Regretting a chance to connect: How neural responses to missed social opportunities predict self-disclosure

Humans value communicating information about themselves to others, and exchanges of such information between two individuals are fundamental to social bond formation. Yet, people often keep information private, potentially forfeiting the chance to connect with someone new. In this preregistered functional MRI study, participants who experienced more missed social opportunities in an iterative self-disclosure task-or instances where withholding information was met with an ostensible partner's self-disclosure-tended to feel closer to this partner faster. Missed social opportunities were regrettable and most likely followed by a change in subsequent decisions, making participants switch from withholding to sharing their information. Using conjunction analysis, activities in the medial prefrontal cortex and posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), regions implicated in social-cognitive processes, were greater in response to missed social opportunities than in response to other social interactions (e.g. mutual self-disclosure). Notably, greater pSTS responses to missed social opportunities were linked to a higher likelihood of disclosing to a partner, as well as a higher amount of money willing to be spent to disclose to a partner in a follow-up task, highlighting the role of the pSTS in predicting a sustained interest in the new partner. Our findings elucidate the neurobiological, affective, and behavioral attributes of forgone moments of connection that contribute to interpersonal closeness development. We further identify context-dependent pSTS activities that support closeness-generating behaviors like self-disclosure.