Department of Psychology, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2010 Nov;31(11):1741-50. doi: 10.1002/hbm.20972.
Humans have a drive to evaluate themselves by examining their abilities and outcomes in comparison to others. The present study examined the emotional and neural correlates of upward social comparison (comparison with those who have more) and downward social comparison (comparison with those who have less). Two experiments were conducted with volunteers in an interactive game of chance, in which a putative player won or lost more money than the participant. The results showed that even when participants lost money, they expressed joy and schadenfreude (gloating) if the other player had lost more money. On the other hand when they actually won money, but the other player had won more they expressed envy. This pattern was also demonstrated in a differential BOLD response in the ventral striatum. Comparing the activations between an actual gain and a relative gain indicated that even when a person loses money, merely adding information about another person's greater loss may increase ventral striatum activations to a point where these activations are similar to those of an actual gain. We suggest that the ventral striatum plays a role in mediating the emotional consequences of social comparison.
人类有一种通过将自己的能力和结果与他人进行比较来评估自己的动力。本研究考察了向上社会比较（与那些更优秀的人比较）和向下社会比较（与那些更不优秀的人比较）的情绪和神经相关性。两项实验都招募了志愿者在互动的机会游戏中进行，在这个游戏中，一个假定的玩家赢得或输掉比参与者更多的钱。结果表明，即使参与者输了钱，如果另一个玩家输了更多的钱，他们也会表示高兴和幸灾乐祸（得意洋洋）。另一方面，当他们实际上赢了钱，但另一个玩家赢得更多时，他们会表示嫉妒。在腹侧纹状体的差异 BOLD 反应中也表现出了这种模式。将实际收益与相对收益的激活进行比较表明，即使一个人输了钱，仅仅增加另一个人更大损失的信息，可能会增加腹侧纹状体的激活，使其激活程度类似于实际收益。我们认为，腹侧纹状体在调节社会比较的情绪后果方面发挥了作用。
