title: Error-related brain activity reveals self-centric motivation: culture matters.
abstract: To secure the interest of the personal self (vs. social others) is considered a fundamental human motive, but the nature of the motivation to secure the self-interest is not well understood. To address this issue, we assessed electrocortical responses of European Americans and Asians as they performed a flanker task while instructed to earn as many reward points as possible either for the self or for their same-sex friend. For European Americans, error-related negativity (ERN)-an event-related-potential component contingent on error responses--was significantly greater in the self condition than in the friend condition. Moreover, post-error slowing--an index of cognitive control to reduce errors--was observed in the self condition but not in the friend condition. Neither of these self-centric effects was observed among Asians, consistent with prior cross-cultural behavioral evidence. Interdependent self-construal mediated the effect of culture on the ERN self-centric effect. Our findings provide the first evidence for a neural correlate of self-centric motivation, which becomes more salient outside of interdependent social relations.
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Michigan.
authors: Shinobu
authors: S
authors: Kitayama
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Michigan.
authors: Jiyoung
authors: J
authors: Park
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D003469:Culture; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012649:Self Concept; D057566:Self Report; D055815:Young Adult