title: Creating buzz: the neural correlates of effective message propagation.
abstract: Social interaction promotes the spread of values, attitudes, and behaviors. Here, we report on neural responses to ideas that are destined to spread. We scanned message communicators using functional MRI during their initial exposure to the to-be-communicated ideas. These message communicators then had the opportunity to spread the messages and their corresponding subjective evaluations to message recipients outside the scanner. Successful ideas were associated with neural responses in the communicators' mentalizing systems and reward systems when they first heard the messages, prior to spreading them. Similarly, individuals more able to spread their own views to others produced greater mentalizing-system activity during initial encoding. Unlike prior social-influence studies that focused on the individuals being influenced, this investigation focused on the brains of influencers. Successful social influence is reliably associated with an influencer-to-be's state of mind when first encoding ideas.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, PA 19104, USA. falk@asc.upenn.edu
authors.forename: Emily B
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Falk
authors.forename: Sylvia A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Morelli
authors.forename: B Locke
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Welborn
authors.forename: Karl
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Dambacher
authors.forename: Matthew D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Lieberman
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D003142:Communication; D005260:Female; D059907:Functional Neuroimaging; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D033182:Intention; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008402:Mass Media; D012919:Social Behavior; D013690:Television; D056345:Theory of Mind / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: mass media; neuroimaging; social behavior; social influence; social interaction