eurobiological Correlates of Social Conformity and ndependence During Mental Rotation

ackground: When individual judgment conflicts with a group, the individual will often conform his judgment to that of the group. onformity might arise at an executive level of decision making, or it might arise because the social setting alters the individual’s erception of the world. ethods: We used functional magnetic resonance imaging and a task of mental rotation in the context of peer pressure to investigate he neural basis of individualistic and conforming behavior in the face of wrong information. esults: Conformity was associated with functional changes in an occipital–parietal network, especially when the wrong information riginated from other people. Independence was associated with increased amygdala and caudate activity, findings consistent with he assumptions of social norm theory about the behavioral saliency of standing alone. onclusions: These findings provide the first biological evidence for the involvement of perceptual and emotional processes during ocial conformity.