Research

Humans yearn for deep social relationships, but connecting with people is a risky business: a friendly attempt to reach out to a stranger may be rejected, an intimate confession of feelings could fall flat, or an authentic self-expression may not be supported by friends. These social risk behaviors—decisions with uncertain social outcomes—shape our social lives, and have a profound impact on our mental and physical health.

My research investigates the psychology and neuroscience of social risk, using tools from behavioral science, neuroimaging, and social network analysis. I explore these questions across different levels (e.g.,momentary interactions, longitudinal modeling), and across contexts ranging from the lab to the real world.

1. Characterizing social risk taking.

What drives people to take social risks? One line of my work uses quantitative modeling of behavior and brain activity to explore this question. In one recent study (preprint), I assessed social and financial risk taking in the same laboratory behavioral paradigm.

I found that (1) people’s tendencies to take social vs. financial risks are weakly correlated, and (2) people with varying depression and anxiety levels demonstrated distinct behavioral patterns of risk taking across contexts. These results highlight that taking social risks involves unique psychological processes compared to taking risks with financial consequences.

2. Social risk taking fosters social connection

A second line of my research takes social risk taking from laboratory to the real world, and examines how individuals’ social risk tendencies are associated with their wellbeing and characteristics of their social worlds (e.g., social network position). Through a comprehensive, large-scale longitudinal study that spanned two years (total N = 5,192; paper accepted at Nature Human Behavior), I found that many people underestimate how empathic others are. This “empathy misperception” discourages social risk-taking, leading to isolation and further misperceptions over time.

To break this cycle, I conducted two field experiments that presented students with data on their peers’ self-reported empathy and behavioral nudges to encourage social risk taking. These interventions reduced the empathy perception gap, increased social behaviors, and expanded social networks months later.

This line of work provided causal links that we enhance social connection through promoting social risk taking, thus offers a promising, scalable strategy to cultivate social wellbeing: simply by providing opportunities for people to learn the care and support in their communities.

3. Social vs. health risk taking

Sometimes, avoiding social risk leads people to take health risks. For example, a teen may run a red light to avoid seeming “uncool” in front of peers—choosing danger over disapproval.

In this line of research, I examine how social influence drives health-risk behaviors like reckless driving or smoking. This includes:

• Studying brain responses to peer presence during driving tasks (Pei et al., 2020)

• Investigating how age and cultural context shape conformity and resistance to peer pressure (Pei et al., 2023; Pei et al., 2024)

Together, this work highlights how the social environment influences decisions with real-life consequences, and underscores the importance of understanding the trade-offs people face between fitting in and staying safe.