Abstract
A change of mind in response to social influence could be driven by informational conformity to increase accuracy, or by normative conformity to comply with social norms such as reciprocity. Disentangling the behavioural, cognitive, and neurobiological underpinnings of informational and normative conformity have proven elusive. Here, participants underwent fMRI while performing a perceptual task that involved both advice-taking and advice-giving to human and computer partners. The concurrent inclusion of 2 different social roles and 2 different social partners revealed distinct behavioural and neural markers for informational and normative conformity. Dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) BOLD response tracked informational conformity towards both human and computer but tracked normative conformity only when interacting with humans. A network of brain areas (dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and temporoparietal junction (TPJ)) that tracked normative conformity increased their functional coupling with the dACC when interacting with humans. These findings enable differentiating the neural mechanisms by which different types of conformity shape social changes of mind.
Highlights
We develop an empirical framework for understanding the mechasupported by the Humboldt Foundation, the nisms that underpin social changes of mind at the cognitive and neural level
We found that traditionally social brain areas—dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal junction (TPJ)—tracked the degree to which a partner took into account the participants’ perceptual estimate on trials where the partner revised their estimate and in turn increased its coupling with Dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) on trials where the participants revised their estimate when both informational and normative demands were high
If dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and/or TPJ provide the normative factor that is used by dACC to drive social changes of mind, connectivity between these areas and dACC on revision trials should vary with the demand for reciprocating influence as computed on a preceding observation trial
Summary
We are often faced with opinions that are different from our own. In these situations, we sometimes decide to stick to our own opinion and other times we change our mind. In studies where people made a perceptual decision after observing the recommendation of an advisor, people may have based their decision on the advisor’s response because they felt that it was the socially right thing to do or because they genuinely had low confidence in their own sensory percept It remains an open question how the brain balances informational and normative factors during social changes of mind. We found that traditionally social brain areas—dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and temporoparietal junction (TPJ)—tracked the degree to which a partner took into account the participants’ perceptual estimate on trials where the partner revised their estimate and in turn increased its coupling with dACC on trials where the participants revised their estimate when both informational and normative demands were high Taken together, these results support a general role for dACC in coordinating changes of mind in both nonsocial and social situations
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