title: Brain mechanisms of social comparison and their influence on the reward system.
abstract: Whenever we interact with others, we judge them and whenever we make such judgments, we compare them with ourselves, other people, or internalized standards. Countless social psychological experiments have shown that comparative thinking plays a ubiquitous role in person perception and social cognition as a whole. The topic of social comparison has recently aroused the interest of social neuroscientists, who have begun to investigate its neural underpinnings. The present article provides an overview of these neuroimaging and electrophysiological studies. We discuss recent findings on the consequences of social comparison on the brain processing of outcomes and highlight the role of the brain's reward system. Moreover, we analyze the relationship between the brain networks involved in social comparisons and those active during other forms of cognitive and perceptual comparison. Finally, we discuss potential future questions that research on the neural correlates of social comparison could address.
authors.affiliation: aDepartment of Psychology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany bSchool of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK cDepartment of Psychology, University of Graz, Graz, Austria.
authors.forename: Gayannée
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kedia
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mussweiler
authors.forename: David E J
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Linden
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology; D012201:Reward; D012938:Social Perception