title: Social status modulates neural activity in the mentalizing network.
abstract: The current research explored the neural mechanisms linking social status to perceptions of the social world. Two fMRI studies provide converging evidence that individuals lower in social status are more likely to engage neural circuitry often involved in 'mentalizing' or thinking about others' thoughts and feelings. Study 1 found that college students' perception of their social status in the university community was related to neural activity in the mentalizing network (e.g., DMPFC, MPFC, precuneus/PCC) while encoding social information, with lower social status predicting greater neural activity in this network. Study 2 demonstrated that socioeconomic status, an objective indicator of global standing, predicted adolescents' neural activity during the processing of threatening faces, with individuals lower in social status displaying greater activity in the DMPFC, previously associated with mentalizing, and the amygdala, previously associated with emotion/salience processing. These studies demonstrate that social status is fundamentally and neurocognitively linked to how people process and navigate their social worlds.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1563, USA.
authors.forename: Keely A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Muscatell
authors.forename: Sylvia A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Morelli
authors.forename: Emily B
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Falk
authors.forename: Baldwin M
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Way
authors.forename: Jennifer H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Pfeifer
authors.forename: Adam D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Galinsky
authors.forename: Matthew D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Lieberman
authors.forename: Mirella
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dapretto
authors.forename: Naomi I
authors.initials: NI
authors.lastname: Eisenberger
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D059907:Functional Neuroimaging / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D056345:Theory of Mind / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult