State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, China; Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, China.
School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
Neuroimage. 2015 Jan 15;105:269-75. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.10.062. Epub 2014 Nov 1.
Social well-being reflects the appraisal of one's circumstance and functioning in society, which is crucial for individuals' mental and physical health. However, little is known about the neural processes associated with social well-being. In this study, we used voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to identify the brain regions underlying individual differences in social well-being, as measured by the Social Well-being Scale (SWBS), in a large sample of young healthy adults. We found that social well-being was negatively correlated with gray matter volume in left mid-dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (mid-DLPFC) that is implicated in executive functioning, emotional regulation and social reasoning. The results remained significant even after controlling for the effect of socioeconomic status. Furthermore, although basic personality factors such as neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness (as measured by the NEO Personality Inventory) all contributed to social well-being, only extraversion acted as a mediational mechanism underlying the association between the left mid-DLPFC volume and social well-being. Together, our findings provide the first evidence for the structural basis of individual differences in social well-being, and suggest that the personality trait of extraversion might play an important role in the acquisition and process of social well-being.
社会幸福感反映了个体对自身所处环境和社会功能的评价，对个体的身心健康至关重要。然而，人们对于与社会幸福感相关的神经过程知之甚少。在这项研究中，我们使用基于体素的形态测量学（VBM），在一大群年轻健康成年人中，根据社会幸福感量表（SWBS）来测量社会幸福感的个体差异，以确定与社会幸福感相关的大脑区域。我们发现，社会幸福感与左背外侧前额叶皮质（mid-DLPFC）的灰质体积呈负相关，而左背外侧前额叶皮质与执行功能、情绪调节和社会推理有关。即使在控制了社会经济地位的影响后，这些结果仍然显著。此外，尽管神经质、外向性和尽责性等基本人格因素（由 NEO 人格量表测量）都与社会幸福感有关，但只有外向性是左背外侧前额叶皮质体积与社会幸福感之间关联的中介机制。总之，我们的研究结果为社会幸福感个体差异的结构基础提供了首个证据，并表明外向性人格特质可能在社会幸福感的获得和过程中起着重要作用。
