1
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Wu H, Guo Y, Zhang Y, Zhao L, Guo C. Self-esteem and cortical thickness correlate with aggression in healthy children: A surface-based analysis. Behav Brain Res 2024; 458:114737. [PMID: 37924850 DOI: 10.1016/j.bbr.2023.114737] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/22/2023] [Revised: 10/24/2023] [Accepted: 10/31/2023] [Indexed: 11/06/2023]
Abstract
Aggressive behavior can have serious physical, psychological, and social consequences. However, little is known about the personality and neurological antecedents underlying aggressive behavior in children. The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between self-esteem, aggression, and brain structure (i.e., cortical thickness and surface area) in a population of healthy children (N = 78; 9-12 years; mean age: 9.95 ± 0.90 years). The results revealed that self-esteem showed a negative association with aggression and significantly predicted aggressive behavior. No gender differences were found in aggression and its neural correlates. We performed the cortical parcellation method to further explore the neural foundations underlying the association of self-esteem with aggression. Children with higher aggression had increased cortical thickness in four clusters after multiple comparison correction: right medial orbitofrontal cortex, right lateral orbitofrontal cortex, right superior frontal gyrus, and left insula. In a mediation analysis, cortical thickness in the right medial orbitofrontal cortex contributed to the effect of self-esteem on aggression. These findings extend our understanding of morphological correlates of aggression in children, suggesting that an increased cortical thickness in childhood is a potential mechanism linking low self-esteem to aggression.
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Affiliation(s)
- Huimin Wu
- Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
| | - Yiqun Guo
- School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education, Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Chongqing, China
| | - Yaoyao Zhang
- Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
| | - Le Zhao
- School of Applied Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai, China
| | - Cheng Guo
- Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China.
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2
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Wang X, Jiao L. A Sense of Scarcity Enhances the Above-Average Effect in Social Comparison. Behav Sci (Basel) 2023; 13:826. [PMID: 37887476 PMCID: PMC10604485 DOI: 10.3390/bs13100826] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/14/2023] [Revised: 09/20/2023] [Accepted: 09/29/2023] [Indexed: 10/28/2023] Open
Abstract
Scarcity refers to a state in which an individual's resources do not satisfy his/her needs. A sense of scarcity evokes negative emotions. A fundamental strategy for coping with this negative threat is for people to emphasize the desirability of their personal traits. In this study, a 2 (sense of scarcity: high or low) × 2 (valence: positive or negative) mixed-design experiment was conducted to examine whether and how a sense of scarcity affected one's self-evaluation. Participants were assigned randomly to a high- or low-scarcity group. The chances of assistance rendered to an individual during a word puzzle task were manipulated to induce a high or low sense of scarcity. Then, participants were asked to make positive and negative trait judgments of themselves compared with their average peers. The results showed that people judged their personalities to be more desirable (i.e., more positive and less negative traits) than their average peers, manifesting the above-average effect. More importantly, people with a high sense of scarcity manifested a greater above-average effect than those with a low sense of scarcity. This study suggests that people could highlight their positive aspects to cope with predicaments in social life.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaoyan Wang
- College of Psychology, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu 610000, China;
| | - Lan Jiao
- College of Teacher Education, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315000, China
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3
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Koban L, Andrews-Hanna JR, Ives L, Wager TD, Arch JJ. Brain mediators of biased social learning of self-perception in social anxiety disorder. Transl Psychiatry 2023; 13:292. [PMID: 37660045 PMCID: PMC10475036 DOI: 10.1038/s41398-023-02587-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/16/2023] [Revised: 08/12/2023] [Accepted: 08/15/2023] [Indexed: 09/04/2023] Open
Abstract
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by an excessive fear of social evaluation and a persistently negative view of the self. Here we test the hypothesis that negative biases in brain responses and in social learning of self-related information contribute to the negative self-image and low self-esteem characteristic of SAD. Adult participants diagnosed with social anxiety (N = 21) and matched controls (N = 23) rated their performance and received social feedback following a stressful public speaking task. We investigated how positive versus negative social feedback altered self-evaluation and state self-esteem and used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to characterize brain responses to positive versus negative feedback. Compared to controls, participants with SAD updated their self-evaluation and state self-esteem significantly more based on negative compared to positive social feedback. Responses in the frontoparietal network correlated with and mirrored these behavioral effects, with greater responses to positive than negative feedback in non-anxious controls but not in participants with SAD. Responses to social feedback in the anterior insula and other areas mediated the effects of negative versus positive feedback on changes in self-evaluation. In non-anxious participants, frontoparietal brain areas may contribute to a positive social learning bias. In SAD, frontoparietal areas are less recruited overall and less attuned to positive feedback, possibly reflecting differences in attention allocation and cognitive regulation. More negatively biased brain responses and social learning could contribute to maintaining a negative self-image in SAD and other internalizing disorders, thereby offering important new targets for interventions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leonie Koban
- Lyon Neuroscience Research Center (CRNL), CNRS, INSERM, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Bron, France.
| | | | - Lindsay Ives
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA
| | - Tor D Wager
- Department of Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA
| | - Joanna J Arch
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA
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4
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Sideridis G, Hamed H, Jaffari F. The item position effects in international examinations: the roles of gender. Front Psychol 2023; 14:1220384. [PMID: 37655200 PMCID: PMC10465346 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1220384] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/10/2023] [Accepted: 07/10/2023] [Indexed: 09/02/2023] Open
Abstract
The goal of the present study was to evaluate the roles of item position in terms of item difficulty levels in the assessment of aptitude. Using data from a National Examination in Saudi Arabia, the item position effect was evaluated as a teacher licensure test (GTLT) was administered using five different forms with the same items appearing in a different order. Results indicated minuscule in magnitude position effects estimates, overall, with initially 11.1% of the tests being significant but all of them failing to reach significance using the Holm-Bonferroni's and Sidak corrective procedures. With regard to gender, item position effects emerged in 47.6% of the tests after adjusting the level of significance using the Sidak correction. Interestingly, the direction of effect was consistent so that in 87% of the significant gender comparisons, item position effects were in the direction where females were spending more time on items when they appeared in later positions on the test compared to males. Assuming that items appearing later on the test are likely more difficult, the present findings suggest a profile of deep processing and active engagement in females when facing achievement tests.
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Affiliation(s)
- Georgios Sideridis
- Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
- Department of Primary Education, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Zografou, Greece
| | - Hailah Hamed
- Education and Training Evaluation Commission, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
| | - Fathima Jaffari
- Education and Training Evaluation Commission, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
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5
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Shany O, Dunsky N, Gilam G, Greental A, Gilboa-Schechtman E, Hendler T. Self-evaluation of social-rank in socially anxious individuals associates with enhanced striatal reward function. Psychol Med 2023; 53:4569-4579. [PMID: 35698849 PMCID: PMC10388315 DOI: 10.1017/s0033291722001453] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/19/2021] [Revised: 04/21/2022] [Accepted: 05/04/2022] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Negative self-views, especially in the domain of power (i.e. social-rank), characterize social anxiety (SA). Neuroimaging studies on self-evaluations in SA have mainly focused on subcortical threat processing systems. Yet, self-evaluation may concurrently invoke diverse affective processing, as motivational systems related to desired self-views may also be activated. To investigate the conflictual nature that may accompany self-evaluation of certain social domains in SA, we examined brain activity related to both threat and reward processing. METHODS Participants (N = 74) differing in self-reported SA-severity underwent fMRI while completing a self-evaluation task, wherein they judged the self-descriptiveness of high- v. low-intensity traits in the domains of power and affiliation (i.e. social connectedness). Participants also completed two auxiliary fMRI tasks designated to evoke reward- and threat-related activations in the ventral striatum (VS) and amygdala, respectively. We hypothesized that self-evaluations in SA, particularly in the domain of power, involve aberrant brain activity related to both threat and reward processing. RESULTS SA-severity was more negatively associated with power than with affiliation self-evaluations. During self-evaluative judgment of high-power (e.g. dominant), SA-severity associated with increased activity in the VS and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Moreover, SA-severity correlated with higher similarity between brain activity patterns activated by high-power traits and patterns activated by incentive salience (i.e. reward anticipation) in the VS during the reward task. CONCLUSIONS Our findings indicate that self-evaluation of high-power in SA involves excessive striatal reward-related activation, and pinpoint the downregulation of VS-VMPFC activity within such self-evaluative context as a potential neural outcome for therapeutic interventions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ofir Shany
- School of Psychological Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel
- Sagol Brain Institute, Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel-Aviv, Israel
| | - Netta Dunsky
- Sagol Brain Institute, Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel-Aviv, Israel
- Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel
| | - Gadi Gilam
- Faculty of Dental Medicine, The Institute of Biomedical and Oral Research, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
| | - Ayam Greental
- Sagol Brain Institute, Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel-Aviv, Israel
- Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel
| | - Eva Gilboa-Schechtman
- Department of Psychology and the Gonda Brain Science Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
| | - Talma Hendler
- School of Psychological Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel
- Sagol Brain Institute, Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel-Aviv, Israel
- Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel
- Sackler School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel
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6
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Elder JJ, Davis TH, Hughes BL. A Fluid Self-Concept: How the Brain Maintains Coherence and Positivity across an Interconnected Self-Concept While Incorporating Social Feedback. J Neurosci 2023; 43:4110-4128. [PMID: 37156606 PMCID: PMC10255005 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.1951-22.2023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/12/2022] [Revised: 02/16/2023] [Accepted: 04/04/2023] [Indexed: 05/10/2023] Open
Abstract
People experience instances of social feedback as interdependent with potential implications for their entire self-concept. How do people maintain positivity and coherence across the self-concept while updating self-views from feedback? We present a network model describing how the brain represents the semantic dependency relations among traits and uses this information to avoid an overall loss of positivity and coherence. Both male and female human participants received social feedback during a self-evaluation task while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. We modeled self-belief updating by incorporating a reinforcement learning model within the network structure. Participants learned more rapidly from positive than negative feedback and were less likely to change self-views for traits with more dependencies in the network. Further, participants back propagated feedback across network relations while retrieving prior feedback on the basis of network similarity to inform ongoing self-views. Activation in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) reflected the constrained updating process such that positive feedback led to higher activation and negative feedback to less activation for traits with more dependencies. Additionally, vmPFC was associated with the novelty of a trait relative to previously self-evaluated traits in the network, and angular gyrus was associated with greater certainty for self-beliefs given the relevance of prior feedback. We propose that neural computations that selectively enhance or attenuate social feedback and retrieve past relevant experiences to guide ongoing self-evaluations may support an overall positive and coherent self-concept.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT We humans experience social feedback throughout our lives, but we do not dispassionately incorporate feedback into our self-concept. The implications of feedback for our entire self-concept plays a role in how we either change or retain our prior self-beliefs. In a neuroimaging study, we find that people are less likely to change their beliefs from feedback when the feedback has broader implications for the self-concept. This resistance to change is reflected in processing in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, a region that is central to self-referential and social cognition. These results are broadly applicable given the role that maintaining a positive and coherent self-concept plays in promoting mental health and development throughout the lifespan.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jacob J Elder
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, California 92521
| | | | - Brent L Hughes
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, California 92521
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7
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Toledo F, Carson F. Neurocircuitry of Personality Traits and Intent in Decision-Making. Behav Sci (Basel) 2023; 13:351. [PMID: 37232586 PMCID: PMC10215416 DOI: 10.3390/bs13050351] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/30/2023] [Revised: 04/12/2023] [Accepted: 04/20/2023] [Indexed: 05/27/2023] Open
Abstract
Even though most personality features are moderately stable throughout life, changes can be observed, which influence one's behavioral patterns. A variety of subjective assessments can be performed to track these changes; however, the subjective characteristic of these assessments may lead to questions about intentions and values. The use of neuroimaging techniques may aid the investigation of personality traits through a more objective lens, overcoming the barriers imposed by confounders. Here, neurocircuits associated with changes in personality domains were investigated to address this issue. Cortical systems involved in traits such as extraversion and neuroticism were found to share multiple components, as did traits of agreeableness and conscientiousness, with these four features revolving around the activation and structural integrity of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). The attribute of openness appears scattered throughout cortical and subcortical regions, being discussed here as a possible reflection of intent, at the same time modulating and being governed by other traits. Insights on how systems operate on personality may increase comprehension on factors acting on the evolution, development, and consolidation of personality traits through life, as in neurocognitive disorders.
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Affiliation(s)
- Felippe Toledo
- Department of Physiotherapy, LUNEX International University of Health, Exercise and Sports, L-4671 Differdange, Luxembourg;
- Luxembourg Health and Sport Sciences Research Institute A.S.B.L., L-4671 Differdange, Luxembourg
| | - Fraser Carson
- Luxembourg Health and Sport Sciences Research Institute A.S.B.L., L-4671 Differdange, Luxembourg
- Department of Sport and Exercise Science, LUNEX International University of Health, Exercise and Sports, L-4671 Differdange, Luxembourg
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8
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Close and distant relationships exclusion: A study of individual coping tendencies towards excluder and non-excluder. CURRENT PSYCHOLOGY 2023. [DOI: 10.1007/s12144-022-04203-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/12/2023]
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9
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Rodman AM, Powers KE, Kastman EK, Kabotyanski KE, Stark AM, Mair P, Somerville LH. Physical Effort Exertion for Peer Feedback Reveals Evolving Social Motivations From Adolescence to Young Adulthood. Psychol Sci 2023; 34:60-74. [PMID: 36283029 PMCID: PMC9982232 DOI: 10.1177/09567976221121351] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/27/2021] [Accepted: 07/27/2022] [Indexed: 01/20/2023] Open
Abstract
Peer relationships and social belonging are particularly important during adolescence. Using a willingness-to-work paradigm to quantify incentive motivation, we examined whether evaluative information holds unique value for adolescents. Participants (N = 102; 12-23 years old) rated peers, predicted how peers rated them, and exerted physical effort to view each peer's rating. We measured grip force, speed, and opt-out behavior to examine the motivational value of peer feedback, relative to money in a control condition, and to assess how peer desirability and participants' expectations modulated motivated effort across age. Overall, when compared with adolescents, adults were relatively less motivated for feedback than money. Whereas adults exerted less force and speed for feedback when expecting rejection, adolescents exerted greater force and speed when expecting to be more strongly liked or disliked. These findings suggest that the transition into adulthood is accompanied by a self-protective focus, whereas adolescents are motivated to consume highly informative feedback, even if negative.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Erik K. Kastman
- Department of Psychology and Center for Brain
Science, Harvard University
| | | | - Abigail M. Stark
- Department of Psychology and Center for Brain
Science, Harvard University
| | - Patrick Mair
- Department of Psychology and Center for Brain
Science, Harvard University
| | - Leah H. Somerville
- Department of Psychology and Center for Brain
Science, Harvard University
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10
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Mei D, Ke Z, Li Z, Zhang W, Gao D, Yin L. Self-deception: Distorted metacognitive process in ambiguous contexts. Hum Brain Mapp 2022; 44:948-969. [PMID: 36308407 PMCID: PMC9875939 DOI: 10.1002/hbm.26116] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/08/2022] [Revised: 08/09/2022] [Accepted: 09/21/2022] [Indexed: 01/28/2023] Open
Abstract
As one of the commonly used folk psychological concepts, self-deception has been intensively discussed yet is short of solid ground from cognitive neuroscience. Self-deception is a biased cognitive process of information to obtain or maintain a false belief that could be both self-enhancing or self-diminishing. Study 1 (N = 152) captured self-deception by adopting a modified numerical discrimination task that provided cheating opportunities, quantifying errors in predicting future performance (via item-response theory model), and measuring the belief of how good they are at solving the task (i.e., self-efficacy belief). By examining whether self-efficacy belief is based upon actual ability (true belief) or prediction errors (false belief), Study 1 showed that self-deception occurred in the effortless (easier access to answer cues) rather than effortful (harder access to answer cues) cheating opportunity conditions, suggesting high ambiguity in attributions facilitates self-deception. Studies 2 and 3 probed the neural source of self-deception, linking self-deception with the metacognitive process. Both studies replicated behavioral results from Study 1. Study 2 (ERP study; N = 55) found that the amplitude of frontal slow wave significantly differed between participants with positive/self-enhancing and negative/self-diminishing self-deceiving tendencies in incorrect predictions while remaining similar in correct predictions. Study 3 (functional magnetic resonance imaging study; N = 33) identified self-deceiving associated activity in the anterior medial prefrontal cortex and showed that effortless cheating context increased cheating behaviors that further facilitated self-deception. Our findings suggest self-deception is a false belief associated with a distorted metacognitive mental process that requires ambiguity in attributions of behaviors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dongmei Mei
- Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Social Cognitive Neuroscience and Mental Health, and Department of PsychologySun Yat‐sen UniversityGuangzhouChina,School of PsychologyGuizhou Normal UniversityGuiyangChina
| | - Zijun Ke
- Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Social Cognitive Neuroscience and Mental Health, and Department of PsychologySun Yat‐sen UniversityGuangzhouChina
| | - Zhihao Li
- School of Psychology and Sociology, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Affective and Social Cognitive ScienceShenzhen UniversityShenzhenGuangdongChina
| | - Wenjian Zhang
- Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Social Cognitive Neuroscience and Mental Health, and Department of PsychologySun Yat‐sen UniversityGuangzhouChina
| | - Dingguo Gao
- Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Social Cognitive Neuroscience and Mental Health, and Department of PsychologySun Yat‐sen UniversityGuangzhouChina
| | - Lijun Yin
- Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Social Cognitive Neuroscience and Mental Health, and Department of PsychologySun Yat‐sen UniversityGuangzhouChina
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11
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Resting-state functional connectivity of social brain regions predicts motivated dishonesty. Neuroimage 2022; 256:119253. [PMID: 35490914 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119253] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/07/2021] [Revised: 04/11/2022] [Accepted: 04/16/2022] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Motivated dishonesty is a typical social behavior varying from person to person. Resting-state fMRI (rsfMRI) is capable of identifying unique patterns from functional connectivity (FC) between brain regions. Recent work has built a link between brain networks in resting state to dishonesty in Western participants. To determine and reproduce the relevant neural patterns and build an interpretable model to predict dishonesty, we analyzed two conceptually similar datasets containing rsfMRI data with different dishonesty tasks. Both tasks implemented the information-passing paradigm, in which monetary rewards were employed to induce dishonesty. We applied connectome-based predictive modeling (CPM) to build a model among FC within and between four social brain networks (reward, self-referential, moral, and cognitive control). The CPM analysis indicated that FCs of social brain networks are predictive of dishonesty rate, especially FCs within reward network, and between self-referential and cognitive control networks. Our study offers an conceptual replication with integrated model to predict dishonesty with rsfMRI, and the results suggest that frequent motivated dishonest decisions may require the higher engagement of social brain regions.
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12
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Elder J, Davis T, Hughes BL. Learning About the Self: Motives for Coherence and Positivity Constrain Learning From Self-Relevant Social Feedback. Psychol Sci 2022; 33:629-647. [PMID: 35343826 DOI: 10.1177/09567976211045934] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
People learn about themselves from social feedback, but desires for coherence and positivity constrain how feedback is incorporated into the self-concept. We developed a network-based model of the self-concept and embedded it in a reinforcement-learning framework to provide a computational account of how motivations shape self-learning from feedback. Participants (N = 46 adult university students) received feedback while evaluating themselves on traits drawn from a causal network of trait semantics. Network-defined communities were assigned different likelihoods of positive feedback. Participants learned from positive feedback but dismissed negative feedback, as reflected by asymmetries in computational parameters that represent the incorporation of positive versus negative outcomes. Furthermore, participants were constrained in how they incorporated feedback: Self-evaluations changed less for traits that have more implications and are thus more important to the coherence of the network. We provide a computational explanation of how motives for coherence and positivity jointly constrain learning about the self from feedback, an explanation that makes testable predictions for future clinical research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jacob Elder
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside
| | - Tyler Davis
- Department of Psychological Sciences, Texas Tech University
| | - Brent L Hughes
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside
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13
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Amey RC, Leitner JB, Liu M, Forbes CE. Neural mechanisms associated with semantic and basic self-oriented memory processes interact moderating self-esteem. iScience 2022; 25:103783. [PMID: 35169686 PMCID: PMC8829795 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.103783] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/09/2019] [Revised: 08/30/2020] [Accepted: 01/14/2022] [Indexed: 10/31/2022] Open
Abstract
Individuals constantly encounter feedback from others and process this feedback in various ways to maintain positive situational state self-esteem in relation to semantic-based or trait self-esteem. Individuals may utilize episodic or semantic-driven processes that modulate feedback in two different ways to maintain general self-esteem levels. To date, it is unclear how these processes work while individuals receive social feedback to modulate state self-esteem. Utilizing neural regions associated with semantic self-oriented and basic encoding processes (medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), respectively), in addition to time-frequency and Granger causality analyses to assess mPFC and PCC interactions, this study examined how the encoding of social feedback modulated individuals' (N = 45) post-task state self-esteem in relation to their trait self-esteem. Findings highlight the dynamic interplay between mPFC and PCC that modulate state self-esteem in relation to trait self-esteem, to maintain high self-esteem in general in the moment and over time.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rachel C Amey
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA
| | - Jordan B Leitner
- Department of Psychology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
| | - Mengting Liu
- Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Chad E Forbes
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA
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14
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Beer JS. Self-Enhancement is Unlikely to Require Somatic Cues nor is it Likely to be a Successful Long-Term Approach to Promoting Environmental Mastery. PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRY 2022. [DOI: 10.1080/1047840x.2021.2004814] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer S. Beer
- Department of Psychology, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, USA
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15
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Parrish MH, Dutcher JM, Muscatell KA, Inagaki TK, Moieni M, Irwin MR, Eisenberger NI. Frontostriatal Functional Connectivity Underlies Self-Enhancement During Social Evaluation. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2022; 17:723-731. [PMID: 34984459 PMCID: PMC9340112 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsab139] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/22/2021] [Revised: 10/27/2021] [Accepted: 01/04/2022] [Indexed: 01/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Self-enhancement, the tendency to view oneself positively, is a pervasive social motive widely investigated in the psychological sciences. Relatively little is known about the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying this motive, specifically in social-evaluative situations. To investigate whether positive emotion regulation circuitry, circuitry involved in modulating positive affect, relates to the self-enhancement motive in social contexts, we conducted an functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study in a healthy young adult sample. We hypothesized that self-enhancement indices (state and trait self-esteem) would relate to greater functional connectivity between right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (RVLPFC), a region implicated in emotion regulation, and the ventral striatum (VS), a region associated with reward-related affect, during a social feedback task. Following social evaluation, participants experienced stable or decreased state self-esteem. Results showed that stable state self-esteem from pre- to post-scan and higher trait self-esteem related to greater RVLPFC–VS connectivity during positive evaluation. Stable-state self-esteem also related to greater RVLPFC–VS connectivity during negative evaluation. Moreover, RVLPFC activation during all types of feedback processing and left VS activation during negative feedback processing was greater for participants with stable-state self-esteem. These findings implicate neurocognitive mechanisms underlying emotion regulation in the self-enhancement motive and highlight a pathway through which self-enhancement may restore feelings of self-worth during threatening situations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael H Parrish
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
| | | | - Keely A Muscatell
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
| | | | - Mona Moieni
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
| | - Michael R Irwin
- Norman Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior and Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Science, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
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16
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Cubillo A. Neurobiological correlates of the social and emotional impact of peer victimization: A review. Front Psychiatry 2022; 13:866926. [PMID: 35978845 PMCID: PMC9376443 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.866926] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2022] [Accepted: 07/12/2022] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Peer victimization is very common during late childhood and adolescence. Despite the relatively reduced number of studies, the neurobiological underpinnings of the negative impact of peer victimization experiences have received increasing attention in recent years. The present selective review summarizes the most recent available evidence and provides a general overview of the impact of peer victimization experiences on social processing and decision-making at the neurobiological level, highlighting the most pressing areas requiring further research. Three key cognitive areas show a clear negative impact of peer victimization and bullying experiences: social valuation processing, reward and reinforcement learning and self-regulation processes. Victims show enhanced activation in key regions of the limbic system including the amygdala, rostral and dorsal anterior cingulate cortices, suggestive of enhanced sensitivity to social stimuli. They also show enhanced recruitment of lateral prefrontal regions crucially involved in cognitive and emotional regulation processes, and abnormal reward-related striatal function. The presence of psychopathology is a complex factor, increased as a consequence of peer victimization, but that also constitutes vulnerability to such experiences.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ana Cubillo
- Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development, Zurich Center for Neuroeconomics, University of Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland.,Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University Psychiatric Clinic Basel, Basel, Switzerland
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17
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Van de Groep IH, Bos MGN, Jansen LMC, Achterberg M, Popma A, Crone EA. Overlapping and distinct neural correlates of self-evaluations and self-regulation from the perspective of self and others. Neuropsychologia 2021; 161:108000. [PMID: 34419488 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.108000] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/02/2020] [Revised: 07/26/2021] [Accepted: 08/17/2021] [Indexed: 01/18/2023]
Abstract
Prior research has implicated the medial and lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) in processing evaluations from the perspective of self (self-traits) and evaluations from others (peer feedback), suggesting that these areas form a neural substrate that serves an intertwined function in monitoring self in relation to others. To test this possibility, we examined neural activation overlap in medial and lateral PFC after processing self- and other-informed evaluations. Young adults (age range 18-30-yrs, n = 40) performed two fMRI tasks. The self-concept task involved rating whether positive and negative traits described themselves. The Social Network Aggression Task involved processing positive, neutral or negative feedback from others, with the possibility to retaliate by blasting a loud noise following feedback. The results show that rating positive self traits and receiving positive peer feedback was associated with increased activity in an overlapping region in medial PFC. There were no significant correlations on a behavioral level and medial PFC activity for self-versus-other evaluations. The study further replicated the finding from previous research showing that higher activity in dorsolateral PFC (dlPFC) when receiving negative social feedback was associated with reduced noise blast aggression. Finally, during retaliatory responses after receiving positive feedback, participants showed increased activity in the dlPFC. Together these findings suggest that medial PFC is more strongly involved in protecting positive self-views from both internal (self traits) and external (peer feedback) points of view, whereas dlPFC is more strongly involved in regulating retaliatory responses following social rejection, and actively inhibiting aggressive behavior after receiving positive peer feedback.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ilse H Van de Groep
- Erasmus School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands; Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University, the Netherlands; Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Amsterdam University Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
| | - Marieke G N Bos
- Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University, the Netherlands; Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, the Netherlands
| | - Lucres M C Jansen
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Amsterdam University Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
| | - Michelle Achterberg
- Erasmus School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands; Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University, the Netherlands; Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, the Netherlands
| | - Arne Popma
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Amsterdam University Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
| | - Eveline A Crone
- Erasmus School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands; Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University, the Netherlands
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18
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Beer JS, Brandler S. Why don’t we know more about the minds of authentic people? SOCIAL AND PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY COMPASS 2021. [DOI: 10.1111/spc3.12637] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer S. Beer
- Department of Psychology University of Texas at Austin Austin Texas USA
| | - Serena Brandler
- Department of Psychology University of Texas at Austin Austin Texas USA
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19
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Yoon L, Kim K, Jung D, Kim H. Roles of the MPFC and insula in impression management under social observation. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2021; 16:474-483. [PMID: 33449108 PMCID: PMC8095000 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsab008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/20/2020] [Revised: 12/17/2020] [Accepted: 01/14/2021] [Indexed: 01/23/2023] Open
Abstract
People often engage in impression management by presenting themselves and others as socially desirable. However, specific behavioral manifestations and underlying neural mechanisms of impression management remain unknown. In this study, we investigated the neural mechanism of impression management during self- and friend-evaluation. Only participants assigned to the observation (OBS) group, not the control (CON) group, were informed that their responses would be monitored. They answered how well positive and negative trait adjectives described themselves or their friends. The behavioral results showed that the OBS group was more likely to reject negative traits for self-evaluation and to accept positive traits for friend-evaluation. An independent study revealed that demoting negative traits for oneself and promoting positive traits for a friend helps manage one’s impression. In parallel with the behavioral results, in the OBS vs the CON group, the rostromedial prefrontal cortex (rmPFC) and anterior insula (AI) activity showed a greater increase as the negativity of negatively valenced adjectives increased during self-evaluation and also showed a greater increase as the positivity of positively valenced adjectives increased during friend-evaluation. The present study suggests that rmPFC and AI are critically involved in impression management, promoting socially desirable target evaluations under social observation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leehyun Yoon
- Department of Human Ecology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.,Laboratory of Social and Decision Neuroscience, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Republic of Korea.,Department of Psychology, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Republic of Korea
| | - Kwangwook Kim
- Laboratory of Social and Decision Neuroscience, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Republic of Korea.,Department of Psychology, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Republic of Korea
| | - Daehyun Jung
- Laboratory of Social and Decision Neuroscience, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Republic of Korea.,Department of Brain and Cognitive Engineering, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Republic of Korea
| | - Hackjin Kim
- Laboratory of Social and Decision Neuroscience, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Republic of Korea.,Department of Psychology, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Republic of Korea
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20
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Yin L, Zhong S, Guo X, Li Z. Functional connectivity between the caudate and medial prefrontal cortex reflects individual honesty variations in adults and children. Neuroimage 2021; 238:118268. [PMID: 34139359 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118268] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/13/2021] [Revised: 06/05/2021] [Accepted: 06/13/2021] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Deception emerges in early childhood and prevails in adults. Activation patterns in previous adults' task-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), though sensitive to state honesty on a specific decision, are less reliable reflecting trait honesty. Besides of state honesty, most previous neuroimaging studies about dishonesty suffer the generalization problem due to the major focus on adults with children unexplored. To investigate honesty associated functional brain networks variations, 98 healthy adults (Age: 18-28 y.o.; 49 males and 49 females) were invited to participate in a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rfMRI) study (Study 1). We investigated how functional connections between the caudate and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) change among adults who differ in self-reported trait honesty. Results showed that adults with higher trait honesty have increased functional connectivity from the caudate to the mPFC, which is identified as an honesty-related hub region in global brain connectivity analysis and connects more tightly to a wide range of brain regions including the amygdala. Study 2 compared functional connectivity between children with high vs. low lying frequencies (Age: 6-16 y.o.; 61 males and 39 females) based on a publicly accessible database of rfMRI. Consistent with findings in adults, increased functional connectivity from the caudate to the mPFC was found in less frequently lying children. Despite different honesty indicators of self-reported honesty trait in adults and parent-reported lying patterns in children, consistent findings have been noted in the two samples with regards to functional connectivity variations between reward-related and self-related brain regions. These findings suggest functional connectivity alterations between the caudate and the mPFC contribute to honesty variations in both adults and children.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lijun Yin
- Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Social Cognitive Neuroscience and Mental Health, and Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-Sen University, 132 Waihuan Dong Rd., Guangzhou 510006, China.
| | - Shuo Zhong
- Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Social Cognitive Neuroscience and Mental Health, and Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-Sen University, 132 Waihuan Dong Rd., Guangzhou 510006, China
| | - Xiaoli Guo
- Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Social Cognitive Neuroscience and Mental Health, and Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-Sen University, 132 Waihuan Dong Rd., Guangzhou 510006, China
| | - Zhihao Li
- School of Psychology, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Affective and Social Cognitive Science, Shenzhen University, South campus L3-1328, 3688 Nanhai Ave., Shenzhen, Guangdong 518060, China.
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21
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Schindler S, Höhner A, Moeck R, Bruchmann M, Straube T. Let's Talk About Each Other: Neural Responses to Dissenting Personality Evaluations Based on Real Dyadic Interactions. Psychol Sci 2021; 32:1058-1072. [PMID: 34101522 PMCID: PMC8641130 DOI: 10.1177/0956797621995197] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Dyadic interactions are associated with the exchange of personality-related messages, which can be congruent or incongruent with one’s self-view. In the current preregistered study (N = 52), we investigated event-related potentials (ERPs) toward real social evaluations in order to uncover the neural mechanisms underlying the processing of congruent and incongruent evaluative feedback. Participants interacted first, and then during an electroencephalogram (EEG) session, they received evaluations from their interaction partner that were either congruent or incongruent with their own ratings. Findings show potentiated processing of self-related incongruent negative evaluations at early time points (N1) followed by increased processing of both incongruent negative and positive evaluations at midlatency time windows (early posterior negativity) and a prioritized processing of self-related incongruent positive evaluations at late time points (feedback-related P3, late positive potential). These findings reveal that, after real social interactions, evaluative feedback about oneself that violates one’s self-view modulates all processing stages with an early negativity and a late positivity bias.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sebastian Schindler
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Münster.,Otto Creutzfeldt Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Münster
| | - Anne Höhner
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Münster
| | - Robert Moeck
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Münster
| | - Maximilian Bruchmann
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Münster.,Otto Creutzfeldt Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Münster
| | - Thomas Straube
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Münster.,Otto Creutzfeldt Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Münster
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22
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Yankouskaya A, Sui J. Self-Positivity or Self-Negativity as a Function of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex. Brain Sci 2021; 11:brainsci11020264. [PMID: 33669682 PMCID: PMC7922957 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci11020264] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/14/2021] [Revised: 02/15/2021] [Accepted: 02/16/2021] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Self and emotions are key motivational factors of a person strivings for health and well-being. Understanding neural mechanisms supporting the relationship between these factors bear far-reaching implications for mental health disorders. Recent work indicates a substantial overlap between self-relevant and emotion information processing and has proposed the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) as one shared neural signature. However, the precise cognitive and neural mechanisms represented by the MPFC in investigations of self- and emotion-related processing are largely unknown. Here we examined whether the neural underpinnings of self-related processing in the MPFC link to positive or negative emotions. We collected fMRI data to test the distinct and shared neural circuits of self- and emotion-related processing while participants performed personal (self, friend, or stranger) and emotion (happy, sad, or neutral) associative matching tasks. By exploiting tight control over the factors that determine the effects of self-relevance and emotions (positive: Happy vs. neutral; negative: Sad vs. neutral), our univariate analysis revealed that the ventral part of the MPFC (vmPFC), which has established involvement in self-prioritisation effects, was not recruited in the negative emotion prioritisation effect. In contrast, there were no differences in brain activity between the effects of positive emotion- and self-prioritisation. These results were replicated by both region of interest (ROI)-based analysis in the vmPFC and the seed- to voxel functional connectivity analysis between the MPFC and the rest of the brain. The results suggest that the prioritisation effects for self and positive emotions are tightly linked together, and the MPFC plays a large role in discriminating between positive and negative emotions in relation to self-relevance.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alla Yankouskaya
- Department of Psychology, Bournemouth University, Poole BH12 5BB, UK
- Correspondence:
| | - Jie Sui
- The School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 3FX, UK;
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23
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Berretz G, Packheiser J, Kumsta R, Wolf OT, Ocklenburg S. The brain under stress-A systematic review and activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis of changes in BOLD signal associated with acute stress exposure. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2021; 124:89-99. [PMID: 33497786 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.01.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/12/2020] [Revised: 12/04/2020] [Accepted: 01/12/2021] [Indexed: 01/08/2023]
Abstract
Psychosocial stress is an omnipresent phenomenon whose neural correlates in humans are still poorly understood. Several paradigms have been developed to induce acute stress in fMRI settings, but it is unclear whether there is a global brain activation pattern related to psychosocial stress. To integrate the different neuronal activation patterns, we conducted an activation likelihood estimation analysis on 31 studies totaling 1279 participants. Studies used the ScanSTRESS, Montreal Imaging Stress Test, aversive viewing paradigm (AVP), Social-Evaluative Threat or Cyberball. The analysis revealed bilateral activation clusters comprising the claustrum, insula and inferior frontal gyrus. This indicates that exposure to psychosocial stress leads to activations in brain areas involved in affective processing and the endocrine stress response. Furthermore, in a systematic review, Cyberball and AVP presented themselves as outliers due to increased activation in motor areas and lack of induction of stress related activity changes, respectively. As different paradigms emphasize different dimensions of psychosocial stress such as social evaluation or performance pressure, future research is needed to identify differences between the paradigms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gesa Berretz
- Department of Biopsychology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
| | - Julian Packheiser
- Department of Biopsychology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
| | - Robert Kumsta
- Department of Genetic Psychology, Institute of Health and Development, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
| | - Oliver T Wolf
- Department of Cognitive Psychology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
| | - Sebastian Ocklenburg
- Department of Biopsychology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
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24
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Smith AR, Windschitl PD, Rose JP. An integrated approach to biases in referent-specific judgments. THINKING & REASONING 2020. [DOI: 10.1080/13546783.2019.1691053] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Andrew R. Smith
- Department of Psychology, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC, USA
| | - Paul D. Windschitl
- Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA
| | - Jason P. Rose
- Department of Psychology, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, USA
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25
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Attributed social context and emotional content recruit frontal and limbic brain regions during virtual feedback processing. COGNITIVE AFFECTIVE & BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE 2020; 19:239-252. [PMID: 30414041 DOI: 10.3758/s13415-018-00660-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/06/2023]
Abstract
In communication, who is communicating can be just as important as what is said. However, sender identity in virtual communication is often inferred rather than perceived. Therefore, the present research investigates the brain structures activated by sender identity attributions and evaluative feedback processing during virtual communication. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, 32 participants were told that they would receive personality feedback, either sent from another human participant or from a randomly acting computer. In reality, both conditions contained random but counterbalanced feedback, automatically delivered by approving or denying negative, neutral, or positive adjectives. Although physically identical, feedback attributed to the "human" sender activated multiple regions within a "social brain" network, including the superior frontal, medial prefrontal, and orbitofrontal cortex, anterior and posterior parts of the cingulate cortex, and the bilateral insula. Regardless of attributed sender, positive feedback increased responses in the striatum and bilateral amygdalae, while negative compared to neutral feedback elicited stronger insula and somatosensory responses. These results reveal the recruitment of an extensive mentalizing and social brain network by mere sender attributions and the activation of brain structures related to reward and punishment by verbal feedback, demonstrating its embodied processing.
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26
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Schindler S, Miller GA, Kissler J. Attending to Eliza: rapid brain responses reflect competence attribution in virtual social feedback processing. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2020; 14:1073-1086. [PMID: 31593232 PMCID: PMC7053263 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsz075] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/25/2019] [Revised: 07/29/2019] [Accepted: 09/09/2019] [Indexed: 01/16/2023] Open
Abstract
In the age of virtual communication, the source of a message is often inferred rather than perceived, raising the question of how sender attributions affect content processing. We investigated this issue in an evaluative feedback scenario. Participants were told that an expert psychotherapist, a layperson or a randomly acting computer was going to give them online positive, neutral or negative personality feedback while high-density EEG was recorded. Sender attribution affected processing rapidly, even though the feedback was on average identical. Event-related potentials revealed a linear increase with attributed expertise beginning 150 ms after disclosure and most pronounced for N1, P2 and early posterior negativity components. P3 and late positive potential amplitudes were increased for both human senders and for emotionally significant (positive or negative) feedback. Strikingly, feedback from a putative expert prompted large P3 responses, even for inherently neutral content. Source analysis localized early enhancements due to attributed sender expertise in frontal and somatosensory regions and later responses in the posterior cingulate and extended visual and parietal areas, supporting involvement of mentalizing, embodied processing and socially motivated attention. These findings reveal how attributed sender expertise rapidly alters feedback processing in virtual interaction and have implications for virtual therapy and online communication.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sebastian Schindler
- Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, P.O. Box 100131, 33501 Bielefeld, Germany.,Center of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC), Bielefeld University, 33619 Bielefeld, Germany.,Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Münster, 48149 Münster, Germany
| | - Gregory A Miller
- Department of Psychology and Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, P.O. Box 951563, CA 90095-1563, USA
| | - Johanna Kissler
- Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, P.O. Box 100131, 33501 Bielefeld, Germany.,Center of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC), Bielefeld University, 33619 Bielefeld, Germany
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27
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Longitudinal changes in DLPFC activation during childhood are related to decreased aggression following social rejection. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2020; 117:8602-8610. [PMID: 32234781 PMCID: PMC7165424 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1915124117] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Regulating aggression after social feedback is an important prerequisite for developing and maintaining social relations, especially in the current times with larger emphasis on online social evaluation. Studies in adults highlighted the role of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in regulating aggression. Little is known about the development of aggression regulation following social feedback during childhood, while this is an important period for both brain maturation and social relations. The current study used a longitudinal design, with 456 twins undergoing two functional MRI sessions across the transition from middle (7 to 9 y) to late (9 to 11 y) childhood. Aggression regulation was studied using the Social Network Aggression Task. Behavioral aggression after social evaluation decreased over time, whereas activation in the insula, dorsomedial PFC and DLPFC increased over time. Brain-behavior analyses showed that increased DLPFC activation after negative feedback was associated with decreased aggression. Change analyses further revealed that children with larger increases in DLPFC activity from middle to late childhood showed stronger decreases in aggression over time. These findings provide insights into the development of social evaluation sensitivity and aggression control in childhood.
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28
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Kim H. Stability or Plasticity? - A Hierarchical Allostatic Regulation Model of Medial Prefrontal Cortex Function for Social Valuation. Front Neurosci 2020; 14:281. [PMID: 32296303 PMCID: PMC7138052 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2020.00281] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/05/2020] [Accepted: 03/12/2020] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) has long been recognized as the key component of the neurocircuitry involved in various social as well as non-social behaviors, however, little is known regarding the organizing principle of distinctive subregions in the mPFC that integrates a wide range of mPFC functions. The present study proposes a hierarchical model of mPFC functionality, where three functionally dissociable subregions, namely, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), rostromedial prefrontal cortex (rmPFC), and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), are differentially involved in computing values of decision-making. According to this model, the mPFC subregions interact with each other in such a way that more dorsal regions utilize additional external sensory information from environment to predict and prevent conflicts occurring in more ventral regions tuned to internal bodily signals, thereby exerting the hierarchically organized allostatic regulatory control over homeostatic reflexes. This model also emphasizes the role of the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN) in arbitrating the transitions between different thalamo-cortical loops, detecting conflicts between competing options for decision-making, and in shifting flexibly between decision modes. The hierarchical architecture of the mPFC working in conjunction with the TRN may play a key role in adjusting the internal (bodily) needs to suit the constraints of external (environmental) variables better, thus effectively addressing the stability-plasticity dilemma.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hackjin Kim
- Department of Psychology, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea
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29
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Will GJ, Moutoussis M, Womack PM, Bullmore ET, Goodyer IM, Fonagy P, Jones PB, Rutledge RB, Dolan RJ. Neurocomputational mechanisms underpinning aberrant social learning in young adults with low self-esteem. Transl Psychiatry 2020; 10:96. [PMID: 32184384 PMCID: PMC7078312 DOI: 10.1038/s41398-020-0702-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/13/2019] [Revised: 12/12/2019] [Accepted: 12/20/2019] [Indexed: 12/31/2022] Open
Abstract
Low self-esteem is a risk factor for a range of psychiatric disorders. From a cognitive perspective a negative self-image can be maintained through aberrant learning about self-worth derived from social feedback. We previously showed that neural teaching signals that represent the difference between expected and actual social feedback (i.e., social prediction errors) drive fluctuations in self-worth. Here, we used model-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to characterize learning from social prediction errors in 61 participants drawn from a population-based sample (n = 2402) who were recruited on the basis of being in the bottom or top 10% of self-esteem scores. Participants performed a social evaluation task during fMRI scanning, which entailed predicting whether other people liked them as well as the repeated provision of reported feelings of self-worth. Computational modeling results showed that low self-esteem participants had persistent expectations that others would dislike them, and a reduced propensity to update these expectations in response to social prediction errors. Low self-esteem subjects also displayed an enhanced volatility in reported feelings of self-worth, and this was linked to an increased tendency for social prediction errors to determine momentary self-worth. Canonical correlation analysis revealed that individual differences in self-esteem related to several interconnected psychiatric symptoms organized around a single dimension of interpersonal vulnerability. Such interpersonal vulnerability was associated with an attenuated social value signal in ventromedial prefrontal cortex when making predictions about being liked, and enhanced dorsal prefrontal cortex activity upon receipt of social feedback. We suggest these computational signatures of low self-esteem and their associated neural underpinnings might represent vulnerability for development of psychiatric disorder.
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Affiliation(s)
- Geert-Jan Will
- Max Planck University College London Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, London, UK. .,Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College London, London, UK. .,Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
| | - Michael Moutoussis
- Max Planck University College London Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, London, UK ,grid.83440.3b0000000121901201Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College London, London, UK
| | - Palee M. Womack
- grid.83440.3b0000000121901201Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College London, London, UK
| | - Edward T. Bullmore
- grid.5335.00000000121885934Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK ,Cambridgeshire and Peterborough National Health Service Foundation Trust, Cambridge, UK
| | - Ian M. Goodyer
- grid.5335.00000000121885934Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK ,Cambridgeshire and Peterborough National Health Service Foundation Trust, Cambridge, UK
| | - Peter Fonagy
- grid.83440.3b0000000121901201Research Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, University College London, London, UK
| | - Peter B. Jones
- grid.5335.00000000121885934Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK ,Cambridgeshire and Peterborough National Health Service Foundation Trust, Cambridge, UK
| | | | - Robb B. Rutledge
- Max Planck University College London Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, London, UK ,grid.83440.3b0000000121901201Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College London, London, UK
| | - Raymond J. Dolan
- Max Planck University College London Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, London, UK ,grid.83440.3b0000000121901201Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College London, London, UK
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30
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Internal control beliefs shape positive affect and associated neural dynamics during outcome valuation. Nat Commun 2020; 11:1230. [PMID: 32144259 PMCID: PMC7060341 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-14800-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/14/2019] [Accepted: 02/03/2020] [Indexed: 01/10/2023] Open
Abstract
Experiencing events as controllable is essential for human well-being. Based on classic psychological theory, we test how internal control beliefs impact the affective valuation of task outcomes, neural dynamics and ensuing behavioral preferences. In three consecutive studies we show that dynamics in positive affect increase, with a qualitative shift towards self-evaluative pride, when agents believe they caused a given outcome. We demonstrate that these outcomes engage brain networks processing self-referential information in the cortical midline. Here, activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex tracks outcome valence regarding both success as well as internal control, and covaries with positive affect in response to outcomes. These affective dynamics also relate to increased functional coupling between the ventral striatum and cortical midline structures. Finally, we show that pride predicts preferences for control, even at monetary costs. Our investigations extend recent models of positive affect and well-being, and emphasize that control beliefs drive intrinsic motivation. Human affect is shaped in part by whether desirable states are achieved under personal control. Here, the authors show that control beliefs affect happiness and pride, and how those effects relate to neural responses in the prefrontal cortex and behavioral preferences for exerting control.
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31
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Fields EC, Weber K, Stillerman B, Delaney-Busch N, Kuperberg GR. Functional MRI reveals evidence of a self-positivity bias in the medial prefrontal cortex during the comprehension of social vignettes. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2020; 14:613-621. [PMID: 31087068 PMCID: PMC6688454 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsz035] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/01/2018] [Revised: 04/30/2019] [Accepted: 05/09/2019] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
A large literature in social neuroscience has associated the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) with the processing of self-related information. However, only recently have social neuroscience studies begun to consider the large behavioral literature showing a strong self-positivity bias, and these studies have mostly focused on its correlates during self-related judgments and decision-making. We carried out a functional MRI (fMRI) study to ask whether the mPFC would show effects of the self-positivity bias in a paradigm that probed participants’ self-concept without any requirement of explicit self-judgment. We presented social vignettes that were either self-relevant or non-self-relevant with a neutral, positive or negative outcome described in the second sentence. In previous work using event-related potentials, this paradigm has shown evidence of a self-positivity bias that influences early stages of semantically processing incoming stimuli. In the present fMRI study, we found evidence for this bias within the mPFC: an interaction between self-relevance and valence, with only positive scenarios showing a self vs other effect within the mPFC. We suggest that the mPFC may play a role in maintaining a positively biased self-concept and discuss the implications of these findings for the social neuroscience of the self and the role of the mPFC.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eric C Fields
- Department of Psychiatry and Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA.,Department of Psychology, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, USA.,Department of Psychology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA.,Department of Psychology, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02453, USA
| | - Kirsten Weber
- Department of Psychiatry and Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA.,Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.,Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Benjamin Stillerman
- Department of Psychiatry and Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA.,Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA
| | | | - Gina R Kuperberg
- Department of Psychiatry and Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA.,Department of Psychology, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, USA
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32
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Nugiel T, Beer JS. How Does Motivation Modulate the Operation of the Mentalizing Network in Person Evaluation? J Cogn Neurosci 2019; 32:664-673. [PMID: 31702428 DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_01501] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/04/2022]
Abstract
The mentalizing network is theorized to play a central role in making sense of people (compared with nonsocial targets), but is its involvement affected when we make sense of people in a nondispassionate manner (e.g., favoritism toward others on the basis of group membership)? First, mixed findings and small samples have prevented strong conclusions about whether intergroup evaluation increases or decreases activation regions associated with the mentalizing network. Second, little is known about the psychological mechanism underlying mentalizing network activation shaped by ingroup versus outgroup evaluations. Psychological models suggest two hypotheses that can be challenging to disentangle with self-report: Ingroup trait evaluations may benefit from a priori expectations and/or preferential evidence accumulation. Therefore, the current study (n = 50) drew on a combination of drift diffusion modeling and fMRI to examine how group membership affects the engagement of the mentalizing network for trait evaluation and whether group-differentiated activation is associated with a priori expectations and/or preferential evidence accumulation. Outgroup trait evaluations engaged dorsomedial pFC activation, whereas ingroup trait evaluations engaged ventromedial pFC activation as well as other regions associated with mentalizing such as precuneus, posterior cingulate cortex, and right TPJ. Furthermore, the ventromedial pFC and posterior cingulate cortex activation was associated with differential expectations applied to ingroup trait evaluation. The current findings demonstrate the importance of combining motivational factors, computational modeling, and fMRI to deepen our understanding of the neural basis of person evaluation.
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33
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Wang X, Wang B, Bi Y. Close yet independent: Dissociation of social from valence and abstract semantic dimensions in the left anterior temporal lobe. Hum Brain Mapp 2019; 40:4759-4776. [PMID: 31379052 DOI: 10.1002/hbm.24735] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/03/2019] [Revised: 06/25/2019] [Accepted: 07/13/2019] [Indexed: 02/05/2023] Open
Abstract
The anterior temporal lobe (ATL) is engaged in various types of semantic dimensions. One consistently reported dimension is social information, with abstract words describing social behaviors inducing stronger activations in the ATL than nonsocial words. One potential factor that has been systematically confounded in this finding is emotional valence, given that abstract social words tend to be associated with emotional feelings. We investigated which factors drove the ATL sensitivity using a 2 (social/nonsocial) × 2 (valenced/neutral) factorial design in an fMRI study with relatively high spatial resolutions. We found that sociality and valence were processed in different ATL regions without significant interactions: The social effect was found in the left anterior superior temporal sulcus (aSTS), whereas the valence effect activated small clusters in the bilateral temporal poles (TP). In the left ATL, the social- and valence-related clusters were distinct from another superior ATL area that exhibited a general "abstractness" effect with little modulation of sociality or valence. These subregions exhibited distinct whole-brain functional connectivity patterns during the resting state, with the social cluster functionally connected to the default mode network, the valence cluster connected to the adjacent temporal regions and amygdala, and the abstractness cluster connected to a distributed network including a set of language-related regions. These results of activation profiles and connectivity patterns together indicate that the way in which the left ATL supports semantic processing is highly fine-grained, with the neural substrate for social semantic effects dissociated from those for emotional valence and abstractness.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaosha Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.,Beijing Key Laboratory of Brain Imaging and Connectomics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
| | - Bijun Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.,Beijing Key Laboratory of Brain Imaging and Connectomics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
| | - Yanchao Bi
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.,Beijing Key Laboratory of Brain Imaging and Connectomics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
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34
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Abstract
Major depression is a multidimensional disorder producing emotional dysregulation, cognitive impairment, and neuro-vegetative symptoms. A pathophysiological model of depression needs to explain how these dimensions interact to produce specific clinical phenotypes and how these interactions may predict remission to specific treatments. It is unlikely that major depression results from discrete brain lesions. Here we propose to define major depression as a disorder of neural networks. We review evidence suggesting that the dynamics of neural networks involved in allocation of attention resources to the internal and external world contribute to cognitive impairment, increased self-focus, and dysfunctional saliency detection in depression. We describe cognitive and emotional tasks that reveal abnormal cooperation between the Central Executive Network and the Default Mode Network. Finally we suggest that depression is associated with increased social rejection sensitivity. Studies on social rejection will shed light on how attachment relates to impairment in allocation of attention resources to produce depressive symptoms such as rumination and cognitive problems.
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35
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Imaging stress: an overview of stress induction methods in the MR scanner. J Neural Transm (Vienna) 2019; 126:1187-1202. [DOI: 10.1007/s00702-018-01965-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 37] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/08/2018] [Accepted: 12/13/2018] [Indexed: 12/30/2022]
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36
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Social support buffers acute psychological stress in individuals with high interdependent self-construal. ACTA PSYCHOLOGICA SINICA 2019. [DOI: 10.3724/sp.j.1041.2019.00497] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
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37
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Pfabigan DM, Wucherer AM, Wang X, Pan X, Lamm C, Han S. Cultural influences on the processing of social comparison feedback signals-an ERP study. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2018; 13:1317-1326. [PMID: 30395315 PMCID: PMC6277742 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsy097] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/05/2018] [Revised: 10/14/2018] [Accepted: 10/28/2018] [Indexed: 01/26/2023] Open
Abstract
This study investigated cultural differences regarding social connectedness in association with social vs non-social comparison feedback. We performed electroencephalography in 54 Chinese and 49 Western adults while they performed a time estimation task in which response-accuracy feedback was either delivered pertaining to participants' own performance (non-social reference frame) or to the performance of a reference group (social reference frame). Trait interdependence and independence were assessed using a cultural orientations questionnaire. Applying a principal component approach, we observed divergent effects for the two cultural groups during feedback processing. In particular, Feedback-Related Negativity results indicated that non-social (vs social) reference feedback was more salient/motivating for Chinese participants, while Westerners showed the opposite pattern. The results suggest that Chinese individuals perceive a non-social context as more salient than a social comparison context, possibly due to their extensive experience of social comparisons in daily life. The reverse pattern was found in Western participants, for whom a social comparison context is less common and presumably more salient. The cultural differences in neural responses to social vs non-social feedback might be caused by culturally diverse cognitive traits, as well as by exposure to culturally defined behaviour on a systemic level-such as the education system.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniela M Pfabigan
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Anna M Wucherer
- Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit, Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Xuena Wang
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Xinyue Pan
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Claus Lamm
- Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit, Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Shihui Han
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China
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38
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Tamir DI, Hughes BL. Social Rewards: From Basic Social Building Blocks to Complex Social Behavior. PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 2018; 13:700-717. [DOI: 10.1177/1745691618776263] [Citation(s) in RCA: 38] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/10/2023]
Abstract
Humans are social creatures, engaging almost constantly in social behaviors that serve ultimate social goals, such as forming strong bonds with one another. However, most social behaviors provide only incremental progress toward an ultimate goal. Instead, the drive to engage in any individual social act may derive from its proximal value rather than its ultimate goal. Thus, this proximal value forms the foundation on which the complexities of human sociality are built. We describe two complementary approaches for using proximal social rewards to understand social behaviors and their ultimate goals: (a) decontextualizing social rewards—paring down complex social interactions can help identify which basic building blocks remain valuable even in minimalistic contexts—and (b) recontextualizing social rewards—reintroducing motivational and contextual factors into the study of social experience can help identify how proximal rewards serve their ultimate function. We discuss how this dual-approach framework can inform future research by bridging basic social building blocks and real-world social goals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Diana I. Tamir
- Department of Psychology and Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University
| | - Brent L. Hughes
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside
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39
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Welborn BL, Lieberman MD. Disconfirmation modulates the neural correlates of the false consensus effect: A parametric modulation approach. Neuropsychologia 2018; 121:1-10. [PMID: 30326205 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2018.09.018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/27/2018] [Revised: 09/29/2018] [Accepted: 09/29/2018] [Indexed: 01/10/2023]
Abstract
The false consensus effect (FCE) - the tendency to (erroneously) project our attitudes and opinions onto others - is an enduring bias in social reasoning with important societal implications. In this fMRI investigation, we examine the neural correlates of within-subject variation in consensus bias on a variety of social and political issues. Bias demonstrated a strong association with activity in brain regions implicated in self-related cognition, mentalizing, and valuation. Importantly, however, recruitment of these regions predicted consensus bias only in the presence of social disconfirmation, in the form of feedback discrepant with participants' own attitudes. These results suggest that the psychological and neural mechanisms underlying the tendency to project attitudes onto others are crucially moderated by motivational factors, including the desire to affirm the normativity of one's own position. This research complements social psychological theorizing about the factors contributing to the FCE, and further emphasizes the role of motivated cognition in social reasoning.
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Affiliation(s)
- B Locke Welborn
- SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA.
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40
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Development of MPFC function mediates shifts in self-protective behavior provoked by social feedback. Nat Commun 2018; 9:3086. [PMID: 30082718 PMCID: PMC6079030 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05553-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/12/2018] [Accepted: 07/11/2018] [Indexed: 12/31/2022] Open
Abstract
How do people protect themselves in response to negative social feedback from others? How does such a self-protective system develop and affect social decisions? Here, using a novel reciprocal artwork evaluation task, we demonstrate that youths show self-protective bias based on current negative social evaluation, whereas into early adulthood, individuals show self-protective bias based on accumulated evidence of negative social evaluation. While the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) mediates self-defensive behavior based on both current and accumulated feedback, the rostromedial prefrontal cortex (RMPFC) exclusively mediates self-defensive behavior based on longer feedback history. Further analysis using a reinforcement learning model suggests that RMPFC extending into VMPFC, together with posterior parietal cortex (PPC), contribute to age-related increases in self-protection bias with deep feedback integration by computing the discrepancy between current feedback and previously estimated value of self-protection. These findings indicate that the development of RMPFC function is critical for sophisticated self-protective decisions.
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41
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Chavez RS, Heatherton TF, Wagner DD. Neural Population Decoding Reveals the Intrinsic Positivity of the Self. Cereb Cortex 2018; 27:5222-5229. [PMID: 27664966 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhw302] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/03/2016] [Accepted: 09/01/2016] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
Abstract
People are motivated to hold favorable views of themselves, which manifests as a positivity bias when evaluating their own performance and abilities. However, it remains an open question whether positive affect is an essential component of people's self-concept. Prior functional neuroimaging research demonstrated that similar regions of the brain support positive affect and self-referential processing, although a direct test of their shared representation has yet to be examined. Here we use functional magnetic resonance imaging in conjunction with multivariate pattern analysis in a cross-domain neural population decoding paradigm. We found that a multivariate pattern classifier model trained to dissociate neural responses to viewing positively and negatively valenced images can dissociate thinking about oneself from a close friend during a lexical trait-judgment task commonly used in the study of self-referential processing. Cross-domain classification accuracy was found to be highest in the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (vMPFC), a region previously implicated in both self-referential processing and positive affect. These results show that brain responses during self-referential processing can be decoded from multi-voxel activation patterns in the vMPFC when viewing positively valenced material, thereby providing evidence that positive affect may be a central component of the mental representation of the self.
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Affiliation(s)
- Robert S Chavez
- The Ohio State University, Department of Psychology, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
| | - Todd F Heatherton
- Dartmouth College, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Hanover, NH 03755, USA
| | - Dylan D Wagner
- The Ohio State University, Department of Psychology, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
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42
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Delgado MR, Beer JS, Fellows LK, Huettel SA, Platt ML, Quirk GJ, Schiller D. Viewpoints: Dialogues on the functional role of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Nat Neurosci 2018; 19:1545-1552. [PMID: 27898086 DOI: 10.1038/nn.4438] [Citation(s) in RCA: 109] [Impact Index Per Article: 18.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Affiliation(s)
| | - Jennifer S Beer
- Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA
| | - Lesley K Fellows
- Department of Neurology &Neurosurgery, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
| | - Scott A Huettel
- Department of Psychology &Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA
| | - Michael L Platt
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Gregory J Quirk
- Departments of Psychiatry and Anatomy &Neurobiology, University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA
| | - Daniela Schiller
- Departments of Psychiatry and Neuroscience and the Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA
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43
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Luo Y, Eickhoff SB, Hétu S, Feng C. Social comparison in the brain: A coordinate-based meta-analysis of functional brain imaging studies on the downward and upward comparisons. Hum Brain Mapp 2018; 39:440-458. [PMID: 29064617 PMCID: PMC6866367 DOI: 10.1002/hbm.23854] [Citation(s) in RCA: 36] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/21/2017] [Revised: 09/26/2017] [Accepted: 10/10/2017] [Indexed: 12/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Social comparison is ubiquitous across human societies with dramatic influence on people's well-being and decision making. Downward comparison (comparing to worse-off others) and upward comparison (comparing to better-off others) constitute two types of social comparisons that produce different neuropsychological consequences. Based on studies exploring neural signatures associated with downward and upward comparisons, the current study utilized a coordinate-based meta-analysis to provide a refinement of understanding about the underlying neural architecture of social comparison. We identified consistent involvement of the ventral striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex in downward comparison and consistent involvement of the anterior insula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex in upward comparison. These findings fit well with the "common-currency" hypothesis that neural representations of social gain or loss resemble those for non-social reward or loss processing. Accordingly, we discussed our findings in the framework of general reinforcement learning (RL) hypothesis, arguing how social gain/loss induced by social comparisons could be encoded by the brain as a domain-general signal (i.e., prediction errors) serving to adjust people's decisions in social settings. Although the RL account may serve as a heuristic framework for the future research, other plausible accounts on the neuropsychological mechanism of social comparison were also acknowledged. Hum Brain Mapp 39:440-458, 2018. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yi Luo
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and LearningBeijing Normal UniversityBeijingChina
| | - Simon B. Eickhoff
- Institute of Systems Neuroscience, Medical FacultyHeinrich Heine University DüsseldorfDüsseldorfGermany
- Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, Brain and Behaviour (INM‐7)Research Centre JülichJülichGermany
| | - Sébastien Hétu
- Department of PsychologyUniversité de MontréalMontrealQCCanada
| | - Chunliang Feng
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and LearningBeijing Normal UniversityBeijingChina
- College of Information Science and TechnologyBeijing Normal UniversityBeijingChina
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44
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Development of self-protective biases in response to social evaluative feedback. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2017; 114:13158-13163. [PMID: 29180428 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1712398114] [Citation(s) in RCA: 51] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Adolescence is a developmental period marked by heightened attunement to social evaluation. While adults have been shown to enact self-protective processes to buffer their self-views from evaluative threats like peer rejection, it is unclear whether adolescents avail themselves of the same defenses. The present study examines how social evaluation shapes views of the self and others differently across development. N = 107 participants ages 10-23 completed a reciprocal social evaluation task that involved predicting and receiving peer acceptance and rejection feedback, along with assessments of self-views and likability ratings of peers. Here, we show that, despite equivalent experiences of social evaluation, adolescents internalized peer rejection, experiencing a feedback-induced drop in self-views, whereas adults externalized peer rejection, reporting a task-induced boost in self-views and deprecating the peers who rejected them. The results identify codeveloping processes underlying why peer rejection may lead to more dramatic alterations in self-views during adolescence than other phases of the lifespan.
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45
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Flagan T, Mumford JA, Beer JS. How Do You See Me? The Neural Basis of Motivated Meta-perception. J Cogn Neurosci 2017; 29:1908-1917. [DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_01169] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/04/2022]
Abstract
Abstract
We cannot see the minds of others, yet people often spontaneously interpret how they are viewed by other people (i.e., meta-perceptions) and often in a self-flattering manner. Very little is known about the neural associations of meta-perceptions, but a likely candidate is the ventromedial pFC (VMPFC). VMPFC has been associated with both self- and other-perception as well as motivated self-perception. Does this function extend to meta-perceptions? The current study examined neural activity while participants made meta-perceptive interpretations in various social scenarios. A drift-diffusion model was used to test whether the VMPFC is associated with two processes involved in interpreting meta-perceptions in a self-flattering manner: the extent to which the interpretation process involves the preferential accumulation of evidence in favor of a self-flattering interpretation versus the extent to which the interpretation process begins with an expectation that favors a self-flattering outcome. Increased VMPFC activity was associated with the extent to which people preferentially accumulate information when interpreting meta-perceptions under ambiguous conditions and marginally associated with self-flattering meta-perceptions. Together, the present findings illuminate the neural underpinnings of a social cognitive process that has received little attention to date: how we make meaning of others' minds when we think those minds are pointed at us.
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46
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Zhang T, Xi S, Jin Y, Wu Y. Self-Construal Priming Modulates Self-Evaluation under Social Threat. Front Psychol 2017; 8:1759. [PMID: 29081755 PMCID: PMC5645819 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01759] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/25/2017] [Accepted: 09/22/2017] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Previous studies have shown that Westerners evaluate themselves in an especially flattering way when faced with a social-evaluative threat. The current study first investigated whether East Asians also have a similar pattern by recruiting Chinese participants and using social-evaluative threat manipulations in which participants perform self-evaluation tasks while adopting different social-evaluative feedbacks (Experiment 1). Then further examined whether the different response patterns can be modulated by different types of self-construal by using social-evaluative threat manipulations in conjunction with a self-construal priming task (Experiment 2). The results showed that, as opposed to Westerners' pattern, Chinese participants rated themselves as having significantly greater above-average effect only when faced with the nonthreatening feedback but not the social-evaluative threat. More importantly, we found that self-construal modulated the self-evaluation under social-evaluative threat: following independent self-construal priming, participants tended to show a greater above-average effect when faced with a social-evaluative threat. However, this pattern in conjunction with a social threat disappeared after participants received interdependent self-construal priming or neutral priming. These findings suggest that the effects of social-evaluative threat on self-evaluation are not culturally universal and is strongly modulated by self-construal priming.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tianyang Zhang
- School of Public Health and Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Preventive and Translational Medicine for Geriatric Diseases, Medical College, Soochow University, Jiangsu, China
| | - Sisi Xi
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China.,Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Yan Jin
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China.,Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Yanhong Wu
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China.,Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China.,MOE Key Laboratory of Machine Perception, Peking University, Beijing, China
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47
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Will GJ, Rutledge RB, Moutoussis M, Dolan RJ. Neural and computational processes underlying dynamic changes in self-esteem. eLife 2017; 6. [PMID: 29061228 PMCID: PMC5655144 DOI: 10.7554/elife.28098] [Citation(s) in RCA: 74] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/26/2017] [Accepted: 09/06/2017] [Indexed: 12/26/2022] Open
Abstract
Self-esteem is shaped by the appraisals we receive from others. Here, we characterize neural and computational mechanisms underlying this form of social influence. We introduce a computational model that captures fluctuations in self-esteem engendered by prediction errors that quantify the difference between expected and received social feedback. Using functional MRI, we show these social prediction errors correlate with activity in ventral striatum/subgenual anterior cingulate cortex, while updates in self-esteem resulting from these errors co-varied with activity in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). We linked computational parameters to psychiatric symptoms using canonical correlation analysis to identify an 'interpersonal vulnerability' dimension. Vulnerability modulated the expression of prediction error responses in anterior insula and insula-vmPFC connectivity during self-esteem updates. Our findings indicate that updating of self-evaluative beliefs relies on learning mechanisms akin to those used in learning about others. Enhanced insula-vmPFC connectivity during updating of those beliefs may represent a marker for psychiatric vulnerability.
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Affiliation(s)
- Geert-Jan Will
- Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, London, United Kingdom.,Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, University College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Robb B Rutledge
- Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, London, United Kingdom.,Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, University College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Michael Moutoussis
- Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, London, United Kingdom.,Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, University College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Raymond J Dolan
- Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, London, United Kingdom.,Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, University College London, London, United Kingdom
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Beer JS. Current Emotion Research in Social Neuroscience: How does emotion influence social cognition? EMOTION REVIEW 2017. [DOI: 10.1177/1754073916650492] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
Abstract
Neuroscience investigations of emotional influences on social cognition have been dominated by the somatic marker hypothesis and dual-process theories. Taken together, these lines of inquiry have not provided strong evidence that emotional influences on social cognition rely on neural systems which code for bodily signals of arousal nor distinguish emotional reasoning from other modes of reasoning. Recent findings raise the possibility that emotionally influenced social cognition relies on two stages of neural changes: once when emotion is elicited and a different set of changes at the time of social cognitive judgment. These findings suggest that affect infusion models may be a fruitful framework for bridging neuroscience and psychological understanding of the role of emotion in social cognition.
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Turel O, Bechara A. Social Networking Site Use While Driving: ADHD and the Mediating Roles of Stress, Self-Esteem and Craving. Front Psychol 2016; 7:455. [PMID: 27065923 PMCID: PMC4812103 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00455] [Citation(s) in RCA: 34] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/05/2016] [Accepted: 03/14/2016] [Indexed: 01/25/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Adults who present ADHD symptoms have an increased risk for vehicle accidents. One conceivable overlooked account for this association is the possibility that people with ADHD symptoms use rewarding technologies such as social networking sites (SNS) while driving, more than others. The objective of this study was to understand if and how ADHD symptoms can promote SNS use while driving and specifically to conceptualize and examine mechanisms which may underlie this association. To do so, ADHD is viewed in this study as an underlying syndrome that promotes SNS use while driving in a manner similar to how addictive syndromes promote compulsive seeking of drug rewards. METHODS Time-lagged survey data regarding ADHD, stress, self-esteem, SNS craving experience, SNS use while driving, and control variables were collected from a sample of 457 participants who use a popular SNS (Facebook) and drive, after face-validity examination with a panel of five users and pretest with a sample of 47. These data were subjected to structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses using the frequency of ADHD symptoms measured with ASRS v1.1 Part A as a continuous variable, as well as multivariate analysis of variance using ADHD classification based on ASRS v1.1 scoring guidelines. RESULTS ADHD symptoms promoted increased stress and reduced self-esteem, which in turn, together with ADHD symptoms, increased one's cravings to use the SNS. These cravings ultimately translated into increased SNS use while driving. Using the ASRS v1.1 classification, people having symptoms highly consistent with ADHD presented elevated levels of stress, cravings to use the SNS, and SNS use while driving, as well as decreased levels of self-esteem. Cravings to use the SNS among men were more potent than among women. CONCLUSION SNS use while driving may be more prevalent than previously assumed and may be indirectly associated with ADHD symptoms. It is a new form of impulsive and risky behavior which is more common among people with symptoms compatible with ADHD than among others. Consistent with addiction and decision making models, SNS use while driving can be viewed as a form of a compensatory reward seeking behavior. As such, prevention and reduction interventions that target the mediating perceptions and states should be devised.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ofir Turel
- Information Systems and Decision Sciences, California State University, FullertonFullerton, CA, USA; Psychology, Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern CaliforniaLos Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Antoine Bechara
- Psychology, Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA, USA
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What do we know about positive appraisals? Low cognitive cost, orbitofrontal-striatal connectivity, and only short-term bolstering of resilience. Behav Brain Sci 2016; 38:e93. [PMID: 26787104 DOI: 10.1017/s0140525x14001447] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
Abstract
The PASTOR framework needs to be reconciled with existing research on positive illusions, which finds that positive appraisals of stressors have a short shelf life as a mechanism of resilience, do not draw on costly executive functioning, and rely on neural networks that are distinct from those found in studies of experimentally instructed reappraisal or value.
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