Interesting miscellany

Authentic communication

Falk, E. B., Morelli, S. A., Welborn, B. L., Dambacher, K., & Lieberman, M. D. (2013). Creating buzz: The neural correlates of effective message propagation. Psychological Science, 24(7), 1234–1242. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612474670

This study examined the brains of people tasked with propagating particular messages and then correlated activity with the messages that were most successful.

Successful message propagation was linked to parts of the brain associated with self-relevant information (meaning — do I think it's good?) and, more importantly, areas associated with predicting social acceptance (affirmation — how do I get other people to think it's good?).