Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Healthy social life requires relationships in different levels of personal closeness. Based on ethological, sociological, and psychological evidence, social networks have been divided into five layers, gradually increasing in size and decreasing in personal closeness. Is this division also reflected in brain processing of social networks? During functional MRI, 21 participants compared their personal closeness to different individuals. We examined the brain volume showing differential activation for varying layers of closeness and found that a disproportionately large portion of this volume (80%) exhibited preference for individuals closest to participants, while separate brain regions showed preference for all other layers. Moreover, this bipartition reflected cortical preference for different sizes of physical spaces, as well as distinct subsystems of the default mode network. Our results support a division of the neurocognitive processing of social networks into two patterns depending on personal closeness, reflecting the unique role intimately close individuals play in our social lives. Most of our social effort is dedicated to a small group of very close individuals. This study reveals that neurocognitive processing of these people differs from the broader social network, paralleling the processing of close versus distant places.
Source: Communications Biology
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,890
Funder: Israel Science Foundation
Award: G8365895487
OpenAlex ID: W4403280769