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How occupational status influences the processing of faces: An EEG study
Audrey Breton1, Romain Ligneul2, Karim Jerbi3
1Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod (UMR 5304), CNRS-Université Lyon 1, France.
Neuropsychologia
|September 24, 2018
Summary
Social status influences brain responses to faces, with women showing heightened sensitivity to high-status individuals. Gender, not occupational status, affected early neural responses (N170).
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Social Psychology
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Social hierarchies are fundamental to human societies.
- Previous research on social hierarchy and neural responses often used competitive paradigms.
- The interplay between social status, gender, and neural processing remains incompletely understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the neural electrophysiological responses to faces varying in social status.
- To examine the influence of occupational status on face perception.
- To explore gender differences in the neural processing of social hierarchy.
Main Methods:
- Utilized occupational status (e.g., lawyer vs. waiter) to establish social hierarchy.
- Presented status labels followed by associated faces (male and female).
- Analyzed event-related potentials, specifically the N170 and Late Positive Potential (LPP).
Main Results:
- Gender modulated the N170 amplitude, while occupational status did not.
- High-status faces elicited a larger LPP amplitude compared to low-status faces.
- This LPP difference was primarily driven by female participants' responses.
Conclusions:
- Neural processing of social hierarchy is gender-dependent.
- Women's neural responses indicate greater sensitivity to high-status individuals.
- Methodological variations may explain discrepancies in previous findings regarding hierarchy effects on N170.
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