Cultural shaping of neural responses: Feedback-related potentials vary with self-construal and face priming HIDEFUMI HITOKOTO, JAMES GLAZER, AND SHINOBU KITAYAMA Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA Abstract Previous work shows that when an image of a face is presented immediately prior to each trial of a speeded cognitive task (face-priming), the error-related negativity (ERN) is upregulated for Asians, but it is downregulated for Caucasians. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that images of “generalized other” vary cross-culturally such that they evoke anxiety for Asians, whereas they serve as safety cues for Caucasians. Here, we tested whether the cross-cultural variation in the face-priming effect would be observed in a gambling paradigm. Caucasian Americans, Asian Americans, and Asian sojourners were exposed to a brief flash of a schematic face during a gamble. For Asian Americans, face-priming resulted in significant increases of both negative-going deflection of ERP upon negative feedback (feedback-related negativity [FRN]) and positive-going deflection of ERP upon positive feedback (feedback- related positivity [FRP]). For Caucasian Americans, face-priming showed a significant reversal, decreasing both FRN and FRP. The cultural difference in the face-priming effect in FRN and FRP was partially mediated by interdependent self-construal. Curiously, Asian sojourners showed a pattern similar to the one for Caucasian Americans. Our findings suggest that culture shapes neural pathways in both systematic and highly dynamic fashion. Descriptors: Emotion, Individual differences, EEG As Aristotle famously proclaimed, “Man is by nature a social ani- mal.” Modern research in psychology has provided ample evidence for this time-honored observation by examining how humans pro- cess and respond to the faces of their conspecifics. For example, human newborns have an exquisite sensitivity to face stimuli (Meltzoff & Moore, 1983). Among human adults, a specific region of the brain (the fusiform face area) is devoted to processing faces (Kanwisher & Yovel, 2006; Meltzoff & Moore, 1983). And more recent research suggests that a mere exposure to face-like images is sometimes sufficient to modulate one’s motivational state (Haley & Fessler, 2005; Rigdon, Ishii, Watabe, & Kitayama, 2009). In the current work, we built on this growing body of research on face processing and investigated the hypothesis that the motiva- tional effect of an exposure to a face stimulus (face-priming) depends on one’s cultural background. In particular, our previous work suggests that face-priming upregulates error processing for Asians, but it may downregulate it for Caucasian Americans (Kitayama, Snibbe, Markus, & Suzuki, 2004; Na & Kitayama, 2012; Park & Kitayama, 2014). To sharpen our analysis, we drew on existing work on electrocortical responses to reward prediction errors (Holroyd & Coles, 2002), and hypothesized that face- priming would modulate the sensitivity to reward prediction errors depending on the cultural backgrounds of the subjects (Kitayama & Tompson, 2015). Specifically, we anticipated that face-priming would upregulate the electrocortical responses to reward predic- tion errors for individuals with Asian, interdependent cultural backgrounds. In contrast, face-priming was expected to downregu- late such electrocortical responses for those with Caucasian, inde- pendent cultural backgrounds. Culture: Two Senses in the Concept We use the term culture in two different ways, following prior effort by social and behavioral scientists to define this term (Kroeber & Kluckhohn, 1952). First, culture in singular refers to a historically accumulated set of meanings and practices. In this sense, culture varies systematically across regions of the globe in terms of the model of the self that is shared and authenticated therein (Kitayama & Uskul, 2011; Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Second, cultures in plural refer to historically demarcated ethnic or racial groups. Thus, people of Caucasian and Asian descent will be referred to as Caucasians and Asians, respectively. Reflecting long-term ecological conditions and the subsistence systems that they afforded over the last 10,000 years, cultural tradi- tions that emerged in Eastern regions of the Eurasian continent (Asian cultures) are thought to be more interdependent or less inde- pendent compared with the traditions that developed in relatively The research reported here was supported by a Walter R. Lambuth grant from Kwansei Gakuin University to Hidefumi Hitokoto and a National Science Foundation grant (SES 1325881) to Shinobu Kitayama. This article benefitted from comments made by members of the Culture and Cognition Lab of the University of Michigan on an earlier draft. Address correspondence to: Shinobu Kitayama, Department of Psy- chology, University of Michigan, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA. E-mail: Kitayama@umich.edu 52 Psychophysiology, 53 (2016), 52–63. Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Printed in the USA. Copyright V C 2015 Society for Psychophysiological Research DOI: 10.1111/psyp.12554