People have been shown to change their answer to a question if the group disagrees
In numerous studies a subject in a group answers some question, finds out after that—oh no!—everyone else disagrees, and can then change their answer. No surprise, the discovery that you are out of step activates the amygdala and insular cortex; the more activation, the greater your likelihood of changing your mind, and the more persistent the change (as opposed to the transient change of compliant public conformity). This is a profoundly social phenomenon—people are more likely to change their answer if you show them a picture of the persons who disagrees with them.
When you get the news that everyone else disagrees with you, there is also activation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex, and the nucleus accumbens. This is a network mobilized during reinforcement learning, where you learn to modify your behavior when there is a mismatch between what you expected to happen and what actually did. Find out that everyone disagrees with you and this network activates. What is it basically telling you? Not just that you’re different from everyone else. That you’re wrong. Being different = being wrong. The greater the activation of this circuit, the greater the likelihood of changing answers to conform.
Like most of the neuroimaging literature, these studies are merely correlative. Thus, particularly important is a 2011 study that used transcranial magnetic stimulation techniques to temporarily inactivate the ventromedial prefrontal cortex; subjects became less likely to change their answer to conform.
References
- Sapolsky, Robert. (2017). Behave Chapter 12. Hierarchy, Obedience, and Resistance (p. 521). New York, NY: Penguin Random House.
Metadata
Type:🔴 Tags: Psychology / Social Psychology / Biology / Neuroscience / Neuropsychology Status:☀️