title: Distinct effects of self-construal priming on empathic neural responses in Chinese and Westerners.
abstract: The present study investigated whether and how self-construal priming influences empathic neural responses to others' emotional states. We recorded event-related brain potentials to stimuli depicting the hands of unknown others experiencing painful or non-painful events from Chinese and Western participants after they had been primed in three conditions (independent self-construal priming, interdependent self-construal priming, and a control condition). Stimuli depicting painful events (as opposed to non-painful ones) elicited a positive shift of the fronto-central activity at 232-332 ms and of the central-parietal activity at 440-740 ms in the control condition. Moreover, neural responses to stimuli depicting painful (vs. non-painful) situations at 232-332 ms were decreased by interdependent self-construal priming among Chinese and by independent self-construal priming among Westerners. Our findings suggest that self-construal priming modulates sensitivity to perceived pain in unknown others and that this effect varies with culture.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology, PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research , Peking University , Beijing , China.
authors.forename: Chao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Michael E W
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Varnum
authors.forename: Youyang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hou
authors.forename: Shihui
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Han
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D044466:Asian People; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004644:Emotions; D004645:Empathy / Q000502:physiology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012649:Self Concept; D044465:White People; D055815:Young Adult