Markus Quirin, André Kerber, Ekkehard Küstermann, Elise L Radtke, Miguel Kazén, Carsten Konrad, Nicola Baumann, Richard M Ryan, Michael Ennis, Julius Kuhl
Humans are unconditionally confronted with social expectations and norms, up to a degree that they, or some of them, have a hard time recognizing what they actually want. This renders them susceptible for introjection, that is, to unwittingly or "unconsciously" mistake social expectations for self-chosen goals. Such introjections compromise an individual's autonomy and mental health and have been shown to be more prevalent in individuals with rumination tendencies and low emotional self-awareness. In this brain imaging study, we draw on a source memory task and found that introjections, as indicated by imposed tasks that are falsely recognized as self-chosen, involved the bilateral medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)...
2022: Frontiers in Psychology