Abstract
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.
Highlights
IntroductionResearch on social influence has focused mainly on the target of influence (e.g., consumer and voter); the cognitive and neurobiological underpinnings of the source of the influence (e.g., politicians and salesmen) remain unknown
Research on social influence has focused mainly on the target of influence; the cognitive and neurobiological underpinnings of the source of the influence remain unknown
We asked whether people would give overconfident (‘competitive’ strategy3) or under-confident (‘defensive’ strategy8,9) advice when they are ignored by their client, and whether social comparison with a rival adviser has a role in advising behaviour
Summary
Research on social influence has focused mainly on the target of influence (e.g., consumer and voter); the cognitive and neurobiological underpinnings of the source of the influence (e.g., politicians and salesmen) remain unknown. Social rank theory underscores the importance of an active process of social comparison by which an adviser evaluates her rank by tracking her performance relative to rival advisers[10,11,12,13,14] In this view, relative performance or merit may affect advice confidence leading people to display higher confidence when they think they perform better than their peers. Relative performance or merit may affect advice confidence leading people to display higher confidence when they think they perform better than their peers These theoretical models of strategic advice giving and influence management may rely on a number of social cognitive processes, including mentalizing (theory of mind 'ToM')[15], social motivation[16] and social comparisons[17], which have been previously linked to specific neural substrates[16,18]. We sought to identify the neural mechanisms underlying the participants’ attempts to influence others by advice giving, examining whether (and how) brain areas associated with mentalizing, social comparison and valuation track the appraisal made by a client and calculate relative performance during a strategic advice-giving task
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