title: Elucidating the neural correlates of egoistic and moralistic self-enhancement.
abstract: Self-enhancement is the biasing of one's view of oneself in a positive direction. The brain correlates of self-enhancement remain unclear though it has been reported that the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) may be important for producing self-enhancing responses. Previous studies have not examined whether the neural correlates of self-enhancement depend on the particular domain in which individuals are enhancing themselves. Both moralistic and egoistic words were presented to participants while transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was applied to the MPFC, precuneus or in a sham orientation. Participants were asked to make decisions as to the words describing themselves, some of which were positive and some of which were negative. It was found the MPFC TMS significantly disrupted egoistic self-enhancement when TMS was delivered to the MPFC. Judgments involving moralistic words were not influenced by TMS. These data provide further evidence that MPFC is involved in self-enhancement, and that the role of MPFC may be selective in this regard.
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Neuroimaging Laboratory, Montclair State University, 219 Dickson Hall, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043, USA.
authors.forename: Veronica
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Barrios
authors.forename: Virginia S Y
authors.initials: VS
authors.lastname: Kwan
authors.forename: Giorgio
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ganis
authors.forename: Jaime
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gorman
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Romanowski
authors.forename: Julian Paul
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Keenan
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003657:Decision Making; D004532:Ego; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009014:Morals; D012649:Self Concept; D012660:Semantics; D050781:Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation