Brain and Behavior in Persuasion: The Role of Affective-Cognitive Matching

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Communication Studies

Background:

• Persuasive message effectiveness hinges on matching content to recipient processing styles.
• Individual differences like need for affect (NFA) and need for cognition (NFC) are known moderators.
• The role of intrinsic brain connectivity in this affective-cognitive matching effect is not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how resting-state brain connectivity interacts with NFA and NFC.
• To examine neural and behavioral responses to affective and cognitive persuasive messages.
• To integrate intrinsic brain network properties with extrinsic task-based responses.

Main Methods:

• Utilized resting-state and task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
• Measured intrinsic connectivity using metrics like participation coefficient and within-module degree.
• Assessed behavioral and neural responses to affective and cognitive persuasive stimuli.

Main Results:

• The frontoparietal network is crucial for processing persuasive messages based on motivational orientation.
• Affective-oriented individuals showed greater neural engagement with congruent affective messages.
• Cognitive-oriented individuals exhibited intensified neural engagement with incongruent messages.

Conclusions:

• Intrinsic brain connectivity modulates responses to persuasive messages based on NFA and NFC.
• Findings extend the affective-cognitive matching effect to include neural dimensions.
• Supports the Elaboration Likelihood Model by detailing distinct neural pathways in persuasion.