How Brains with Depression and Anxiety Handle Social Comparison
People with depression and social anxiety show heightened default mode network activation during upward social comparison, reflecting greater internal distress and rumination.
Source
Increased default mode network activation in depression and social anxiety during upward social comparison
What they did
The researchers evaluated 56 participants with depression and/or social anxiety symptoms and 47 healthy controls using functional magnetic resonance imaging. While in the scanner, participants completed a trivia game where they were told they were playing against a peer, though the feedback was actually preprogrammed. In each trial, participants saw whether they answered correctly or incorrectly alongside the performance of their partner, creating conditions of upward and downward social comparison.
What they found
When out-performed by their partner, participants in both groups experienced negative emotions, but those with depression or social anxiety reported significantly higher levels of negative feelings like embarrassment and guilt. Brain imaging revealed that during this upward comparison, the clinical group exhibited heightened activity in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and failed to deactivate the posteromedial cortex. These areas are key hubs of the default mode network, suggesting that underperforming triggers deep, inward-focused self-criticism and rumination in these individuals.
The limits
What it doesn't show
The study relied on a specific sample of university students, which prevents generalizing these findings to broader, more diverse age groups or clinical demographics. Because the researchers grouped participants with depression, social anxiety, or both together, the data cannot distinguish whether these neural responses are unique to one of these disorders. Additionally, 3 datasets were excluded from all analyses and 2 more from imaging due to technical issues, and the study did not find the expected group differences in brain reward pathways during downward comparison.
Key terms
- Default Mode Network
- A network of interacting brain regions that is highly active when a person is not focused on the outside world and is instead engaged in internal processes like daydreaming, self-reflection, and rumination.
- Upward social comparison
- Comparing oneself to another person who is perceived as superior, more successful, or more skilled.
- Downward social comparison
- Comparing oneself to another person who is perceived as less successful, skilled, or fortunate.
- Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex
- A brain region involved in social cognition, self-referential processing, and evaluating the mental states of others.
- Posteromedial cortex
- A region in the back-middle of the brain that typically decreases in activity during attention-demanding external tasks.
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Quiz yourself
In social comparison theory, how are upward and downward comparisons defined?
Common questions
How did the researchers make sure participants believed they were playing against a real person?
The researchers showed participants a pre-recorded video of a fake partner greeting them and told them they would meet via Zoom after the scanning session.
Why did the researchers combine depression and social anxiety into one clinical group?
These disorders frequently occur together, share a similar profile of high negative and low positive emotions, and are both characterized by negative self-views and excessive rumination.
What did the researchers expect to find in the brain's reward regions during downward comparison?
They hypothesized that the clinical group would show reduced activation in reward-related areas like the striatum during downward comparisons, but this difference was not found.
How do the brain responses of the control group differ during upward comparison?
Healthy controls deactivated the posteromedial cortex when outperformed, which suggests they successfully shifted their attention to the external environment, whereas the clinical group did not.
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