Abstract
Humans consistently make predictions about the valence of future events and use feedback to validate initial predictions. While the valence of outcomes provides utilitarian information, the accuracy of predictions is crucial for future performance adjustment. The feedback related negativity (FRN), identified as a marker of reward prediction error, possibly encodes social rejection and social prediction error. To test this possibility, we used event related potential (ERP) techniques combined with social tasks in which participants were required to make explicit predictions (whether others will accept their “friend request” or not, Experiment 1) or implicit predictions (whether they would like this person or not, Experiment 2) respectively, and then received social feedback. We found that the FRN is sensitive to social rejection and explicit social prediction error in Experiment 1 but not implicit social prediction error in Experiment 2. We conclude that the FRN encodes social rejection and explicit social expectancy violation.
Highlights
Living in a sophisticated social network, humans have evolved to rely on many complex social relationships to survive
The RTs did not differ between the two conditions, t(15) < 1, suggesting that equal efforts were involved in initial prediction response
Our event related potential (ERP) findings are in agreement with studies by Kim et al (2012) and Boksem and De Cremer (2010), in which the feedback related negativity (FRN) is more pronounced for social norm violations and unfair offers
Summary
Living in a sophisticated social network, humans have evolved to rely on many complex social relationships to survive They constantly make predictions and use feedback to update initial predictions in social interactions (Brown and Brüne, 2012). When you say “Good morning” to your colleague, you expect him to respond with “Good morning” If he looks away and ignores your greeting, you get negative social feedback (“social rejection”) as well as social prediction error (“worse than predicted”). Such signals remind you to pay attention to the relationship with this colleague and take actions to improve your relationship with him or her. We used event related potential (ERP) techniques in conjunction with social feedback tasks to gain a better understanding of the neural mechanisms of social expectancy violation and social exclusion
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