Private but not social information validity modulates social conformity bias

It is well established that human behaviors are susceptible to others' opinions. However, optimal decision theory mandates choices be made upon the estimated validities of different information sources and little is known about whether and how people could wean themselves off social conformity...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Human brain mapping 2019-06, Vol.40 (8), p.2464-2474
Main Authors: Li, Li, Li, King King, Li, Jian
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Bias
Brain Mapping
Choice Behavior - physiology
Conflict, Psychological
Corpus Striatum - diagnostic imaging
Corpus Striatum - physiology
dACC
Decision theory
dmPFC
Female
Gyrus Cinguli - diagnostic imaging
Gyrus Cinguli - physiology
Human behavior
Humans
Information sources
information validity
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Neostriatum
Prefrontal cortex
Prefrontal Cortex - diagnostic imaging
Prefrontal Cortex - physiology
Social Conformity
social conformity bias
Social Learning
striatum
Validity
Young Adult
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Summary:It is well established that human behaviors are susceptible to others' opinions. However, optimal decision theory mandates choices be made upon the estimated validities of different information sources and little is known about whether and how people could wean themselves off social conformity bias, especially when the social signals are uninformative. Here, we asked subjects to participate in a probabilistic urn guessing task based on their private information as well as observed choices from their partners. Specifically, we manipulated the information validity of these two sources such that only the private evidence was informative. Across trials, social conformity declined, manifested by the increased influence of the private evidence but steady effect of social information. Correspondingly, we found dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) was involved in detecting the conflict of private and social information and conforming to social signal whereas striatum was responsible for selectively updating the influence of private (but not social) evidence contingent on its inferred validity. Furthermore, functional coupling between striatum and dmPFC predicted the resistance toward the influence of social information. Together, these results may provide a mechanistic account of how the conformity bias toward uninformative social information can be remedied.
ISSN:1065-9471
1097-0193
DOI:10.1002/hbm.24536