Effects of self-transcendence on neural responses to persuasive messages and health behavior change

Abstract

Self-transcendence refers to a shift in mindset from focusing on self-interests to the well-being of others. We offer an integrative neural model of self-transcendence in the context of persuasive messaging by examining the mechanisms of self-transcendence in promoting receptivity to health messages and behavior change. Specifically, we posited that focusing on values and activities that transcend the self can allow people to see that their self-worth is not tied to a specific behavior in question, and in turn become more receptive to subsequent, otherwise threatening health information. To test whether inducing self-transcendent mindsets before message delivery would help overcome defensiveness and increase receptivity, we used two priming tasks, affirmation and compassion, to elicit a transcendent mindset among 220 sedentary adults. As preregistered, those who completed a self-transcendence task before health message exposure, compared with controls, showed greater increases in objectively logged levels of physical activity throughout the following month. In the brain, self-transcendence tasks up-regulated activity in a region of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, chosen for its role in positive valuation and reward processing. During subsequent health message exposure, self-transcendence priming was associated with increased activity in subregions of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, implicated in self-related processing and positive valuation, which predicted later decreases in sedentary behavior. The present findings suggest that having a positive self-transcendent mindset can increase behavior change, in part by increasing neural receptivity to health messaging.

Examining interpersonal self-transcendence as a potential mechanism linking meditation and social outcomes

“…Consistent with the idea that self-transcendence can reduce defensive self-focus, when faced with messages that are potentially threatening to positive self-views, dispositional mindfulness [27] and undergoing a compassion induction [11] predicted decreases in selffocused negative emotions such as feelings of shame when people were exposed to messages encouraging behavior change. Further, when faced with potentially threatening information that may undermine positive self-views (e.g., messages highlighting one's unhealthy behavior), those who pursue self-transcendent values were less likely to show activity in neural regions associated with threat response, including amygdala and anterior insula [28].…”

“…Here, we discuss the role of interpersonal self-transcendence, which we define as the drive to benefit others beyond the self [11]. As a process, self-transcendence involves redirecting attention from the self to the wellbeing of others; as a state, it is characterized by positive otherdirected cognitions and affect.…”

“…If defensive self-focus is harmful for social relations, then strategies that reduce the need to enhance the self may help overcome barriers to achieving social bonds. In particular, meditation practices can help overcome defensive and potentially harmful patterns of self-focus by allowing people to zoom out and focus on values beyond the self, in other words, by transcending the self [11]. For example, tasks that share an element of self-transcendence, such as mindfulness and compassion-based meditations, can reduce narrative self-focus and increase malleability of self-processing [25].…”

Cognitive regulation of ventromedial prefrontal activity evokes lasting change in the perceived self‐relevance of persuasive messaging

“…Related, although both positive and negative emotionally‐evocative messages are known to impact decision‐making (Gallagher & Updegraff, ; Rothman & Salovey, ), future work could ask how positive versus negative appeals differ in their malleability to cognitive regulation, or their tendencies to elicit specific kinds of cognitive regulation processes. For example, perhaps persuasive benefits of negatively valenced appeals may be undercut by counter‐arguing processes they tend to evoke, but these counter‐arguing tendencies could be mitigated with other kinds of interventions that promote specific kinds of cognition (Kang et al, ; Weber, Huskey, Mangus, Westcott‐Baker, & Turner, ). Moreover, future work could ask whether specific populations (e.g., people with substance use disorders) show differences in bottom‐up reactivity versus top‐down regulation tendencies toward relevant and potentially‐threatening health messages, and whether targeted cognitive or motivational interventions are able to normalize these responses (Falk et al, ; Kang et al, ).…”

Fruits of the Buddhism-science dialogue in contemplative research

“…On one hand, the self is accepted as central to well-being, and is something to be bolstered, understood, controlled, and treated with care [24,27,28]. On the other hand, the self has also been examined as a possible source of clinging or "stuck-ness," a driver of craving and addiction, and something to be seen through or even moved beyond [26,[29][30][31][32][33]. This same tension exists in Buddhism, and is resolved through the notion of two levels of truth [34].…”