Copying same-sex models activates dopamine reward circuitry like receiving money

Evidence

Recent work by the brain scientist Elizabeth Reynolds Losin, a former student of mine, and her colleagues at UCLA has begun to illuminate the neurological underpinnings of sex-biased cultural learning. Using fMRI technology, Liz focused on the difference between people’s brains when they imitated a same-sex model versus an opposite-sex model. She asked both men and women in Los Angeles to first watch and then imitate the arbitrary hand gestures either of a same-sex or opposite-sex model. By comparing the same individuals’ brain activity while watching versus watching and imitating both sameand opposite-sex models, Liz showed that women find mimicking other women more rewarding—neurologically speaking—than mimicking men. Men showed the opposite pattern. When people copied same-sex models, firing activity was higher in the nucleus accumbens, dorsal and ventral striatum, orbital frontal cortex, and left amygdala. Her analysis of the existing database of brain studies reveals that this pattern of brain activity emerges when people receive a reward, such as money, for getting the correct answer. This finding suggests that we experience copying same-sex others as internally more rewarding than copying opposite-sex others. We like it more, so naturally we are inclined to do it more. — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 170

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Facebook’s design intentionally exploits variable-reward dopamine hits to maximize user time. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1437; Likes function as variable-reward dopamine reinforcement driving user compulsion — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1459; Dopamine encodes errors in expectation, not reward or surprise itself — Brian Christian, The Alignment Problem, 585

Broader Connections

• Facebook’s design intentionally exploits variable-reward dopamine hits to maximize user time. #corroborates (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1437
• Likes function as variable-reward dopamine reinforcement driving user compulsion #corroborates (0.78) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1459
• Dopamine encodes errors in expectation, not reward or surprise itself #complicates (0.75) — Brian Christian, The Alignment Problem, 585