Andy’s Quick Hits (177): Socially influenced decision making in the brain

We are social creatures and a part of this is that we are constantly influencing each other and being influenced by others.

On one hand we may receive other information from another person and based on this change our opinion. On the other hand, we may just conform to another person or group’s decision just for the sake of conformity. A well-known feature of human social interactions.

However, so far no one has been able to distinguish the underlying brain mechanisms. Until now that is.

This study, just out, had participants in a brain scanner play a computer based game. In this they had to remember the position of a dot on a screen, and this was matched with another opinion either (they thought) from a computer, or from another person (in fact they were all another computer).

They found that conformity increased when the participants thought that it was another person giving their opinion and this was related to a brain region known as the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC). Social influence was also associated with stronger connections between the dACC and other social areas of the brain.

We therefore now know that the human dorsal anterior cingulate cortex tracks the weight of others’ opinion in social…