Abstract
Sociocultural research has established independence and interdependence as two fundamental ways of thinking about oneself and the social world. Recent neuroscience studies further demonstrate that these orientations modulate brain activity in various self- and socially related tasks. In the current study, we explored whether the traits of independence and interdependence are reflected in anatomical variations in brain structure. We carried out structural brain imaging on a large sample of healthy participants (n = 265) who also completed self-report questionnaires of cultural orientations. Voxel-based morphometry analysis demonstrated that a relative focus of independence (vs. interdependence) was associated with increased gray-matter volume in a number of self-related regions, including ventromedial prefrontal cortex, right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and right rostrolateral prefrontal cortex. These results provide novel insights into the biological basis of sociocultural orientations.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 519-529 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Psychological Science |
Volume | 28 |
Issue number | 4 |
Early online date | 1 Feb 2017 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Apr 2017 |
Bibliographical note
This work was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 31371017 and 31471001), by the Economic and Social Research Council of the United Kingdom (Grant No. ES/K013424/1), and by the Tsinghua University Initiative Scientific Research Program (to J. Sui)Keywords
- independence orientation
- interdependence orientation
- grey-matter volume
- voxel-based morphometry
- open materials
- open data