Social context effects on error-related brain activity are dependent on interpersonal and achievement-related traits

José C García Alanis,Mira-Lynn Chavanon,Martin Peper,Travis E Baker

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-38417-2

José C García Alanis, Mira-Lynn Chavanon + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-38417-2

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Abstract

Brain correlates of performance monitoring, such as the Error-Related Negativity (ERN), are considerably influenced by situational factors. For instance, errors committed during social interaction typically elicit enhanced ERNs. While individual differences in ERN magnitude have been implicated in a wide variety of psychopathologies, it remains unclear how individual dispositions may interact with situational incentives to influence performance monitoring. Here, we analysed how interpersonal (Affiliation) and achievement-related (Agency) traits moderated the effects of interpersonal competition and interpersonal cooperation on the ERN. For this purpose, electroencephalography was collected from 78 participants while they performed a Flanker Task either in a competitive or in a cooperative social context (i.e., between-subjects design). We found that competition predicted enhanced error-related activity patterns compared to cooperation. Furthermore, participants who scored high in Affiliation elicited enhanced error-related activity. Conversely, high Agency scores were associated with reduced error-related activity, but this was only observed in the competitive context. These results indicate that the brain’s response to error commission is not only sensitive to social incentives. Rather, the activity of the evaluative system that produces error signals appears to be crucially determined by the personal relevance of the incentives present in the context in which performance is evaluated.

Highlights

In daily-life, committing an error can lead to undesired individual and social consequences
To test for the influence of personality on social error processing, we focused on two social subcomponents of interpersonal behaviour, which have often been related to the personality traits Extraversion and Agreeableness[32,33,34]
Our results extend these findings by indicating that social contexts may differentially influence individuals’ physiological response specific to error commission, the ∆Error-Related Negativity (ERN), and that this effect arises from a modulation of the underlying ERN

Summary

Introduction

In daily-life, committing an error can lead to undesired individual and social consequences. We compared the influence of two social contexts on brain correlates of error monitoring and tested whether individuals’ interpersonal dispositions moderated these effects. It has been suggested that social contexts contribute to enhanced error processing by increasing the threatening value of errors for individuals’ self-esteem (e.g., by inducing concerns about being judged by others[25]) These findings are in line with a growing body of research associating enhanced ERNs with increased symptoms of social and more general forms of anxiety[6,26,27], such as excessive concerns about poor behavioural performance (cf checking behaviour[6]). To test for the influence of personality on social error processing, we focused on two social subcomponents of interpersonal behaviour, which have often been related to the personality traits Extraversion and Agreeableness[32,33,34]. Previous research indicates that these subcomponents describe at least partially independent traits[35]

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