Consensus-building conversation leads to neural alignment
Open accessAbstract
Conversation is a primary means of social influence, but its effects on brain activity remain unknown. Previous work on conversation and social influence has emphasized public compliance, largely setting private beliefs aside. Here, we show that consensus-building conversation aligns future brain activity within groups, with alignment persisting through novel experiences participants did not discuss. Participants watched ambiguous movie clips during fMRI scanning, then conversed in groups with the goal of coming to a consensus about each clip’s narrative. After conversation, participants’ brains were scanned while viewing the clips again, along with novel clips from the same movies. Groups that reached consensus showed greater similarity of brain activity after conversation. Participants perceived as having high social status spoke more and signaled disbelief in others, and their groups had unequal turn-taking and lower neural alignment. By contrast, participants with central positions in their real-world social networks encouraged others to speak, facilitating greater group neural alignment. Socially central participants were also more likely to become neurally aligned to others in their groups.
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After the consensus-building task, the rise in neural alignment remained for new clips taken from the same film.
“The increase in neural alignment following the consensus-building task persisted over novel clips sampled from the same movie.”
From The default mode network: where the idiosyncratic self meets the shared social world (2021) · cites this paper as [119]
A group conversation aimed at consensus altered participants' interpretations and aligned their later DMN responses when they rewatched the clip.
“Consensus-building conversation changed the minds of the participants and led to the alignment of their subsequent DMN neural responses as they watched the clip again.”
From The default mode network: where the idiosyncratic self meets the shared social world (2021) · cites this paper as [119]
Individuals occupying central positions in their real-world social networks contributed disproportionately to aligning the group.
“Participants who were central in their real-world social networks played an outsized role in building group alignment.”
From The default mode network: where the idiosyncratic self meets the shared social world (2021) · cites this paper as [119]
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- Authors
- Sievers, B., Welker, C., Hasson, U., Kleinbaum, A. M., & Wheatley, T.
- Affiliations
- Dartmouth College (US)
- Publisher
- Center for Open Science
- Published
- 2020-07-12
- OpenAlex
- W3144915775
- Cited by
- 25
- References
- 71
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 3
- Type
- posted content
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion, public-domain)
- Funders
- Dartmouth College
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute of Mental Health
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Statistical and Nonlinear Physics › Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social Power and Status Dynamics
- Keywords
- neural alignment, social influence, group conversation, social status, turn-taking, social network centrality, personal beliefs, narrative perception
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