Each generation has its own James Dean, that is, the rebellious character who refuses to follow the path set by his peers. Now a new study published in the journalCurrent Biologyhas founda relationship between the amount of gray matter in a specific brain region and the level of rebellion or conformityof each individual.
A person’s decisions, both politically and when it comes to dressing or choosing whether to have a sandwich or salad for lunch, are often influenced by the choices made by those around them. Although it is common to observe individual differences in the greater or lesser tendency to adapt to social pressures, until now no anatomical structure had been associated with the probability that someone is influenced by others.
Now, in research funded by the Danish National Research Foundation and the Wellcome Trust, scientists from New York University, Aarhus University and the Wellcome Trust Center for Neuroimaging at University College London, UK, appear to havefound an “objective measure of rebellion”. For this, they measured, for the first time, the volumes of brain regions in 28 participants using a technique known as voxel-based morphometry, which allows determining the exact volume of gray matter from three-dimensional images of the brain provided by magnetic resonance (MRI). To measure how they responded to social influence, the participants chose their 20 favorite songs, and a week later they put them to the test to see how their preferences for musical pieces changed after they were told what certain music critics thought.
When the participants reassessed their 20 options, showing the extent to which their opinions differed after listening to the critics’ ratings – a clear measure of conformity according to social influence – it turned out that the gray matter volume of theorbitofrontal cortexit was directly associated with the level of conformity to social influence. These findings suggest that this region of the brain is particularly attentive torecognize the signs of social conflict.
Study leader Professor Chris Frith states that “the ability to adapt to others is an important social skill.” The results would explain why people with damage in this region often show changes in their personality and in the mode of social interaction.
