Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Of The Medial Frontal Cortex Modulates Choice-Induced Preference Changes

Marco Colosio (), Elena Rybina (), Anna Shestakova () and Vasily Klucharev ()
Additional contact information
Marco Colosio: National Research University Higher School of Economics
Elena Rybina: National Research University Higher School of Economics
Anna Shestakova: National Research University Higher School of Economics
Vasily Klucharev: National Research University Higher School of Economics

HSE Working papers from National Research University Higher School of Economics

Abstract: Cognitive dissonance arises as a reaction to conflict appearing in choices between two equally attractive options. It leads to changes in the desirability of these options. The chosen option becomes more desirable whereas the rejected option is devalued. Despite cognitive dissonance being largely used by social psychologists to explain social conformity and preference re-evaluation, little is known about the neural mechanisms of such choice-induced preference changes. In this study, we modulated the activity of the posterior medial frontal cortex (pMFC), which has been found to be involved in cognitive dissonance in neuroimaging studies. We influenced the activity of the pMFC before individual choices using both cathodal and anodal transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) during a revised version of Brehm's free-choice paradigm. Our results showed that cathodal tDCS over the pMFC significantly decreased the typical choice-induced preference change relative to a sham stimulation. On the contrary, no significant effect of anodal tDCS was observed. Our findings of the influence cathodal tDCS on preference re-evaluation highlight the central contribution of the pMFC in cognitive dissonance and provide evidence that pMFC plays a key role in the implementation of subsequent post-decision preference change.

Keywords: cognitive dissonance; social psychology; choice-induced preference changes; medial frontal cortex; transcranial direct current stimulation; cathodal tDCS; anodal tDCS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Z (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18 pages
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-neu
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in WP BRP Series: Science, Psychology / PSY, September 2018, pages 1-18

Downloads: (external link)
https://wp.hse.ru/data/2018/09/18/1153661206/92PSY2018.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hig:wpaper:92psy2018

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in HSE Working papers from National Research University Higher School of Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Shamil Abdulaev () and Shamil Abdulaev ().