S.23.01 Effects of MDMA on sociability and neural response to social threat and social reward

A socio–cognitive model of loneliness states that lonely people are characterized by two characteristics, hypersensitivity to social threat and hyposensitivity to social reward. However, these characteristics have not yet been examined in the daily lives of young adults. Therefore, the main aim of the present study was to examine these two characteristics in young adults and whether relationship status, living situation, and type of company moderated the relationship between sensitivity to threat and reward and feelings of loneliness. The Experience Sampling Method was used, and data were collected among 219 first–year college students (M age = 19.60, 91% female). Participants filled out questionnaires on their smartphone at five random time points per day, on 11 consecutive days. Multilevel analyses showed support for hypersensitivity to social threat, in that students high in loneliness were more negatively affected by negative perceptions of company. Results for hyposensitivity to social reward were in the opposite direction; students high in loneliness were more positively affected by positive perceptions of company than students low in loneliness. These relations were not moderated by relationship status or living situation. Our findings may indicate that loneliness serves as a motivational state that increases susceptibility to the environment in order to restore social relationships. Copyright © 2015 European Association of Personality Psychology

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Brain structure correlates of expected social threat and reward

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-020-74334-z ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Bonni Crawford ◽

Nils Muhlert ◽

Geoff MacDonald ◽

Andrew D. Lawrence

Keyword(s):

Social Acceptance ◽

Structural Mri ◽

Social Reward ◽

Social Threat ◽

Approach And Avoidance ◽

Avoidance Motivation ◽

Affective Processes ◽

Future Events ◽

Core Components ◽

Social Decision Making

Abstract Prospection (mentally simulating future events) generates emotionally-charged mental images that guide social decision-making. Positive and negative social expectancies—imagining new social interactions to be rewarding versus threatening—are core components of social approach and avoidance motivation, respectively. Interindividual differences in such positive and negative future-related cognitions may be underpinned by distinct neuroanatomical substrates. Here, we asked 100 healthy adults to vividly imagine themselves in a novel self-relevant event that was ambiguous with regards to possible social acceptance or rejection. During this task we measured participants’ expectancies for social reward (anticipated feelings of social connection) or threat (anticipated feelings of rejection). On a separate day they underwent structural MRI; voxel-based morphometry was used to explore the relation between social reward and threat expectancies and regional grey matter volumes (rGMV). Increased rGMV in key default-network regions involved in prospection, socio-emotional cognition, and subjective valuation, including ventromedial prefrontal cortex, correlated with both higher social reward and lower social threat expectancies. In contrast, social threat expectancies uniquely correlated with rGMV of regions involved in social attention (posterior superior temporal sulcus, pSTS) and interoception (somatosensory cortex). These findings provide novel insight into the neurobiology of future-oriented cognitive-affective processes critical to adaptive social functioning.

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Individual differences in social reward and threat expectancies linked to grey matter volumes in key regions of the social brain

10.1101/2020.02.03.916999 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Bonni Crawford ◽

Nils Muhlert ◽

Geoff MacDonald ◽

Andrew D. Lawrence

Keyword(s):

Individual Differences ◽

Grey Matter ◽

Social Acceptance ◽

Structural Mri ◽

Social Reward ◽

Social Threat ◽

Approach And Avoidance ◽

Future Events ◽

Core Components ◽

Social Decision Making

AbstractProspection (mentally simulating future events) generates emotionally charged mental images that guide social decision-making. Positive and negative social expectancies – imagining new social interactions to be rewarding vs. threatening – are core components of social approach and avoidance motivation, respectively. Stable individual differences in such positive and negative future-related cognitions may be underpinned by distinct neuroanatomical substrates. Here, we asked 100 healthy adults to vividly imagine themselves in a novel self-relevant social scenario that was ambiguous with regards to possible social acceptance or rejection. During this task we measured their expectancies for social reward (e.g. anticipated feelings of social connection) or threat (e.g. anticipated feelings of rejection). On a separate day they underwent structural MRI; voxel-based morphometry (VBM) was used to explore the relation between their social reward and threat expectancies and regional grey matter volumes (rGMV). Increased rGMV in key regions involved in prospection, subjective valuation and emotion regulation (including ventromedial prefrontal cortex), correlated with both higher social reward and lower social threat expectancies. In contrast, social threat expectancies were uniquely linked with rGMV of regions involved in social attention (posterior superior temporal sulcus) and interoception (somatosensory cortex). These findings provide novel insight into the neurobiology of future-oriented cognitive-affective processes critical to adaptive social functioning.

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Classical social reward signatures in infants with later ASD

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x18002492 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 42 ◽

Author(s):

Teodora Gliga ◽

Mayada Elsabbagh

Keyword(s):

Early Development ◽

Social Motivation ◽

Self Report ◽

Social Reward ◽

Socially Motivated

Abstract Autistic individuals can be socially motivated. We disagree with the idea that self-report is sufficient to understand their social drive. Instead, we underscore evidence for typical non-verbal signatures of social reward during the early development of autistic individuals. Instead of focusing on whether or not social motivation is typical, research should investigate the factors that modulate social drives.

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