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Neural Message Engagement Predicts Susceptibility to Conversational Influence on Drinking Behavior

Fri, May 25, 14:00 to 15:15, Hilton Old Town, Floor: M, Liszt

Abstract

Interpersonal conversations and mass media messages impact behaviors through interconnected pathways. The underlying mechanisms are unclear, partially because it is unknown who is most susceptible to conversational influence and how these individual differences relate to responses to message exposure. We assessed college students’ daily drinking behavior and alcohol-related conversations over 30 days. This work substantially increases the temporal resolution of prior conversational influence measures. Results show bi-directional relationships between conversational valence (pro/anti-drinking) and drinking behavior. Further, we assessed participants’ capacity to engage positively with anti-drinking media campaigns operationalized as neural value-related activity captured through fMRI. Pro-drinking conversations affected drinking behavior less strongly among those who showed greater neural valuation activity during engagement with anti-drinking advertisements at baseline. These results highlight the role of message-processing strategies in attempts to harness social dynamics when encouraging healthy behavior and foreshadow a novel, mechanistic framework of the connections between media effects and conversational influence.

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