Explicit Self-reinforcing Neural Mechanisms Of Implicit Self-enhancement,

A great number of previous studies have related to self-enhancement.But whether self-enhancement is pancultural has always been an issue which has not been defined.Form the cultural-self perspective;self-enhancement is prevalent in Western society,while it is not so prevalent in the culture of collectivism in the East.They argue that people under collectivistic culture don't have the self-enhancing motivation.But other perspectives argue that the differences of self-enhancement between cultures are due to the experimental paradigm.Neural basis of self-enhancement will help to clarify this issue;however,few studies are focus on it.In the present study,two experimental studies are executed.The transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is applied to explore the neural basis of implicit self-enhancement and explicit self-enhancement.In study 1,subjects were asked to judge whether the personality adjectives were fit to describe the self,best friend,or other.The results showed that,compared with the false stimulation condition,after stimulating the medial prefrontal cortex,the evaluation for best friend significantly reduced,while the evaluation for self was not affected.In study 2,priming paradigm was used to measure implicit attitudes towards self,friend and other person.The results showed that,when the TMS stimulus and target stimulus were given at the same time,the reaction time of self- positive words condition was influenced by stimulating effects of medial prefrontal cortex,indicating that the medial prefrontal cortex may have correlation with the implicit self-enhancement.The two experimental studies have shown that the medial prefrontal cortex has relationships with implicit positive self-evaluation,also both implicit and explicit friend-evaluation.Despite of the possibility of different mechanisms,the medial prefrontal cortex is correlates with both implicit and explicit self-enhancement.Cultural factors affect expressions of self-enhancement bias and they have more influences on explicit self-enhancement bias than on implicit self-enhancement.These studies provide direct evidence to understand the neural basis of self-enhancement bias,and will help to clarify what kind of influence cultural factors will be on self-enhancement bias.These studies provide new evidence for clearing about the relationship between implicit and explicit self-enhancement bias.