The FMRI Study Of Social Comparative Subjects' Impact On Regret

Regret was a common negative emotion in life,it was created by comparing the actual outcomes achieved by individual with better outcomes not achieved.Regret was also regulated by many situational factors,For example,our study group explored the impact of social comparison,a situation factor,on regret emotion.When the individual's outcomes were worse than other's,the individual's regret was higher.In addition,the degree of intimacy of the social comparative subjects also have impact on the process of social comparison.Thus,based on previous studies,this study further subdivided social comparative subjects through fMRI technology to explore the impact of degree of intimacy between individuals and social comparative subjects on regret and brain activities.My dissertation was used in sequential risk-taking task paradigm by fMRI technology.In the tasks,participants was presented with 8 boxes and decided whether to open the next box in order;the outcome of an opened box might be golden coins,also encountered devil and lost golden coins possibly;Participants could choose to stop opening boxes and collected golden coins during decision-making process as well.The outcomes were presented not only for participants' themselves,but for social comparative subjects' as well.We manipulated the degree of intimacy of social comparative subjects by asking participants to imagine that their opponents were close friends or strangers.Finally,participants were required to make emotional response.Study results:(1)In behavior study,individuals' regret emotion and behavior varied greatly when facing different social comparative subjects.Specifically,compared with close friends,individuals were more likely to encounter devil and more risky when the subjects were strangers.In loss situation,when individuals' outcomes were worse than subjects',emotional rating was significantly different,individuals felt more regret when the subject was stranger.In gain situation,when individuals' outcomes were worse and the same with subjects',emotional rating was also different,individuals became more satisfied when the subject was close friends.(2)Task fMRI study indicated,in gain situation,individuals showed overall more activation of striatum,insula,thalamus and anterior cingulate cortex when facing close friends compared with strangers.In terms of comparison results,when both subjects and individuals lost golden coins,compared with strangers,individuals showed stronger activation in inferior parietal lobule and middle frontal gyrus when facing close friends.In gain situation,compared with strangers,insula,thalamus and striatum were activated when individuals' outcomes were worse than close friends.Further analysis showed that the activation of superior frontal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus increased with increase of actual outcome in the face of strangers.(3)Resting-state fMRI study found that function connectivity between insula and orbital frontal cortex was negatively correlated with individual's social comparison ability,and it was also negatively correlated with emotional volatility when individual's outcomes were worse than stranger's in gain situation.In one word,different intimacy degree of social comparative subjects would affect individual's regret emotion experience in risk-taking tasks.Specifically,individuals showed low regret and greater activation in brain regions such as striatum.This dissertation extended and expanded the previous studies,which not only enriches the regret theory,but also has certain enlightenment and reference significance for the regulation of regret emotion in life.