Reinforcement Learning of Social Conformity in the Brain: A Feedback-Related Negativity Study
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2010
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Haverford College. Department of Psychology
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Award
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eng
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Haverford users only
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Abstract
The present study attempts to demonstrate that the feedback-related negativity (FRN) component of the event-related potential (ERP) is likely the "prediction error" signal that underlies the reinforcement learning of social conformity (e.g., Klucharev et al., 2009). We predicted that increased discrepancy between a participant's facial attractiveness rating and the average rating ostensibly made by a group of peers would elicit significantly larger mean amplitudes (Jlv) than non-discrepant feedback would during the window of 200 and 400 ms poststimulus--the time at which the FRN peak is typically evoked. Furthermore, we predicted that participants' subsequent ratings for those same faces would vary as a function of the discrepancy of this social feedback. Results support these hypotheses, although a secondary prediction for an interaction between feedback and self-esteem was not observed. Results are discussed from an evolutionary, cognitive neuroscientific perspective in an effort to suggest the presence of a seemingly innate and adaptive neural mechanism for self-regulation through the detection of social errors.