Evaluations from Superiors Matter More: Evidence from Behavior and Event-related Potentials

Abstract

As an essential feature of social groups, social hierarchies influence how people interact in daily life. However, it is unknown how external evaluations from peers at different levels in a social hierarchy influence feedback processing. In the current study, participants were instructed to establish a social hierarchy through a novel stick drawing task. With their status in the social hierarchy manipulated to be in the middle, participants received positive or negative evaluations from superiors and inferiors separately with ERPs signals recorded. Behaviorally, participants rated their happiness highest, and most quickly after receiving positive evaluations from superiors. ERP results showed that P3 amplitude exhibited an interaction between social hierarchy and feedback valence, such that larger P3 amplitude was elicited by positive evaluations from superiors than any other condition, whereas the feedback-related negativity was only sensitive to the difference between high and low social statuses. Moreover, a generalized linear mixed model examining single-trial ERP data showed P3 amplitude correlated with happiness ratings as a function of feedback valence: a significant positive correlation in the positive feedback condition and a significant negative correlation in the negative feedback condition. P3 was also negatively correlated with RT across all conditions. These results demonstrate that brain activity associated with feedback processing predicted participants' emotion ratings and their decision time. Our study provides the first ERP evidence that positive feedback from superiors impacts neural activity related to reward processing differently than positive feedback from those of lower social standing.

The impact of social hierarchies on neural response to feedback evaluations after advice giving

“…Based on the previous study having similar variables(Duan et al (2022)), the effect size for the two-way interaction of social hierarchy  valence of feedback on the ERP component of interest is 0.30. 2 Few studies have directly explored the three-way interaction of social hierarchy and the other two within-subject variables on the ERP component.…”

“…Therefore, unfair offers proposed to a superior status recipient would be more unexpected, thus eliciting a stronger FRN. In a study by Duan et al (2022), participants received positive or negative appraisals from superior and inferior status individuals in a stick drawing task, and the ERP results revealed that the P300 increased when the participants received positive (vs. negative) appraisals from the superior status evaluator.…”

“… 1 Based on the previous study having similar variables (Duan et al ( 2022 )), the effect size for the two‐way interaction of social hierarchy × valence of feedback on the ERP component of interest is 0.30. …”

“…Emerging relevant studies have suggested that the FRN and P300 can be the ERP indexes which reflect how people evaluate feedback involving social hierarchies (Boksem et al, 2011 ; Cui et al, 2019 ; Duan et al, 2022 ). For example, using the dictator game, Cui et al ( 2019 ) explored how third‐party participants evaluate feedback, showing that recipients of a superior status (vs. inferior status) receive fair or unfair offers.…”