Self-esteem modulates medial prefrontal cortical responses to evaluative social feedback.
Self-esteem is a facet of personality that influences perception of social standing and modulates the salience of social acceptance and rejection. As such, self-esteem may bias neural responses to positive and negative social feedback across individuals. During functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning, participants (n = 42) engaged in a social evaluation task whereby they ostensibly received feedback from peers indicating they were liked or disliked. Results demonstrated that individuals with low self-esteem believed that they received less positive feedback from others and showed enhanced activity to positive versus negative social feedback in the ventral anterior cingulate cortex/medial prefrontal cortex (vACC/mPFC). By contrast, vACC/mPFC activity was insensitive to positive versus negative feedback in individuals with high self-esteem, and these individuals consistently overestimated the amount of positive feedback received from peers. Voxelwise analyses supported these findings; lower self-esteem predicted a linear increase in vACC/mPFC response to positive versus negative social feedback. Taken together, the present findings propose a functional role for the vACC/mPFC in representing the salience of social feedback and shaping perceptions of relative social standing.
Somerville
Leah H
LH
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA.
Kelley
William M
WM
Heatherton
Todd F
TF
D001931:Brain Mapping; D005246:Feedback; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D012649:Self Concept; D012938:Social Perception; D055815:Young Adult