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Social evaluations under conflict: negative judgments of conflicting information are easier than positive judgments

In the current study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate how the brain facilitates social judgments despite evaluatively conflicting information. Participants learned consistent (positive or negative) and ambivalent (positive and negative) person information and were then a...

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Autores principales: Nohlen, Hannah U, van Harreveld, Frenk, Cunningham, William A
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6778826/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31269199
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsz045
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author Nohlen, Hannah U
van Harreveld, Frenk
Cunningham, William A
author_facet Nohlen, Hannah U
van Harreveld, Frenk
Cunningham, William A
author_sort Nohlen, Hannah U
collection PubMed
description In the current study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate how the brain facilitates social judgments despite evaluatively conflicting information. Participants learned consistent (positive or negative) and ambivalent (positive and negative) person information and were then asked to provide binary judgments of these targets in situations that either resolved conflict by prioritizing a subset of information or not. Self-report, decision time and brain data confirm that integrating contextual information into our evaluations of objects or people allows for nuanced (social) evaluations. The same mixed trait information elicited or failed to elicit evaluative conflict dependent on the situation. Crucially, we provide data suggesting that negative judgments are easier and may be considered the ‘default’ action when experiencing evaluative conflict: weaker activation in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during trials of evaluative conflict was related to a greater likelihood of unfavorable judgments, and greater activation was related to more favorable judgments. Since negative outcome consequences are arguably more detrimental and salient, this finding supports the idea that additional regulation and a more active selection process are necessary to override an initial negative response to evaluatively conflicting information.
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spelling pubmed-67788262019-10-10 Social evaluations under conflict: negative judgments of conflicting information are easier than positive judgments Nohlen, Hannah U van Harreveld, Frenk Cunningham, William A Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci Original Manuscript In the current study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate how the brain facilitates social judgments despite evaluatively conflicting information. Participants learned consistent (positive or negative) and ambivalent (positive and negative) person information and were then asked to provide binary judgments of these targets in situations that either resolved conflict by prioritizing a subset of information or not. Self-report, decision time and brain data confirm that integrating contextual information into our evaluations of objects or people allows for nuanced (social) evaluations. The same mixed trait information elicited or failed to elicit evaluative conflict dependent on the situation. Crucially, we provide data suggesting that negative judgments are easier and may be considered the ‘default’ action when experiencing evaluative conflict: weaker activation in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during trials of evaluative conflict was related to a greater likelihood of unfavorable judgments, and greater activation was related to more favorable judgments. Since negative outcome consequences are arguably more detrimental and salient, this finding supports the idea that additional regulation and a more active selection process are necessary to override an initial negative response to evaluatively conflicting information. Oxford University Press 2019-07-03 /pmc/articles/PMC6778826/ /pubmed/31269199 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsz045 Text en © The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com
spellingShingle Original Manuscript
Nohlen, Hannah U
van Harreveld, Frenk
Cunningham, William A
Social evaluations under conflict: negative judgments of conflicting information are easier than positive judgments
title Social evaluations under conflict: negative judgments of conflicting information are easier than positive judgments
title_full Social evaluations under conflict: negative judgments of conflicting information are easier than positive judgments
title_fullStr Social evaluations under conflict: negative judgments of conflicting information are easier than positive judgments
title_full_unstemmed Social evaluations under conflict: negative judgments of conflicting information are easier than positive judgments
title_short Social evaluations under conflict: negative judgments of conflicting information are easier than positive judgments
title_sort social evaluations under conflict: negative judgments of conflicting information are easier than positive judgments
topic Original Manuscript
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6778826/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31269199
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsz045
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