PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Falk, Emily B.
AU  - Berkman, Elliot T.
AU  - Mann, Traci
AU  - Harrison, Brittany
AU  - Lieberman, Matthew D.
TI  - Predicting Persuasion-Induced Behavior Change from the Brain
AID  - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0063-10.2010
DP  - 2010 Jun 23
TA  - The Journal of Neuroscience
PG  - 8421--8424
VI  - 30
IP  - 25
4099  - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/30/25/8421.short
4100  - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/30/25/8421.full
SO  - J. Neurosci.2010 Jun 23; 30
AB  - Although persuasive messages often alter people's self-reported attitudes and intentions to perform behaviors, these self-reports do not necessarily predict behavior change. We demonstrate that neural responses to persuasive messages can predict variability in behavior change in the subsequent week. Specifically, an a priori region of interest (ROI) in medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) was reliably associated with behavior change (r = 0.49, p < 0.05). Additionally, an iterative cross-validation approach using activity in this MPFC ROI predicted an average 23% of the variance in behavior change beyond the variance predicted by self-reported attitudes and intentions. Thus, neural signals can predict behavioral changes that are not predicted from self-reported attitudes and intentions alone. Additionally, this is the first functional magnetic resonance imaging study to demonstrate that a neural signal can predict complex real world behavior days in advance.