Neural Mechanism of Cultural Influences on the Self-construal

Self-construal refers to how people think about themselves and their relation to others.From collectivism-individualism perspective,East Asians and Westerners are respectively typical interdependent-independent self-construal.In self-reference task,significant others(e.g.mother) and self were represented in the same brain area,which is medial prefrontal cortex(MPFC),for East Asians but not for Westerners.In oddball task and word-voice incongruity task,degree of interdependence modulates the brain response of P3 and N400 respectively.Corresponding self-construal can be accessible for bicultural subjects in culture priming.Some theories could explain the influence process,such as social brain hypothesis,culture-gene coevolutionary theory,and neuro-culture interaction model.Future researches should focus on Chinese relational self,especially on the development of native theories and methods.