Wang Yinan, Kong Feng, Kong Xiangzhen, Zhao Yuanfang, Lin Danhua, Liu Jia
School of Psychology, Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, Jia Liu, Room 405, Yingdong Building, 19 Xinjiekouwai St, Haidian District, Beijing, 100875, China.
State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2017 Oct;17(5):932-938. doi: 10.3758/s13415-017-0523-y.
Anger is a common negative emotion in social life. Behavioral research suggests that unsatisfied relatedness, autonomy, and competence are related to anger. However, it remains unclear whether these unsatisfied needs all contribute to anger or just a particular unsatisfied need is the main source of anger. In addition, little is known about the neural substrate between unsatisfied needs and anger. To address these two questions, we used voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to explore the neural substrate underlying the relation between unsatisfied needs and trait anger. Behaviorally, we found that although all three unsatisfied needs were correlated with trait anger, unsatisfied relatedness was the only factor that was uniquely related to trait anger. Neurally, the gray matter volume of the right amygdala was correlated with trait anger, which fits nicely with the role of the amygdala as a core region for processing anger. Importantly, the right amygdala mediated the total effect of unsatisfied relatedness on trait anger, even after controlling for general personality dispositions. Our results contribute to the theoretical conceptualization of anger by elucidating the unique role of unsatisfied relatedness in anger and the neural substrate underlying such relation.
愤怒是社会生活中一种常见的负面情绪。行为研究表明，关系需求、自主需求和能力需求未得到满足与愤怒有关。然而，尚不清楚这些未得到满足的需求是否都导致愤怒，还是只有某一种未得到满足的需求才是愤怒的主要根源。此外，对于未得到满足的需求与愤怒之间的神经基础知之甚少。为了解决这两个问题，我们使用基于体素的形态测量法（VBM）来探究未得到满足的需求与特质愤怒之间关系的神经基础。在行为层面，我们发现，虽然所有三种未得到满足的需求都与特质愤怒相关，但关系需求未得到满足是唯一与特质愤怒有独特关联的因素。在神经层面，右侧杏仁核的灰质体积与特质愤怒相关，这与杏仁核作为处理愤怒的核心区域的作用非常契合。重要的是，即使在控制了一般人格特质之后，右侧杏仁核仍介导了关系需求未得到满足对特质愤怒的总体影响。我们的研究结果通过阐明关系需求未得到满足在愤怒中的独特作用以及这种关系背后的神经基础，为愤怒的理论概念化做出了贡献。
