Neural mechanisms of social influence

Malia F. Mason, Rebecca Dyer and Michael I. Norton

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2009, vol. 110, issue 2, 152-159

Abstract: The present investigation explores the neural mechanisms underlying the impact of social influence on preferences. We socially tagged symbols as valued or not - by exposing participants to the preferences of their peers - and assessed subsequent brain activity during an incidental processing task in which participants viewed popular, unpopular, and novel symbols. The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) differentiated between symbols that were and were not socially tagged - a possible index of normative influence - while aspects of the striatum (the caudate) differentiated between popular and unpopular symbols - a possible index of informational influence. These results suggest that integrating activity in these two brain regions may differentiate objects that have become valued as a result of social influence from those valued for non-social reasons.

Keywords: Social; neuroscience; Social; influence; Social; norms; Preferences; Brain; Consumer; behavior; Normative; influence; Informational; influence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749-5978(09)00038-7
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:jobhdp:v:110:y:2009:i:2:p:152-159

Access Statistics for this article

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes is currently edited by John M. Schaubroeck

More articles in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().