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Confirmation of interpersonal expectations is intrinsically rewarding
Niv Reggev1,2,3, Anoushka Chowdhary1, Jason P Mitchell1
1Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
|June 24, 2021
Summary
People value confirming social expectations, finding consistency rewarding. This research shows expectation confirmation activates brain reward centers and influences decision-making, similar to primary rewards.
Area of Science:
- Social Psychology
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Neuroeconomics
Background:
- Interpersonal interactions are complex, leading individuals to use prior knowledge and stereotypes to predict others' responses.
- Top-down expectations play a crucial role in simplifying social perception and guiding social behavior.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how social expectations influence the subjective value assigned to expectation-consistent and expectation-violating social information.
- To explore the neural mechanisms and behavioral consequences of social expectation confirmation.
Main Methods:
- Two neuroimaging experiments (n=58) using fMRI to measure brain activity during social expectation tasks.
- Two behavioral experiments (n=704) assessing willingness to forgo monetary rewards based on expectation consistency.
Main Results:
- Increased activation in reward-related brain regions, including the nucleus accumbens, when participants encountered expectation-consistent social information.
- Participants demonstrated a behavioral preference for expectation-consistent targets, even at a financial cost, and avoidance of expectation-violating targets.
Conclusions:
- Confirmation of social expectations is intrinsically valued, akin to primary rewards like food or money.
- The findings highlight the significant role of top-down social expectations in shaping subjective value and guiding social decision-making.
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