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How choice modifies preference: Neural correlates of choice justification
... According to Brehm (1956), the dissonance is reduced by making the chosen alternative more desirable and the unchosen alternative less desirable after the choice than they were before it. The choice justification is believed to occur because people are motivated to reduce their cognitive conflict or dissonance this choice induced conflict, and the resulting dissonance reduction may be most likely to occur when the conflict poses a threat to a person's private sense of the self as rational and competent (Qin et al., 2011;Steele, 1988). When the consumer chooses a brand based on brand passion and intimacy, he will try to justify their choice by finding the positives of the brand and becoming more emotionally loyal to the brand. ...
... These values indicate that the purchase intention of the sports apparel positively influences the positive WOM and attitudinal brand loyalty. These findings aligned with our hypothesis based on the choice justification paradigm (Qin et al., 2011;Steele, 1988). ...
... The study found that the purchase intention of the person will lead to positive WOM and attitudinal brand loyalty. This finding was in line with our hypothesis based on the consumer dissonance and choice justification theory (Brehm, 1956;Qin et al., 2011;Steele, 1988). According to these theories, the consumer tries to justify his choices, leading him to learn and propagate more positive news about the product. ...
This study aims to evaluate the concept of brand love among the Indians in sports apparel industry. Drawing on Sternberg’s (1986) triangular theory of love, we propose a three-dimensional brand love model. We further discuss the interrelationship between these variables and provide a theoretical model for explaining the concept using sports apparels. Then, this theoretical model is tested using empirical research undertaken among 327 respondents. These exploratory results indicated that the concept of brand love in India is similar to that of interpersonal love, contradicting the earlier finding in the field of brand love. These contradicting findings were attributed to the cultural differences between Eastern and Western cultures, especially in the field of extended self (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). These findings create the possibility for future research into brand love via the triangular theory of love to understand how the changes in the perceptions of self influence the brand love.
... Studies using the free-choice paradigm, have involved healthy adult humans as well as amnesia patients (Lieberman et al., 2001), 4-year-old children and capuchin monkeys (Egan et al., 2007(Egan et al., , 2010. More recently, the brain mechanisms underlying choice-induced preference modulation have been extensively studied with the same paradigm (Sharot et al., 2009(Sharot et al., , 2010aIzuma et al., 2010;Jarcho et al., 2011;Qin et al., 2011;Kitayama et al., 2013). ...
... The original paper describing the methodological flaw was made available to the public as a working paper in 2008 and attracted the attention of researchers (see Chen and Risen, 2009;Sagarin and Skowronski, 2009a,b). However, despite the fact that their critique could potentially undermine the conclusions of any study that uses the paradigm, behavioral, and neuroimaging studies using the paradigm continue to be published without addressing the critique (Sharot et al., 2009(Sharot et al., , 2010aCoppin et al., 2010Coppin et al., , 2012Imada and Kitayama, 2010;Lee and Schwarz, 2010;West et al., 2010;Harmon-Jones et al., 2011;Jarcho et al., 2011;Qin et al., 2011;Kimel et al., 2012;Kitayama et al., 2013). Furthermore, although some researchers have already provided evidence for the existence of choice-included preference change using new paradigms or modifications of the free-choice paradigm, some of them are not sufficiently compelling, as detailed later. ...
... Three fMRI studies previously investigated which brain regions during the choice task (Jarcho et al., 2011;Kitayama et al., 2013) or the second rating task (Qin et al., 2011) tracks the degree of preference change on an item-by-item basis. Our simulation study showed that noise in the rating and choice phases alone could produce ostensible preference change. ...
Choices not only reflect our preference, but they also affect our behavior. The phenomenon of choice-induced preference change has been of interest to cognitive dissonance researchers in social psychology, and more recently, it has attracted the attention of researchers in economics and neuroscience. Preference modulation after the mere act of making a choice has been repeatedly demonstrated over the last 50 years by an experimental paradigm called the "free-choice paradigm." However, Chen and Risen (2010) pointed out a serious methodological flaw in this paradigm, arguing that evidence for choice-induced preference change is still insufficient. Despite the flaw, studies using the traditional free-choice paradigm continue to be published without addressing the criticism. Here, aiming to draw more attention to this issue, we briefly explain the methodological problem, and then describe simple simulation studies that illustrate how the free-choice paradigm produces a systematic pattern of preference change consistent with cognitive dissonance, even without any change in true preference. Our stimulation also shows how a different level of noise in each phase of the free-choice paradigm independently contributes to the magnitude of artificial preference change. Furthermore, we review ways of addressing the critique and provide a meta-analysis to show the effect size of choice-induced preference change after addressing the critique. Finally, we review and discuss, based on the results of the stimulation studies, how the criticism affects our interpretation of past findings generated from the free-choice paradigm. We conclude that the use of the conventional free-choice paradigm should be avoided in future research and the validity of past findings from studies using this paradigm should be empirically re-established.
... Many neuroimaging studies (Izuma et al., 2010;Qin et al., 2011;Sharot, De Martino, & Dolan, 2009) have employed the free-choice paradigm by focusing on neural activity during the rating II task. Such an approach implies that preference changes take place during the rating II task when participants reduce cognitive dissonance by reevaluation of the option. ...
... Both fMRI and EEG studies have linked the activity of the left dlPFC with post-decisional preference change, which indicates the important role of the left dlPFC in cognitive dissonance resolution (Harmon-Jones, Gerdjikov, & Harmon-Jones, 2008;Qin et al., 2011). A recent study by Managrelli et al. (2015) found that post-decisional preference changes were significantly reduced after cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation over the left (but not the right) dlPFC, which showed the causal role of the left dlPFC in cognitive dissonance. ...
... The posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) has been associated with an extensive number of cognitive functions, including conscious awareness and cognitive control (Leech, Kamourieh, Beckmann, & Sharp, 2011), emotional memory encoding (Maddock, Garrett, & Buonocore, 2001), memory retrieval and planning (Vann, Aggleton, & Maguire, 2009), maintaining changes in the external environment (Pearson, Heilbronner, Barack, Hayden, & Platt, 2011), and controlling the balance between external and internal attention (Leech & Sharp, 2014). Previous fMRI studies have observed stronger activity of the PCC either during difficult choices (Kitayama et al., 2013;Qin et al., 2011;Tompson, Chua, & Kitayama, 2016) or after difficult choices (Izuma et al., 2010) as compared to easy choices. Another study showed that PCC activity is positively correlated with the perceived desirability of objects (Kawabata & Zeki, 2008). ...
In the current paper, the interrelation between the friendliness of the home environment and family attitudes is investigated. The friendliness of the home environment includes three parameters:
the number of functions provided by home (functionality), the congruence of these functions with inhabitants’ needs (relevance), and home attachment. We assumed that friendly home environment positively contributes to the inhabitants’ family attitudes, and positive family attitudes, in turn, predict a perceived friendly home image. The sample consisted of 393 participants (295 females and 98 males), students of different faculties of the Higher School of Economics. We
used the Functionality of the Home Environment Questionnaire, the Relevance of the Home Environment Questionnaire (short version), the Home Attachment Questionnaire, and Attitudinal Familism Scale. The results of the regression analysis show that family attitudes are
significantly related with such parameters as the Home Attachment, Pragmatism, Protection, Plasticity, Self-Presentation, Ergonomics, and Development of the home environment. And, vice versa, almost all the parameters of the functionality and relevance of the home environment have been significantly impacted by family attitudes. Home Attachment is significantly mutually related with attitudes towards family. The study’s results can be helpful in designing home environment, in forming individual profiles of preferred home environment preferences, and intensification home’ resource function as a factor of family atmosphere’s improvement.
... Many neuroimaging studies (Izuma et al., 2010;Qin et al., 2011;Sharot, De Martino, & Dolan, 2009) have employed the free-choice paradigm by focusing on neural activity during the rating II task. Such an approach implies that preference changes take place during the rating II task when participants reduce cognitive dissonance by reevaluation of the option. ...
... Both fMRI and EEG studies have linked the activity of the left dlPFC with post-decisional preference change, which indicates the important role of the left dlPFC in cognitive dissonance resolution (Harmon-Jones, Gerdjikov, & Harmon-Jones, 2008;Qin et al., 2011). A recent study by Managrelli et al. (2015) found that post-decisional preference changes were significantly reduced after cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation over the left (but not the right) dlPFC, which showed the causal role of the left dlPFC in cognitive dissonance. ...
... The posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) has been associated with an extensive number of cognitive functions, including conscious awareness and cognitive control (Leech, Kamourieh, Beckmann, & Sharp, 2011), emotional memory encoding (Maddock, Garrett, & Buonocore, 2001), memory retrieval and planning (Vann, Aggleton, & Maguire, 2009), maintaining changes in the external environment (Pearson, Heilbronner, Barack, Hayden, & Platt, 2011), and controlling the balance between external and internal attention (Leech & Sharp, 2014). Previous fMRI studies have observed stronger activity of the PCC either during difficult choices (Kitayama et al., 2013;Qin et al., 2011;Tompson, Chua, & Kitayama, 2016) or after difficult choices (Izuma et al., 2010) as compared to easy choices. Another study showed that PCC activity is positively correlated with the perceived desirability of objects (Kawabata & Zeki, 2008). ...
... This process engenders an increase in the preference for the chosen item and an increase in the likelihood of choosing the same item at the following opportunity. Consistent with the proposal by Akaishi et al. 46 , neuroimaging studies of choice-induced preference change have shown activation within typical neural substrates of reward-based reinforcement learning (e.g., ventral striatum, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex) 40,[49][50][51][52] . However, those earlier studies examined brain activities after stimulus onset for free choice between two items 50,52 or for preference ratings of respective items 40,49,51 using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). ...
... Consistent with the proposal by Akaishi et al. 46 , neuroimaging studies of choice-induced preference change have shown activation within typical neural substrates of reward-based reinforcement learning (e.g., ventral striatum, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex) 40,[49][50][51][52] . However, those earlier studies examined brain activities after stimulus onset for free choice between two items 50,52 or for preference ratings of respective items 40,49,51 using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Consequently, although neural activities related to choice response are expected to play a crucially important role in CBL because the choice itself induces the value change, the relation between CBL and neural activities related to the response remains unclear. ...
... Additionally, we expect that a difference of CBL between IDM and EDM is observed in the relation between the change of decision consistency and the neural activities related to the response. Although no strong activation within the reward-related neural substrates was reported in CBL of EDM 46 , it was reported in CBL of IDM 40,[49][50][51][52] . This evidence suggests that CBL in IDM is associated with reinforcement processes such as reward-based reinforcement learning, different from CBL in EDM, even if the item is not visibly reinforced by the externally delivered reward. ...
Choosing an option increases a person’s preference for that option. This phenomenon, called choice-based learning (CBL), has been investigated separately in the contexts of internally guided decision-making (IDM, e.g., preference judgment), for which no objectively correct answer exists, and externally guided decision making (EDM, e.g., perceptual decision making), for which one objectively correct answer exists. For the present study, we compared decision making of these two types to examine differences of underlying neural processes of CBL. As IDM and EDM tasks, occupation preference judgment and salary judgment were used, respectively. To compare CBL for the two types of decision making, we developed a novel measurement of CBL: decision consistency. When CBL occurs, decision consistency is higher in the last-half trials than in first-half trials. Electroencephalography (EEG) data have demonstrated that the change of decision consistency is positively correlated with the fronto-central beta–gamma power after response in the first-half trials for IDM, but not for EDM. Those results demonstrate for the first time the difference of CBL between IDM and EDM. The fronto-central beta–gamma power is expected to reflect a key process of CBL, specifically for IDM.
... Evidence for the self-referential processing hypothesis is currently scant. In addition to the two fMRI studies reviewed earlier [Jarcho et al., 2011;Kitayama et al., 2013], there are three additional fMRI studies on post-choice attitude change [Izuma et al., 2010;Qin et al., 2011;Sharot et al., 2009]. These studies focused on neural activations during the pre-and post-choice rating periods rather than in-choice activations. ...
... It is, therefore, not surprising that these studies did not find any evidence for the selfreferential processing hypothesis. The remaining study [Qin et al., 2011] used an incentive compatible procedure where participants received one of the music CDs they chose and found that the activation of both dorsal and ventral regions of the mPFC during the post-choice rating of chosen options predicts the post-choice attitude change for them. Importantly, none of the above studies tested functional connectivity during the pre-choice or postchoice rating tasks and it is, therefore, unclear whether functional connectivity might be involved in facilitating post-choice attitude change. ...
... Altogether, our work goes beyond previous work that has examined post-choice mechanisms of choice justification [Izuma et al., 2010;Qin et al., 2011;Sharot et al., 2009]. Unlike Izuma et al. [2010] and Sharot et al. [2009], we used an incentive compatible procedure where participants received one of the options they chose. ...
Prior research shows that after making a choice, decision makers shift their attitudes in a choice-congruous direction. Although this post-choice attitude change effect is robust, the neural mechanisms underlying it are poorly understood. Here, we tested the hypothesis that decision makers elaborate on their choice in reference to self-knowledge to justify the choice they have made. This self-referential processing of the choice is thought to play a pivotal role in the post-choice attitude change. Twenty-four young American adults made a series of choices. They also rated their attitudes toward the choice options before and after the choices. In support of the current hypothesis, we found that changes in functional connectivity between two putative self-regions (medial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus]) during the post-choice (vs. pre-choice) rating of the chosen options predicted the post-choice shift of the attitudes toward the chosen options. This finding is the first to suggest that cognitive integration of various self-relevant cognitions is instrumental in fostering post-choice attitude change. Hum Brain Mapp, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
... Steele et al., 1993;Heine and Dehman, 1997), not only in healthy adult subjects but also in amnesic patients (Lieberman et al., 2001), 4-year-old children and capuchin monkeys (Egan et al., 2007(Egan et al., , 2010. Brain mechanisms underlying the reduction of dissonance in the free-choice paradigm have also been studied (Sharot et al., 2009;Izuma et al., 2010;Jarcho et al., 2011;Qin et al., 2011;Kitayama et al., 2013). ...
... Moreover, the brain mechanisms related to dissonance reduction have been explored using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The striatum and the ventro-medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) have been associated with choice-induced preference change (Sharot et al., 2009;Izuma et al., 2010;Jarcho et al., 2011;Qin et al., 2011;Kitayama et al., 2013), while the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the insula have been implicated in the detection of the conflict induced by the choices (Izuma et al., 2010;Jarcho et al., 2011;Qin et al., 2011;Kitayama et al., 2013). Interestingly, similar brain areas have been implicated in cognitive dissonance resolution, using another experimental paradigm, the induced compliance paradigm (van Veen et al., 2009). ...
... Moreover, the brain mechanisms related to dissonance reduction have been explored using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The striatum and the ventro-medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) have been associated with choice-induced preference change (Sharot et al., 2009;Izuma et al., 2010;Jarcho et al., 2011;Qin et al., 2011;Kitayama et al., 2013), while the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the insula have been implicated in the detection of the conflict induced by the choices (Izuma et al., 2010;Jarcho et al., 2011;Qin et al., 2011;Kitayama et al., 2013). Interestingly, similar brain areas have been implicated in cognitive dissonance resolution, using another experimental paradigm, the induced compliance paradigm (van Veen et al., 2009). ...
When we perceive a word, a picture or a sound, we do not access an ‘objective’ representation of them. Rather we gain immediate access to a subjective interpretation. This interpretation reflects the combination of our prior knowledge about the world with data sampled in the environment. An interesting issue is to understand how we deal with inconsistencies between our prior knowledge and the data from the environment. During this PhD, responses to inconsistencies both in the environment and in subjects’ own behavior were explored. The first series of studies address how subjects process regularities in the environment and how these processes relate to conscious access. To do so, two levels of auditory regularities were studied in epileptic patients implanted with intracranial electrodes. In a second experiment, we used a paradigm derived from the Stroop task to test responses to frequent conscious or unconscious conflicts. Behavioral measures and scalp EEG were used to assess changes in subjects’ strategy when processing trials conflicting with current expectations. In the second series of studies, we analyzed how subjects adapt their interpretations when confronted with inconsistencies in their own behavior, using the framework of cognitive dissonance. The implication of explicit memory was tested in a behavioral experiment and in an fMRI study. The results of these four studies are discussed around two main issues. First, these results highlight the existence of processes which rely on conscious stimuli but are not conscious themselves. Second, we examine what could explain our tendency to constantly seek consistency both in the external world and in our own behavior.
... Despite the broad relevance of cognitive dissonance and dissonance reduction processes for different research traditions in psychology, knowledge about their neural substrates is still meager. Recent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have suggested that the detection of the cognitive conflict generated by the inconsistency between attitudes and actions may be related to activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) (van Veen et al. 2009;Izuma et al. 2010), while the associated aversive autonomic arousal would be linked to activity in the anterior insula (van Veen et al. 2009;Qin et al. 2011). Once conflict is detected by the dACC and dissonance is aroused, decision-related attitude change may occur rapidly (Harmon-Jones, . ...
... Previous research has shown that activity in the left, right, or bilateral DLPFC may be associated with decision-induced preference change, however to date none have used noninvasive brain stimulation methods to draw causal inference from brain to behavior. For example, Qin et al. (2011) showed that postchoice neural activity in frontal regions (including the left DLPFC) predicted individual difference in the postchoice change in preferences, the so called "spread", reflecting the increase of preference for the chosen items and the decrease of preference for the rejected items. Notably, Harmon-Jones, Gerdjikov, et al. (2008) manipulated left DLPFC activity by EEG biofeedback training and found that participants who received neurofeedback training to decrease-left frontal cortical activity showed a significant reduction in the postdecision preference changes, suggesting an important role of left DLPFC in this behavior. ...
... Moreover, we hypothesize that if DLPFC is necessary for adjusting attitudes into line with behavior, active tDCS over this region might lead participants to reduce or not show any postdecision preference change. In particular, since cognitive dissonance implies some degree of rationalization and self-control (Brehm 1956;Festinger 1957;Aronson et al. 1995;Harmon-Jones and Harmon-Jones 2002;van Veen et al. 2009;Izuma et al. 2010;Jarcho et al. 2010;Qin et al. 2011) and the left hemisphere is particularly involved in such processes (Ramachandran 1995(Ramachandran , 1996Gazzaniga et al. 1996;Tomarkenand and Keener 1998;Boggio et al. 2008;Ochsner and Gross 2008;Berkman and Lieberman 2009), we hypothesized that participants' ratings would remain relatively stable over time after stimulation of left, but not right, DLPFC. ...
In everyday life, people often find themselves facing difficult decisions between options that are equally attractive. Cognitive
dissonance theory states that after making a difficult choice between 2 equally preferred options, individuals no longer find
the alternatives similarly desirable. Rather, they often change their existing preferences to align more closely with the
choice they have just made. Despite the relevance of cognitive dissonance in modulating behavior, little is known about the
brain processes crucially involved in choice-induced preference change. In the present study, we applied cathodal transcranial
Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) with the aim of downregulating the activity of the left or the right dorsolateral prefrontal
cortex (DLPFC) during a revised version of Brehm's (in 1956. Post-decision changes in the desirability of alternatives. J
Abnorm Soc Psychol. 52:384–389) free-choice paradigm. We found that cathodal tDCS over the left, but not over the right, DLPFC
caused a reduction of the typical behavior-induced preference change relative to sham stimulation. Our findings highlight
the role of prefrontal cortex in cognitive dissonance and provide evidence that left DLPFC plays a necessary role in the implementation
of choice-induced preference change.
... Studies using the free-choice paradigm, have involved healthy adult humans as well as amnesia patients (Lieberman et al., 2001), 4-year-old children and capuchin monkeys (Egan et al., 2007(Egan et al., , 2010. More recently, the brain mechanisms underlying choice-induced preference modulation have been extensively studied with the same paradigm (Sharot et al., 2009(Sharot et al., , 2010aIzuma et al., 2010;Jarcho et al., 2011;Qin et al., 2011;Kitayama et al., 2013). ...
... The original paper describing the methodological flaw was made available to the public as a working paper in 2008 and attracted the attention of researchers (see Chen and Risen, 2009;Sagarin and Skowronski, 2009a,b). However, despite the fact that their critique could potentially undermine the conclusions of any study that uses the paradigm, behavioral, and neuroimaging studies using the paradigm continue to be published without addressing the critique (Sharot et al., 2009(Sharot et al., , 2010aCoppin et al., 2010Coppin et al., , 2012Imada and Kitayama, 2010;Lee and Schwarz, 2010;West et al., 2010;Harmon-Jones et al., 2011;Jarcho et al., 2011;Qin et al., 2011;Kimel et al., 2012;Kitayama et al., 2013). Furthermore, although some researchers have already provided evidence for the existence of choice-included preference change using new paradigms or modifications of the free-choice paradigm, some of them are not sufficiently compelling, as detailed later. ...
... Three fMRI studies previously investigated which brain regions during the choice task (Jarcho et al., 2011;Kitayama et al., 2013) or the second rating task (Qin et al., 2011) tracks the degree of preference change on an item-by-item basis. Our simulation study showed that noise in the rating and choice phases alone could produce ostensible preference change. ...
Choices not only reflect our preference, but they also affect our behavior. The phenomenon of choice-induced preference change has been of interest to cognitive dissonance researchers in social psychology, and more recently, it has attracted the attention of researchers in economics and neuroscience. Preference modulation after the mere act of making a choice has been repeatedly demonstrated over the last 50 years by an experimental paradigm called the "free-choice paradigm." However, Chen and Risen (2010) pointed out a serious methodological flaw in this paradigm, arguing that evidence for choice-induced preference change is still insufficient. Despite the flaw, studies using the traditional free-choice paradigm continue to be published without addressing the criticism. Here, aiming to draw more attention to this issue, we briefly explain the methodological problem, and then describe simple simulation studies that illustrate how the free-choice paradigm produces a systematic pattern of preference change consistent with cognitive dissonance, even without any change in true preference. Our stimulation also shows how a different level of noise in each phase of the free-choice paradigm independently contributes to the magnitude of artificial preference change. Furthermore, we review ways of addressing the critique and provide a meta-analysis to show the effect size of choice-induced preference change after addressing the critique. Finally, we review and discuss, based on the results of the stimulation studies, how the criticism affects our interpretation of past findings generated from the free-choice paradigm. We conclude that the use of the conventional free-choice paradigm should be avoided in future research and the validity of past findings from studies using this paradigm should be empirically re-established.
... The medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) is preferentially activated in tasks that entail self-referential processing, such as reflecting upon one's own personality traits, feelings, and physical attributes (e.g., Jenkins & Mitchell, 2011) or reporting one's attitudes and preferences (for reviews, see Mitchell, 2009;Northoff & Bermpohl, 2004). Indeed, the effect of selfreferential processing on MPFC activity is robust at many levels of analysis, having been observed across cultures (e.g., Wang et al., 2011) and across different sensory modalities (e.g., Northoff et al., 2006). Self-referential processing is also thought to have important implications for personal decision making. ...
... Although the purpose of the present investigation was to investigate how need satisfaction modulates MPFC activity across levels of decisional conflict (i.e., low-conflict and high-conflict), it is also interesting to consider the present results in light of emerging research on the neural correlates of cognitive dissonance (e.g., Izuma et al., 2010;Jarcho, Berkman, & Lieberman, 2011;Qin et al., 2011). Indeed, the HC-H condition of the occupational choice task utilized in the present study is reminiscent of research in cognitive dissonance using decision-making paradigms in which participants are asked to make preference-based choices among a set of similarly valued objects (e.g., food items, CDs, etc.). ...
... To alleviate this postdecisional dissonance, people sometimes increase their preference for the chosen object and decrease their preference for the rejected object, a phenomenon known as the "spreading of alternatives." In keeping with the MPFC's purported role in the regulation of decisional conflicts (Nakao et al., 2009;Nakao, Osumi, et al., 2010), these initial investigations on dissonance suggest that the MPFC-in concert with several other cortical and subcortical regions -may play a role in decision-induced attitude change Jarcho et al., 2011;Qin et al., 2011). ...
Research has shown that people's abilities to develop and act from a coherent sense of self are facilitated by satisfaction of the basic psychological needs for competence, relatedness, and autonomy. The present study utilized functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to examine the effect of need satisfaction on activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), a key region in processing information about the self. Participants completed a decision-making task (e.g., Which occupation would you prefer, dancer or chemist?) in which they made a series of forced choices according to their personal preferences. The degree of decisional conflict (i.e., choice difficulty) between the available response options was manipulated on the basis of participants' unique preference ratings for the target stimuli, which were obtained prior to scanning. Need satisfaction predicted elevated MPFC activity during high-conflict relative to low-conflict situations, suggesting that one way need satisfaction may promote self-coherence is by enhancing the utilization of self-knowledge in the resolution of decisional conflicts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).
... The reverse has also been shown: using TMS on the PMFC, Izuma et al. (2015) showed that down-regulation of the PMFC reduced the choice rationalization, while the control group still changed attitudes after a cognitive dissonance inducing task. Similar results have been found in the anterior insula (Izuma and Murayama, 2019), which is interpreted as the representation of negative emotion (Jarcho et al., 2011;Qin et al., 2011;Kitayama et al., 2013). Thus, the PMFC is associated with conflict monitoring and the negative outcome of it (the tension), making its function to act as a detector of cognitive dissonance in the brain (Izuma, 2013;Izuma and Murayama, 2019). ...
... This showed that stimulating the DLPFC increased cognitive control and subsequently the rationalization of responses by adjusting behavior or values (Mengarelli et al., 2015). The posterior cingulate cortex is also correlated to preference change after cognitive dissonance situations (Jarcho et al., 2011;Kitayama et al., 2013;Izuma and Murayama, 2019), although this is not replicated in all studies (Qin et al., 2011). The ventral striatum (and especially the nucleus accumbens) tracks changes in preferences by means of reward anticipation (Jarcho et al., 2011;Izuma and Murayama, 2019). ...
Most consumers are aware that climate change is a growing problem and admit that action is needed. However, research shows that consumers’ behavior often does not conform to their value and orientations. This value-behavior gap is due to contextual factors such as price, product design, and social norms as well as individual factors such as personal and hedonic values, environmental beliefs, and the workload capacity an individual can handle. Because of this conflict of interest, consumers have a hard time identifying the true drivers of their behavior, as they are either unaware of or unwilling to acknowledge the processes at play. Therefore, consumer neuroscience methods might provide a valuable tool to uncover the implicit measurements of pro-environmental behavior (PEB). Several studies have already defined neurophysiological differences between green and non-green individuals; however, a behavior change intervention must be developed to motivate PEB among consumers. Motivating behavior with reward or punishment will most likely get users engaged in climate change action via brain structures related to the reward system, such as the amygdala, nucleus accumbens, and (pre)frontal cortex, where the reward information and subsequent affective responses are encoded. The intensity of the reward experience can be increased when the consumer is consciously considering the action to achieve it. This makes goal-directed behavior the potential aim of behavior change interventions. This article provides an extensive review of the neuroscientific evidence for consumer attitude, behavior, and decision-making processes in the light of sustainability incentives for behavior change interventions. Based on this review, we aim to unite the current theories and provide future research directions to exploit the power of affective conditioning and neuroscience methods for promoting PEB engagement.
... Subjects asked to re-rate alternatives following a decision or in anticipation of one increase their ratings of chosen alternatives and in some cases diminish ratings of non-chosen alternatives (Kitayama et al., 2004;Lieberman et al., 2001;Sharot et al., 2010;Wakslak, 2012). Studies employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) indicate preferencerelated brain activity contemporaneous with the changes in individuals' subjective rating of stimuli accompanying decisions or actions (Izuma et al., 2010;Jarcho et al., 2011;Kitayama et al., 2013;Qin et al., 2011;Sharot et al., 2009;Tompson et al., 2016;Van Veen et al., 2009). Festinger 's (1962) theory of cognitive dissonance explains some of these phenomena conceptually in terms of individuals preferring their actions to be aligned with their beliefs; when they are not aligned, the theory contends, people may become uncomfortable and so alter their beliefs to restore a sense of comfort. ...
... First, it offers an advance in 3 Recent evidence supports the notion that individuals change their attitudes to support their actions through a discretionary or quasi-discretionary process involving classic rationalization (Jarcho et al., 2011) and the expenditure of effort (Kitayama et al., 2013). The notion that the process is essentially a rational one is supported by evidence on the influence of mediating factors that conceivably relate to the costs and benefits of the decision, including the individual's cultural background (Kitayama et al., 2004;Qin et al., 2011), whether the choice is perceived to be more self-relevant (Jarcho et al., 2011;Kitayama et al., 2013), and whether the matter is construed as relating to high ideals or trivial secondary features (Wakslak, 2012). 4 Rabin (1994) and Oxoby (2003Oxoby ( , 2004 posit agents who engage in dissonance reduction by making costly changes to their beliefs or preferences, hence utility parameters, with respect to the value of moral behavior and status consumption, respectively. ...
This paper develops a model of individual decision-making under bounded rationality in which discretionary cognitive adjustment creates a durable stock that complements choice of action. While it increases utility, adjustment also entails a cost, because focusing attention optimally is effortful and mental resources are scarce. Associated behavioral phenomena are categorized based on whether the operative motivation in adjusting is forward-looking utility maximization or justification of prior action. The theory is in line with prior conceptions of cognitive dissonance, but also offers a more empirically consistent explanation of the endowment effect, persuasive advertising, and sunk-cost effects than existing accounts.
... For example, researchers showed that self-construals are associated with multiple cognitive/affective neural processes, such as moderating associations between trait creativity and social brain network, affecting the functional organization of the human brain and behavior under different cultural backgrounds [3,13,14]. Other researchers also reported the brain modulation mechanisms for the orientations of independence and interdependence in other cognitive activities such as choice justification [15], reward [16], pain perception [17]. Specifically, from the perspective of fMRI, existing studies reported correlations between self-construals and task-based brain activities [18][19][20][21]. ...
... Previous research reported that activity in the frontal cortex, including the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), was enhanced during general trait and contextual trait judgments. These regions are thought to associate with self-knowledge and self-construals [15,19,[56][57][58][59]. Our results showed that functional connectivity across the mPFC, the parahippocampal gyrus, cingulate gyrus, insular gyrus, and the middle frontal gyrus linked to independence and interdependence, consistent with the previous studies [10,60,61]. ...
The self-construal is one of the most significant cultural markers in humans. Accordingly, mapping the relationship between brain activity and self-construal contributes to understanding the nature of such psychological traits. Existing studies have mainly focused on static functional brain activities in specific brain regions. However, evidence has suggested that the functional connectivity (FC) of the brain network is dynamic over time and the high-level psychological processes might require collaboration among multiple regions. In the present study, we explored the dynamic connection patterns of the two most representative types of self-construal traits, namely, independence and interdependence, using machine learning-based models. We performed resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) on a sample of young adults (
n=359
) who completed Singelis’ Self-Construal Scale, and constructed the efficiency-based dynamic FC networks. XGBoost Regression was subsequently applied to learn the relationship between the dynamic FC and the two self-construals without any priori bias or hypothesis. The performance of the regression model was validated by the nested tenfold cross-validation. The results showed that the efficiency-based dynamic FC could identify the orientations of independence and interdependence. The comparison analyses revealed that prediction accuracy using this dynamic FC method was significantly improved compared to the conventional static FC method. By exploring key connectivities selected by the regression model, we observed that the independence orientation was mainly characterized by the right-hemisphere FC, while the interdependence orientation by the left-hemisphere FC. The results suggest that the self-construals are associated with distributed neural networks the entire brain. These findings provide the pivotal ingredients toward the biological essence of culturally related variables in the brain by taking advances in cultural psychology, neuroscience, together with machine-learning analytic technologies.
... Several neuroimaging studies have been conducted to examine the neural mechanisms underlying choice-induced preference change (Izuma et al., 2010;Jarcho, Berkman, & Lieberman, 2011;Kitayama, Chua, Tompson, & Han, 2013;Qin et al., 2011;Sharot, De Martino, & Dolan, 2009). Specifically, these studies sought to address the following two main questions. ...
... Consistent with choice-induced preference change, participants' preference changed in line with their choice À in the second rating task, destinations they chose showed increased preference, whereas destinations they rejected showed decreased preference in comparison to the first rating task. Importantly, they also observed that post-choice changes in preference were correlated with the caudate nucleus activity (within the striatum), indicating that choiceinduced preference can be observed even in the neural representation of preference (see also Qin et al., 2011). ...
Studies in psychology have long revealed that making personal choice involves multiple motivational consequences. It has only been recent, however, that the literature on neuroscience started to examine the neural underpinnings of personal choice and motivation. This chapter reviews this sparse, but emergent, body of neuroscientific literature to address possible neural correlates underlying personal choice. By conducting the review, we encourage future systematic research programs that address this topic under the new realm of "autonomy neuroscience." The chapter especially focused on the following motivational aspects: (i) personal choice is rewarding, (ii) personal choice shapes preference, (iii) personal choice changes the perception of outcomes, and (iv) personal choice facilitates motivation and performance. The reviewed work highlighted different aspects of personal choice, but indicated some overlapping brain areas-the striatum and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC)-which may play a critical role in motivational processes elicited by personal choice. © 2017 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
... One weakness of the traditional account is that it is not clear how the chooser manages to make a choice when the attractiveness of the choice options is equal. Another weakness stems from the fact that although behavioral studies traditionally tested participants as they made only one choice (e.g., Brehm, 1956), more recent studiesparticularly neuroimaging studieshad subjects make dozens of choices (Izuma et al., 2010;Jarcho et al., 2011;Qin et al., 2011;Sharot et al., 2010). Even under the multiple choices condition, a significant SOA effect has been observed. ...
... Most of the available fMRI studies on the free choice paradigm (Izuma et al., 2010;Qin et al., 2011;Sharot et al., 2009) tested brain activation patterns both before and after choices, but not during the choices. Only one study (Jarcho et al., 2011) scanned participants while they made a series of choices between two equally attractive items. ...
... Instead, previous neuroimaging studies have predominantly focused on the Rating 2 stage as the critical phase for preference change (Izuma et al., 2010(Izuma et al., , 2015Mengarelli et al., 2015;Chammat et al., 2017). For example, pioneering studies by Izuma et al. (2010) and Qin et al. (2011) analyzed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data, only during both Rating tasks, and not during the Choice task. ...
According to cognitive dissonance theory, a discrepancy between preferences and actions may lead to the revaluation of preferences, increasing preference for the chosen options and decreasing for the rejected options. This phenomenon is known as the spreading of alternatives (SoA), which results in a choice-induced preference change (CIPC). Previous neuroimaging studies have identified several brain regions that play a role in cognitive dissonance. However, the neurochronometry of the cognitive mechanisms underlying CIPC is a topic of debate. In other words, does it occur during the difficult choice, immediately after the choice, or when people encounter the options again? Furthermore, it remains unclear what is the exact time point, relative to the onset of facing options, either within the choice or after it, when the attitudes start to be revised. We argue that applying online protocols of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), during or immediately after the choice process, could be the most efficient way to better understand the temporal dynamics of the SoA effect. TMS allows for achieving high temporal and spatial resolution, modulating the activity of areas of interest, and examining the causal relationships. Besides, unlike the offline TMS, the online instrument allows tracking of the neurochronometry of attitude change, by varying stimulation onsets and durations with respect to the option stimuli. Based on scrupulous analysis of previous findings, employing online TMS studies of conflict monitoring, cognitive control, and CIPC neuroimaging results, we conclude that the use of online TMS is critical to examine the neurochronometry of CIPC.
... However, just as prior frames constrain the accessibility of subsequent frames during choice, frames adopted during the decision process may also continue to bias post-choice framing of the decision problem. For example, research finds that people tend to seek out confirmatory information to justify the decisions they made (Brehm & Wicklund, 1970;Qin et al., 2011;Scherer, Windschitl, & Smith, 2013), diminishing the potential for goal-directed attention to explore alternative frames that would promote more rational framings in future decisions. ...
Bermúdez argues that framing effects are rational because particular frames provide goal-consistent reasons for choice and that people exert some control over the framing of a decision-problem. We propose instead that these observations raise the question of whether frame selection itself is a rational process and highlight how constraints in the choice environment severely limit the rational selection of frames.
... However, just as prior frames constrain the accessibility of subsequent frames during choice, frames adopted during the decision process may also continue to bias post-choice framing of the decision problem. For example, research finds that people tend to seek out confirmatory information to justify the decisions they made (Brehm & Wicklund, 1970;Qin et al., 2011;Scherer, Windschitl, & Smith, 2013), diminishing the potential for goal-directed attention to explore alternative frames that would promote more rational framings in future decisions. ...
Bermúdez persuasively argues that framing effects are not as irrational as commonly supposed. In focusing on the reasoning of individual decision-makers in complex situations, however, he neglects the crucial role of the social-communicative context for eliciting certain framing effects. We contend that many framing effects are best explained in terms of basic, rational principles of discourse processing and pragmatic reasoning.
... However, just as prior frames constrain the accessibility of subsequent frames during choice, frames adopted during the decision process may also continue to bias post-choice framing of the decision problem. For example, research finds that people tend to seek out confirmatory information to justify the decisions they made (Brehm & Wicklund, 1970;Qin et al., 2011;Scherer, Windschitl, & Smith, 2013), diminishing the potential for goal-directed attention to explore alternative frames that would promote more rational framings in future decisions. ...
Bermúdez argues that a framing effect is rational, which will be true if one accepts that the biased editing phase is rational. This type of rationality was called procedural by Simon. Despite being procedurally rational in the evaluation phase framing effect stems from biased way we set a reference point against which outcomes are compared.
... Across a range of experimental scenarios, individuals have been shown routinely to undergo a sort of mental re-positioning relative to choices they make, such that they change their stated preferences and even undergo measurable physiological changes that manifest hedonic shifts. 2 The evidence suggests the process is not merely, or not always, one of post-hoc justification (e.g., to reduce cognitive dissonance). Preference-related maneuvering has been found to occur prior to commitment to a choice, which gives reason to believe that such maneuvering is integral to the decision process (Simon et al. 2004;Jarcho et al. 2011;Qin et al. 2011;Kitayama et al. 2013). Also, while in some studies subjects have been found to reduce their ratings of non-chosen alternativesbehavior that indicates a clear motivation to justify a decision-in more recent studies subjects are found only to increase ratings of chosen alternatives-behavior that appears focused, rather, on enhancing the anticipatory or future experience of the chosen object (Kitayama et al. 2013;Tompson et al. 2016). ...
The paper considers how consumers’ cognitive efforts at preference adjustment at the time of decision affect prices in competitive markets with differentiated products. Greater ease of self-persuasion implies higher prices when self-persuasion reinforces first impressions and lower prices when the best opportunities to persuade oneself exist for consumers with weak initial impressions. Exogenous interventions to ease decision-complementing cognition—e.g., advertising—predictably increase or reduce prices, depending upon how they are targeted. While facilitation of consumers’ adjustment always improves welfare in a covered market, firms’ appropriation of surplus may make consumers worse off even as they learn better to love what they get.
... (Pancrat, 2011 (Jarcho et al., 2011 ;Izuma et al., 2010 ;Kitayama et al., 2013), lorsqu'ils doivent évaluer des objets ambivalents (Luttrell et al., 2016 ;Nohlen et al., 2013), et lorsqu'ils se rappellent de comportements réalisés qui vont en contradiction avec les valeurs qu'ils soutiennent (de Vries et al., 2015). En revanche, cette activation ne semble pas se produire lorsqu'on demande à un participant de faire un choix entre deux objets d'attractivité équivalente sans qu'il ne soit clair si cette absence est due à des modifications d'ordre méthodologiques ou théoriques (Jarcho et al., 2011 ;Qin et al., 2011). De nombreuses autres situations qui peuvent s'interpréter en terme d'inconsistance sont aussi liées à une activation du CCA, telles que se retrouver exclu d'un jeu (Eisenberger, Lieberman, & Williams, 2003), se rappeler de sa propre mortalité (Quirin et al., 2012), voir d'autres personnes regarder des photographies embarrassantes de nous (Morita et al., 2014), recevoir un traitement inéquitable dans un jeu (Güroğlu et al., 2011), recevoir une récompense différente de celle escomptée (Fouragnan et al., 2018), lire des scénarios décrivant des comportements violant des normes morales (Denke et al., 2014), ou recevoir un feedback allant à l'encontre de ses attentes (Oliveira et al., 2007). ...
Étude de l'inconsistance dans une perspective large et intégrative (i.e., dissonance cognitive, conflits cognitifs, MMM...). La première partie se concentre sur la nature même de ce qu'est une inconsistance et sur la façon dont elle est identifiée par le cerveau. La deuxième partie s'intéresse aux conséquences affectives de l'exposition à l'inconsistance et examine en particulier la nature, les propriétés et les conséquences de l'affect lié à l'inconsistance. Enfin, la troisième partie s'intéresse à la régulation de l'affect et de l'inconsistance, en se focalisant sur l'étude d'une régulation particulière : la prise de risque.
... Environmentally conscious consumers are intrinsically motivated to buy products that match their sense of responsibility, this reduces their cognitive dissonance. In justifying their choice of green brands, consumers will have positive feelings toward the green brand and a decreased preference for non-green brands (Qin et al., 2011). ...
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to answer the following questions: What factors influence attitude toward green brands among Pakistani millennials? Does attitude toward green brands affect purchase intention? Does gender moderate the effect?
Design/methodology/approach
Data was collected through an online questionnaire distributed through multiple academic and professional networks. The questionnaire was answered by 242 Pakistani millennials. SmartPLS was used to conduct partial least square-structural equation modeling analysis. The analysis was conducted using a two-stage protocol typically followed in SEM analysis. First, an outer model assessment was done to measure construct reliability and validity. This was followed by hypotheses testing in the inner model assessment. Moderating effects were tested using the multigroup analysis feature of SmartPLS.
Findings
The antecedent factors tested in this study are green brand skepticism, environmental consciousness and attitude toward green campaigns. Results show that these factors do influence a person’s attitude toward a green brand, which, in turn, influences his/her purchase intention regarding that brand. Marketers of green brands can use the factors outlined in this study to improve consumer attitudes toward their company and products. This study showed that women are more positively affected by green campaigns. Green campaigns in Pakistan may be more successful if directed at female millennials.
Practical implications
This study conveys helpful implications for marketing managers, as specific antecedents are found to be significant predictors of purchase intention for green brands. Companies should not let the fear of consumer skepticism stop them from advocating their green products and initiatives. Green marketing campaigns can inspire millennials to encourage their social groups to be environmentally conscious. By actively helping the environment, these consumers may feel a sense of pride for their cohort and their country. As a result, Pakistan might undergo a transition to buying green brands, adopting green lifestyles and demanding green products from non-green brands.
Originality/value
Most of the research on green marketing and branding for millennials pertains to developed countries. However, as roughly 90% of the global millennial population live in developing countries, it is important to conduct research in developing countries. This paper specifically focuses on Pakistan, a developing country in South Asia. A propensity toward environmental issues among millennials makes this study an important one, both for the Pakistani market and for generalizations in populated developing countries having a similar profile.
... Although most studies report an activation of the anterior cingulate cortex in dissonance situations, this finding is not ubiquitous, and other discrepancies in activated areas can be seen between studies (for a review, see de Vries, Byrne, & Keho, 2015). Especially, two studies using the free-choice paradigm have not found the same activation pattern, and it is not clear if these differences are due to methodological or theoretical variations (Jarcho et al., 2010;Qin et al., 2011). Moreover, recent general criticisms of neuronal studies questioned the precision of neuronal results and it is likely that many variations between paradigms are currently missed (see Hong, Yoo, Wager, & Woo, 2019). ...
Little is actually known about the nature and characteristics of the cognitive dissonance state. In this paper, we review the actual knowledge and the main limitations of past studies. Then, we present two studies that investigate the characteristics of the cognitive dissonance state from the perspective the Pleasure Arousal Dominance model of emotion. Study 1 (N = 102) used the hypocrisy paradigm and Study 2 (N = 130) used a counterattitudinal essay. In Study 1, participants in the Dissonance condition reported less Pleasure with each inconsistent behaviour remembered. In Study 2, participants in the Dissonance condition reported less Pleasure than participants in the Control Condition. In both studies, no significant difference was found on the Arousal and Dominance indexes. These results are among the first to link cognitive dissonance to a general model of emotions, an approach that should be pursued further.
... But they refrain from citing a group of studies that did find direct evidence of affective arousal that is largely consistent with predictions from CDT. These studies employ a variety of methodologies, including self-reports (Elkin & Leippe, 1986;Elliot & Devine, 1994), electromyogram (Carpenter, Yates, Preston, & Chen, 2016), electroencephalogram (Harmon-Jones, Gerdjikov, & Harmon-Jones, 2008), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (Qin et al., 2011;Van Veen, Krug, Schooler, & Carter, 2009). ...
... These findings suggest that making choices for others and making choices in the presence of social cues have similar effects. Indeed, mere exposure to a face cue automatically evokes a social context for those who have a relatively high interdependent self-construal (Qin et al., 2010;Park and Kitayama, 2014). ...
Previous research has suggested that stability of self-concept differs across cultures: in North American cultural contexts, people’s self-concept is stable across social contexts, whereas in Japan, different self-concepts are activated within specific social contexts. We examined the implications of this cultural difference for preference-choice consistency, which is people’s tendency to make choices that are consistent with their preferences. We found that Japanese were less likely than Americans to choose items that they liked the most, showing preference-choice inconsistency. We also investigated the conditions in which Japanese might exhibit greater preference-choice consistency. Consistent with research showing that in Japanese culture, the self is primarily conceptualized and activated by social contexts, we found that subtle social cues (e.g., schematic representations of human faces) increased preference-choice consistency among Japanese, but not among Americans. These findings highlight that choices do not reveal preferences to the same extent in all cultures, and that the extent to which choices reveal preferences depends on the social context.
... Further, recent research has demonstrated that Cathodal tDCS (negatively charged electrodes) over the lateral prefrontal cortex decreases the expected behavioral adjustments that would typically occur following deviations of social norm compliance (Ruff et al., 2013). Interestingly, this is the same region that predicted individual differences in post-choice change in preference in non-social contexts (Jarcho et al., 2010;Qin et al., 2011;Mengarelli et al., 2013). Such a finding could be taken to suggest that the rejection of partisan support may be based on the same process of cognitive conflict that appears to determine alterations of preference and choice in non-political domains. ...
People generally have imperfect introspective access to the mechanisms underlying their political beliefs, yet can confidently communicate the reasoning that goes into their decision making process. An innate desire for certainty and security in ones beliefs may play an important and somewhat automatic role in motivating the maintenance or rejection of partisan support. The aim of the current study was to clarify the role of the DLPFC in the alteration of political beliefs. Recent neuroimaging studies have focused on the association between the DLPFC (a region involved in the regulation of cognitive conflict and error feedback processing) and reduced affiliation with opposing political candidates. As such, this study used a method of non-invasive brain simulation (tRNS) to enhance activity of the bilateral DLPFC during the incorporation of political campaign information. These findings indicate a crucial role for this region in political belief formation. However, enhanced activation of DLPFC does not necessarily result in the specific rejection of political beliefs. In contrast to the hypothesis the results appear to indicate a significant increase in conservative values regardless of participant's initial political orientation and the political campaign advertisement they were exposed to.
... The rationale for having participants make initial preference ratings between two items presented at a time rather than have them rate each item independently as is usually done in cognitive dissonance experiments (Sharot et al., 2009(Sharot et al., , 2012Izuma et al., 2010;Jarcho et al., 2011;Qin et al., 2011;Kitayama et al., 2013) was to avoid the possible confounds raised by Chen and Risen (Chen and Risen, 2010;Izuma and Murayama, 2013). Indeed, in the conventional "Free Choice Paradigm, " participants are first asked to provide individual ratings for a number of items. ...
While there is evidence that implicit self-esteem transfers to chosen objects (associative self-anchoring), it is still unknown whether this phenomenon extends to explicit self-esteem. Moreover, whether the knowledge that these objects might belong to the self in the future or not affects the evaluation of these objects has received little attention. Here, we demonstrate that evaluations of chosen objects are further enhanced when they are obtainable as compared to when they are not in participants with high explicit self-esteem, whereas participants with low explicit self-esteem exhibit the opposite pattern. These findings extend previous results and shed new light on the role of self-esteem in altering preferences for chosen objects depending on their obtainability.
... The results might therefore have reflected responses to this reminder rather than any representations of the pertinent food options that might be altered by the choice. The same confound existed in another imaging study by Qin et al. (2011). Hence, for our purposes, implications of these studies are uncertain. ...
Drawing on recent advances in both neuroscience and animal behavior, we propose a biosocial model of affective decision making, which holds that when people face a conflict between two competing behavioral options (e.g., go vs. no-go, approach vs. avoidance), they develop a new affective disposition that resolves the conflict. This newly emerging affect will enable one to select a response while forming the basis for an elaborate cognition that justifies the selected response. The model reconceptualizes cognitive dissonance as fundamentally affective and involving both predecisional and postdecisional components. Furthermore, by postulating both top-down and bottom-up neural pathways to regulate the sensitivity to behavioral conflict, it integrates prior evidence on factors that moderate dissonance, including action orientation, self-affirmation, mortality salience, and culture. It also offers new insights into a disparate set of motivational phenomena including animal behaviors that mimic cognitive dissonance, sunk-cost fallacy, addiction, and ego-depletion. Lastly, the biosocial model has implications for how humans may be affectively and motivationally attached to symbols of culture. Directions for future research are discussed.
... The results might therefore have reflected responses to this reminder rather than any representations of the pertinent food options that might be altered by the choice. The same confound existed in another imaging study by Qin et al. (2011). Hence, for our purposes, implications of these studies are uncertain. ...
Drawing on recent advances in both neuroscience and animal behavior, we propose a
biosocial model of affective decision making, which holds that when people face a conflict
between two competing behavioral options (e.g., go vs. no-go, approach vs. avoidance),
they develop a new affective disposition that resolves the conflict. This newly
emerging affect will enable one to select a response while forming the basis for an
elaborate cognition that justifies the selected response. The model reconceptualizes
cognitive dissonance as fundamentally affective and involving both predecisional
and postdecisional components. Furthermore, by postulating both top-down and
bottom-up neural pathways to regulate the sensitivity to behavioral conflict, it integrates
prior evidence on factors that moderate dissonance, including action orientation,
self-affirmation, mortality salience, and culture. It also offers new insights into a disparate
set of motivational phenomena including animal behaviors that mimic cognitive dissonance,
sunk-cost fallacy, addiction, and ego-depletion. Lastly, the biosocial model has
implications for how humans may be affectively and motivationally attached to symbols
of culture. Directions for future research are discussed.
... Harmon-Jones, Harmon-Jones, Fearn, Sigelman, & Johnson, 2008) and another used transcranial direct current stimulation to decrease left dorsolateral frontal cortical activity (Mengarelli, Spoglianti, Avenanti, & di Pellegrino, 2013). Also, a functional MRI (fMRI) study found that greater spreading of alternatives after difficult decisions was predicted by post-decision activity in the left lateral prefrontal cortex (Qin et al., 2011). Another experiment manipulated the action-oriented state following a difficult decision (E. ...
The action-based model extends the original theory of cognitive dissonance by proposing why cognitive inconsistency causes both dissonance and dissonance reduction. The model begins by assuming that many perceptions and cognitions automatically impel us to act in specific ways. It then posits that the negative affective state of dissonance is aroused not by all cognitive conflict but, specifically, when cognitions with action implications are in conflict with each other, making it difficult to act. The dissonance signals to the organism that there is a problem and that the cognitive inconsistency needs to be resolved so that behavior can occur. After presenting the action-based model, we review results from behavioral and neuroscience experiments that have tested predictions derived from it.
... In keeping with the idea that the right-IFG regulates conflict-related distress, Jarcho et al. (2011) found that activity in the right-IFG during decisional conflict was negatively associated with activity in the anterior insula, a region associated with aversive somatic arousal. Moreover, these researchers found that increased activity in the right-IFG was also associated with dissonance-induced attitude change, predicting the extent to which participants increased their reported liking of the items that they had chosen during the experimental task (also see Izuma et al., 2010;Qin et al., 2011). ...
... Each of these studies made use of scanner-compatible tasks that were modeled after paradigms used in the classic dissonance studies. Four of the studies (Izuma et al., 2010;Jarcho et al., 2011;Kitayama et al., 2013;Qin et al., 2011) employed a decision-induced attitude change paradigm (Brehm, 1956) in which forced choices between pre-rated foods, CDs, or paintings, led to more favorable attitudes to chosen items as compared to rejected items. The idea is that dissonance reduction motivated the attitude change. ...
This fMRI study explored the neural substrates of cognitive dissonance during dissonance ‘induction’. A novel task was developed based on the results of a separate item selection study (n=125). Items were designed to generate dissonance by prompting participants to reflect on everyday personal experiences that were inconsistent with values they had expressed support for. Three control conditions (justification, consonance, non-self related inconsistency) were used for comparison. Items of all four types were presented to each participant (n=14) in a randomized design. The fMRI analysis used a whole brain approach focusing on the moments dissonance was induced. Results showed that in comparison with the control conditions the dissonance experience led to higher levels of activation in several brain regions. Specifically dissonance was associated with increased neural activation in key brain regions including the anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula, inferior frontal gyrus, and precuneus. This supports current perspectives which emphasize the role of anterior cingulate and insula in dissonance processing. Less extensive activation in the prefrontal cortex than in some previous studies is consistent with this study’s emphasis on dissonance induction, rather than reduction. This paper also contains a short review and comparison with other fMRI studies of cognitive dissonance.
... This is consistent with the literature, as the insula has been strongly implicated in treatment response. In particular, the insula has been found to be important in the processing of emotional experiences (Phan, Wager, Taylor, & Liberzon, 2002), interoception (Critchley, Wiens, Rothstein, Ohman, & Dolan, 2004), cognitive dissonance, behavior change (van Veen, Krug, Schooler, & Carter 2009;Izuma et al., 2010;Qin et al., 2011), substance-related cues (e.g., Schneider et al., 2001;Paulus, Tapert, & Schuckit, 2005), and substance-related decision making (Naqvi & Bechara, 2010). Additionally, recent volumetric studies with cannabis users found reduced cortical thickness in the insula (Lopez-Larson et al., 2011), suggesting that an intact and functional insula may be protective against and/or reflective of lower levels of substance use. ...
Substance use affects a large proportion of the American population. For example, among adults, approximately 17% of men and 8% of women meet criteria for alcohol dependence at some point during their lives. This chapter chooses motivational interviewing (MI) as an example of psychosocial intervention for several reasons. It reviews the key findings from the cognitive neuroscience research to highlight the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying MI. MI has gained support for its robust effects in reducing substance use behaviors among adults. The chapter elucidates the neural substrates of change talk (CT) by using an innovative temporal approach. More specifically, while functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) offers excellent spatial resolution, its temporal resolution is not as strong. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) provides a direct measure of neuronal activity that captures rapid (millisecond) changes in neuronal firing patterns, but with lower spatial resolution than fMRI.
... Indeed, recent years have witnessed an explosion of studies aimed precisely at identifying the neural correlates of desires, on the one hand, and the neural bases of decision-making, on the other (e.g. Schroeder 2004;Gold and Shadlen 2007;Fehr and Camerer 2007;Glimcher 2007, 2009;Glimcher,etal 2009;Caplin et al. 2010;Qin et al. 2011;Lee et al. 2012). The ambitious agenda pursued by researchers working in the field of neuroeconomics encourages us to think that the sceptic's initial complaint might eventually be addressed in a satisfactory way. ...
According to a popular strategy amongst economists and philosophers, in order to solve the problem of interpersonal utility comparisons, we have to look at how ordinary people make such comparisons in everyday life. The most recent attempt to develop this strategy has been put forward by Goldman in his “Simulation and Interpersonal Utility” (Ethics 4:709–726, 1995). Goldman claims, first, that ordinary people make interpersonal comparisons by simulation and, second, that simulation is reliable for making interpersonal comparisons. In this paper, I focus on Goldman’s latter claim. After updating Goldman’s account of how ordinary people make interpersonal comparisons in the light of Goldman’s newest formulation of his simulation theory of mental ascription (Goldman, Simulating Minds. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006), I develop and assess Goldman’s arguments in favour of the reliability of simulation for interpersonal comparisons. I argue that, under certain conditions, there may be room for a scientifically acceptable solution to the problem of interpersonal utility comparisons.
... In the past two decades, neuroscience research on social psychological processes became very prolific (Cacioppo et al., 2007;Lieberman, 2010). Cognitive dissonance is not an exception, and a number of researchers have examined neural correlates of cognitive dissonance in the brain (e.g., Izuma et al., 2010;Qin et al., 2011;van Veen, Krug, Schooler, & Carter, 2009). More recently, cultural neuroscience research has started to examine cultural variation in brain structure and neural activity (Chiao & Ambady, 2007). ...
Are people always motivated to strive for cognitive consistency? Does culture influence a person’s
motivation to maintain cognitive consistency between attitudes and actions or between preferences
and choices? When and how do people in different cultures experience cognitive dissonance,
engage in justification of their behavior, and use self-affirmation? When and how are people with
different models of agency motivated to maintain a preference-choice consistency? In this paper,
culturally variable self-schemata and models of agency, independent self and agency dominant in
North American culture and interdependent self and agency prevalent in Asian culture, are
considered as the source of cultural variations in cognitive consistency. These culturally divergent
self-systems create variance in situations in which North Americans and Asians are motivated to
maintain cognitive consistency. In this paper, related cross-cultural research is reviewed. Some
future research agenda are also discussed.
... Although the implications of that study are complicated by simultaneous auditory and visual presentation of change language, the use of change language from only a single exercise, as well as the use of an alcohol cueing paradigm during stimulus presentation, one consistent finding observed in both studies was activity in the insula related to the perception of change language. Given the evidence of a role for the insula in cognitive dissonance and attitude change (Izuma et al., 2010;Qin et al., 2011;van Veen, Krug, Schooler, & Carter, 2009), the observed activation may provide biological support for the theorized role of cognitive dissonance in MI. ...
Motivational interviewing (MI) is a directive, client-centered therapeutic method employed in the treatment of substance abuse, with strong evidence of effectiveness. To date, the sole mechanism of action in MI with any consistent empirical support is "change talk" (CT), which is generally defined as client within-session speech in support of a behavior change. "Sustain talk" (ST) incorporates speech in support of the status quo. MI maintains that during treatment, clients essentially talk themselves into change. Multiple studies have now supported this theory, linking within-session speech to substance use outcomes. Although a causal chain has been established linking therapist behavior, client CT, and substance use outcome, the neural substrate of CT has been largely uncharted. We addressed this gap by measuring neural responses to clients' own CT using magnetoencephalography (MEG), a noninvasive neuroimaging technique with excellent spatial and temporal resolution. Following a recorded MI session, MEG was used to measure brain activity while participants heard multiple repetitions of their CT and ST utterances from that session, intermingled and presented in a random order. Results suggest that CT processing occurs in a right-hemisphere network that includes the inferior frontal gyrus, insula, and superior temporal cortex. These results support a representation of CT at the neural level, consistent with the role of these structures in self-perception. This suggests that during treatment sessions, clinicians who are able to evoke this special kind of language are tapping into neural circuitry that may be essential to behavior change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).
Prior work shows that people respond more plastically to environmental influences, including cultural influences, if they carry the 7 or 2‐repeat (7/2R) allelic variant of the dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4). The 7/2R carriers are thus more likely to endorse the norms and values of their culture. So far, however, mechanisms underlying this moderation of cultural acquisition by DRD4 are unclear. To address this gap in knowledge, we tested the hypothesis that DRD4 modulates the processing of reward cues existing in the environment. About 72 young adults, preselected for their DRD4 status, performed a gambling task, while the electroencephalogram was recorded. Principal components of event‐related potentials aligned to the Reward‐Positivity (associated with bottom‐up processing of reward prediction errors) and frontal‐P3 (associated with top‐down attention) were both significantly more positive following gains than following losses. As predicted, the gain‐loss differences were significantly larger for 7/2R carriers than for noncarriers. Also, as predicted, the cultural backgrounds of the participants (East Asian vs. European American) did not moderate the effects of DRD4. Our findings suggest that the 7/2R variant of DRD4 enhances (a) the detection of reward prediction errors and (b) controlled attention that updates the context for the reward, thereby suggesting one possible mechanism underlying the DRD4 × Culture interactions. Is there a genetic basis for cultural learning? Recent work suggests carriers of 7‐ or 2‐repeat allele of the dopamine DRD4 are more likely than non‐carriers to acquire their culture's beliefs and practices. We show carriers are more closely attuned to reward signals compared to non‐carriers. This finding offers a possible missing link in the analysis of the co‐evolutionary dynamic between genes and culture.
Structural balance theory is a foundational theory of social network research. Despite enduring interest in seeking network evidence for the theory, the fundamental question of why people care about structural (im)balance has received relatively little attention. The original answer to the question, dating back to Heider’s work six decades ago, is that structural imbalance causes a person to experience cognitive dissonance and sentimental disturbance. In this paper, we used a state-of-the-art neuroimaging technique to test the argument. Our study shows that individuals’ psychological states, evidenced by the activation of brain areas, are different when they are situated in unbalanced rather than balanced triads. More specifically, the differences in the brain activation between triadic imbalance and balance were found in brain regions known for processing cognitive dissonance, as discovered by previous research. Our study provides novel brain evidence in support of Heider’s original account for the psychological and biological foundations of structural balance theory in the formation of social networks.
Depression is a debilitating mental health problem in which inner conflict plays a major role. How a person experiences and resolves inner conflict has been well developed in cognitive dissonance theory. The use of dissonance theory has remained mostly limited to the field of social psychology and the link between depression and dissonance theory is largely unexplored. By researching the application of cognitive dissonance theory to experiences of individuals with depression it may be possible to expand our understanding of depression. The overall aim of this study was to explore how the process of depression might be related to the mechanism of cognitive dissonance. The objectives of the study were: to identify and compare episodes of cognitive dissonance in two participant groups (depressed and nondepressed), to analyse how different elements of cognitive dissonance are experienced by participants, and finally to develop a conceptual model that illustrates the potential relationship between depression and dissonance.
Cambridge Core - Philosophy of Science - Pascal's Wager - edited by Paul Bartha
Na and Chan examine the cultural variations in reasoning style. They highlight the well-documented differences in cognition that paints Easterners as being holistic processors and Westerners being analytic processors. Na and Chan assess this overarching construct by reviewing the cultural differences of attention, attribution, and motivation.
Attention has shown cultural differences where Easterners are more relational and Westerners are more focused. Across various attention tasks, Easterners attend widely to a scene including contextual cues while Westerners are more concerned with focal elements. The neuroimaging evidence for these differences indicates cultural differences in frontoparietal activation for attention tasks.
Cultural differences in attribution show that Easterners use relational reasoning with making attributes about behavior while Westerners focus more on the central figures. Na and Chan detail a study using event-related potential on a lexical decision task that suggests differences in attribution-based neural activity between cultures. Additional neuroimaging studies of phenomena similar to attribution are also discussed.
Easterners have been shown to believe that broad social contexts operate to make choices while Westerners believe a choice is an act of self-expression. Na and Chan detail neuroimaging studies that investigate cognitive dissonance and choice justification to examine the cultural differences. These studies show a wide variety of neural responses that underlie cultural differences in cognitive dissonance.
Na and Chan conclude by discussing how the understanding of cultural differences in reasoning style could be used in our multicultural world.
Many companies are increasing their efforts to have sustainable operations and offer environmentally preferable products. However, consumers are often unaware of the environmental benefits because the companies are not communicating in ways that are compatible with the consumer's schema regarding environmental issues. The current study identifies emerging marketing strategies that are influencing Millennials' awareness of environmentally preferable products and also impacting their consumption behavior. Data were collected over a three-year period. Results indicate Millennials are taking note of a company's reputation, reading product labels, and looking for clues on product packaging to discern if a product is environmentally preferable. Specific symbols and terms are identified as being effective in conveying the green message.
Human attitudes and preferences are susceptible to social influence. Recent social neuroscience studies, using theories and experimental paradigms from social psychology, have begun to elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying how others influence our attitudes through processes such as social conformity, cognitive inconsistency and persuasion. The currently available evidence highlights the role of the posterior medial frontal cortex (pMFC) in social conformity and cognitive inconsistency, which represents the discrepancy between one's own and another person's opinion, or, more broadly, between currently inconsistent and ideally consistent states. Research on persuasion has revealed that people's susceptibility to persuasive messages is related to activation in a nearby but more anterior part of the medial frontal cortex. Future progress in this field will depend upon the ability of researchers to dissociate underlying motivations for attitude change in different paradigms, and to utilize neuroimaging methods to advance social psychological theories of social influence.
Research and theoretical developments on the theory of cognitive dissonance are reviewed. After considering the self-consis- tency, self-affirmation, and aversive consequences revisions, the authors review research that has challenged each of the revisions and that supports the original version of the theory. Then, the authors review the action-based model of dissonance, which accepts the original theory's proposal that a sufficient cognitive inconsistency causes dissonance and extends the original theory by proposing why cognitive inconsistency prompts dissonance. Finally, the authors present results from experiments examining predictions derived from the action- based model and neural processes involved in dissonance reduction.
Recent developments in the study of cognitive emotion regulation illustrate how functional imaging is extending behavioral analyses. Imaging studies have contributed to the development of a multilevel model of emotion regulation that describes the interactions between neural systems implicated in emotion generation and those implicated in emotional control. In this article, we review imaging studies of one type of cognitive emotion regulation: reappraisal. We show how imaging studies have contributed to the construction of this model, illustrate the interplay of psychological theory and neuroscience data in its development, and describe how this model can be used as the basis for future basic and translational research.
Traditional dissonance theory predicts a spreading apart of chosen and rejected alternatives following a decision. More recent constraint satisfaction models of this classic free-choice paradigm suggest that these effects may vary with the overall attractiveness of the choice options. This prediction was tested with 13-year-olds choosing among posters. As in prior computer simulations, a difficult choice between generally less desirable alternatives produced a large increase in participants’ evaluations of the chosen alternative, whereas a difficult choice between generally more desirable alternatives produced a large decrease in evaluations of the rejected alternative. The results were discussed in terms of the relative amounts of dissonance created in the various conditions. The utility of the consonance constraint satisfaction model that generated these novel predictions was stressed.
People in different cultures have strikingly different construals of the self, of others, and of the interdependence of the 2. These construals can influence, and in many cases determine, the very nature of individual experience, including cognition, emotion, and motivation. Many Asian cultures have distinct conceptions of individuality that insist on the fundamental relatedness of individuals to each other. The emphasis is on attending to others, fitting in, and harmonious interdependence with them. American culture neither assumes nor values such an overt connectedness among individuals. In contrast, individuals seek to maintain their independence from others by attending to the self and by discovering and expressing their unique inner attributes. As proposed herein, these construals are even more powerful than previously imagined. Theories of the self from both psychology and anthropology are integrated to define in detail the difference between a construal of the self as independent and a construal of the self as interdependent. Each of these divergent construals should have a set of specific consequences for cognition, emotion, and motivation; these consequences are proposed and relevant empirical literature is reviewed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Individuals are expected to justify their choice when the choice is self-threatening. However, previous cross-cultural work suggests that the conditions in which individuals justify their choices vary across cultures. The present work aimed to determine the boundary conditions for this cultural difference. Experiment 1 showed that Japanese justified their choice when an impression of “social eyes” was primed during the choice, but not when it was primed at a later point. In contrast, the pattern was reversed for Americans. Experiment 2 found a similar cross-cultural pattern as a function of each participant's perception of “social eyes” in response to an ambiguous cue presented in front of him or her. Experiment 3 found that Americans justified their choice only when an observer was perceived as noninfluential. Together, these findings support the hypothesis that perceived privacy or publicity of choice interacts with culture to determine the likelihood of choice justification.
Christianity strongly encourages its believers to surrender to God and to judge the self from God's perspective. We used functional MRI to assess whether this religious belief is associated with neural correlates of self-referential processing distinct from that of non-religious people. Non-religious and Christian participants were scanned while performing tasks of personal-trait judgments regarding the self or public persons. We found that, while self-judgment was linked to better memory of traits related to the self than to others, self-referential processing induced increased activity in the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) for non-religious participants but in the dorsal MPFC for Christian participants. In addition, the dorsal MPFC activity was positively correlated with the rating scores of the importance of Jesus' judgment in subjective evaluation of a person's personality. Because the ventral and dorsal MPFC are respectively engaged in representation of stimulus self-relevance and evaluation of self-referential stimuli, our findings suggest that Christian beliefs result in weakened neural coding of stimulus self-relatedness but enhanced neural activity underlying evaluative processes applied to self-referential stimuli.
Previous functional imaging studies have explored the brain regions activated by tasks requiring 'theory of mind'--the attribution of mental states. Tasks used have been primarily verbal, and it has been unclear to what extent different results have reflected different tasks, scanning techniques, or genuinely distinct regions of activation. Here we report results from a functional magnetic resonance imaging study (fMRI) involving two rather different tasks both designed to tap theory of mind. Brain activation during the theory of mind condition of a story task and a cartoon task showed considerable overlap, specifically in the medial prefrontal cortex (paracingulate cortex). These results are discussed in relation to the cognitive mechanisms underpinning our everyday ability to 'mind-read'.
People rationalize the choices they make when confronted with difficult decisions by claiming they never wanted the option
they did not choose. Behavioral studies on cognitive dissonance provide evidence for decision-induced attitude change, but
these studies cannot fully uncover the mechanisms driving the attitude change because only pre- and post-decision attitudes
are measured, rather than the process of change itself. In the first fMRI study to examine the decision phase in a decision-based
cognitive dissonance paradigm, we observed that increased activity in right-inferior frontal gyrus, medial fronto-parietal
regions and ventral striatum, and decreased activity in anterior insula were associated with subsequent decision-related attitude
change. These findings suggest the characteristic rationalization processes that are associated with decision-making may be
engaged very quickly at the moment of the decision, without extended deliberation and may involve reappraisal-like emotion
regulation processes.
The dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC) plays a central role in aspects of cognitive control and decision making. Here, we provide evidence for an anterior-to-posterior topography within the DMPFC using tasks that evoke three distinct forms of control demands--response, decision, and strategic--each of which could be mapped onto independent behavioral data. Specifically, we identify three spatially distinct regions within the DMPFC: a posterior region associated with control demands evoked by multiple incompatible responses, a middle region associated with control demands evoked by the relative desirability of decision options, and an anterior region that predicts control demands related to deviations from an individual's preferred decision-making strategy. These results provide new insight into the functional organization of DMPFC and suggest how recent controversies about its role in complex decision making and response mapping can be reconciled.
When our actions conflict with our prior attitudes, we often change our attitudes to be more consistent with our actions. This phenomenon, known as cognitive dissonance, is considered to be one of the most influential theories in psychology. However, the neural basis of this phenomenon is unknown. Using a Solomon four-group design, we scanned participants with functional MRI while they argued that the uncomfortable scanner environment was nevertheless a pleasant experience. We found that cognitive dissonance engaged the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula; furthermore, we found that the activation of these regions tightly predicted participants' subsequent attitude change. These effects were not observed in a control group. Our findings elucidate the neural representation of cognitive dissonance, and support the role of the anterior cingulate cortex in detecting cognitive conflict and the neural prediction of attitude change.
Humans tend to modify their attitudes to align with past action. For example, after choosing between similarly valued alternatives, people rate the selected option as better than they originally did, and the rejected option as worse. However, it is unknown whether these modifications in evaluation reflect an underlying change in the physiological representation of a stimulus' expected hedonic value and our emotional response to it. Here, we addressed this question by combining participants' estimations of the pleasure they will derive from future events, with brain imaging data recorded while they imagined those events, both before, and after, choosing between them. Participants rated the selected alternatives as better after the decision stage relative to before, whereas discarded alternatives were valued less. Our functional magnetic resonance imaging findings reveal that postchoice changes in preference are tracked in caudate nucleus activity. Specifically, the difference in blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signal associated with the selected and rejected stimuli was enhanced after a decision was taken, reflecting the choice that had just been made. This finding suggests that the physiological representation of a stimulus' expected hedonic value is altered by a commitment to it. Furthermore, before any revaluation induced by the decision process, our data show that BOLD signal in this same region reflects the choices we are likely to make at a later time.
Aesthetic judgments, like most judgments, depend on context. Whether an object or image is seen in daily life or in an art gallery can significantly modulate the aesthetic value humans attach to it. We investigated the neural system supporting this modulation by presenting human subjects with artworks under different contexts whilst acquiring fMRI data. Using the same database of artworks, we randomly labelled images as being either sourced from a gallery or computer generated. Subjects' aesthetic ratings were significantly higher for stimuli viewed in the 'gallery' than 'computer' contexts. This contextual modulation correlated with activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex and prefrontal cortex, whereas the context, independent of aesthetic value, correlated with bilateral activations of temporal pole and bilateral entorhinal cortex. This shows that prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortices recruited by aesthetic judgments are significantly biased by subjects' prior expectations about the likely hedonic value of stimuli according to their source.
In this work, we address an important but unexplored topic, namely the neural correlates of hate. In a block-design fMRI study, we scanned 17 normal human subjects while they viewed the face of a person they hated and also faces of acquaintances for whom they had neutral feelings. A hate score was obtained for the object of hate for each subject and this was used as a covariate in a between-subject random effects analysis. Viewing a hated face resulted in increased activity in the medial frontal gyrus, right putamen, bilaterally in premotor cortex, in the frontal pole and bilaterally in the medial insula. We also found three areas where activation correlated linearly with the declared level of hatred, the right insula, right premotor cortex and the right fronto-medial gyrus. One area of deactivation was found in the right superior frontal gyrus. The study thus shows that there is a unique pattern of activity in the brain in the context of hate. Though distinct from the pattern of activity that correlates with romantic love, this pattern nevertheless shares two areas with the latter, namely the putamen and the insula.
In an event-related fMRI study, we scanned eighteen normal human subjects while they viewed three categories of pictures (events, objects and persons) which they classified according to desirability (desirable, indifferent or undesirable). Each category produced activity in a distinct part of the visual brain, thus reflecting its functional specialization. We used conjunction analysis to learn whether there is a brain area which is always active when a desirable picture is viewed, regardless of the category to which it belongs. The conjunction analysis of the contrast desirable > undesirable revealed activity in the superior orbito-frontal cortex. This activity bore a positive linear relationship to the declared level of desirability. The conjunction analysis of desirable > indifferent revealed activity in the mid-cingulate cortex and in the anterior cingulate cortex. In the former, activity was greater for desirable and undesirable stimuli than for stimuli classed as indifferent. Other conjunction analyses produced no significant effects. These results show that categorizing any stimulus according to its desirability activates three different brain areas: the superior orbito-frontal, the mid-cingulate, and the anterior cingulate cortices.
Researchers have long debated whether knowledge about the self is unique in terms of its functional anatomic representation within the human brain. In the context of memory function, knowledge about the self is typically remembered better than other types of semantic information. But why does this memorial effect emerge? Extending previous research on this topic (see Craik et al., 1999), the present study used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate potential neural substrates of self-referential processing. Participants were imaged while making judgments about trait adjectives under three experimental conditions (self-relevance, other-relevance, or case judgment). Relevance judgments, when compared to case judgments, were accompanied by activation of the left inferior frontal cortex and the anterior cingulate. A separate region of the medial prefrontal cortex was selectively engaged during self-referential processing. Collectively, these findings suggest that self-referential processing is functionally dissociable from other forms of semantic processing within the human brain.
Female Ss were asked to rate each of eight articles on desirability, choose between two of them and rate each of the articles again. In addition, some Ss were exposed to a mixture of good and bad information about the choice alternatives after the choice was made. The results support a prediction that choosing between alternatives would create dissonance and attempts to reduce it by making the chosen alternative more desirable and the unchosen alternative less desirable. A second prediction, that dissonance and consequent attempts to reduce it would be greater, the more closely the alternatives approached equality, also received support.
Cognitive dissonance and effects of self-affirmation on dissonance arousal were examined cross-culturally. In Studies 1 and 2, European Canadians justified their choices more when they made them for themselves, whereas Asian Canadians (Study 1) or Japanese (Study 2) justified their choices more when they made them for a friend. In Study 3, an interdependent self-affirmation reduced dissonance for Asian Canadians but not for European Canadians. In Study 4, when Asian Canadians made choices for a friend, an independent self-affirmation reduced dissonance for bicultural Asian Canadians but not for monocultural Asian Canadians. These studies demonstrate that both Easterners and Westerners can experience dissonance, but culture shapes the situations in which dissonance is aroused and reduced. Implications of these cultural differences for theories of cognitive dissonance and self-affirmation are discussed.
The term mentalizing was coined to refer to the process by which we make inferences about mental states. Much of the time these inferences are made automatically, without any thought or deliberation. It is important for us to be able to read the minds of others because it is their mental states that determine their actions. This assumption that behavior is caused by mental states has been called “the intentional stance” (Dennett, 1987) or “having a theory of mind” (Premack and Woodruff, 1978). There are many different types of mental states that can affect the way we interact with others. There are long-term dispositions: one person may be trustworthy and reliable while another is hopelessly volatile. There are short-term emotional states like happiness and anger. There are desires like thirst and their associated goal-directed intentions (e.g., fetching a bottle of wine from the fridge). There are the beliefs that we have about the world. These beliefs determine our behavior even when they are false (someone has secretly removed the wine from the fridge) or not shared by others (English wine can be very pleasant). Finally, we shall consider the role of communicative intent.
Culture affects the psychological structure of self and results in two distinct types of self-representation (Western independent self and East Asian interdependent self). However, the neural basis of culture-self interaction remains unknown. We used fMRI to measured brain activity from Western and Chinese subjects who judged personal trait adjectives regarding self, mother or a public person. We found that the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) showed stronger activation in self- than other-judgment conditions for both Chinese and Western subjects. However, relative to other-judgments, mother-judgments activated MPFC in Chinese but not in Western subjects. Our findings suggest that Chinese individuals use MPFC to represent both the self and the mother whereas Westerners use MPFC to represent exclusively the self, providing neuroimaging evidence that culture shapes the functional anatomy of self-representation.
Accumulating evidence from cognitive neuroscience indicates that the right inferior parietal cortex, at the junction with the posterior temporal cortex, plays a critical role in various aspects of social cognition such as theory of mind and empathy. With a quantitative meta-analysis of 70 functional neuroimaging studies, the authors demonstrate that this area is also engaged in lower-level (bottom-up) computational processes associated with the sense of agency and reorienting attention to salient stimuli. It is argued that this domain-general computational mechanism is crucial for higher level social cognitive processing.
Despite the importance and pervasiveness of marketing, almost nothing is known about the neural mechanisms through which it affects decisions made by individuals. We propose that marketing actions, such as changes in the price of a product, can affect neural representations of experienced pleasantness. We tested this hypothesis by scanning human subjects using functional MRI while they tasted wines that, contrary to reality, they believed to be different and sold at different prices. Our results show that increasing the price of a wine increases subjective reports of flavor pleasantness as well as blood-oxygen-level-dependent activity in medial orbitofrontal cortex, an area that is widely thought to encode for experienced pleasantness during experiential tasks. The paper provides evidence for the ability of marketing actions to modulate neural correlates of experienced pleasantness and for the mechanisms through which the effect operates.
• orbitofrontal cortex
• modulation by marketing actions
• neuroeconomics
• taste
Neuroimaging studies of decision-making have generally related neural activity to objective measures (such as reward magnitude, probability or delay), despite choice preferences being subjective. However, economic theories posit that decision-makers behave as though different options have different subjective values. Here we use functional magnetic resonance imaging to show that neural activity in several brain regions—particularly the ventral striatum, medial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex—tracks the revealed subjective value of delayed monetary rewards. This similarity provides unambiguous evidence that the subjective value of potential rewards is explicitly represented in the human brain.
Within the framework of self-affirmation theory, the authors compared levels of dissonance reduction in the free-choice paradigm between a culture typical of an independent construal of self (Canadian) and a culture typical of an interdependent construal of self (Japanese). Whereas Canadian results virtually duplicated past self-affirmation findings with U.S. participants, Japanese results showed no dissonance reduction. This, the authors argue, is because such situations do not threaten core aspects of the interdependent self:
Self-affirmation processes are being activated by information that threatens the perceived adequacy or integrity of the self and as running their course until this perception is restored through explanation, rationalization, and/or action. The purpose of these constant explanations (and rationalizations) is to maintain a phenomenal experience of the self-self-conceptions and images as adaptively and morally adequate—that is, as competent, good, coherent, unitary, stable, capable of free choice, capable of controlling important outcomes, and so on. The research reported in this chapter focuses on the way people cope with the implications of threat to their self-regard rather than on the way they cope with the threat itself. This chapter analyzes the way coping processes restore self-regard rather than the way they address the provoking threat itself.
Following concepts introduced by Markus and Kitayama, this study describes the theoretical and empirical development of a scale to measure the strength of an individual's interdependent and independent self-construals. These two images of self are conceptualized as reflecting the emphasis on connectedness and relations often found in non-Western cultures (interdependent) and the separateness and uniqueness of the individual (independent) stressed in the West. It is argued that these two images of self can and do coexist in individuals and that they can be measured. A 24-item Self-Construal Scale measuring two dimensions of self-image is presented. The two distinct dimensions of the scale were supported in confirmatory factor analyses of two multiethnic samples of college students. The scale was found to have satisfactory reliability and validity. Its implications and potential applications are discussed.
Self-referential processing involves a complex set of cognitive functions, posing challenges to delineating its independent neural correlates. While self-referential processing has been considered functionally intertwined with episodic memory, the present study explores their overlap and dissociability. Standard tasks for self-referential processing and episodic memory were combined into a single fMRI experiment. Contrasting the effects of self-relatedness and retrieval success allowed for the two processes to be delineated. Stimuli judged as self-referential specifically activated the posterior cingulate/anterior precuneus, the medial prefrontal cortex, and an inferior division of the inferior parietal lobule. In contrast, episodic memory retrieval specifically involved the posterior precuneus, the right anterior prefrontal cortex, and a superior division of the inferior parietal lobule (extending into superior parietal lobule). Overlapping activations were found in intermediate zones in the precuneus and the inferior parietal lobule, but not in the prefrontal cortex. While our data show common networks for both processes in the medial and lateral parietal cortex, three functional differentiations were also observed: (1) an anterior-posterior differentiation within the medial parietal cortex; (2) a medial-anterolateral differentiation within the prefrontal cortex; and, (3) an inferior-superior differentiation within the lateral parietal cortex for self-referential processing versus episodic memory retrieval.
Neuroimaging investigations of self-processing have generally focused on the neural correlates of explicit self-reflection. However, very little is known about the neural basis of implicit self-related processes. We utilized the concept of self-schemas to construct a two-task fMRI study that elicited both implicit and explicit self-relevant processes. The sample consisted of 18 participants who were schematic for either athletics or science. In the implicit self-relevance task, individuals made non-self-relevant judgments about affectively neutral scientific and athletic images. In the explicit self-reference task, participants judged the self-descriptiveness of adjectives related to athletics or science. Implicit and explicit processing of self-relevant (schematic) material elicited activity in many of the same regions, including medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate/precuneus, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, subgenual anterior cingulate, amygdala, and ventral striatum. We suggest that processing self-related material recruits similar neural networks regardless of whether the self-relevance is made explicit or not.
According to economic theories, preference for one item over others reveals its rank value on a common scale. Previous studies identified brain regions encoding such values. Here we verify that these regions can valuate various categories of objects and further test whether they still express preferences when attention is diverted to another task. During functional neuroimaging, participants rated either the pleasantness (explicit task) or the age (distractive task) of pictures from different categories (face, house, and painting). After scanning, the same pictures were presented in pairs, and subjects had to choose the one they preferred. We isolated brain regions that reflect both values (pleasantness ratings) and preferences (binary choices). Preferences were encoded whatever the stimulus (face, house, or painting) and task (explicit or distractive). These regions may therefore constitute a brain system that automatically engages in valuating the various components of our environment so as to influence our future choices.
There have been many functional imaging studies of the brain basis of theory of mind (ToM) skills, but the findings are heterogeneous and implicate anatomical regions as far apart as orbitofrontal cortex and the inferior parietal lobe. The functional imaging studies are reviewed to determine whether the diverse findings are due to methodological factors. The studies are considered according to the paradigm employed (e.g., stories vs. cartoons and explicit vs. implicit ToM instructions), the mental state(s) investigated, and the language demands of the tasks. Methodological variability does not seem to account for the variation in findings, although this conclusion may partly reflect the relatively small number of studies. Alternatively, several distinct brain regions may be activated during ToM reasoning, forming an integrated functional "network." The imaging findings suggest that there are several "core" regions in the network-including parts of the prefrontal cortex and superior temporal sulcus-while several more "peripheral" regions may contribute to ToM reasoning in a manner contingent on relatively minor aspects of the ToM task.
Four experiments provided support for the hypothesis that upon making a choice, individuals justify their choice in order to eliminate doubts about culturally sanctioned aspects of the self, namely, competence and efficacy in North America and positive appraisal by other people in Japan. Japanese participants justified their choice (by increasing liking for chosen items and decreasing liking for rejected items) in the standard free-choice dissonance paradigm only when self-relevant others were primed, either by questionnaires (Studies 1-3) or by incidental exposure to schematic faces (Study 4). In the absence of these social cues, Japanese participants showed no dissonance effect. In contrast, European Americans justified their choices regardless of the social-cue manipulations. Implications for cognitive dissonance theory are discussed.
Coca-Cola (Coke) and Pepsi are nearly identical in chemical composition, yet humans routinely display strong subjective preferences for one or the other. This simple observation raises the important question of how cultural messages combine with content to shape our perceptions; even to the point of modifying behavioral preferences for a primary reward like a sugared drink. We delivered Coke and Pepsi to human subjects in behavioral taste tests and also in passive experiments carried out during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Two conditions were examined: (1) anonymous delivery of Coke and Pepsi and (2) brand-cued delivery of Coke and Pepsi. For the anonymous task, we report a consistent neural response in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex that correlated with subjects' behavioral preferences for these beverages. In the brand-cued experiment, brand knowledge for one of the drinks had a dramatic influence on expressed behavioral preferences and on the measured brain responses.
We showed how cognitive, semantic information modulates olfactory representations in the brain by providing a visual word descriptor, "cheddar cheese" or "body odor," during the delivery of a test odor (isovaleric acid with cheddar cheese flavor) and also during the delivery of clean air. Clean air labeled "air" was used as a control. Subjects rated the affective value of the test odor as significantly more unpleasant when labeled "body odor" than when labeled "cheddar cheese." In an event-related fMRI design, we showed that the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)/medial orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) was significantly more activated by the test stimulus and by clean air when labeled "cheddar cheese" than when labeled "body odor," and the activations were correlated with the pleasantness ratings. This cognitive modulation was also found for the test odor (but not for the clean air) in the amygdala bilaterally.
Axonal and dendritic integrity is affected early in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Studies using region of interest or voxel-based analysis of diffusion tensor imaging data found significant decline of fractional anisotropy, a marker of fiber tract integrity, in selected white matter areas. We applied a multivariate network analysis based on principal component analysis to fractional anisotropy maps derived from diffusion-weighted scans from 15 AD patients, and 14 elderly healthy controls. Fractional anisotropy maps were obtained from an EPI diffusion sequence using parallel imaging to reduce distortion artifacts. We used high-dimensional image warping to control for partial volume effects due to white matter atrophy in AD. We found a significant regional pattern of fiber changes (p < 0.01) indicating that the integrity of intracortical projecting fiber tracts (including corpus callosum, cingulum and fornix, and frontal, temporal and occipital lobe white matter areas) was reduced, whereas extracortical projecting fiber tracts, including the pyramidal and extrapyramidal systems and somatosensory projections, were relatively preserved in AD. Effects of a univariate analysis were almost entirely contained within the multivariate effect. Our findings illustrate the use of a multivariate approach to fractional anisotropy data that takes advantage of the highly organized structure of anisotropy maps, and is independent of multiple comparison correction and partial volume effects. In agreement with post-mortem evidence, our study demonstrates dissociation between intracortical and extracortical projecting fiber systems in AD in the living human brain.
Neuroimaging studies of decision-making have generally related neural activity to objective measures (such as reward magnitude, probability or delay), despite choice preferences being subjective. However, economic theories posit that decision-makers behave as though different options have different subjective values. Here we use functional magnetic resonance imaging to show that neural activity in several brain regions--particularly the ventral striatum, medial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex--tracks the revealed subjective value of delayed monetary rewards. This similarity provides unambiguous evidence that the subjective value of potential rewards is explicitly represented in the human brain.
Humans powerfully and flexibly interpret the behaviour of other people based on an understanding of their minds: that is, we use a "theory of mind." In this study we distinguish theory of mind, which represents another person's mental states, from a representation of the simple presence of another person per se. The studies reported here establish for the first time that a region in the human temporo-parietal junction (here called the TPJ-M) is involved specifically in reasoning about the contents of another person's mind. First, the TPJ-M was doubly dissociated from the nearby extrastriate body area (EBA; Downing et al., 2001). Second, the TPJ-M does not respond to false representations in non-social control stories. Third, the BOLD response in the TPJ-M bilaterally was higher when subjects read stories about a character's mental states, compared with stories that described people in physical detail, which did not differ from stories about nonhuman objects. Thus, the role of the TPJ-M in understanding other people appears to be specific to reasoning about the content of mental states.
Cognitive emotion regulation insights from social 568
- K N Ochsner
- J J Gross
Ochsner, K.N., Gross, J.J., 2008. Cognitive emotion regulation insights from social
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Social eyes a