Scientific Reports

Self-beneficial belief updating as a coping mechanism for stress-induced negative affect

2021, Hormones/Neuromodulators, Social Learning, Social Reward / Sören Krach

Abstract Being confronted with social-evaluative stress elicits a physiological and a psychological stress response. This calls for regulatory processes to manage negative affect and maintain self-related optimistic beliefs. The aim of the current study was to investigate the affect-regulating potential of self-related updating of ability beliefs after exposure to social-evaluative stress, in comparison to non-social […]

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Randomized clinical trial shows no substantial modulation of empathy-related neural activation by intranasal oxytocin in autism

2021, Clinical, Hormones/Neuromodulators, Social Cognition / Sören Krach

Abstract: Evidence suggests that intranasal application of oxytocin facilitates empathy and modulates its underlying neural processes, which are often impaired in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Oxytocin has therefore been considered a promising candidate for the treatment of social difficulties in ASD. However, evidence linking oxytocin treatment to social behavior and brain function in

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Selective suppression of rapid eye movement sleep increases next-day negative affect and amygdala responses to social exclusion

2020, Social Cognition / Sören Krach

Abstract Healthy sleep, positive general affect, and the ability to regulate emotional experiences are fundamental for well-being. In contrast, various mental disorders are associated with altered rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, negative affect, and diminished emotion regulation abilities. However, the neural processes mediating the relationship between these different phenomena are still not fully understood. In

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Negativity-bias in forming beliefs about own abilities

2019, Social Learning / Sören Krach

Abstract During everyday interactions people constantly receive feedback on their behavior, which shapes their beliefs about themselves. While classic studies in the field of social learning suggest that people have a tendency to learn better from good news (positivity bias) when they perceive little opportunities to immediately improve their own performance, we show updating is

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Neural mechanisms of affective matching across faces and scenes

2019, Social Cognition / Sören Krach

Abstract The emotional matching paradigm, introduced by Hariri and colleagues in 2000, is a widely used neuroimaging experiment that reliably activates the amygdala. In the classic version of the experiment faces with negative emotional expression and scenes depicting distressing events are compared with geometric shapes instead of neutral stimuli of the same category (i.e. faces

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Handedness is related to neural mechanisms underlying hemispheric lateralization of face processing

2016, Social Cognition / Sören Krach

Abstract While the right-hemispheric lateralization of the face perception network is well established, recent evidence suggests that handedness affects the cerebral lateralization of face processing at the hierarchical level of the fusiform face area (FFA). However, the neural mechanisms underlying differential hemispheric lateralization of face perception in right- and left-handers are largely unknown. Using dynamic

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