Abstract
Early neural research on self-evaluation began testing whether self-evaluation was somehow neurally different than evaluations of other people and inanimate objects. Self-evaluation was lauded as potentially unique partially because of motivational and affective influences. Despite the acknowledgement that motivation influences social cognition such as self-perception, neural models of self-perception have been conspicuously silent on how motivational states affect the neural level of analysis. What can be learned by examining motivational influences on the neural systems underlying social cognition including self-perception? An emerging body of neural research on self-enhancement motivation (i.e., the motivation to see one’s self in a positive light) is described and its implications for longstanding psychological questions about self-enhancement are discussed. Finally, several additional avenues for using the neural level of analysis to test questions about motivational influences on social cognition are discussed.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alicke, M. D., Klotz, M. L., Breitenbecher, D. L., Yurak, T. J., & Vredenburg, D. S. (1995). Personal Contact, Individuation, and the Better-Than-Average Effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 804–825.
Amodio, D. M., & Frith, C. D. (2006). Meeting of minds: The medial frontal cortex and social cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 7, 268–277.
Beer, J. S. (2007). The default self: Feeling good or being right? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11, 187–189.
Beer, J. S. (2009). The neural basis of emotion regulation: Making emotion work for you and not against you. In M. S. Gazzaniga (Ed.), The Cognitive Neurosciences IV (pp. 961–972) Cambridge: MIT Press.
Beer, J. S., Heerey, E. A., Keltner, D., Scabini, D., & Knight, R. T. (2003). The regulatory function of self-conscious emotion: Insights from patients with orbitofrontal damage. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 594–604.
Beer, J. S., & Hughes, B. L. (2010). Neural systems of social comparison and the “above- average” effect. NeuroImage, 49, 2671–2679.
Beer, J. S., John, O. P., Scabini, D., & Knight, R. T. (2006). Orbitofrontal cortex and social behavior: Integrating self-monitoring and emotion-cognition interactions. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18, 871–879.
Beer, J. S., Lombardo, M. V., & Bhanji, J. P. (2010). Roles of medial prefrontal cortex and orbitofrontal cortex in self-evaluation. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22, 2108–2119.
Beer, J. S., & Ochsner, K. N. (2006). Social cognition: A multi level analyses. Brain Research, 1079, 98–105.
Beer, J. S., Shimamura, A. P., & Knight, R. T. (2004). Frontal lobe contributions to executive control of cognitive and social behavior. In M. S. Gazzaniga (Ed.), The cognitive neurosciences III (pp. 1091–1104). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Blackwood, N. J., Bentall, R. P., Simmons, A., Murray, R. M., & Howard, R. J. (2003). Self- responsibility and the self-serving bias: An fMRI investigation of causal attributions. NeuroImage, 20, 1076–1085.
Cacioppo, J. T., & Berntson, G. G. (1992). Social psychological contributions to the decade of the brain: Doctrine of multilevel analysis. American Psychologist, 47, 1019–1028.
Chambers, J. R., & Windschitl, P. D. (2004). Biases in social comparative judgments: The role of nonmotivated factors in above-average and comparative-optimism effects. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 813–838.
Cheng, S. T., Fung, H., & Chan, A. (2007). Maintaining self-rated health through social comparison in old age. Journals of Gerontology. Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 62B, 277–285.
Cunningham, W. A., Johnson, M. K., Raye, C. L., Gatenby, J., Gore, J. C., & Banaji, M. R. (2004). Separable neural components in the processing of black and white faces. Psychological Science, 15, 806–813.
DeMartino, B., Kumaran, D., Seymour, B., & Dolan, R. J. (2006). Frames, biases, and rational decision-making in the human brain. Science, 313, 684–687.
Ditto, P. H., Scepansky, J. A., Munro, G. D., Apanovitch, A. M., & Lockhart, L. K. (1998). Motivated sensitivity to preference-inconsistent information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 53–69.
Dunning, D., Meyerowitz, J. A., & Holzberg, A. D. (1989). Ambiguity and self-evaluation: The role of idiosyncratic trait definitions in self-serving assessments of ability. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 1082–1090.
Eisenberger, N. I., Inagaki, T. K., Muscatelli, K. A., Haltom, K. E. B., & Leary, M. R. (2011). The neural sociometer: Brain mechanisms underlying state self-esteem. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, in press.
Falk, C., Heine, S., Yuki, M., & Takemura, K. (2009). Why do Westerners self-enhance more than East Asians? European Journal of Personality, 23(3), 183–203.
Fellows, L. K. (2007). The role of orbitofrontal cortex in decision making: a component process account. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1121, 421.
Fischer, P., Greitemeyer, T., & Frey, D. (2007). Ego depletion and positive illusions: Does the construction of positivity require regulatory resources? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 1306–1321.
Hughes, B. L., & Beer, J. S. (2011a). Motivated social cognition modulates orbitofrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex. Cerebral Cortex, in press.
Hughes, B. L., & Beer, J. S. (2011b). Neural systems underlying positivity bias elicited by threat. Manuscript under review.
Klein, S. B., & Kihlstrom, J. F. (1998). On bridging the gap between social-personality psychology and neuropsychology. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2, 228–242.
Kruger, J. (1999). Lake Wobegon be gone! The “below-average effect” and the egocentric nature of comparative ability judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 221–232.
Krusemark, E. A., Campbell, W. K., & Clementz, B. A. (2008). Attributions, deception, and event related potentials: An investigation of the self-serving bias. Psychophysiology, 45, 511–515.
Lalwani, A. K. (2009). The distinct influence of cognitive busyness and need for closure on cultural differences in socially desirable responding. Journal of Consumer Research, 36, 305–316.
Lench, H., & Ditto, P. (2008). Automatic optimism: Biased use of base rate information for positive and negative events. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(3), 631–639.
Mitchell, J. P., Macrae, C. N., & Banaji, M. R. (2006). Dissociable medial prefrontal contributions to judgments of similar and dissimilar others. Neuron, 50, 655–663.
Moore, D. A., & Healy, P. J. (2008). The trouble with overconfidence. Psychological Review, 115, 502–517.
Moore, D. A., & Small, D. A. (2007). Error and bias in comparative judgment: On being both better and worse than we think we are. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 972–989.
Moran, J. M., Macrae, C. N., Heatherton, T. F., Wyland, C. L., & Kelley, W. M. (2006). Neuroanatomical evidence for distinct cognitive and affective components of self. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18, 1586–1594.
Murray, S. L., & Holmes, J. G. (1997). A leap of faith? Positive illusions in romantic relationships. Personality and Social Psychological Bulletin, 23, 586–597.
Ochsner, K. N., Beer, J. S., Robertson, E. R., Cooper, J. C., Gabrieli, J. D. E., Kihlstrom, J. F., et al. (2005). The neural correlates of direct and reflected self-knowledge. Neuroimage, 28, 797–814.
Ochsner, K. N., Bunge, S. A., Gross, J. J., & Gabrieli, J. D. E. (2002). Rethinking feelings: An fMRI study of the cognitive regulation of emotion. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14, 1215–1229.
Ochsner, K. N., & Gross, J. J. (2005). The cognitive control of emotion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9, 242–249.
Paulhus, D., Graf, P., & Van Selst, M. (1989). Attentional load increases the positivity of self- presentation. Social Cognition, 7(4), 389–400.
Poldrack, R. A. (2006). Can cognitive processes be inferred from neuroimaging data? Trends in Cognitive Science, 10, 59–63.
Raz, N. (2000). Aging of the brain and its impact on cognitive performance: Integration of structural and functional findings. In F. I. M. Craik & T. A. Salthouse (Eds.), Handbook of aging and cognition (2nd ed.). Erlbaum: Mahwah.
Reznick, S. M., Lamar, M., & Driscoll, I. (2008). Vulnerability of the orbitofrontal cortex to age- associated structural and functional brain changes. In G. Schoenbaum, J. A. Gottfried, E. Murray, S. J. Ramus (Eds.) Linking affect to action: Critical contributions of the orbitofrontal cortex (Vol. 121, pp. 562–575). Annals of the New York Academy of Science. Blackwell: Boston, MA.
Sanitioso, R. B., Kunda, Z., & Fong, G. (1990). Motivated recruitment of autobiographical memories. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 229–241.
Sanitioso, R. B., & Wlodarski, R. (2004). In search of information that confirms a desired self perception: Motivated processing of social feedback and choice of social interactions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 412–422.
Sedikides, C., & Gregg, A. P. (2008). Self-enhancement: Food for thought. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3, 102–116.
Sedikides, C., Herbst, K. C., Hardin, D. P., & Dardis, G. J. (2002). Accountability as a deterrent to self-enhancement: The search for mechanisms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 592–605.
Sedikides, C., Horton, R. S., & Gregg, A. P. (2007). The why’s the limit: Curtailing self- enhancement with explanatory introspection. Journal of Personality, 75, 784–824.
Sharot, T., Riccardi, A. M., Raio, C. M., & Phelps, E. A. (2007). Neural mechanisms mediating optimism bias. Nature, 450, 102–105.
Somerville, L. H., Kelley, W. M., & Heatherton, T. F. (2010). Self-esteem modulates medial prefrontal cortical responses to evaluative social feedback. Cerebral Cortex, 20, 3005–3013.
Swann, W., Hixon, J., Stein-Seroussi, A., & Gilbert, D. (1990). The fleeting gleam of praise: Cognitive processes underlying behavioral reactions to self-relevant feedback. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 17–26.
Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. (1988). Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 193–210.
Thomaes, S., Reijntjes, A., Orobio de Castro, B., & Bushman, B. (2009). Reality bites—or does it?: Realistic self-views buffer negative mood following social threat. Psychological Science, 20, 1079–1080.
Trope, Y. (1980). Self-assessment, self-enhancement, and task preference. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 16, 116–129.
Vohs, K., Baumeister, R., & Ciarocco, N. (2005). Self-regulation and self-presentation: regulatory resource depletion impairs impression management and effortful self-presentation depletes regulatory resources. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 632–657.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Beer, J.S. This time with motivation: The implications of social neuroscience for research on motivated self- and other-perception (and vice versa). Motiv Emot 36, 38–45 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-011-9259-0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-011-9259-0