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Preliminary Evidence of the Role of Medial Prefrontal Cortex in Self-Enhancement: A Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study

Humans employ a number of strategies to improve their position in their given social hierarchy. Overclaiming involves presenting oneself as having more knowledge than one actually possesses, and it is typically invoked to increase one’s social standing. If increased expectations to possess knowledge...

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Autores principales: Taylor-Lillquist, Birgitta, Kanpa, Vivek, Crawford, Maya, El Filali, Mehdi, Oakes, Julia, Jonasz, Alex, Disney, Amanda, Keenan, Julian Paul
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7464708/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32784394
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10080535
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author Taylor-Lillquist, Birgitta
Kanpa, Vivek
Crawford, Maya
El Filali, Mehdi
Oakes, Julia
Jonasz, Alex
Disney, Amanda
Keenan, Julian Paul
author_facet Taylor-Lillquist, Birgitta
Kanpa, Vivek
Crawford, Maya
El Filali, Mehdi
Oakes, Julia
Jonasz, Alex
Disney, Amanda
Keenan, Julian Paul
author_sort Taylor-Lillquist, Birgitta
collection PubMed
description Humans employ a number of strategies to improve their position in their given social hierarchy. Overclaiming involves presenting oneself as having more knowledge than one actually possesses, and it is typically invoked to increase one’s social standing. If increased expectations to possess knowledge is a perceived social pressure, such expectations should increase bouts of overclaiming. As the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) is sensitive to social pressure and disruption of the MPFC leads to decreases in overclaiming, we predicted that transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) applied to the MPFC would reduce overclaiming and the effects would be enhanced in the presence of social pressure. Twelve participants were given a test in which half of the words were real and half were fake, and they were asked how well they knew each word. They were not told that any of the words were fake. Half of the participants were exposed to social pressure while the other half were not. Following TMS delivered to the MPFC, overclaiming rates decreased, specifically under conditions of high social pressure. Medial PFC TMS did not influence real word responses and real words did not interact with the MPFC and social pressure. These preliminary findings support the significant role the MPFC plays in social cognition and the importance of the MPFC in mediating socially meaningful situations. We suggest the role of the MPFC as being highly influenced by the premium placed on social manipulation in human evolution.
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spelling pubmed-74647082020-09-04 Preliminary Evidence of the Role of Medial Prefrontal Cortex in Self-Enhancement: A Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study Taylor-Lillquist, Birgitta Kanpa, Vivek Crawford, Maya El Filali, Mehdi Oakes, Julia Jonasz, Alex Disney, Amanda Keenan, Julian Paul Brain Sci Article Humans employ a number of strategies to improve their position in their given social hierarchy. Overclaiming involves presenting oneself as having more knowledge than one actually possesses, and it is typically invoked to increase one’s social standing. If increased expectations to possess knowledge is a perceived social pressure, such expectations should increase bouts of overclaiming. As the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) is sensitive to social pressure and disruption of the MPFC leads to decreases in overclaiming, we predicted that transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) applied to the MPFC would reduce overclaiming and the effects would be enhanced in the presence of social pressure. Twelve participants were given a test in which half of the words were real and half were fake, and they were asked how well they knew each word. They were not told that any of the words were fake. Half of the participants were exposed to social pressure while the other half were not. Following TMS delivered to the MPFC, overclaiming rates decreased, specifically under conditions of high social pressure. Medial PFC TMS did not influence real word responses and real words did not interact with the MPFC and social pressure. These preliminary findings support the significant role the MPFC plays in social cognition and the importance of the MPFC in mediating socially meaningful situations. We suggest the role of the MPFC as being highly influenced by the premium placed on social manipulation in human evolution. MDPI 2020-08-08 /pmc/articles/PMC7464708/ /pubmed/32784394 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10080535 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Taylor-Lillquist, Birgitta
Kanpa, Vivek
Crawford, Maya
El Filali, Mehdi
Oakes, Julia
Jonasz, Alex
Disney, Amanda
Keenan, Julian Paul
Preliminary Evidence of the Role of Medial Prefrontal Cortex in Self-Enhancement: A Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study
title Preliminary Evidence of the Role of Medial Prefrontal Cortex in Self-Enhancement: A Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study
title_full Preliminary Evidence of the Role of Medial Prefrontal Cortex in Self-Enhancement: A Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study
title_fullStr Preliminary Evidence of the Role of Medial Prefrontal Cortex in Self-Enhancement: A Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study
title_full_unstemmed Preliminary Evidence of the Role of Medial Prefrontal Cortex in Self-Enhancement: A Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study
title_short Preliminary Evidence of the Role of Medial Prefrontal Cortex in Self-Enhancement: A Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study
title_sort preliminary evidence of the role of medial prefrontal cortex in self-enhancement: a transcranial magnetic stimulation study
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7464708/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32784394
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10080535
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