Neural responses to conflicting self- and partner-directed feedback correlate with trait emotion regulation and daily support
Abstract
Empathy lies at the core of social interactions, particularly in intimate relationships, yet few laboratory tasks are designed to capture empathy in interpersonal contexts-especially those requiring individuals to simultaneously process social information directed toward both the self and a romantic partner. In this exploratory study, 131 adults (from 71 romantic couples) completed a neuroimaging paradigm that manipulated whether positive or negative partner-directed feedback was presented alone or alongside selfdirected feedback. The partner-alone feedback contrasts (partner-directed feedback alone versus a neutral control condition) robustly engaged brain regions associated with empathic responding, including the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal junction. Notably, during the incongruent feedback contrasts-simultaneous conflicting self-and partner-directed feedback versus self-directed feedback alone-participants exhibited diminished affective and brain responses but evidenced unique brain activity in frontoparietal areas frequently associated with cognitive control (e.g., dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and supramarginal gyrus). Furthermore, when responding to positive partnerdirected feedback in the presence of negative self-directed feedback, enhanced activity in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex was associated with lower self-reported difficulties in emotion regulation and more partnerrated support provided in everyday life. Taken together, these findings suggest that salient self-focused information may dampen individuals' emotional and neural responses to their partners' uplifting and critical feedback, that emotion regulation tendencies may be an important between-subjects moderator of this effect, and that individual differences in spontaneous neural responses during this task were associated with meaningful real-world outcomes, although further validation and replication are warranted.
Empathy exerts a profound influence on prosocial behavior 1-3 , social connectedness 4 , and mental health 5 , particularly in the context of close relationships 6,7 . While definitions of empathy vary in the literature, recent interdisciplinary efforts describe empathy as the ability to experience others' affective states while maintaining a distinction from one's own emotional experiences 8 . Despite differences in terminology, there is broad agreement that empathy implies three processes: experience sharing, mentalizing, and prosocial concern 9,10 . Although many laboratory-based tasks succeed at eliciting empathy in controlled experimental settings 2,11-13 , capturing the spontaneous empathic responses that occur in everyday life has proven more challenging 14,15 . In daily life, acute stress and salient emotional states can make spontaneous empathy toward others difficult, if not impossible, in some circumstances 16-18 . In these situations, regulating self-focused thoughts and feelings to understand and share the experience of another
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BibTeX
@article{ma2026neural,
title = {{Neural responses to conflicting self- and partner-directed feedback correlate with trait emotion regulation and daily support}},
author = {Shanshan Ma and Erin L Maresh and Andrea M Coppola and Katherine E Richard and Leonie Koban and Diego Guevara Beltran and David A Sbarra and Jessica R Andrews-Hanna},
journal = {Communications Psychology},
year = {2026},
month = jul,
doi = {10.1038/s44271-026-00493-w},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05861885v1},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Neural responses to conflicting self- and partner-directed feedback correlate with trait emotion regulation and daily support
AU - Shanshan Ma
AU - Erin L Maresh
AU - Andrea M Coppola
AU - Katherine E Richard
AU - Leonie Koban
AU - Diego Guevara Beltran
AU - David A Sbarra
AU - Jessica R Andrews-Hanna
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/07/02
JO - Communications Psychology
DO - 10.1038/s44271-026-00493-w
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05861885v1
AB - Empathy lies at the core of social interactions, particularly in intimate relationships, yet few laboratory tasks are designed to capture empathy in interpersonal contexts-especially those requiring individuals to simultaneously process social information directed toward both the self and a romantic partner. In this exploratory study, 131 adults (from 71 romantic couples) completed a neuroimaging paradigm that manipulated whether positive or negative partner-directed feedback was presented alone or alongside selfdirected feedback. The partner-alone feedback contrasts (partner-directed feedback alone versus a neutral control condition) robustly engaged brain regions associated with empathic responding, including the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal junction. Notably, during the incongruent feedback contrasts-simultaneous conflicting self-and partner-directed feedback versus self-directed feedback alone-participants exhibited diminished affective and brain responses but evidenced unique brain activity in frontoparietal areas frequently associated with cognitive control (e.g., dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and supramarginal gyrus). Furthermore, when responding to positive partnerdirected feedback in the presence of negative self-directed feedback, enhanced activity in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex was associated with lower self-reported difficulties in emotion regulation and more partnerrated support provided in everyday life. Taken together, these findings suggest that salient self-focused information may dampen individuals' emotional and neural responses to their partners' uplifting and critical feedback, that emotion regulation tendencies may be an important between-subjects moderator of this effect, and that individual differences in spontaneous neural responses during this task were associated with meaningful real-world outcomes, although further validation and replication are warranted. Empathy exerts a profound influence on prosocial behavior 1-3 , social connectedness 4 , and mental health 5 , particularly in the context of close relationships 6,7 . While definitions of empathy vary in the literature, recent interdisciplinary efforts describe empathy as the ability to experience others' affective states while maintaining a distinction from one's own emotional experiences 8 . Despite differences in terminology, there is broad agreement that empathy implies three processes: experience sharing, mentalizing, and prosocial concern 9,10 . Although many laboratory-based tasks succeed at eliciting empathy in controlled experimental settings 2,11-13 , capturing the spontaneous empathic responses that occur in everyday life has proven more challenging 14,15 . In daily life, acute stress and salient emotional states can make spontaneous empathy toward others difficult, if not impossible, in some circumstances 16-18 . In these situations, regulating self-focused thoughts and feelings to understand and share the experience of another
SN - 2731-9121
ER -