Recent research has shown that relational self-esteem (RSE) carries important implications, especially in collectivistic cultures. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the neural mechanism underlying RSE and the behavioral and neural differences between RSE and personal self-esteem (PSE) in Chinese with interdependent self-construal. In Study 1, 581 participants completed a scale measuring RSE, the Rosenberg Personal Self-esteem Scale, and the Self-construal Scale. In Study 2, a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan was conducted with 42 participants while they evaluated whether they agreed with sentences concerning the relational self-worth, the personal self-worth and the semantics. Results of study 1 showed that individuals with higher interdependent self-construal were more likely to have higher RSE than PSE. The behavioral results of RSE and PSE in study 2 were consistent with the results of Study 1. Moreover, fMRI results showed that the activation of the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) was responsible for processing the positive representation of RSE versus PSE. More importantly, higher relational self-worth rating was related to more vmPFC activation among individuals with high interdependent self-construal. These results suggest that individuals with high interdependent self-construal have a more positive representation of RSE rather than PSE.
Keywords: Mentalizing network; Personal self-esteem; Relational self-esteem; Ventral medial prefrontal cortex.
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