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Neural Signatures and Personality Predictors of Belief Updating on Controversial Issues

Poster Session B - Sunday, March 8, 2026, 8:00 – 10:00 am PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Jia-Ho Chu¹, Francis Pingfan Chien², Po-Jang Hsieh³; ¹Taipei American School, ²Taiwan International Graduate Program in Interdisciplinary Neuroscience, National Taiwan University and Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, ³Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

Belief polarization pervades socio-scientific debates, yet the neurocognitive bases of how beliefs change remain unclear. We investigated belief updating about nuclear power using fMRI, testing how individual differences shape responses to supporting versus opposing evidence. 87 participants viewed 80 minutes of naturalistic video segments on nuclear energy (17 supportive, 18 opposing) with presentation order counterbalanced across groups. We used inter-subject representational similarity analysis (IS-RSA) to quantify neural reconfiguration. Structural equation models (SEMs) estimated contributions from six questionnaire-measured traits: Big Five Inventory (BFI-44), Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale (IUS-12), Need for Closure (NFC), Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), and Short Schwartz Value Survey (SVS). Behaviorally, both perspectives shifted beliefs in the expected directions. IS-RSA revealed an updating network spanning the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). Belief change for both perspectives was associated with neural similarity changes in the anterior ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC). Notably, changes under opposing information related to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) and PCC, whereas changes under supporting information related to the nucleus accumbens (NAcc). In SEMs, only NFC (β = −0.357, p = .0089) and PANAS Negative Affect (β = 0.352, p = .0029) reliably predicted belief change under opposing evidence; supportive exposure effects were non-significant. These findings reveal that belief updating about controversial issues is context-sensitive. Avoidance of ambiguity and negative affect jointly predict how individuals respond to belief-challenging perspectives, providing a neurocognitive model for motivated reasoning.

Topic Area: EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions