Pair-Bonding as Inclusion of Other in the Self: A Literature Review

Branand, Brittany; Mashek, Debra; Aron, Arthur

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02399

“…The fact that IOS and PLS scores had a similar modulatory effect on 1-PP data is consistent with the relationship that has been established between inclusion of romantic partner in the self and romantic feelings [12,18,29]. Furthermore, the influence of the intensity of romantic feelings, as indexed by PLS, on perceptual judgments is in line with recent work suggesting that the positive affective states associated with romantic love may affect cognitive functioning [48].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Self-partner inclusion predicts performance of romantically involved individuals in a body-scaled action-anticipation task

Bouquet

¹

,

Lafleur

²

,

Quintard

³

et al. 2021

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Previous research has shown that romantic relationships can lead to the cognitive inclusion of a romantic partner into one’s own self-representation, resulting in blurred boundaries between self and intimate other. Recent work suggests that this self-other integration process encompasses the two dimensions of the self–the conceptual and the bodily self. In line with this, it has been proposed that romantic love is associated with cognitive states that blur or reduce the saliency of self-boundaries in the bodily domain. The present study tested this hypothesis by investigating the influence of the self-other integration process in romantic love on passability judgments of door-like apertures, an action-anticipation task that rests on the representation of bodily boundaries. Romantically involved and single participants estimated whether they could pass through apertures of different widths. Moreover, inclusion of romantic partner in the self was assessed using the Inclusion of Other in the Self (IOS) scale. The pattern of correlation and the ratio between participants’ shoulder width and aperture judgments did not differ between romantically involved participants and singles. However, our results revealed that in romantically involved participants, the relationship between individuals’ shoulder width and aperture judgements was moderated by IOS scores. A greater inclusion of romantic partner in the self was associated with a weaker prediction of aperture judgment by participants’ shoulder width. A similar moderating effect of the intensity of romantic feelings (as measured by the passionate love scale) on shoulder width-aperture judgment relationship was found. IOS scores, but not romantic feelings, also moderated aperture judgments made for another individual (third person perspective). Together, these findings are consistent with the view that inclusion of romantic partner in the self triggers cognitive states affecting self-boundaries in the bodily domain.

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“…To our knowledge, our results provide the most rigorous assessment to date of increasing neural self-other overlap with interpersonal closeness, finding evidence for self-other overlap in mPFC, as well as PCC. Self-other overlap is an important construct in social psychology: it is a defining feature of interpersonal relationships (Aron et al, 1991;Branand et al, 2019) and corresponds with prosocial outcomes, such as enhanced empathy (Galinsky et al, 2005). Yet, it has been difficult to precisely test for overlapping representations between the self and others, in part due to methodological limitations.…”

Section: Self-other Closeness Increases Neural Representational Overlapmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-Other Representation in the Social Brain Reflects Social Connection

Courtney

¹

,

Meyer

²

2020

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Social connection is critical to well-being, yet how the brain reflects our attachment to other people remains largely unknown. We combined univariate and multivariate brain imaging analyses to assess whether and how the brain organizes representations of others based on how connected they are to our own identity. During an fMRI scan, female and male human participants (N = 43) completed a self-and other-reflection task for 16 targets: the self, five close others, five acquaintances, and five celebrities. In addition, they reported their subjective closeness to each target and their own trait loneliness. We examined neural responses to the self and others in a brain region that has been associated with self-representation (mPFC) and across the whole brain. The structure of self-other representation in the mPFC and across the social brain appeared to cluster targets into three social categories: the self, social network members (including close others and acquaintances), and celebrities. Moreover, both univariate activation in mPFC and multivariate self-other similarity in mPFC and across the social brain increased with subjective self-other closeness ratings. Critically, participants who were less socially connected (i.e., lonelier) showed altered self-other mapping in social brain regions. Most notably, in mPFC, loneliness was associated with reduced representational similarity between the self and others. The social brain apparently maintains information about broad social categories as well as closeness to the self. Moreover, these results point to the possibility that feelings of chronic social disconnection may be mirrored by a "lonelier" neural self-representation.

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“…To our knowledge, our results provide the most rigorous assessment to date of increasing neural self-other overlap with interpersonal closeness, finding evidence for self-other overlap in both MPFC and PCC. Self-other overlap is an important construct in social psychology: it is a defining feature of interpersonal relationships (Aron et al, 1991;Branand et al, 2019) and corresponds with pro-social outcomes, such as enhanced empathy (Galinsky et al, 2005). Yet, it has been difficult to precisely test for overlapping representations between the self and others, in part due to methodological lim- itations.…”

Section: Self-other Closeness Increases Neural Representational Overlapmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-other representation in the social brain reflects social connection

Courtney

¹

,

Meyer

²

2019

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Social connection is critical to well-being, yet how the brain reflects our attachment to other people remains largely unknown. We combined univariate and multivariate brain imaging analyses to assess whether and how the brain organizes representations of others based on how connected they are to our own identity. During an fMRI scan, participants (N=43) completed a self-and other-reflection task for 16 targets: the self, five close others, five acquaintances, and five celebrities. In addition, they reported their subjective closeness to each target and their own trait loneliness. We examined neural responses to the self and others in a brain region that has been associated with self-representation (medial prefrontal cortex; MPFC) and across the whole brain. The structure of self-other representation in the MPFC and across the social brain appeared to cluster targets into three social categories: the self, social network members (including close others and acquaintances), and celebrities. Moreover, both univariate activation in MPFC and multivariate self-other similarity in MPFC and across the social brain increased with subjective self-other closeness ratings. Critically, participants who were less socially connected (i.e. lonelier) showed altered self-other mapping in social brain regions. Most notably, in MPFC, loneliness was associated with reduced representational similarity between the self and others. The social brain apparently maintains information about broad social categories as well as closeness to the self. Moreover, these results point to the possibility that feelings of chronic social disconnection may be mirrored by a 'lonelier' neural selfrepresentation. self | MPFC | social brain | social cognition | social neuroscienceCorrespondence: acourtne@stanford.edu Significance StatementSocial connection is critical to well-being, yet how the brain reflects our attachment to people remains unclear. We found that the social brain stratifies neural representations of people based on our subjective connection to them, separately clustering people who are and are not in our social network. Moreover, the people we feel closest to are represented most closely to ourselves. Finally, lonelier individuals also appeared to have a 'lonelier' neural self-representation in the MPFC, as loneliness attenuated the closeness between self and other neural representations in this region. The social brain appears to map our interpersonal ties, and alterations in this map may help explain why lonely individuals endorse statements such as 'people are around me but not with me.'

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Pair-Bonding as Inclusion of Other in the Self: A Literature Review

Cited by 42 publications

References 38 publications

Self-partner inclusion predicts performance of romantically involved individuals in a body-scaled action-anticipation task

Self-partner inclusion predicts performance of romantically involved individuals in a body-scaled action-anticipation task

Self-Other Representation in the Social Brain Reflects Social Connection

Self-other representation in the social brain reflects social connection

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