Understanding Task- and Resting-State Neural Activation in Relation to Real-World Social Behavior

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A fundamental goal of neuroscience research is to characterize brain operation in relation to both typical and atypical behavior. Prior research, however, identified operations that are specific to the well-controlled yet somewhat artificial lab environment. The goal of understanding neural operations in relation to social behavior is particularly challenging in neuroimaging environments; it is difficult to model interactions with other people as experienced in everyday life. For example, many studies have identified patterns of neural operations theorized to support socioemotional function such as empathy and prosocial behavior. The presumed goal of these studies is to understand how individuals who exhibit high levels of empathy and/or prosocial behavior differ in their neural operations from individuals who show lower levels. However, these studies have experimentally manipulated empathy, prosocial behavior, and other socioemotional functions, without interactions with other people and without contexts found outside the lab. Therefore, it remains unknown whether the neural operations observed in the experimental context can help to predict people’s personalities and behavior outside of the lab. The project will take a new approach to bridging neural patterns with behavior by investigating whether neural activation typically characterized by socioemotional function in the lab predicts the extent to which people show differences in their personalities and social behavior outside the lab. This investigation incorporates a unique blend of cutting-edge theory and method from researchers in disciplines that do not often interact. It includes research at the forefront of measuring neural operations and rigorous measurement of everyday social behavior. This project will investigate how personalities and everyday behavior relate to neural operation, over a large sample of people who perform a diverse set of socioemotional tasks. Specifically, this project will test how variation in task-related activation and resting state connectivity mediates the relationship between individual differences in socioemotional factors (such as dispositional empathy) and real-world behavior (such as prosocial action). Measurements of real-world behavior will be drawn from long-term social media behavior. The project will provide data and training in interdisciplinary, cutting edge measurement at each level of analysis in social-personality psychology, cognitive neuroscience, computer science, and communication. The project will also generate a publicly accessible data set that bridges dispositional individual differences, multiple measures of variation in neural activity, and real-world social behavior, to facilitate multidisciplinary collaborations and to investigate relations between levels of analyses.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.