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The sense of should: A biologically-based framework for modeling social pressure
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Abstract
What is social pressure, and how could it be adaptive to conform to others' expectations? Existing accounts highlight the importance of reputation and social sanctions. Yet, conformist behavior is multiply determined: sometimes, a person desires social regard, but at other times she feels obligated to behave a certain way, regardless of any reputational benefit-i.e. she feels a sense of should. We develop a formal model of this sense of should, beginning from a minimal set of biological premises: that the brain is predictive, that prediction error has a metabolic cost, and that metabolic costs are prospectively avoided. It follows that unpredictable environments impose metabolic costs, and in social environments these costs can be reduced by conforming to others' expectations. We elaborate on a sense of should's benefits and subjective experience, its likely developmental trajectory, and its relation to embodied mental inference. From this individualistic metabolic strategy, the emergent dynamics unify social phenomenon ranging from status quo biases, to communication and motivated cognition. We offer new solutions to long-studied problems (e.g. altruistic behavior), and show how compliance with arbitrary social practices is compelled without explicit sanctions. Social pressure may provide a foundation in individuals on which societies can be built.
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“In this way, sociocultural and environmental factors transmit emotion concepts to the new generations as a tool for regulating the body and each other.50,51,[154][155][156]”
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Metadata
- Authors
- Theriault, J. E., Young, L., & Barrett, L. F.
- Affiliations
- Northeastern University (US)
- Boston College (US)
- Corresponding author
- Theriault, Jordan E.
- Venue
- Physics of Life Reviews
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2021-03
- Volume
- 36
- Pages
- 100-136
- ISSN
- 1571-0645 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC8645214
- OpenAlex
- W3002114662
- Cited by
- 201
- References
- 349
- Citations by year
- 2026: 13 · 2025: 34 · 2024: 30 · 2023: 30 · 2022: 29 · 2021: 18
- FWCI
- 4.12
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- Physics of Life Reviews (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Embodied and Extended Cognition
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Keywords
- social pressure, conformity, social expectations, metabolic cost, prediction error, predictive brain, social sanctions, reputation, status quo bias, motivated cognition, altruism
- MeSH terms
- Altruism, Brain, Cognition, Emotions, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Social Behavior
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