Summary: A new study shows that close friendships can align brain activity and shape decision-making, especially in consumer contexts. Friends assessed products more similarly than strangers did, and this similarity grew stronger as friendships deepened.
Neuroimaging data indicate that friends’ brains become synchronized while watching advertisements in regions associated with perception, memory, social judgment, and reward. Strikingly, patterns of neural activity could help predict not only a participant’s own purchase intentions but also those of their friends.
Key Facts:
- Product evaluations among friends became more alike as their relationship grew closer.
- Neural activity synchronized in brain systems involved in perception, attention, memory, social judgment, and reward processing.
- Brain activity patterns could predict purchase intentions for the participant and their friends, but not for strangers.
Source: SfN
How do friendships shape the brain and influence behavior?
In a paper published in the Journal of Neuroscience, Jia Jin and colleagues from Shanghai International Studies University analyzed how close social ties affect both consumer choices and neural responses. Combining a long-term behavioral study with a neuroimaging experiment, the research explores how friendships produce shared preferences and synchronized brain activity in naturalistic settings.
The research combined a longitudinal behavioral component involving 175 participants with a naturalistic neuroimaging study of 47 participants. Together, these approaches allowed the team to track how product evaluations and brain responses evolve within real-world social networks.
Behavioral results showed that people rated products more similarly to their friends than to nonfriends, and that this similarity strengthened as friendships developed. These findings point to an endogenous form of social influence in which preferences and choices gradually align within close relationships.
Using neuroimaging while participants viewed advertisements, the study found that friends’ brains exhibited synchronized activity across regions linked to object perception, attention, memory retrieval, social evaluation, and reward processing. This neural synchrony suggests that shared attention and similar cognitive and emotional processing underlie the behavioral alignment seen among friends.
The investigators also applied machine learning models to patterns of functional connectivity. Those models could predict whether a participant—or their friend—intended to purchase a product, demonstrating that neural patterns carry predictive information about both individual and close-other behavior in consumer contexts.
Taken together, the findings suggest that close social relationships systematically shape how people evaluate products and make decisions, and that these effects are reflected in synchronized brain activity. The study provides evidence that the spontaneous alignment of behavior among friends is rooted in measurable neural processes.
About this neuroscience research news
Author: SfN Media
Source: SfN
Contact: SfN Media – SfN
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Closed access.
Title: “Neural Synchrony and Consumer Behavior: Predicting Friends’ Behavior in Real-World Social Networks” by Jia Jin et al., Journal of Neuroscience
Abstract
Neural Synchrony and Consumer Behavior: Predicting Friends’ Behavior in Real-World Social Networks
Social influence often operates endogenously: people in close relationships tend to align their choices and behaviors spontaneously. This study examines that alignment within natural social networks and identifies its neural basis.
Across two studies totaling 222 participants (Study 1: n = 175; Study 2: n = 47), the researchers combined a longitudinal behavioral design with a neuroimaging experiment using naturalistic stimuli. The goal was to investigate how consumer preferences converge among friends and which neural mechanisms underpin this convergence.
Behavioral analyses reveal that friends show greater similarity in evaluating products than nonfriends, and that these similarities change dynamically as social network relationships evolve.
Neuroimaging and meta-analytic decoding indicate heightened neural synchrony among friends in brain systems associated with object perception, attention, memory retrieval, social judgment, and reward processing. These synchronized responses appear to support shared evaluation and decision-making during exposure to advertising.
Machine learning models trained on functional connectivity maps demonstrate the ability to predict purchase intentions for the participant and for their friends, but not for strangers. This predictive capacity highlights how neural similarity within close relationships can carry information about future behavior.
Overall, the study documents significant neural similarity among individuals in close real-world relationships and shows that these neural patterns can predict friends’ consumer behavior, offering insight into how interpersonal bonds shape decision-making.