Abstract
A large literature in social neuroscience has associated the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) with the processing of self-related information. However, only recently have social neuroscience studies begun to consider the large behavioral literature showing a strong self-positivity bias, and these studies have mostly focused on its correlates during self-related judgments and decision-making. We carried out a functional MRI (fMRI) study to ask whether the mPFC would show effects of the self-positivity bias in a paradigm that probed participants’ self-concept without any requirement of explicit self-judgment. We presented social vignettes that were either self-relevant or non-self-relevant with a neutral, positive or negative outcome described in the second sentence. In previous work using event-related potentials, this paradigm has shown evidence of a self-positivity bias that influences early stages of semantically processing incoming stimuli. In the present fMRI study, we found evidence for this bias within the mPFC: an interaction between self-relevance and valence, with only positive scenarios showing a self vs other effect within the mPFC. We suggest that the mPFC may play a role in maintaining a positively biased self-concept and discuss the implications of these findings for the social neuroscience of the self and the role of the mPFC.
Highlights
The relationship between emotion and the self-concept lies at the core of human well-being
We carried out a functional MRI study to ask whether the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) would show effects of the self-positivity bias in a paradigm that probed participants’ self-concept without any requirement of explicit self-judgment
In the present functional MRI (fMRI) study, we found evidence for this bias within the mPFC: an interaction between self-relevance and valence, with only positive scenarios showing a self vs other effect within the mPFC
Summary
The relationship between emotion and the self-concept lies at the core of human well-being. Understanding this complex relationship is critical for understanding motivation, learning and decision-making (Taylor and Brown, 1988; Dunning et al., 2004; Sharot and Garrett, 2016) in both healthy individuals and in neuropsychiatric disorders (Beck et al, 1979; Frith, 1992; Shestyuk and Deldin, 2010; Holt et al, 2011). It is important that we study the cognitive and neural mechanisms by which the self-concept and self-esteem are constructed and maintained. The result is that beliefs are more likely to be updated in response to positive than negative information about ourselves (Sharot and Garrett, 2016)
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