Individual self-construal (independent vs. interdependent) could be temporarily modulated by the priming effect. Our previous studies have found that when Chinese participants gambled for mother and for self, outcome feedback evoked comparable neural responses between two conditions. However, it remains unclear if the response to rewards for mother and for self would differ after independence self-construal priming. In this study, we manipulated participants' self-construal (independent vs. interdependent) before a simple gambling task. The event-related potential (ERP) results reveal that when an interdependent self-construal was primed, the participants exhibited a comparable feedback-related negativity (FRN) elicited by outcome feedback for self and for mother. In contrast, independent self-construal priming resulted in a greater FRN elicited by outcome feedback for self than for mother. Meanwhile, the P3 component was insensitive to self-construal manipulation. These findings indicate the modulation effect of self-construal priming on the response to rewards for others.
Keywords: Feedback-related negativity; Mother; Outcome evaluation; Self; Self-construals.