Functional magnetic resonance imaging responses relate to differences in real-world social experience.
Although neuroimaging techniques have proven powerful in assessing neural responses, little is known about whether scanner-based neural activity relates to real-world psychological experience. A joint functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)/experience-sampling study investigated whether individual differences in neurocognitive reactivity to scanner-based social rejection related to: (a) moment-to-moment feelings of social rejection during real-world social interactions ("momentary social distress") and (b) the extent to which these momentary feelings corresponded with end-of-day global assessments of social disconnection ("end-of-day social disconnection"). Individuals who showed greater activity in regions associated with affective and pain processing (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala, periaqueductal gray) during scanner-based social rejection reported feeling greater momentary social distress during their daily social interactions. In contrast, individuals who showed greater activity in regions associated with memory and self-referential memory encoding (hippocampus, medial prefrontal cortex) showed a stronger correspondence between momentary social distress and end-of-day social disconnection, such that greater momentary social distress was associated with greater end-of-day social disconnection. These findings complement previous work showing a dissociation between momentary and retrospective reports of affect and suggest that these processes rely on dissociable neural systems.
Eisenberger
Naomi I
NI
Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA. neisenbe@ucla.edu
Gable
Shelly L
SL
Lieberman
Matthew D
MD
D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008016:Life Change Events; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D012918:Social Alienation; D012938:Social Perception