Actor or recipient role matters: Neural correlates of self‐serving bias

Wang, Xiaoyan; Zheng, Li; Li, Lin; Sun, Ping; Guo, Xin-Heng

doi:10.1002/brb3.2013

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 32 publications

(77 reference statements)

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“…Further studies could examine self-protection strategies under the circumstance of scarcity in other domains. For example, during attributional interpersonal events, people with sense of scarcity might attribute more positive and less negative events to themselves than another person (Wang et al, 2015;Wang et al, 2021). When imagining the future, they might overestimate positive events and underestimate negative events (Sharot et al, 2007).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is a heuristic response allowing the individual to protect the fragile ego from the blows of reality (Zell et al, 2020). Inhibition of the above-average effect usually requires additional cognitive resources (Blackwood et al, 2003;Seidel et al, 2010;Wang et al, 2022;Wang et al, 2015;Wang et al, 2021). Under the circumstances of scarcity, people might regulate their above-average effect to adapt to the scarce situation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Sense of Scarcity Enhances the Above-Average Effect in Social Comparison

Wang

Jiao

2023

Preprint

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Scarcity refers to a state in which an individual’s resources do not satisfy his/her needs. A sense of scarcity evokes negative emotions. A fundamental strategy for coping with this negative threat is for people to emphasize the desirability of their personal traits. In this study, two behavioral experiments were conducted to examine whether and how a sense of scarcity affects one’s self-evaluation. Participants were assigned randomly to the high or low scarcity group. Financial status (experiment 1) and the amount of assistance rendered to an individual during a riddle guessing task (experiment 2) were manipulated to induce a high or low sense of scarcity. Then, the participants were asked to make trait judgments of themselves compared with their average peers. The results showed that people with a high sense of scarcity judged their personality to be more desirable than those with low sense of scarcity. The results of this study suggest that a sense of scarcity enhances an individual’s above-average effect in social comparison.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Sense of Scarcity Enhances the Above-Average Effect in Social Comparison

Wang

Jiao

2023

Preprint

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“…Additionally, the above-average effect was considered one of the heuristic responses that allows people to maintain a positive self-view. Inhibition of the heuristic above-average effect usually requires additional cognitive resources [15,[20][21][22][23]. Thus, we speculated that people with a high sense of scarcity might engage in self-protection strategies by emphasizing their desirability in social comparison.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Sense of Scarcity Enhances the Above-Average Effect in Social Comparison

Wang,

Jiao

2023

Behavioral Sciences

Self Cite

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Scarcity refers to a state in which an individual’s resources do not satisfy his/her needs. A sense of scarcity evokes negative emotions. A fundamental strategy for coping with this negative threat is for people to emphasize the desirability of their personal traits. In this study, a 2 (sense of scarcity: high or low) × 2 (valence: positive or negative) mixed-design experiment was conducted to examine whether and how a sense of scarcity affected one’s self-evaluation. Participants were assigned randomly to a high- or low-scarcity group. The chances of assistance rendered to an individual during a word puzzle task were manipulated to induce a high or low sense of scarcity. Then, participants were asked to make positive and negative trait judgments of themselves compared with their average peers. The results showed that people judged their personalities to be more desirable (i.e., more positive and less negative traits) than their average peers, manifesting the above-average effect. More importantly, people with a high sense of scarcity manifested a greater above-average effect than those with a low sense of scarcity. This study suggests that people could highlight their positive aspects to cope with predicaments in social life.

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“…The uncontrollable situation is likely to induce an individual to experience helplessness and change one's self cognition (Billings et al., 1983 ; Young & Allin Jr, 1986 ). For example, previous studies have identified that, compared with the role of an actor, individuals were likely to attribute more negative events to themselves and have longer reaction times when they played the role of recipient (Malle, 2006 ; Wang et al., 2015 , 2021 ; Wang, Zheng et al., 2017 ). In other words, people experienced more feelings of self‐blame when they played the role of recipient in negative social situations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One of them is the role that "self" plays in the interpersonal events. It is well known that, people often play the role of an initiative actor (e.g., "I hit Tom") or a passive recipient (e.g., "Paul hits me") in interpersonal events (Wang et al, 2015(Wang et al, , 2021Wang, Zheng et al, 2017). As a recipient, the individual passively receives an uncontrollable action in a social situation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The passive recipient: Neural correlates of negative self‐view in depression

Wang

Zheng

et al. 2021

Brain and Behavior

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Introdction Previous studies have argued that people tend to isolate themselves from negative information. This tendency is modulated by the individual's role in social interaction, that is, as an initiative actor (e.g., “I hit Tom”) or a passive recipient (e.g., “Paul hits me”). Depressed patients tend to focus on negative aspects of themselves and cope with situations passively. It is still an open question how the actor/recipient role affects the behavioral and neural responses to self in depression. Methods The present study adopted functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology to investigate behavioral and neural responses to self (as an actor/recipient) in depressed patients and the matched healthy controls when attributing negative events. Results Compared with healthy controls, depressed patients showed more self‐attribution for negative events. Depressed patients showed increased brain activity in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) subsystem of the default mode network (DMN) when they played recipient role in self‐related negative events. Activity of the dmPFC subsystem was negatively correlated with depressed patients’ self‐attribution for negative events in recipient condition. While decreased brain activity in the medial temporal lobe (MTL) subsystem was observed in depressed patients when they played the actor or recipient role in self‐related negative events. Activity of the MTL subsystem was negatively correlated with depressed patients’ reaction time when they played recipient role in selfrelated negative events. Conclusion These results implicated that depressed patients manifested the negative self‐view. Actor/recipient role affected their activation patterns in the DMN which were different from the healthy controls. The correlation between the abnormal brain activations of the DMN and the behavioral performances might manifest more easily when depressed patients played recipient role in negative events.

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Actor or recipient role matters: Neural correlates of self‐serving bias

Abstract: People tend to make claims that cast the self in a favorable light

Cited by 4 publications

References 32 publications

A Sense of Scarcity Enhances the Above-Average Effect in Social Comparison

A Sense of Scarcity Enhances the Above-Average Effect in Social Comparison

A Sense of Scarcity Enhances the Above-Average Effect in Social Comparison

The passive recipient: Neural correlates of negative self‐view in depression

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