Chasing the "Like": High FoMO elevates P300 responses to positive social feedback

Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) stems from an unmet need to belong and often manifests as compulsive social media monitoring. Core interactions on social media rely on social feedback: these social rewards both satisfy the need to belong and have been shown to recruit reward circuitry. However, it remains unclear whether individuals with high FoMO exhibit unique neural processing patterns when encountering such social feedback.

This study employed a social incentive delay task (SIDT) and event-related potential (ERP) technique to investigate this question. Sixty-seven university students were divided into a high-FoMO group (n = 32) and a low-FoMO group (n = 35) based on FoMO scores. Participants completed the SIDT while EEG was recorded, focusing on two outcome-related ERP components: feedback-related negativity (FRN) and P300.

There were no significant group differences in FRN amplitudes. However, a significant interaction between group and feedback valence was observed for the P300 component (p = .003): when receiving positive social feedback, the high-FoMO group showed larger P300 amplitudes than the low-FoMO group, whereas no such differences were found for negative or neutral feedback.

These findings suggest that individuals with high FoMO exhibit neural hypersensitivity to positive social feedback, indicating greater motivational salience and attentional allocation toward social approval cues. Such enhanced neural responsivity may constitute a potential risk marker for problematic social media use.