Social status modulates neural activity in the mentalizing network

Muscatell, Keely A.; Morelli, Sylvia A.; Falk, Emily B.; Way, Baldwin M.; Pfeifer, Jennifer H.; Galinsky, Adam D.; Lieberman, Matthew D.; Dapretto, Mirella; Eisenberger, Naomi I.

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.01.080

Cited by 173 publications

(148 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Several key regions along the cortical midline appear to show greater activation to self-related stimuli than other-related stimuli (Heatherton, 2006;Northoff et al, 2006;Northoff, Qin, & Feinberg, 2011), including the anterior cingulate cortex (Leshikar, Cassidy, & Gutchess, 2016), the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the vAI (Murray, Debbané, Fox, Bzdok, & Eickhoff, 2015). The mPFC is particularly involved in the processing of information about people's traits, preferences and beliefs (Frith & Frith, 2003;Ma, Baetens, Vandekerckhove, Van der Cruyssen, & Van Overwalle, 2013;Schilbach, 2015) and shows sensitivity to a number of social factors including social status and ostracism (Muscatell et al, 2012;Powers, Wagner, Norris, & Heatherton, 2013). Importantly, there is now considerable evidence for a ventral dorsal split within the mPFC, with the ventral region (vMPFC) showing greater involvement in the processing of self-relevant traits, while the dorsal region (dMPFC) is involving in processing the traits of dissimilar others (Araujo, Kaplan, & Damasio, 2013;Denny, Kober, Wager, & Ochsner, 2012;Mitchell, Macrae, & Banaji, 2006;Moore, Merchant, Kahn, & Pfeifer, 2014;Powell, Macrae, Cloutier, Metcalfe, & Mitchell, 2010).…”

Section: Conceptual Selfmentioning

confidence: 99%

Putting Ourselves in Another’s Skin: Using the Plasticity of Self-Perception to Enhance Empathy and Decrease Prejudice

Farmer

Maister

2017

Soc Just Res

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The self is one the most important concepts in social cognition and plays a crucial role in determining questions such as which social groups we view ourselves as belonging to and how we relate to others. In the past decade, the self has also become an important topic within cognitive neuroscience with an explosion in the number of studies seeking to understand how different aspects of the self are represented within the brain. In this paper, we first outline the recent research on the neurocognitive basis of the self and highlight a key distinction between two forms of self-representation. The first is the ''bodily'' self, which is thought to be the basis of subjective experience and is grounded in the processing of sensorimotor signals. The second is the ''conceptual'' self, which develops through our interactions of other and is formed of a rich network of associative and semantic information. We then investigate how both the bodily and conceptual self are related to social cognition with an emphasis on how self-representations are involved in the processing and creation of prejudice. We then highlight new research demonstrating that the bodily and conceptual self are both malleable and that this malleability can be harnessed in order to achieve a reduction in social prejudice. In particular, we will outline strong evidence that modulating people's perceptions of the bodily self can lead to changes in attitudes at the conceptual level. We will highlight a series of studies demonstrating that social attitudes towards various social out-groups (e.g. racial groups) can lead to a reduction in prejudice towards that group. Finally, we seek to place these findings in a broader social context by considering how innovations in virtual reality technology can allow experiences of taking on another's identity are likely to become both more commonplace and more convincing in the future and the various opportunities and risks associated with using such technology to reduce prejudice.

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Section: Conceptual Selfmentioning

confidence: 99%

Putting Ourselves in Another’s Skin: Using the Plasticity of Self-Perception to Enhance Empathy and Decrease Prejudice

Farmer

Maister

2017

Soc Just Res

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“…Likewise, the size of our social networks relates to brain structure (93,94). Given that the social environment is known to affect a wide array of biological responses (5,17,19,95), a next important goal for neuroscience will be to further understand how experience at multiple levels (e.g., culture, family, social networks, SES) affects neural structure and function (46,(96)(97)(98)(99)(100)(101). In parallel, it is certain that social and environmental variables moderate the link between brain and behavior (12), but further research is needed to examine such interactions.…”

Section: )mentioning

confidence: 99%

What is a representative brain? Neuroscience meets population science

Falk

Hyde

Mitchell³

et al. 2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

231

191

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The last decades of neuroscience research have produced immense progress in the methods available to understand brain structure and function. Social, cognitive, clinical, affective, economic, communication, and developmental neurosciences have begun to map the relationships between neuro-psychological processes and behavioral outcomes, yielding a new understanding of human behavior and promising interventions. However, a limitation of this fast moving research is that most findings are based on small samples of convenience. Furthermore, our understanding of individual differences may be distorted by unrepresentative samples, undermining findings regarding brain-behavior mechanisms. These limitations are issues that social demographers, epidemiologists, and other population scientists have tackled, with solutions that can be applied to neuroscience. By contrast, nearly all social science disciplines, including social demography, sociology, political science, economics, communication science, and psychology, make assumptions about processes that involve the brain, but have incorporated neural measures to differing, and often limited, degrees; many still treat the brain as a black box. In this article, we describe and promote a perspective-population neuroscience-that leverages interdisciplinary expertise to (i) emphasize the importance of sampling to more clearly define the relevant populations and sampling strategies needed when using neuroscience methods to address such questions; and (ii) deepen understanding of mechanisms within population science by providing insight regarding underlying neural mechanisms. Doing so will increase our confidence in the generalizability of the findings. We provide examples to illustrate the population neuroscience approach for specific types of research questions and discuss the potential for theoretical and applied advances from this approach across areas.neuroimaging | life course | statistics | survey methodology | physics Why Population Neuroscience? How do biology, social situations, and the broader environmental context interact to guide behavior, health, and development? This question is fundamental to most, if not all, social and behavioral sciences. We argue that to effectively address the many topics that stem from this larger question across disciplines, it is necessary to (i) bring a "population perspective" to neuroscience and (ii) leverage neuroscience tools within population sciences, which are subdisciplines of many fields, areas, and departments focused on documenting and understanding the dynamics of human populations, including outcomes such as health, well-being, behavior, etc.

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“…The effects of SES have also been demonstrated in brain activation studies. In children, low SES is associated with greater reactivity to emotion-related stimuli in amygdala, dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), and right middle frontal gyrus (Muscatell et al, 2012;Sheridan et al, 2012). In adults, low childhood SES is linked to reduced activation in insula, fusiform gyrus, ACC, posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), caudate, pons, and hippocampus (Silverman et al, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Childhood Poverty and Stress Reactivity Are Associated with Aberrant Functional Connectivity in Default Mode Network

Sripada¹,

Swain

Evans

et al. 2014

Neuropsychopharmacol

143

117

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Convergent research suggests that childhood poverty is associated with perturbation in the stress response system. This might extend to aberrations in the connectivity of large-scale brain networks, which subserve key cognitive and emotional functions. Resting-state brain activity was measured in adults with a documented history of childhood poverty (n ¼ 26) and matched controls from middle-income families (n ¼ 26). Participants also underwent a standard laboratory social stress test and provided saliva samples for cortisol assay. Childhood poverty was associated with reduced default mode network (DMN) connectivity. This, in turn, was associated with higher cortisol levels in anticipation of social stress. These results suggest a possible brain basis for exaggerated stress sensitivity in low-income individuals. Alterations in DMN may be associated with less efficient cognitive processing or greater risk for development of stress-related psychopathology among individuals who experienced the adversity of chronic childhood poverty.

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Social status modulates neural activity in the mentalizing network

Cited by 173 publications

References 39 publications

Putting Ourselves in Another’s Skin: Using the Plasticity of Self-Perception to Enhance Empathy and Decrease Prejudice

Putting Ourselves in Another’s Skin: Using the Plasticity of Self-Perception to Enhance Empathy and Decrease Prejudice

What is a representative brain? Neuroscience meets population science

Childhood Poverty and Stress Reactivity Are Associated with Aberrant Functional Connectivity in Default Mode Network

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