Machiavellian emotion regulation in a cognitive reappraisal task: An fMRI study
Machiavellian emotion regulation in a cognitive reappraisal task: An fMRI study
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DOI：
10.3758/s13415-016-0495-3
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发表时间：
2017-06-01
影响因子：
2.9
通讯作者：
Bereczkei, Tamas
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Deak, Anita;Bodrogi, Barbara;Bereczkei, Tamas
情感冷漠是马基雅维利主义的主要特征之一。最近的研究表明，马基雅维利主义者在情感上是冷漠的，这种“情感迟钝”与强烈的感情、情绪不稳定、消极情绪和难以忍受痛苦有关。我们使用脑成像技术在神经心理学层面研究马基雅维利主义的情绪调节。我们利用要求参与者表现出情绪灵活性的情况来探讨围绕马基雅维利主义与冷酷和情绪不稳定相关这一事实的争议。参与者执行了一项重新评估任务，其中在不同的背景（消极、积极和中性）中呈现唤起情感的图片（来自国际情感图片系统）。他们被要求根据标题解释场景，并根据新标题创建的另一个上下文重新解释它（例如，负面标签的图片转移到正面标签的图片）。在执行任务期间，马基雅维利主义者表现出与情绪产生相关的大脑区域（例如杏仁核和岛叶）的激活增加。这表明马基雅维利主义者能够在社交场合中情感投入。在重新评估过程中，颞叶和海马旁区域的激活增加表明，马基雅维利主义者使用语义感知过程来构建对同一情况的替代解释，并增强了对情绪刺激的记忆。此外，他们似乎拥有强烈的意识，使他们将注意力从外部信息转移到内部信息以检测环境变化。这些认知过程可能使他们能够快速调整自己的行为。这项研究支持马基雅维利主义的灵活性假设，并表明马基雅维利主义者的情绪调节方法与其理性思维模式有关。
Affective coldness is one of the main features of Machiavellianism. Recent studies have revealed that Machiavellians are emotionally detached and that this "affective blunting" is associated with intense feelings, emotional instability, negative emotions, and difficulty in enduring distress. We used brain-imaging techniques to investigate emotion regulation in Machiavellianism at a neuropsychological level. We used situations in which participants were required to demonstrate emotional flexibility to explore the controversy surrounding the fact that Machiavellianism is associated with both cold-mindedness and emotional instability. Participants performed a reappraisal task in which emotionally evocative pictures (from the International Affective Picture System) were presented in different contexts (negative, positive, and neutral). They were asked to interpret a scenario according to its title and to reinterpret it according to another context created by a new title (e.g., negatively labeled pictures shifted to positively labeled ones). During task performance, Machiavellians showed increased activation of brain regions associated with emotion generation-for example, the amygdala and insula. This indicates that Machiavellian individuals are able to be involved emotionally in social situations. Increased activation in the temporal and parahippocampal regions during reappraisal suggests that Machiavellians use semantic-perceptual processes to construct alternative interpretations of the same situation and have enhanced memory for emotional stimuli. Furthermore, they seem to possess an intense awareness that leads them to shift attention from external to internal information to detect environmental changes. These cognitive processes may enable them to adjust their behavior quickly. This study supports the flexibility hypothesis of Machiavellianism and suggests that Machiavellians' approach to emotion regulation is linked to their rational mode of thinking.