The effects of depression tendency and social comparison on adolescent self-evaluation

According to current research, the electrophysiological responses to self evaluation are influenced by social comparison. Using the event-related potential (ERP), we explored the neural mechanisms of the self evaluation of a depression tendency using a social comparison (stranger-result). The subjects engaged in a two-person, money game task with a stranger. The behavioral results showed that the subjects were more satisfied with self-win than with self-loss, and the self-result regarding satisfaction was unaffected by a depression tendency or a stranger-result. The electroencephalogram (EEG) results showed that as self-result, self-win induced a larger P2, a smaller feedback-related negativity (FRN), and a larger P3 than self-loss; the self-result effect was influenced by a depression tendency and a stranger-result in the early and middle latency windows, respectively, and affected by a stranger-result in the later latency window; the non-depression tendency (NDT) group induced a larger P2 than the depression tendency (DT) group; a stranger-loss induced a larger P2 and P3 than a stranger-win in self-loss; a stranger-win induced a larger P2 and P3 than a stranger-loss in self-win; the DT group was the same as the NDT group in self-loss; the DT group induced a larger FRN than the NDT group in self-win. Our research indicates that the self evaluation is affected by a depression tendency and stranger-result respectively, and in the two-person game, the subjective report of the subjects contains a certain degree of concealment.