Finding agreement: Functional magnetic resonance imaging hyperscanning reveals that mental state space exploration facilitates opinion alignment

To find agreement, conversation partners might focus solely on aligning their distinct perspectives. Alternatively, agreement might require partners to explore, by considering different, new perspectives. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) hyperscanning and natural language processing, we tested whether dyadic alignment or exploration during decision-making conversations was a more effective route to agreement. Dyads (N = 60 dyads; 120 people) discussed pressing societal problems after being instructed to either persuade or compromise with their partner, strategies associated with attenuated and amplified exploration, respectively. Analysis uncovered four key results: First, individuals instructed to compromise rather than persuade tended to agree more at the end of the conversation. Second, fMRI hyperscanning and linguistic analyses revealed that encouraging compromise resulted in increased exploration during conversations; dyads given compromise instructions traversed more diverse mental states and topics. Third, heightened exploration was linked to greater agreement at the end of the conversation. Fourth, the effect of the compromise instructions on agreement was mediated by the degree of exploration. Together, these results suggest that finding agreement may be spurred by exploration, something that happens spontaneously when people are motivated to compromise. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).