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Cultural influences on social feedback processing of character traits

Cultural differences are generally explained by how people see themselves in relation to social interaction partners. While Western culture emphasizes independence, East Asian culture emphasizes interdependence. Despite this focus on social interactions, it remains elusive how people from different...

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Autores principales: Korn, Christoph W., Fan, Yan, Zhang, Kai, Wang, Chenbo, Han, Shihui, Heekeren, Hauke R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3983486/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24772075
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00192
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author Korn, Christoph W.
Fan, Yan
Zhang, Kai
Wang, Chenbo
Han, Shihui
Heekeren, Hauke R.
author_facet Korn, Christoph W.
Fan, Yan
Zhang, Kai
Wang, Chenbo
Han, Shihui
Heekeren, Hauke R.
author_sort Korn, Christoph W.
collection PubMed
description Cultural differences are generally explained by how people see themselves in relation to social interaction partners. While Western culture emphasizes independence, East Asian culture emphasizes interdependence. Despite this focus on social interactions, it remains elusive how people from different cultures process feedback on their own (and on others') character traits. Here, participants of either German or Chinese origin engaged in a face-to-face interaction. Consequently, they updated their self- and other-ratings of 80 character traits (e.g., polite, pedantic) after receiving feedback from their interaction partners. To exclude potential confounds, we obtained data from German and Chinese participants in Berlin [functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)] and in Beijing (behavior). We tested cultural influences on social conformity, positivity biases, and self-related neural activity. First, Chinese conformed more to social feedback than Germans (i.e., Chinese updated their trait ratings more). Second, regardless of culture, participants processed self- and other-related feedback in a positively biased way (i.e., they updated more toward desirable than toward undesirable feedback). Third, changes in self-related medial prefrontal cortex activity were greater in Germans than in Chinese during feedback processing. By investigating conformity, positivity biases, and self-related activity in relation to feedback obtained in a real-life interaction, we provide an essential step toward a unifying framework for understanding the diversity of human culture.
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spelling pubmed-39834862014-04-25 Cultural influences on social feedback processing of character traits Korn, Christoph W. Fan, Yan Zhang, Kai Wang, Chenbo Han, Shihui Heekeren, Hauke R. Front Hum Neurosci Neuroscience Cultural differences are generally explained by how people see themselves in relation to social interaction partners. While Western culture emphasizes independence, East Asian culture emphasizes interdependence. Despite this focus on social interactions, it remains elusive how people from different cultures process feedback on their own (and on others') character traits. Here, participants of either German or Chinese origin engaged in a face-to-face interaction. Consequently, they updated their self- and other-ratings of 80 character traits (e.g., polite, pedantic) after receiving feedback from their interaction partners. To exclude potential confounds, we obtained data from German and Chinese participants in Berlin [functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)] and in Beijing (behavior). We tested cultural influences on social conformity, positivity biases, and self-related neural activity. First, Chinese conformed more to social feedback than Germans (i.e., Chinese updated their trait ratings more). Second, regardless of culture, participants processed self- and other-related feedback in a positively biased way (i.e., they updated more toward desirable than toward undesirable feedback). Third, changes in self-related medial prefrontal cortex activity were greater in Germans than in Chinese during feedback processing. By investigating conformity, positivity biases, and self-related activity in relation to feedback obtained in a real-life interaction, we provide an essential step toward a unifying framework for understanding the diversity of human culture. Frontiers Media S.A. 2014-04-04 /pmc/articles/PMC3983486/ /pubmed/24772075 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00192 Text en Copyright © 2014 Korn, Fan, Zhang, Wang, Han and Heekeren. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Korn, Christoph W.
Fan, Yan
Zhang, Kai
Wang, Chenbo
Han, Shihui
Heekeren, Hauke R.
Cultural influences on social feedback processing of character traits
title Cultural influences on social feedback processing of character traits
title_full Cultural influences on social feedback processing of character traits
title_fullStr Cultural influences on social feedback processing of character traits
title_full_unstemmed Cultural influences on social feedback processing of character traits
title_short Cultural influences on social feedback processing of character traits
title_sort cultural influences on social feedback processing of character traits
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3983486/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24772075
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00192
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