April Roundtable 2025

Punishment: How risk and aversion shape our actions and choices

Abstract: A core tenet of adaptive behaviour is that rewards reinforce actions, while punishments suppress them. This tenet underpins shaping of individual choices, artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as societal systems designed to promote co-operative behaviour. Yet, we know little about how humans and other animals learn about punishment and why many individuals persist in punished behaviours, incurring profound costs from their choices. In this talk I will discuss our research program that assesses when humans and other animals learn about punishment, what they learn about punishment and how this learning shapes their actions and choices.

Bio: Gavan McNally is Professor of Psychology at UNSW Sydney. Research in his laboratory focusses on the psychological and brain mechanisms for associative learning and their roles in health and disease.  He is Senior Editor at The Journal of Neuroscience and has received the D.G. Marquis Award from the American Psychological Association and the Pavlovian Award from the Pavlovian Society. He is Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, the American Psychological Association, and Association for Psychological Science.

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