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Mao R, Long C. Adaptive adjustment after conflict with group opinion: evidence from neural electrophysiology. Cereb Cortex 2024; 34:bhad484. [PMID: 38102971 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhad484] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/11/2023] [Revised: 11/26/2023] [Accepted: 11/27/2023] [Indexed: 12/17/2023] Open
Abstract
Individuals inherently seek social consensus when making decisions or judgments. Previous studies have consistently indicated that dissenting group opinions are perceived as social conflict that demands attitude adjustment. However, the neurocognitive processes of attitude adjustment are unclear. In this electrophysiological study, participants were recruited to perform a face attractiveness judgment task. After forming their own judgment of a face, participants were informed of a purported group judgment (either consistent or inconsistent with their judgment), and then, critically, the same face was presented again. The neural responses to the second presented faces were measured. The second presented faces evoked a larger late positive potential after conflict with group opinions than those that did not conflict, suggesting that more motivated attention was allocated to stimulus. Moreover, faces elicited greater midfrontal theta (4-7 Hz) power after conflict with group opinions than after consistency with group opinions, suggesting that cognitive control was initiated to support attitude adjustment. Furthermore, the mixed-effects model revealed that single-trial theta power predicted behavioral change in the Conflict condition, but not in the No-Conflict condition. These findings provide novel insights into the neurocognitive processes underlying attitude adjustment, which is crucial to behavioral change during conformity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rui Mao
- Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of the Ministry of Education, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China
| | - Changquan Long
- Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of the Ministry of Education, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China
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2
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Quarles LF, Feddema K, Campera M, Nekaris KAI. Normal redefined: Exploring decontextualization of lorises (Nycticebus & Xanthonycticebus spp.) on social media platforms. FRONTIERS IN CONSERVATION SCIENCE 2023. [DOI: 10.3389/fcosc.2023.1067355] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/01/2023] Open
Abstract
IntroductionDecontextualization is a concept from psychology whereby new words are learned outside of the context of the here-and-now. Decontextualized language is used for discussing abstract concepts and is crucial to the development of academic language. When it comes to images, a dearth of context can lead to a lack of clarity, such as the use of ambiguous decontextualized images in environmental communication, leading to the promotion of greenwashing. Here we refer to decontextualization as the removal of wildlife from their wild ecological context. Images and videos of globally threatened species are increasingly popular on social media. Showing such taxa alongside humans may impact public perceptions of their abundance and need for conservation and can increase illegal trade. One group of animals that are particularly popular on social media platforms are the slow and pygmy lorises (Nycticebus spp., Xanthonycticebus spp.).MethodsHere, we examined 100 videos from three popular social media platforms (YouTube, TikTok, and Giphy) to calculate how often and in which ways these videos remove slow lorises from their natural ecological and behavioural context. We also examined views and likes to determine viewer engagement trends. We used relevant content from each site to assess the presence of decontextualization using five conditions.ResultsIn all but two videos, conditions of decontextualization were present and 77% of all videos had four to five conditions of decontextualization. Using Spearman correlation, we found a significant effect of decontextualization scores on the number of views and likes for YouTube and TikTok videos. Views were significantly higher when videos presented animals in anthropogenic settings (i.e., in human-made structures or in proximity of human artefacts). Additionally, views on TikTok and YouTube were significantly higher when animals displayed signs of stress or ill health and when they were in unnatural conditions.DiscussionOur case study of lorises provides an example of the danger of decontextualizing wild animals on social media. Public preference for imagery where animals are neglected is indicative that better guidelines need to be put in place and policed by social media platforms. Additionally, conservationists need to develop strategies to promote wild imagery and further explore decontextualization if we are to understand and address the drivers of the rampant illegal wildlife trade online.
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Zhang H, Zhang K, Zhang Z, Zhao M, Liu Q, Luo W, Wu H. Social conformity is associated with inter-trial electroencephalogram variability. Ann N Y Acad Sci 2023; 1523:104-118. [PMID: 36964981 DOI: 10.1111/nyas.14983] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/27/2023]
Abstract
Human society encompasses diverse social influences, and people experience events differently and may behave differently under such influence, including in forming an impression of others. However, little is known about the underlying neural relevance of individual differences in following others' opinions or social norms. In the present study, we designed a series of tasks centered on social influence to investigate the underlying relevance between an individual's degree of social conformity and their neural variability. We found that individual differences under the social influence are associated with the amount of inter-trial electroencephalogram (EEG) variability over multiple stages in a conformity task (making face judgments and receiving social influence). This association was robust in the alpha band over the frontal and occipital electrodes for negative social influence. We also found that inter-trial EEG variability is a very stable, participant-driven internal state measurement and could be interpreted as mindset instability. Overall, these findings support the hypothesis that higher inter-trial EEG variability may be related to higher mindset instability, which makes participants more vulnerable to exposed external social influence. The present study provides a novel approach that considers the stability of one's endogenous neural signal during tasks and links it to human social behaviors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Haoming Zhang
- Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences and Department of Psychology, University of Macau, Macau, China
| | - Kunkun Zhang
- Research Center of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China
| | - Ziqi Zhang
- Research Center of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China
| | - Mingqi Zhao
- Research Center for Motor Control and Neuroplasticity, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
| | - Quanying Liu
- Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Smart Healthcare Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
| | - Wenbo Luo
- Research Center of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China
| | - Haiyan Wu
- Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences and Department of Psychology, University of Macau, Macau, China
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4
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Bergman JN, Buxton RT, Lin HY, Lenda M, Attinello K, Hajdasz AC, Rivest SA, Tran Nguyen T, Cooke SJ, Bennett JR. Evaluating the benefits and risks of social media for wildlife conservation. Facets (Ott) 2022. [DOI: 10.1139/facets-2021-0112] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Given its extensive volume and reach, social media has the potential to widely spread conservation messaging and be a powerful tool to mobilize social change for conserving biodiversity. We synthesized gray and primary academic literature to investigate the effects of social media on wildlife conservation, revealing several overarching benefits and risks. We found that social media can increase pro-conservation behaviours among the public, increase conservation funding, and incite policy changes. Conversely, social media can contribute to species exploitation and illegal trade, cause unprecedented increases in tourism in protected areas, and perpetuate anti-conservation behaviours via misinformation. In most cases, we found that content sharing on social media did not result in a detectable impact on conservation; in this paper, however, we focus on providing examples where conservation impact was achieved. We relate these positive and negative outcomes of social media to psychological phenomena that may influence conservation efforts and discuss limitations of our findings. We conclude with recommendations of best practices to social media administrators, public social media users, nongovernmental organizations, and governing agencies to minimize conservation risks while maximizing beneficial outcomes. By improving messaging, policing online misconduct, and providing guidance for action, social media can help achieve wildlife conservation goals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jordanna N. Bergman
- Department of Biology, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada
| | - Rachel T. Buxton
- Department of Biology, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada
| | - Hsien-Yung Lin
- Department of Biology, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada
| | - Magdalena Lenda
- Department of Health and Environmental Sciences, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, 111 Ren’ai Road, Suzhou Industrial Park, Suzhou, Jiangsu, 215123, China
- Institute of Nature Conservation, Polish Academy of Sciences, Mickiewicza 33, Kraków, 31–120, Poland
| | - Kayla Attinello
- Department of Biology, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada
| | - Adrianne C. Hajdasz
- Department of Biology, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada
| | - Stephanie A. Rivest
- Department of Biology, University of Ottawa, 75 Laurier Avenue E, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada
| | - Thuong Tran Nguyen
- Department of Biology, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada
| | - Steven J. Cooke
- Department of Biology, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada
- Institute of Environmental and Interdisciplinary Science, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada
| | - Joseph R. Bennett
- Department of Biology, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada
- Institute of Environmental and Interdisciplinary Science, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada
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5
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Zheng J, Hu L, Li L, Shen Q, Wang L. Confidence Modulates the Conformity Behavior of the Investors and Neural Responses of Social Influence in Crowdfunding. Front Hum Neurosci 2021; 15:766908. [PMID: 34803641 PMCID: PMC8600065 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2021.766908] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/30/2021] [Accepted: 09/28/2021] [Indexed: 01/10/2023] Open
Abstract
The decision about whether to invest can be affected by the choices or opinions of others known as a form of social influence. People make decisions with fluctuating confidence, which plays an important role in the decision process. However, it remains a fair amount of confusion regarding the effect of confidence on the social influence as well as the underlying neural mechanism. The current study applied a willingness-to-invest task with the event-related potentials method to examine the behavioral and neural manifestations of social influence and its interaction with confidence in the context of crowdfunding investment. The behavioral results demonstrate that the conformity tendency of the people increased when their willingness-to-invest deviated far from the group. Besides, when the people felt less confident about their initial judgment, they were more likely to follow the herd. In conjunction with the behavioral findings, the neural results of the social information processing indicate different susceptibilities to small and big conflicts between the own willingness of the people and the group, with small conflict evoked less negative feedback-related negativity (FRN) and more positive late positive potential (LPP). Moreover, confidence only modulated the later neural processing by eliciting larger LPP in the low confidence, implying more reliance on social information. These results corroborate previous findings regarding the conformity effect and its neural mechanism in investment decision and meanwhile extend the existing works of literature through providing behavioral and neural evidence to the effect of confidence on the social influence in the crowdfunding marketplace.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jiehui Zheng
- School of Management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.,Neuromanagement Laboratory, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
| | - Linfeng Hu
- School of Management, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China
| | - Lu Li
- School of Management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.,Neuromanagement Laboratory, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
| | - Qiang Shen
- School of Management, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China
| | - Lei Wang
- School of Management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.,Neuromanagement Laboratory, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
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6
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Lin Y, Gu R, Luan S, Hu L, Qin S, Luo YJ. The hierarchical sensitivity to social misalignment during decision-making under uncertainty. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2021; 16:565-575. [PMID: 33615385 PMCID: PMC8138082 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsab022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/30/2020] [Revised: 01/18/2021] [Accepted: 02/19/2021] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Social misalignment occurs when a person’s attitudes and opinions deviate from those of others. We investigated how individuals react to social misalignment in risky (outcome probabilities are known) or ambiguous (outcome probabilities are unknown) decision contexts. During each trial, participants played a forced-choice gamble, and they observed the decisions of four other players after they made a tentative decision, followed by an opportunity to keep or change their initial decision. Behavioral and event-related potential data were collected. Behaviorally, the stronger the participants’ initial preference, the less likely they were to switch their decisions, whereas the more their decisions were misaligned with the majority, the more likely they were to switch. Electrophysiological results showed a hierarchical processing pattern of social misalignment. Misalignment was first detected binarily (i.e. match/mismatch) at an early stage, as indexed by the N1 component. During the second stage, participants became sensitive to low levels of misalignment, which were indexed by the feedback-related negativity. The degree of social misalignment was processed in greater detail, as indexed by the P3 component. Moreover, such hierarchical neural sensitivity is generalizable across different decision contexts (i.e. risky and ambiguous). These findings demonstrate a fine-grained neural sensitivity to social misalignment during decision-making under uncertainty.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yongling Lin
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
| | - Ruolei Gu
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.,CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing 100101, China
| | - Shenghua Luan
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.,CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing 100101, China
| | - Li Hu
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.,CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Beijing 100101, China
| | - Shaozheng Qin
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
| | - Yue-Jia Luo
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.,Center for Brain Disorder and Cognitive Science, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518061, China.,College of Teacher Education, Qilu Normal University, Jinan, Shandong 250200, China.,The Research Center of Brain Science and Visual Cognition, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, Yunnan 650504, China
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7
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Gorin A, Klucharev V, Ossadtchi A, Zubarev I, Moiseeva V, Shestakova A. MEG signatures of long-term effects of agreement and disagreement with the majority. Sci Rep 2021; 11:3297. [PMID: 33558577 PMCID: PMC7870674 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-82670-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/16/2019] [Accepted: 01/15/2021] [Indexed: 01/10/2023] Open
Abstract
People often change their beliefs by succumbing to an opinion of others. Such changes are often referred to as effects of social influence. While some previous studies have focused on the reinforcement learning mechanisms of social influence or on its internalization, others have reported evidence of changes in sensory processing evoked by social influence of peer groups. In this study, we used magnetoencephalographic (MEG) source imaging to further investigate the long-term effects of agreement and disagreement with the peer group. The study was composed of two sessions. During the first session, participants rated the trustworthiness of faces and subsequently learned group rating of each face. In the first session, a neural marker of an immediate mismatch between individual and group opinions was found in the posterior cingulate cortex, an area involved in conflict-monitoring and reinforcement learning. To identify the neural correlates of the long-lasting effect of the group opinion, we analysed MEG activity while participants rated faces during the second session. We found MEG traces of past disagreement or agreement with the peers at the parietal cortices 230 ms after the face onset. The neural activity of the superior parietal lobule, intraparietal sulcus, and precuneus was significantly stronger when the participant’s rating had previously differed from the ratings of the peers. The early MEG correlates of disagreement with the majority were followed by activity in the orbitofrontal cortex 320 ms after the face onset. Altogether, the results reveal the temporal dynamics of the neural mechanism of long-term effects of disagreement with the peer group: early signatures of modified face processing were followed by later markers of long-term social influence on the valuation process at the ventromedial prefrontal cortex.
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Affiliation(s)
- A Gorin
- International Laboratory of Social Neurobiology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.
| | - V Klucharev
- International Laboratory of Social Neurobiology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia
| | - A Ossadtchi
- Centre for Bioelectric Interfaces, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia
| | - I Zubarev
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland
| | - V Moiseeva
- International Laboratory of Social Neurobiology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia
| | - A Shestakova
- International Laboratory of Social Neurobiology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia
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8
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Social network services for academic libraries: A study based on social capital and social proof. JOURNAL OF ACADEMIC LIBRARIANSHIP 2020. [DOI: 10.1016/j.acalib.2019.102091] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
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9
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Overgaauw S, Jansen M, Korbee NJ, de Bruijn ERA. Neural Mechanisms Involved in Social Conformity and Psychopathic Traits: Prediction Errors, Reward Processing and Saliency. Front Behav Neurosci 2019; 13:160. [PMID: 31379532 PMCID: PMC6646416 DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2019.00160] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/21/2018] [Accepted: 07/01/2019] [Indexed: 01/10/2023] Open
Abstract
Aligning behavior in favor of group norms, i.e., social conformity, can help to successfully adapt to uncertain environments and may result in social approval. This may lead to enhanced feelings of belongingness and is found to be associated with reward-related activations in the brain. Individuals high on psychopathic traits violate group norms regularly. Yet, it is unclear how psychopathic traits are related to neural mechanisms involved in social conformity. This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study includes 42 healthy females scoring low or high on the Psychopathic Personality Inventory questionnaire (PPI). Participants were asked to rate the trustworthiness of 120 faces while lying in the scanner. After rating each face, participants were presented with the group rating of European students. In an unanticipated second part participants rated all faces again, allowing us to focus on two main contrasts: (1) “Social conflict”: group opinion in conflict with the participant’s rating vs. group opinion aligned with participant rating; and (2) “Conformity”: conflict trials followed by conformity vs. conflict trials followed by non-conformity. Behaviorally, the two groups showed similar conformity behavior. fMRI results showed that both groups activated the nucleus accumbens (NAc) following alignment, suggesting the central role of prediction errors and reward. The data also showed a significant interaction between group and conformity in the amygdala. Following conflicts, females scoring low on psychopathic traits showed a trend in enhanced amygdala activation for conformity relative to non-conformity. Additionally, results showed a trend significant group effect for non-conformity. Females scoring high on psychopathic traits showed more activation for non-conformity compared to females scoring low on psychopathic traits, suggesting altered emotional salience of experiencing conflict depending on psychopathic traits. Taken together, these results support the importance of investigating the role of relevant traits in adaptive behavior when facing uncertain social situations and the neural mechanisms involved in this process.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sandy Overgaauw
- Department of Clinical Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands
- Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition (LIBC), Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands
- *Correspondence: Sandy Overgaauw
| | - Myrthe Jansen
- Department of Clinical Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands
- Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition (LIBC), Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands
| | - Naomi J. Korbee
- Department of Clinical Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands
- Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition (LIBC), Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands
| | - Ellen R. A. de Bruijn
- Department of Clinical Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands
- Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition (LIBC), Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands
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10
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Elucidating the role of the posterior medial frontal cortex in social conflict processing. Neuropsychologia 2019; 132:107124. [PMID: 31220506 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2019.107124] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/27/2018] [Revised: 06/12/2019] [Accepted: 06/13/2019] [Indexed: 02/05/2023]
Abstract
A fundamental function of the brain is learning via new information. Studies investigating the neural basis of information-based learning processes indicate an important role played by the posterior medial frontal cortex (pMFC) in representing conflict between an individual's expectation and new information. However, specific function of the pMFC in this process remains relatively indistinct. Particularly, it's unclear whether the pMFC plays a role in the detection of conflict of incoming information, or the update of their belief after new information is provided. In an fMRI scanner, twenty-eight Japanese students viewed scenarios depicting various pro-social/anti-social behaviors. Participants rated how likely Japanese and South Korean students would perform each behavior, followed by feedback of the actual likelihood. They were then asked to rerate the scenarios after the fMRI session. Participants updated their second estimates based on feedback, with estimate changes more pronounced for favorable feedback (e.g., higher likelihood of pro-social behavior than expected) despite nationality, indicating participants were willing to view other people favorably. The fMRI results demonstrated activity in a part of the pMFC, the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), was correlated with social conflict (difference between participant's estimate and actual likelihood), but not the corresponding belief update. Importantly, activity in a different part within the dmPFC was more sensitive to unfavorable trials compared to favorable trials. These results indicate sensitivity in the pMFC (at least within the dmPFC) relates to conflict between desirable outcomes versus reality, as opposed to the associated update of belief.
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Feng C, Cao J, Li Y, Wu H, Mobbs D. The pursuit of social acceptance: aberrant conformity in social anxiety disorder. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2019; 13:809-817. [PMID: 29986075 PMCID: PMC6123523 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsy052] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/19/2018] [Accepted: 06/28/2018] [Indexed: 01/10/2023] Open
Abstract
The defining pathological features of social anxiety disorder primarily concern the social landscape, yet few empirical studies have examined the potentially aberrant behavioral and neural patterns in this population using socially interactive paradigms. We addressed this issue by investigating the behavioral and neural patterns associated with social conformity in patients with social anxiety disorder. We recorded event-related potentials when healthy subjects (n = 19), and patients with social anxiety disorder (n = 20) made attractiveness judgements of unfamiliar others, while at the same time, being exposed to congruent/incongruent peer ratings. Afterwards, participants were asked to rerate the same faces without the presence of peer ratings. When compared with healthy controls, social anxiety disorder patients exhibited more positive attitudes to unfamiliar others and conformed more with peers-higher feedback. These behavioral effects were in parallel with neural responses associated with social conflict in the N400 signal, showing higher conformity to peers-higher feedback compared with peers-lower or peers-agree feedback among social anxiety disorder patients. Our findings provide evidence on the behavioral and neural patterns of social anxiety disorder during social interactions, and support the hypothesis that individuals with social anxiety disorder are more motivated to pursue social acceptance and possibly avoid social rejection.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chunliang Feng
- College of Information Science and Technology, Beijing Normal University, China.,State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, China
| | - Jianqin Cao
- Department of Nursing, Harbin Medical University, Daqing, China
| | - Yingli Li
- Department of Nursing, Harbin Medical University, Daqing, China
| | - Haiyan Wu
- CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing, China.,Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.,Division of Humanities and Social Sciences and Computation and Neural Systems Program, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
| | - Dean Mobbs
- Division of Humanities and Social Sciences and Computation and Neural Systems Program, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
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Neural signatures of social conformity: A coordinate-based activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis of functional brain imaging studies. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2016; 71:101-111. [PMID: 27592151 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.08.038] [Citation(s) in RCA: 63] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/28/2016] [Revised: 08/28/2016] [Accepted: 08/30/2016] [Indexed: 01/10/2023]
Abstract
People often align their behaviors with group opinions, known as social conformity. Many neuroscience studies have explored the neuropsychological mechanisms underlying social conformity. Here we employed a coordinate-based meta-analysis on neuroimaging studies of social conformity with the purpose to reveal the convergence of the underlying neural architecture. We identified a convergence of reported activation foci in regions associated with normative decision-making, including ventral striatum (VS), dorsal posterior medial frontal cortex (dorsal pMFC), and anterior insula (AI). Specifically, consistent deactivation of VS and activation of dorsal pMFC and AI are identified when people's responses deviate from group opinions. In addition, the deviation-related responses in dorsal pMFC predict people's conforming behavioral adjustments. These are consistent with current models that disagreement with others might evoke "error" signals, cognitive imbalance, and/or aversive feelings, which are plausibly detected in these brain regions as control signals to facilitate subsequent conforming behaviors. Finally, group opinions result in altered neural correlates of valuation, manifested as stronger responses of VS to stimuli endorsed than disliked by others.
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13
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Furley P, Schnuerch R, Gibbons H. The winner takes it all: Event-related brain potentials reveal enhanced motivated attention toward athletes’ nonverbal signals of leading. Soc Neurosci 2016; 12:448-457. [DOI: 10.1080/17470919.2016.1182586] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
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14
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Schnuerch R, Richter J, Koppehele-Gossel J, Gibbons H. Multiple neural signatures of social proof and deviance during the observation of other people's preferences. Psychophysiology 2016; 53:823-36. [PMID: 26928085 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.12636] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/19/2015] [Accepted: 02/04/2016] [Indexed: 01/10/2023]
Abstract
Detecting one's agreement with or deviation from other people, a key principle of social cognition, relies on neurocognitive mechanisms involved in reward processing, mismatch detection, and attentional orienting. Previous studies have focused on explicit depictions of the (in)congruency of individual and group judgments. Here, we report data from a novel experimental paradigm in which participants first rated a set of images and were later simply confronted with other individuals' ostensible preferences. Participants strongly aligned their judgments in the direction of other people's deviation from their own initial rating, which was neither an effect of regression toward the mean nor of evaluative conditioning (Experiment 1). Most importantly, we provide neurophysiological evidence of the involvement of fundamental cognitive functions related to social comparison (Experiment 2), even though our paradigm did not overly boost this process. Mismatches, as compared to matches, of preferences were associated with an amplitude increase of a broadly distributed N400-like deflection, suggesting that social deviance is represented in the human brain in a similar way as conflicts or breaches of expectation. Also, both early (P2) and late (LPC) signatures of attentional selection were significantly modulated by the social (mis)match of preferences. Our data thus strengthen and valuably extend previous findings on the neurocognitive principles of social proof.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Jasmin Richter
- Department of Psychology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
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