Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences and Department of Psychology, University of Macau, Macau, China.
Research Center of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China.
Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2023 May;1523(1):104-118. doi: 10.1111/nyas.14983. Epub 2023 Mar 25.
Human society encompasses diverse social influences, and people experience events differently and may behave differently under such influence, including in forming an impression of others. However, little is known about the underlying neural relevance of individual differences in following others' opinions or social norms. In the present study, we designed a series of tasks centered on social influence to investigate the underlying relevance between an individual's degree of social conformity and their neural variability. We found that individual differences under the social influence are associated with the amount of inter-trial electroencephalogram (EEG) variability over multiple stages in a conformity task (making face judgments and receiving social influence). This association was robust in the alpha band over the frontal and occipital electrodes for negative social influence. We also found that inter-trial EEG variability is a very stable, participant-driven internal state measurement and could be interpreted as mindset instability. Overall, these findings support the hypothesis that higher inter-trial EEG variability may be related to higher mindset instability, which makes participants more vulnerable to exposed external social influence. The present study provides a novel approach that considers the stability of one's endogenous neural signal during tasks and links it to human social behaviors.
人类社会包含了多种社会影响，人们在这些影响下会有不同的体验，行为也可能不同，包括对他人的印象。然而，人们对于个体在遵循他人意见或社会规范方面的差异的潜在神经相关性知之甚少。在本研究中，我们设计了一系列以社会影响为中心的任务，以研究个体在社会影响下的顺从程度与他们的神经可变性之间的潜在相关性。我们发现，在一个顺从任务（做出面部判断和接受社会影响）中，个体在社会影响下的差异与脑电图（EEG）在多个阶段的试验间变异性有关。对于负面的社会影响，这种关联在额叶和枕叶电极的 alpha 波段是稳健的。我们还发现，试验间 EEG 变异性是一种非常稳定的、由参与者驱动的内部状态测量，可以解释为思维模式不稳定。总的来说，这些发现支持了这样一种假设，即更高的试验间 EEG 变异性可能与更高的思维模式不稳定性有关，这使得参与者更容易受到外部社会影响的影响。本研究提供了一种新颖的方法，考虑了任务期间个体内源性神经信号的稳定性，并将其与人类社会行为联系起来。
