Intersubject correlations in reward and mentalizing brain circuits separately predict persuasiveness of two types of ISIS video propaganda

The Islamist group ISIS has been particularly successful at recruiting Westerners as terrorists. A hypothesized explanation is their simultaneous use of two types of propaganda: Heroic narratives, emphasizing individual glory, alongside Social narratives, which emphasize oppression against Islamic c...

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Veröffentlicht in:Scientific reports Jg. 14; H. 1; S. 13455 - 13
Hauptverfasser: Cohen, Michael S., Leong, Yuan Chang, Ruby, Keven, Pape, Robert A., Decety, Jean
Format: Journal Article
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: London Nature Publishing Group UK 12.06.2024
Nature Publishing Group
Nature Portfolio
Schlagworte:
631/378/2645
631/477/2811
Adult
Brain - diagnostic imaging
Brain - physiology
Brain Mapping - methods
Female
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Humanities and Social Sciences
Humans
Islam
Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods
Male
Mentalization - physiology
multidisciplinary
Neostriatum
Persuasive Communication
Propaganda
Reward
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Terrorism
Theory of Mind - physiology
Ventral Striatum - diagnostic imaging
Ventral Striatum - physiology
Young Adult
ISSN:2045-2322, 2045-2322
Online-Zugang:Volltext
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Zusammenfassung:The Islamist group ISIS has been particularly successful at recruiting Westerners as terrorists. A hypothesized explanation is their simultaneous use of two types of propaganda: Heroic narratives, emphasizing individual glory, alongside Social narratives, which emphasize oppression against Islamic communities. In the current study, functional MRI was used to measure brain responses to short ISIS propaganda videos distributed online. Participants were shown 4 Heroic and 4 Social videos categorized as such by another independent group of subjects. Persuasiveness was measured using post-scan predictions of recruitment effectiveness. Inter-subject correlation (ISC) was used to measure commonality of brain activity time courses across individuals. ISCs in ventral striatum predicted rated persuasiveness for Heroic videos, while ISCs in mentalizing and default networks, especially in dmPFC, predicted rated persuasiveness for Social videos. This work builds on past findings that engagement of the reward circuit and of mentalizing brain regions predicts preferences and persuasion. The observed dissociation as a function of stimulus type is novel, as is the finding that intersubject synchrony in ventral striatum predicts rated persuasiveness. These exploratory results identify possible neural mechanisms by which political extremists successfully recruit prospective members and specifically support the hypothesized distinction between Heroic and Social narratives for ISIS propaganda.
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ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-024-62341-3