Neurobiological Correlates of Social Conformity and Independence During Mental Rotation

When individual judgment conflicts with a group, the individual will often conform his judgment to that of the group. Conformity might arise at an executive level of decision making, or it might arise because the social setting alters the individual’s perception of the world. We used functional magn...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biological psychiatry (1969) 2005-08, Vol.58 (3), p.245-253
Main Authors: Berns, Gregory S., Chappelow, Jonathan, Zink, Caroline F., Pagnoni, Giuseppe, Martin-Skurski, Megan E., Richards, Jim
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Behavioral psychophysiology
Biological and medical sciences
Brain - anatomy & histology
Brain - blood supply
Brain - physiology
Brain Mapping
Cognition. Intelligence
Female
fMRI
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted - methods
Intellectual and cognitive abilities
Internal-External Control
Judgment - physiology
Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods
Male
Mental Processes - physiology
mental rotation
Miscellaneous
Oxygen - blood
Pain Measurement
parietal lobe
perception
Personal Autonomy
Photic Stimulation
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Social Conformity
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:When individual judgment conflicts with a group, the individual will often conform his judgment to that of the group. Conformity might arise at an executive level of decision making, or it might arise because the social setting alters the individual’s perception of the world. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging and a task of mental rotation in the context of peer pressure to investigate the neural basis of individualistic and conforming behavior in the face of wrong information. Conformity was associated with functional changes in an occipital-parietal network, especially when the wrong information originated from other people. Independence was associated with increased amygdala and caudate activity, findings consistent with the assumptions of social norm theory about the behavioral saliency of standing alone. These findings provide the first biological evidence for the involvement of perceptual and emotional processes during social conformity.
ISSN:0006-3223
1873-2402
DOI:10.1016/j.biopsych.2005.04.012