Neural computations underpinning the strategic management of influence in advice giving

Research on social influence has focused mainly on the target of influence (e.g., consumer and voter); thus, the cognitive and neurobiological underpinnings of the source of the influence (e.g., politicians and salesmen) remain unknown. Here, in a three-sided advice-giving game, two advisers competed to influence a client by modulating their own confidence in their advice about which lottery the client should choose. We report that advisers’ strategy depends on their level of influence on the client and their merit relative to one another. Moreover, blood-oxygenation-level-dependent (BOLD) signal in the temporo-parietal junction is modulated by adviser’s current level of influence on the client, and relative merit prediction error affects activity in medial-prefrontal cortex. Both types of social information modulate ventral striatum response. By demonstrating what happens in our mind and brain when we try to influence others, these results begin to explain the biological mechanisms that shape inter-individual differences in social conduct.

Though it's important to influence others' decisions, the neural correlates of persuasive strategies are not known. Here, authors show that people change their advice based on its accuracy and whether they are being listened to, and identify the distinct brain regions underpinning each strategy.

Morality’s Centrality to Liking, Respecting, and Understanding Others

We examine morality’s relationship to three distinct dimensions of social perception: liking, respecting, and knowing a person. Participants completed two independent tasks. First, they rated acquaintances’ morality, competence, and sociability, and how much they liked, respected, and knew those acquaintances. In the second task, they rated a variety of moral and competence traits on their importance to liking, respecting, and knowing a person. Several findings emerged. First, morality was the most important factor to liking, respecting, and knowing a person but relatively more important to liking and respecting than to knowing; this finding replicated across tasks. Second, certain moral traits were more important than others, especially honesty, compassion, and fairness. Third, these traits were considered important because they were seen as potentially beneficial to the social perceiver. This research reveals morality’s centrality to evaluating and understanding others.

The Source Effect: Person Descriptions by Self versus Others Have Differential Effects on Impression Formation

Self-presentation via favorable self-descriptions may not lead to the desired impression, whereas positive descriptions by others may be more effective because they seem less susceptible to motivated bias. In four experiments, we investigated whether person descriptions have more impact on impressions when provided by third parties than by targets themselves. Results showed that target impressions were consistently more in line with the target description when positive sociability-related or positive competency-related information was given by a third party than by the target. This source effect always occurred for ratings of claimed traits. In addition, ratings of the target's sociability were also affected when the claim was about competency. Source effects were not obtained for negative self-descriptions. The results are discussed in terms of the presumed underlying process on the basis of mediation data.