Abstract
High power and high socioeconomic status individuals have been found to exhibit less motor system activity during observation of another individual’s behavior. In the modern world, the use of online social networks for social interaction is increasing, and these social networks afford new forms of social status hierarchy. An important question is whether social status in an online setting affects social information processing in a way that resembles the known effects of real-world status on such processing. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), we examined differences in motor cortical output during action observation between Instagram “leaders” and “followers.” Instagram Leaders were defined as individuals who have more followers than they are following, while Instagram Followers were defined as individuals who have fewer followers than they follow. We found that Followers exhibited increased Motor-evoked Potential (MEP) facilitation during action observation compared to Leaders. Correlational analyses also revealed a positive association between an individual’s Instagram follower/following ratio and their perceived sense of online status. Overall, the findings of this study provide some evidence in favor of the idea that our online sense of status and offline sense of status might be concordant in terms of their effect on motor cortical output during action observation.Statement of Significance: This study highlights the importance of examining the effects of online status on motor cortical output during action observation, and more generally alludes to the importance of understanding online and offline status effects on social information processing.
Highlights
Social interaction has traditionally taken place in a face-to-face setting between people who share the same physical space (Mathes, 1978; Baumeister and Leary, 1995)
The data from all participants was used to examine the association between F/F ratio and Perceived Online Status, and the linear relationship between the F/F ratio and motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) Facilitation
The current study investigated whether priming individuals by asking them to provide their Instagram f/f ratio and to rate their own perceptions of online status, are related to MEP facilitation during action observation
Summary
Social interaction has traditionally taken place in a face-to-face setting between people who share the same physical space (Mathes, 1978; Baumeister and Leary, 1995). Numerous studies have examined the effects of status and social power on social cognition, perception and behavior (Fiske, 1993; Keltner et al, 2003; Smith and Trope, 2006; Guinote, 2007; van Kleef et al, 2008). Extant literature suggests that this dependence asymmetry between individuals of high and low status is linked with a host of effects on social information processing. One’s status can be regarded as a composition of their level of respect and esteem in society. The rise of the internet has allowed individuals to partake in various forms of social interaction through the popular use of online social media. Given the prevalence of social media as a method of social interaction, it is important to examine whether online and real-world social interactions depend on the same cognitive processes, and whether the online world and the real world are concordant in terms of their effect on social information processing
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