Situation and person attributions under spontaneous and intentional instructions: an fMRI study.

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
Jenny KestemontFrank Van Overwalle

Abstract

This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research explores how observers make causal beliefs about an event in terms of the person or situation. Thirty-four participants read various short descriptions of social events that implied either the person or the situation as the cause. Half of them were explicitly instructed to judge whether the event was caused by something about the person or the situation (intentional inferences), whereas the other half was instructed simply to read the material carefully (spontaneous inferences). The results showed common activation in areas related to mentalizing, across all types of causes or instructions (posterior superior temporal sulcus, temporo-parietal junction, precuneus). However, the medial prefrontal cortex was activated only under spontaneous instructions, but not under intentional instruction. This suggests a bias toward person attributions (e.g. fundamental attribution bias). Complementary to this, intentional situation attributions activated a stronger and more extended network compared to intentional person attributions, suggesting that situation attributions require more controlled, extended and broader processing of the information.

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Citations

Oct 31, 2013·Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience·Joseph M MoranJason P Mitchell
Sep 12, 2015·Human Brain Mapping·Katerina D KandylakiTilo Kircher
Jul 28, 2015·Social Neuroscience·Jenny KestemontFrank Van Overwalle
Feb 27, 2016·Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience·Jenny KestemontMarie Vandekerckhove
Apr 14, 2016·Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews·Pascal MolenberghsJason B Mattingley
Mar 19, 2014·Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience·Jenny KestemontMarie Vandekerckhove
May 31, 2017·Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience·Mark A Thornton, Jason P Mitchell
Jul 4, 2019·Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience·James A Dungan, Liane Young
Apr 1, 2020·Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience·Mareike Bacha-TramsIiro P Jääskeläinen
Oct 29, 2017·Scientific Reports·Mareike Bacha-TramsIiro P Jääskeläinen
Apr 30, 2019·Royal Society Open Science·Steven BrownYe Yuan
Oct 13, 2021·NPJ Science of Learning·Robert A MasonMarcel Adam Just

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