Existential neuroscience: self-esteem moderates neuronal responses to mortality-related stimuli.
According to terror management theory, self-esteem serves as a buffer against existential anxiety. This proposition is well supported empirically, but its neuronal underpinnings are poorly understood. Therefore, in the present neuroimaging study, our aim was to test how self-esteem affects our neural circuitry activation when death-related material is processed. Consistent with previous findings, the bilateral insula responded less to death-related stimuli relative to similarly unpleasant, but death-unrelated sentences, an effect that might reflect a decrease in the sense of oneself in the face of existential threat. In anterior parts of the insula, this 'deactivation' effect was more pronounced for high self-esteem individuals, suggesting that the insula might be of core importance to understanding the anxiety-buffering effect of self-esteem. In addition, low self-esteem participants responded with enhanced activation to death-related over unpleasant stimuli in bilateral ventrolateral prefrontal and medial orbitofrontal cortex, suggesting that regulating death-related thoughts might be more effortful to these individuals. Together, this suggests that the anxiety-buffering effect of self-esteem might be implemented in the brain in the form of both insula-dependent awareness mechanisms and prefrontal cortex-dependent regulation mechanisms.
Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria, Center for Neurocognitive Research, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria, and Neuroscience Institute, Christian Doppler-Clinic, Paracelsus Private Medical University, 5020 Salzburg, Austria johannes.klackl@sbg.ac.at.
Johannes
J
Klackl
Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria, Center for Neurocognitive Research, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria, and Neuroscience Institute, Christian Doppler-Clinic, Paracelsus Private Medical University, 5020 Salzburg, Austria.
Eva
E
Jonas
Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria, Center for Neurocognitive Research, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria, and Neuroscience Institute, Christian Doppler-Clinic, Paracelsus Private Medical University, 5020 Salzburg, Austria Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria, Center for Neurocognitive Research, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria, and Neuroscience Institute, Christian Doppler-Clinic, Paracelsus Private Medical University, 5020 Salzburg, Austria Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria, Center for Neurocognitive Research, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria, and Neuroscience Institute, Christian Doppler-Clinic, Paracelsus Private Medical University, 5020 Salzburg, Austria.
Martin
M
Kronbichler
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D001293:Attitude to Death; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D010100:Oxygen; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012649:Self Concept
D010100:Oxygen
anxiety buffer; existential; functional magnetic resonance imaging; self-esteem; terror management theory