Social Framing Effects in the Brain

Post by Deborah Joye

What's the science?

It’s appealing to believe that our choices and thought processes are based on logical, rational judgment, but much of our thinking is subject to various cognitive biases. One of these cognitive biases is the framing effect, in which an identical situation can be described (framed) in opposing ways. For example, someone is more likely to buy an 80% fat-free yogurt (positive framing) compared to a 20% fat yogurt (negative framing). However, the framing effect can have different outcomes in social situations. When making a non-social decision, like gambling, people tend to make their decisions based on which option is more beneficial for them as an individual. But when making social decisions, people consider how their decision might affect others. Research investigating the brain circuitry underlying framing effects has overwhelmingly focused on non-social tasks. Since social framing results in more complex considerations of how our choices affect others, it is likely that the brain circuitry underlying social framing is different from non-social framing. This week in The Journal of Neuroscience, Liu and colleagues use a social framing task combined with brain imaging and neural manipulation to demonstrate that the activation of the right temporoparietal junction specifically underlies the social framing effect and does not impact non-social framing.

How did they do it?

The authors first recruited 33 participants to undergo their novel behavioral task where they were asked to either “not harm” or “help” another person. The actual situation was always the same but the wording differed. In the “Harm frame” participants had to decide between a “harm” option or a “not harm” option which would cost them a small amount of money. In the “Help frame” participants had to decide between a “not help” option, or a “help” option, which would cost them a small amount of money. Participants performed this task in a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine (fMRI) so that the authors could investigate which brain regions showed activity connected with performance on the task. After they determined brain regions of interest, the authors recruited 60 new participants to undergo transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). This technique can increase or decrease neuronal excitability within brain regions, allowing them to test whether turning a region “on” or “off” affected performance in a behavioral task. The authors then manipulated neural activity during both a social and a non-social task to determine whether the regions of interest were involved with a specific task type.

What did they find?

The authors found that participants were much more likely to pay to “not harm” a fellow participant than they were to “help” them, demonstrating that this task had a strong social framing effect. Several brain regions were active during this task, but the right temporoparietal junction was strongly activated during both Help and Harm frames, leading the researchers to focus on this region specifically. Interestingly, regions typically associated with non-social tasks, including the amygdala and the anterior cingulate cortex were not activated by this task. The authors also found that the right temporoparietal junction showed functional connectivity to the medial prefrontal cortex, and the strength of that connection predicted how strongly participants were affected by the social framing. The authors then tested whether manipulation of right temporoparietal junction activity with tDCS could change how participants performed on social and non-social framing tasks. They found that when the right temporoparietal junction was excited, the social framing effect was significantly increased relative to sham stimulation. Interestingly, they also found that the framing effect was decreased when the right temporoparietal junction was inhibited. Importantly, neither excitation nor inhibition of the right temporoparietal junction altered performance on a non-social framing task, suggesting that this region may be specific to social framing.

What's the impact?

This study reveals that the neural circuitry underlying social and non-social decision-making is different. Specifically, the right temporoparietal junction and its connectivity to the medial prefrontal cortex contribute significantly to the social framing effect but manipulation of this region does impact non-social framing effects. These findings are important because a deeper understanding of the differences between social and non-social decisions and how the brain processes them could increase understanding of how to enhance prosocial behavior. 

Liu et al., The Neural Mechanism of the Social Framing Effect: Evidence from fMRI and tDCS Studies, Journal of Neuroscience (2020). Access the original scientific publication here.