Happier People Show Greater Neural Connectivity during Negative Self-Referential Processing

Life satisfaction is an essential component of subjective well-being and provides a fundamental resource for optimal everyday functioning. The goal of the present study was to examine how life satisfaction influences self-referential processing of emotionally valenced stimuli. Nineteen individuals w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2016-02, Vol.11 (2), p.e0149554-e0149554
Main Authors: Kim, Eun Joo, Kyeong, Sunghyon, Cho, Sang Woo, Chun, Ji-Won, Park, Hae-Jeong, Kim, Jihye, Kim, Joohan, Dolan, Raymond J, Kim, Jae-Jin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Behavior
Behavioral sciences
Biology and Life Sciences
Brain Mapping
Brain research
Demography
Emotions
Evoked potentials
Face
Feedback
Female
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Happiness
Humans
Influence
Male
Medical imaging
Medicine
Medicine and Health Sciences
Mental Processes
Nerve Net - physiology
Personal Satisfaction
Personality
Physiological aspects
Prefrontal cortex
Psychological aspects
Psychological factors
Quality of life
Reaction Time
Research and Analysis Methods
Self esteem
Social Sciences
Stimuli
Studies
Task Performance and Analysis
Well being
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Summary:Life satisfaction is an essential component of subjective well-being and provides a fundamental resource for optimal everyday functioning. The goal of the present study was to examine how life satisfaction influences self-referential processing of emotionally valenced stimuli. Nineteen individuals with high life satisfaction (HLS) and 21 individuals with low life satisfaction (LLS) were scanned using functional MRI while performing a face-word relevance rating task, which consisted of 3 types of face stimuli (self, public other, and unfamiliar other) and 3 types of word stimuli (positive, negative, and neutral). We found a significant group x word valence interaction effect, most strikingly in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex. In the positive word condition dorsal medial prefrontal cortex activity was significantly higher in the LLS group, whereas in the negative word condition it was significantly higher in the HLS group. The two groups showed distinct functional connectivity of the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex with emotional processing-related regions. The findings suggest that, in response to emotional stimuli, individuals with HLS may successfully recruit emotion regulation-related regions in contrast to individuals with LLS. The difference in functional connectivity during self-referential processing may lead to an influence of life satisfaction on responses to emotion-eliciting stimuli.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0149554