Positively biased processing of self-relevant social feedback

J Neurosci. 2012 Nov 21;32(47):16832-44. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3016-12.2012.

Abstract

Receiving social feedback such as praise or blame for one's character traits is a key component of everyday human interactions. It has been proposed that humans are positively biased when integrating social feedback into their self-concept. However, a mechanistic description of how humans process self-relevant feedback is lacking. Here, participants received feedback from peers after a real-life interaction. Participants processed feedback in a positively biased way, i.e., they changed their self-evaluations more toward desirable than toward undesirable feedback. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging we investigated two feedback components. First, the reward-related component correlated with activity in ventral striatum and in anterior cingulate cortex/medial prefrontal cortex (ACC/MPFC). Second, the comparison-related component correlated with activity in the mentalizing network, including the MPFC, the temporoparietal junction, the superior temporal sulcus, the temporal pole, and the inferior frontal gyrus. This comparison-related activity within the mentalizing system has a parsimonious interpretation, i.e., activity correlated with the differences between participants' own evaluation and feedback. Importantly, activity within the MPFC that integrated reward-related and comparison-related components predicted the self-related positive updating bias across participants offering a mechanistic account of positively biased feedback processing. Thus, theories on both reward and mentalizing are important for a better understanding of how social information is integrated into the human self-concept.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Character
  • Ego*
  • Feedback, Psychological / physiology*
  • Female
  • Gyrus Cinguli / physiology
  • Humans
  • Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
  • Individuality
  • Interpersonal Relations
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
  • Male
  • Memory / physiology
  • Neostriatum / physiology
  • Nerve Net / physiology
  • Oxygen / blood
  • Prefrontal Cortex / physiology
  • Psychomotor Performance / physiology
  • Reward
  • Social Environment*
  • Young Adult

Substances

  • Oxygen