Social preferences and emotions in repeated interactions

The way people make decisions in social situations is in many ways a product of how they feel about those affected by their decisions. Both positive and negative emotions are important factors in decision-making. This thesis presents results from a series of laboratory experiments designed to contribute to our understanding of emotions in social economic games, using both purely behavioral experiments and one fMRI experiment. A special focus lies on different aspects of the interaction between two different people and the difference between positive and negative ties that result from cooperative or destructive behavior by others. We do not find that destructive behavior causes stronger reactions than cooperative behavior. The final chapter, which focuses on the distinction between different kinds of positive and negative experiences instead of merely direction, finds clear differences between intentional and circumstantial shared experiences.