The mentalizing network updates neural representations of romantic interest in response to social feedback

In what ways are social evaluations of others interdependent with what we think they believe about us? In the current study, we were interested in how social feedback changes how we think about a potential romantic partner, as well as how often we think about them. We hypothesized that the mentalizing network would play a role in both of these processes, given that we consider both how we feel about someone and how we think they feel about us when evaluating romantic interest. During an fMRI scan, participants watched dating profile videos of eight different targets, and assessed each target on romantic interest. Participants watched two videos of each target: one before receiving social feedback from the target, and one after. Participants also completed a resting state scan after viewing each set of eight videos. We found that the mentalizing network played a role in forming and updating evaluations of romantic interest. Specifically, neural representations in this network responded most strongly to social feedback that was incongruent with one’s initial evaluation, likely because our romantic interest in another person is at least partially dependent on how we believe they feel about us. Within the mentalizing network, the right TPJ and the dmPFC most strongly represented romantic interest at the beginning of an encounter. In addition, representations in the TPJ and the Precuneus changed more in response to incongruent feedback, while reactivation frequency in the TPJ changed more in response to congruent feedback, further demonstrating the importance of interdependence in social evaluations.