You have probably heard that you and your friends are on the same wavelength – that you are listening and share similar opinions, ideas and behaviors. Although the sentence is mainly intended for figurative sense, it turns out that it is also literally true: studies show that your brain waves really synchronize with those of your friends.
In a new study in JneurosciThe Journal of the Society for Neuroscience, researchers have studied how friendships influence behavior and brain activity in consumption contexts. By applying both behavioral approaches and irmf brain imagery, the team found that friendships were prompting Behavioral and neuronal similarityWith the brain activity of a friend offering an overview of brain activity, as well as behavior, on the other.
“This study reveals the predictive capacity of neural activity in forecasting the behavior of friends,” wrote the team in the study. “This research offers valuable information on the intersection of neuroscience, social behavior and consumer decision -making.”
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Influence of friendship on the brain
Of course, our friends influence us in different ways. (Think about this book you bought when a friend’s recommendation, or perhaps this new snack that your friend just said had Try.) But how our friends have an impact on our behavior and our brain activity, especially in consumer contexts, is still far from clear.
To find out more, researchers from Shanghai International Studies University recruited 175 participants, who were all undergraduate students from the same university.
Twice, about a year apart, the researchers interviewed the participants about their friendships, allowing the team to determine which students were friends and which students became closer friends during the year. Then the researchers presented participants to products from products and asked them to assess if they would be interested in buying these products themselves.
The responses of the participants revealed that they shared the same opinions on products much more frequently with friends than with unmistful. They also showed that this trend increased as their friendships reinforced, indicating that friendships promote behavioral similarities over time, and at least in the context of trade.
“Friends, compared to unmistful, have a greater similarity in the evaluation of products,” wrote researchers in the study, “which undergoes dynamic changes as the structure of social networks changes.”
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Predict the activity and behavior of the brain
So, friendships support similar behavior between friends, but what about brain activity? Racaplant 47 additional participants in MID irm, researchers determined that neuronal synchronization, or alignment of neural activity, also occurs with friends with regard to a commercial context.
Indeed, the participants ‘brain displayed the same models of social judgment, perception of objects, attention, memory and award treatment activity as their friends’ brain displayed it when they looked at the same advertisements. This suggests that these synchronized neuronal activity models could be used to determine what we will buy and what our friends will buy, only on a single brain.
“Friends have increased neuronal synchrony, which is linked to cognitive functions,” wrote researchers in their study. “Neuronal activity not only reflects shared cognitive functions, but also predicts the purchasing intentions of individuals and their close friends with greater precision than foreigners.”
Overall, the results reveal how our friendships affect us – synchronize our brain and shape our behavior, not only for big things, but also for little things – during a shopping center, a stopping at the grocery store or a visit to your favorite online store.
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Sam Walters is a journalist covering archeology, paleontology, ecology and the evolution of Discover, as well as an assortment of other subjects. Before joining the Discover team as a deputy editor in 2022, Sam studied journalism at the Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
