Electrophysiological precursors of social conformity.
Humans often change their beliefs or behavior due to the behavior or opinions of others. This study explored, with the use of human event-related potentials (ERPs), whether social conformity is based on a general performance-monitoring mechanism. We tested the hypothesis that conflicts with a normative group opinion evoke a feedback-related negativity (FRN) often associated with performance monitoring and subsequent adjustment of behavior. The experimental results show that individual judgments of facial attractiveness were adjusted in line with a normative group opinion. A mismatch between individual and group opinions triggered a frontocentral negative deflection with the maximum at 200 ms, similar to FRN. Overall, a conflict with a normative group opinion triggered a cascade of neuronal responses: from an earlier FRN response reflecting a conflict with the normative opinion to a later ERP component (peaking at 380 ms) reflecting a conforming behavioral adjustment. These results add to the growing literature on neuronal mechanisms of social influence by disentangling the conflict-monitoring signal in response to the perceived violation of social norms and the neural signal of a conforming behavioral adjustment.
Department of Higher Nervous Activity and Psychophysiology, Saint Petersburg State University, 199034, University Emb.7-9, Saint Petersburg, Russia. shestako@mappi.helsinki.fi.
Anna
A
Shestakova
Jörg
J
Rieskamp
Sergey
S
Tugin
Alexey
A
Ossadtchi
Janina
J
Krutitskaya
Vasily
V
Klucharev
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000379:methods; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005246:Feedback; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D012925:Social Conformity; D055815:Young Adult