title: Positively biased processing of self-relevant social feedback.
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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany. christoph.w.korn@gmail.com
authors.forename: Christoph W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Korn
authors.forename: Kristin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Prehn
authors.forename: Soyoung Q
authors.initials: SQ
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Henrik
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Walter
authors.forename: Hauke R
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Heekeren
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002605:Character; D004532:Ego; D030141:Feedback, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D007206:Individuality; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D017072:Neostriatum / Q000502:physiology; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D012201:Reward; D012931:Social Environment; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen