Dr Claudia Civai
Contact details
About
Overview
Dr Claudia Civai is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology (Behavioural Economics); she joined City in June 2024. She obtained her PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience at the International School for Advanced Study (SISSA - Italy), after which she was a postdoctoral research fellow first at the University of Minnesota (USA) and then at Radboud University - Donders Institute (Netherlands). She moved to the UK in 2016 as lecturer, first at the University of Kent and then at London South Bank University.
Her research focuses on understanding how people react to unfairness and inequality, and exploring what leads people to cooperate, reciprocate trust and behave fairly, which she investigates using the methodological and theoretical framework of Decision Neuroscience (Psychology + Neuroscience + Behavioural Economics).
Some of the research questions she is currently pursuing are:
- preferences for retributive vs restorative justice and attentional processes: can justice preferences be influenced by redirecting attentional focus?
- perceived scarcity and prosociality: how does scarcity of resources influence our willingness to trust, cooperate and behave fairly?
- scarcity of human contact in the digital world: can human contact become a luxury good? If so, what would be the consequences?
Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, a Radboud Excellence Fellowship, LSBU internal grants, and the British Academy.
Claudia is Associate Editor for the journal Frontiers in Behavioural Economics, and a UKRI ESRC Peer Review College Member. She is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and an External Examiner at the University of Greenwich.
She teaches cognitive and social psychology and supervises projects in the MSc in Behavioural Economics.
Qualifications
- PhD, International School for Advanced Studies, Italy, 2007 - November 2011
- MSc, University of Padua, Italy, 2004 - October 2006
- BSc, University of Padua, Italy, 2001 - September 2004
Employment
- Senior Lecturer, City, University of London, United Kingdom, June 2024 - present
- Senior Lecturer, London South Bank University, United Kingdom, January 2020 - June 2024
- Lecturer, London South Bank University, United Kingdom, July 2017 - December 2019
- Lecturer, University of Kent, United Kingdom, September 2016 - June 2017
- Postdoctoral Fellow, Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands, September 2014 - August 2016
- Postdoctoral Associate, University of Minnesota, United States, January 2012 - July 2014
Publications
Publications by category
Book
- Gilead, M. and Ochsner, K.N. (Eds.), (2021). The Neural Basis of Mentalizing. Springer International Publishing. ISBN 9783030518899.
Chapters (3)
- Civai, C. and Sanfey, A. (2021). Mentalizing in value-based social decision-making: Shaping expectations and social norms. Neural Basis of Mentalizing (pp. 503-516).
- Civai, C. and Hawes, D.R. (2016). Game Theory in Neuroeconomics. Studies in Neuroscience, Psychology and Behavioral Economics (pp. 13-37). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. ISBN 9783642359224.
- Polezzi, D., Guarneri, C. and Civai, C. (2012). The point of view of neuroscience on decision-making. Handbook on Psychology of Decision Making New Research (pp. 1-31).
Conference paper and proceedings
- Civai, C., Hawes, D.R., DeYoung, C.G. and Rustichini, A. The role of intelligence and extraversion on the neural evaluation of delayed rewards. .
Journal articles (22)
- Civai, C., Capraro, V. and Polonio, L. (2025). The role of attention and frames on third-party punishment and compensation choices. Cognition, 263, pp. 106192-106192. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106192
- Civai, C., Elbaek, C.T. and Capraro, V. (2024). Why scarcity can both increase and decrease prosocial behaviour: A review and theoretical framework for the complex relationship between scarcity and prosociality. Current Opinion in Psychology, 60, pp. 101931-101931. doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2024.101931
- King, N., Lewis, E.G., Kinnison, T., Langridge, A., Civai, C., May, S.A.... Cardwell, J.M. (2024). Mental health of veterinary nurses and student veterinary nurses: A scoping review. Veterinary Record, 194(9). doi:10.1002/vetr.4091
- Rustichini, A., Domenech, P., Civai, C. and DeYoung, C.G. (2023). Working memory and attention in choice. PLOS ONE, 18(10), pp. e0284127-e0284127. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0284127
- Bester, A., O’Brien, M., Cotter, P., Dam, S. and Civai, C. (2023). Shotgun Metagenomic Sequencing Revealed the Prebiotic Potential of a Fruit Juice Drink with Fermentable Fibres in Healthy Humans. Foods, 12(13), pp. 2480-2480. doi:10.3390/foods12132480
- Civai, C., Caserotti, M., Carrus, E., Huijsmans, I. and Rubaltelli, E. (2022). How perceived scarcity predicted cooperation during early pandemic lockdown. Frontiers in Psychology, 13. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.951757
- Civai, C., Teodorini, R. and Carrus, E. (2020). Does unfairness sound wrong? A cross-domain investigation of expectations in music and social decision-making. Royal Society Open Science, 7(9). doi:10.1098/rsos.190048
- Königschulte, W., Civai, C., Hildebrand, P., Gaber, T.J., Fink, G.R. and Zepf, F.D. (2020). Effects of serotonin depletion and dopamine depletion on bimodal divided attention. The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry, 21(3), pp. 183-194. doi:10.1080/15622975.2018.1532110
- Civai, C., Huijsmans, I. and Sanfey, A.G. (2019). Neurocognitive mechanisms of reactions to second- and third-party justice violations. Scientific Reports, 9(1). doi:10.1038/s41598-019-45725-8
- Huijsmans, I., Ma, I., Micheli, L., Civai, C., Stallen, M. and Sanfey, A.G. (2019). A scarcity mindset alters neural processing underlying consumer decision making. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(24), pp. 11699-11704. doi:10.1073/pnas.1818572116
- Civai, C. and Ma, I. (2017). The Enhancement of Social Norm Compliance: Prospects and Caveats. Journal of Cognitive Enhancement, 1(1), pp. 26-30. doi:10.1007/s41465-017-0009-4
- Civai, C., Hawes, D.R., DeYoung, C.G. and Rustichini, A. (2016). Intelligence and Extraversion in the neural evaluation of delayed rewards. Journal of Research in Personality, 61, pp. 99-108. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2016.02.006
- Civai, C., Miniussi, C. and Rumiati, R.I. (2015). Medial prefrontal cortex reacts to unfairness if this damages the self: a tDCS study. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 10(8), pp. 1054-1060. doi:10.1093/scan/nsu154
- Sanfey, A.G., Civai, C. and Vavra, P. (2015). Predicting the other in cooperative interactions. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 19(7), pp. 364-365. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2015.05.009
- Civai, C., Rumiati, R.I. and Rustichini, A. (2013). More equal than others: Equity norms as an integration of cognitive heuristics and contextual cues in bargaining games. Acta Psychologica, 144(1), pp. 12-18. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2013.05.002
- Corradi-Dell'Acqua, C., Civai, C., Rumiati, R.I. and Fink, G.R. (2013). Disentangling self- and fairness-related neural mechanisms involved in the ultimatum game: an fMRI study. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 8(4), pp. 424-431. doi:10.1093/scan/nss014
- Tomasino, B., Lotto, L., Sarlo, M., Civai, C., Rumiati, R. and Rumiati, R.I. (2013). Framing the ultimatum game: the contribution of simulation. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2013.00337
- Civai, C. (2013). Rejecting unfairness: emotion-driven reaction or cognitive heuristic? Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2013.00126
- Civai, C., Crescentini, C., Rustichini, A. and Rumiati, R.I. (2012). Equality versus self-interest in the brain: Differential roles of anterior insula and medial prefrontal cortex. NeuroImage, 62(1), pp. 102-112. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.04.037
- Civai, C. and Langus, A. (2012). In medio stat virtus: Theoretical and methodological extremes regarding reciprocity will not explain complex social behaviors. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 35(1), pp. 22-23. doi:10.1017/s0140525x11001208
- Civai, C., Corradi-Dell’Acqua, C., Gamer, M. and Rumiati, R.I. (2010). Are irrational reactions to unfairness truly emotionally-driven? Dissociated behavioural and emotional responses in the Ultimatum Game task. Cognition, 114(1), pp. 89-95. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2009.09.001
- POLEZZI, D., DAUM, I., RUBALTELLI, E., LOTTO, L., CIVAI, C., SARTORI, G.... RUMIATI, R. (2008). Mentalizing in economic decision-making. Behavioural Brain Research, 190(2), pp. 218-223. doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2008.03.003