Du Yin, Wang Yinan, Yu Mengxia, Tian Xue, Liu Jia
Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
Department of Psychology, Tsinghua Laboratory of Brain and Intelligence, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
Front Behav Neurosci. 2020 Dec 16;14:617402. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2020.617402. eCollection 2020.
Fear of punishment prompts individuals to conform. However, why some people are more inclined than others to conform despite being unaware of any obvious punishment remains unclear, which means the dispositional determinants of individual differences in conformity propensity are poorly understood. Here, we explored whether such individual differences might be explained by individuals' stable neural markers to potential punishment. To do this, we first defined the punishment network (PN) by combining all potential brain regions involved in punishment processing. We subsequently used a voxel-based global brain connectivity (GBC) method based on resting-state functional connectivity (FC) to characterize the hubs in the PN, which reflected an ongoing readiness state (i.e., sensitivity) for potential punishment. Then, we used the within-network connectivity (WNC) of each voxel in the PN of 264 participants to explain their tendency to conform by using a conformity scale. We found that a stronger WNC in the right thalamus, left insula, postcentral gyrus, and dACC was associated with a stronger tendency to conform. Furthermore, the FC among the four hubs seemed to form a three-phase ascending pathway, contributing to conformity propensity at every phase. Thus, our results suggest that task-independent spontaneous connectivity in the PN could predispose individuals to conform.
对惩罚的恐惧促使个体遵守规范。然而，为何有些人在未意识到任何明显惩罚的情况下比其他人更倾向于遵守规范，这一点仍不清楚，这意味着人们对从众倾向个体差异的性格决定因素了解甚少。在此，我们探究了这种个体差异是否可能由个体对潜在惩罚的稳定神经标记物来解释。为此，我们首先通过整合所有参与惩罚处理的潜在脑区来定义惩罚网络（PN）。随后，我们使用基于静息态功能连接（FC）的基于体素的全脑连接性（GBC）方法来表征PN中的枢纽，这些枢纽反映了对潜在惩罚的持续准备状态（即敏感性）。然后，我们使用264名参与者PN中每个体素的网络内连接性（WNC），通过从众量表来解释他们的从众倾向。我们发现，右侧丘脑、左侧岛叶、中央后回和背侧前扣带回中更强的WNC与更强的从众倾向相关。此外，这四个枢纽之间的FC似乎形成了一个三相上升通路，在每个阶段都有助于从众倾向。因此，我们的结果表明，PN中与任务无关的自发连接可能使个体易于从众。
