Ventral medial prefrontal cortex and person evaluation: Forming impressions of others varying in financial and moral status

The current study investigated ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) activity during impression formation of individuals varying on distinct dimensions of social status. In a block-design functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment, participants were presented with photographs of faces paired with a colored background indicating their lower, same, or higher financial status, or lower, same, or higher moral status. Participants were asked to form an impression of the targets, but were not instructed to explicitly evaluate them based on social status. Building on previous findings (Cloutier, Ambady, Meagher, & Gabrieli, 2012), a region of interest analysis revealed the interaction of status dimension and level in VMPFC, finding not only preferential response to targets with higher compared to lower moral status as previously demonstrated, but also greater response to targets with lower compared to higher financial status. The implications of these results are discussed with an emphasis towards better understanding the impact of social status on social cognition and uncovering the neural substrates of person evaluation.