Connect with us
    #

    News & Research on Psychology | ShareYrHeart

    Empathic and Altruistic, or Old and Individualistic: Our brains reveal the truth

    Published

    on

    Summary: Prefrontal cortex activity reveals those who have a more detached personality have similar activity when processing information relating to both social and non-social stimuli. By contrast, those who are more agreeable have significant differences in PFC activity when processing the different forms of information.

    Source: NeuroscienceNews and the Journal, Neurolmage.

    Are you empathic, generous, and selfless? In short, do you possess that specific personality trait defined as agreeableness in the language of psychology?

    A new research from SISSA recently published in the journal NeuroImage enlightens about brain mechanisms underlying this trait.

    The research was carried out by Dr. Sandra Arbula and Elisabetta Pisanu, in coordination with Professor Raffaella I. Rumiati.

    A dozens of volunteers were enrolled by SISSA, for their research according to the volunteer’s degree of agreeableness, which is one of the five major dimensions of personality.

    Participants were presented with short animations of different shapes that moved randomly or communicated in a socially meaningful way. Their brain activity was then recorded using functional magnetic resonance imaging, which allows detection of the brain areas activated while they perform a given task, and has application in both research and clinical fields”.

    The study showed that the indifferent subjects seem to process information associated with social and non-social contexts in the same manner as showed by similar activation patterns in the prefrontal cortex, whereas in more agreeable subjects the activation patterns coming from social and non-social situations show more differences.

    This suggests that individuals with high levels of agreeableness are able to anticipate social contents that are important, and specifically informative for achieving successful interactions with others, which require the ability to understand the cognitive, emotional and motivational aspects of others in social situations.

    This research can contribute to future development of more impartial and sensitive personality tests, including individuals’ brain responses to stimuli differing in social content as a measure of agreeableness.



    Published: SISSA.

    Contact: Donato Ramani – SISSA.

    Details: The picture is in public domain

     

    Hi, I’m Aarti, My Psychoanalytical approach towards my clients is to empower them to better their lives through improving their relationship with themselves. I believe shame and guilt is a common barrier to change. I aim to guide my clients through re authoring their narratives where shame, guilt, and other problems have less power and take up less space.

    Continue Reading
    YOU SHARE
    YOU SHARE