In-degree centrality in a social network is linked to coordinated neural activity

Abstract

Convergent processing of the world may be a factor that contributes to social connectedness. We use neuroimaging and network analysis to investigate the association between the social-network position (as measured by in-degree centrality) of first-year university students and their neural similarity while watching naturalistic audio-visual stimuli (specifically, videos). There were 119 students in the social-network study; 63 of them participated in the neuroimaging study. We show that more central individuals had similar neural responses to their peers and to each other in brain regions that are associated with high-level interpretations and social cognition (e.g., in the default mode network), whereas less-central individuals exhibited more variable responses. Self-reported enjoyment of and interest in stimuli followed a similar pattern, but accounting for these data did not change our main results. These findings show that neural processing of external stimuli is similar in highly-central individuals but is idiosyncratic in less-central individuals.

Shared understanding and social connection: Integrating approaches from social psychology, social network analysis, and neuroscience

“…(a) Well-connected individuals (e.g., whom many others indicated as a friend) in the social network of a residential community showed neural responses that were, on average, more similar to other community members compared to less well-connected individuals. Source: Redrawn from Baek et al (2022). (b) The findings followed an Anna Karenina principle, such that well-connected individuals were exceptionally similar to one another, whereas less well-connected individuals were dissimilar to each other, reflecting that each less well-connected individual was dissimilar in their own way.…”

“…(b) The findings followed an Anna Karenina principle, such that well-connected individuals were exceptionally similar to one another, whereas less well-connected individuals were dissimilar to each other, reflecting that each less well-connected individual was dissimilar in their own way. Source: Redrawn from Baek et al (2022) individual was dissimilar in their own way (Baek et al, 2022; see Figure 2), suggesting that well-connected individuals process the world similarly to one another, whereas each less well-connected individual processes the world in their own idiosyncratic way. Notably, while self-reported ratings of the content followed similar patterns, such that well-connected individuals were also more similar to their peers in what they found to be enjoyable and interesting, controlling for these ratings did not change the neural results (Baek et al, 2022).…”

“…Recent neuroimaging work also suggests that convergent processing with one's peers is associated with both objective and subjective measures of one's overall level of social connection, whereas idiosyncrasy is associated with overall social disconnection (Baek et al., 2022 ; Baek, Hyon et al., 2021 ). For instance, in one study, individuals with high levels of objective social connection (e.g., who many indicated as a friend and were therefore well‐connected in their social networks) showed neural responses more similar to normative neural responses in their communities compared to individuals with low levels of objective social connection (i.e., who were less well‐connected) while viewing naturalistic audiovisual stimuli (e.g., clips from television shows and movies) (Baek et al., 2022 ; see Figure 2 ). Additionally, these findings followed an Anna Karenina principle, which is based on the famous line from the novel Anna Karenina : “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” (Tolstoy, 1878 ).…”

Personality similarity predicts synchronous neural responses in fMRI and EEG data

“…However, while this is partly a limitation of the current research, the multimodal, multimethod approach also strengthens the generalizability of our findings by conceptually (rather than directly) replicating them. While each of the methods has its own advantages and limitations 31 , 32 , together they provide robust evidence for the relationship between personality similarity and neural synchrony and its underlying mechanisms.…”

“…The data used in Study 1 were acquired as part of broader collection effort aimed at studying inter-subject correlation and social dynamics 31 .…”