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Self-disclosure on social media might serve evolutionary purpose,researcher says. By Randy Dotinga HealthDay Reporter MONDAY, May 7 (HealthDay News) -- Got something to report aboutyourself? An opinion, perhaps, or a status update? Nobody may careexcept you, but new brain research suggests you can make yourselffeel good simply by sharing. Participants who talked about themselves showed signs of activityin the areas of the brain that are linked to value and motivation,said Diana Tamir, lead author of a study published in this week'sissue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . "This helps to explain why people so obsessively engage in thisbehavior. It's because it provides them with some sort ofsubjective value: It feels good, basically," said Tamir, a graduatestudent in the Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab atHarvard University. Indeed, the researchers found that the regions of the brain thatare activated by talking about oneself are also responsible for thethrills of food, sex, money and drug addiction, Tamir said. The findings are more than a scientific curiosity, Tamir said,considering how much time people spend discussing themselves. Byone estimate, 30 percent to 40 percent of your speech has to dowith you. "Self-disclosure is a behavior that we do all of the time, day inand day out: When you talk to people, they'll often talk aboutthemselves," Tamir said. "On Twitter and Facebook, people areprimarily posting about what they're thinking and feeling in themoment. This is one piece of evidence about why we may do that." In the study, Tamir and a colleague conducted several experimentson subjects whose brains were scanned as they were told to dovarious things. In one experiment, 78 participants alternately disclosed their ownopinions -- about things like whether they preferred coffee or tea-- and judged the opinions of others whose photographs they lookedat. In another experiment, 117 people alternately talked about theirpersonality traits (among other things, declaring whether they're"curious" or "ambitious") and those of the U.S. president at thetime, either George W. Bush or Barack Obama. The researchers found that certain parts of the brain were moreactive when people talked about themselves. In terms of monetaryvalue, participants valued being able to share a thought as beingworth about a penny, Tamir said: "We like to call it a penny foryour thoughts." So, why did evolution encourage humans to feel good when they talkabout themselves? "We're doing some tests to see what larger rolethis behavior may play, whether people's motivation toself-disclose changes depending on their motivations to bond withsomeone," Tamir said. "Some studies show that the more youself-disclose to someone, the more you like them, the more theylike you. It may have something to do with forming social bonds." Paul Zak, a brain researcher and founding director of the Centerfor Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University, saidthe findings are "very convincing" and offer insight into humanevolution. "If a social creature did not disclose information, then othercreatures might stop interacting with it," he said. "Animals dothis with smells and movements, and humans do this with language.This study reveals how our brain evolved to motivate sociality,which is pretty cool." More information To learn more about the brain, try Harvard's brain atlas . SOURCES: Diana I. Tamir, graduate student, Harvard University,Cambridge, Mass.; Paul Zak, Ph.D., chair and professor, economics,and founding director, Center for Neuroeconomics Studies, ClaremontGraduate University, Claremont, Calif.; May 7-11, 2012, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , online Copyright © 2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as China Eye Protection Glasses , China Party Funny Glasses for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Fashion Sunglasses.
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