Neural signatures of socially shaped self-worth: A meta-analysis

Maintaining a positive sense of self-worth across social contexts is central to adaptive functioning and well-being. This meta-analysis examined three major fMRI paradigms related to positive representation of self-worth: self-appraisal, social feedback, and social comparison. We synthesized 48 studies (self-appraisal: 16, social feedback: 17, social comparison: 15) focusing on healthy individuals. Pooled analysis revealed consistent activation in a large dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) cluster extending to rostromedial prefrontal cortex (rmPFC), and caudate nucleus. Conjunction analyses and category-specific analyses revealed that the rmPFC was consistently engaged across all three contexts. Additionally, categorical regression analyses showed that the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) are preferentially engaged in self-appraisal, whereas the ventral striatum (VS) was most strongly recruited during social comparison and only modestly recruited during social feedback. These findings highlight the central role of the rmPFC in self-worth processing across contexts and suggest that self-esteem functions as a generative model supported by the PCC and dmPFC for internal self-appraisal, while the VS processes external prediction errors from social feedback and comparison, dynamically calibrating one’s sense of social worth.