Making social neuroscience less WEIRD: Using fNIRS to measure neural signatures of persuasive influence in a Middle East participant sample

Abstract

The large majority of social neuroscience research uses WEIRD populations – participants from Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic locations. This makes it difficult to claim whether neuropsychological functions are universal or culture specific. In this study, we demonstrate one approach to addressing the imbalance by using portable neuroscience equipment in a study of persuasion conducted in Jordan with an Arabic-speaking sample. Participants were shown persuasive videos on various health and safety topics while their brain activity was measured using functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Self-reported persuasiveness ratings for each video were then recorded. Consistent with previous research conducted with American subjects, this work found that activity in the dorsomedial and ventromedial prefrontal cortex predicted how persuasive participants found the videos and how much they intended to engage in the messages’ endorsed behaviors. Further, activity in the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex was associated with persuasiveness ratings, but only in participants for whom the message was personally relevant. Implications for these results on the understanding of the brain basis of persuasion and on future directions for neuroimaging in diverse populations are discussed.

The application of mobile functional near-infrared spectroscopy for marketing research – a guideline

“…The application of mfNIRS could therefore strengthen future research approaches by allowing a marketing-relevant entity to be explored through different real-world perspectives focusing on neuropsychological, behavioural and traditional marketing methods insights in a real-world setting. Also, mfNIRS has recently been used to explore cultural and/or gender-specific differences in perceptions of persuasive messages (Burns et al , 2019), e-commerce websites (Nissen and Krampe, 2021) or in transnational brand purchase decisions associated with original or mixed culture advertisements (Duan et al , 2021). Aspects that provide additional evidence of the ability of mfNIRS to investigate individual differences between customers throughout the entire online and offline value chain.…”