jörg Gross

Jörg Gross is a researcher at the University of Amsterdam's Faculty of Economics and Business, Department of Experimental Economics, focusing on the integration of social and risk preferences in decision-making. His work explores how neurobiological factors like dopamine influence prosocial behavior under risk, as demonstrated in a 2021 Psychological Science study. Gross co-designed incentivized behavioral tasks to measure these preferences and their pharmacological modulation.

• Key research areas:
  • Social Preferences and Risk Preferences
  • Neuroeconomics of Prosocial Behavior
  • Dopamine's Role in Cognitive and Social Decision-Making

In a landmark study, Gross and colleagues showed that social and risk preferences are behaviorally independent yet systematically integrated in risky helping scenarios. The research revealed that methylphenidate increases risky helping by altering risk tolerance, while atomoxetine shows no such effect.

• Scientific contributions:
  • Developed the 'risky helping task' to disentangle preference mechanisms
  • Identified neurobiological dissociation between dopamine's effects on risk vs. social preferences
  • Demonstrated that prosocial behavior under risk requires both high social preferences and low risk aversion