INTRODUCTION: Throughout the history of philosophy and psychology, the question of the self has been one of the most salient problems. In the contemporary social and cognitive neuroscience, there is an ongoing debate on brain correlates associated with processing of the self. Electrophysiological studies in this field consistently reveal higher amplitudes of early and late ERP components associated with processing of self-related information vs. information referring to other people (i.e. a self‑preference effect). The question, however, arises whether this preference is influenced by personal characteristics of participants. AIM(S): The aim of the current ERP study was to investigate whether the self-esteem modulates neural correlates of self‑related information processing. Specifically, we were interested whetherthe level ofself‑esteem would exertsignificantinfluence on amplitudes of late positive ERP component appearing approximately 600 ms after stimuli onset (i.e. LPC) recorded in the self vs. other reflection task. METHOD(S): Low self-esteem (LSE) and high (HSE) self-esteem groups of participants (20 in each group) were tasked with judging whether a given adjective was suitable to describe/characterize one’s own person (the self), a close-other and famous person. Yes/no responses were given by pressing one of two buttons on a response pad. EEG was continuously recorded from 62 scalp sites using a 128‑channel amplifier (Quick Amp), and BrainVisionRecorder® software. RESULTS: In general, the process of reflection on the self was associated with significantly higher mean LPC amplitudes in comparison to control conditions (targets of reflection: a close‑other and a famous person), indicating a strong self‑preference effect. Importantly, this effect was much stronger in the HSE group. CONCLUSIONS: Explicit self-esteem modulates electrophysiological correlates of self-related information processing. FINANCIAL SUPPORT: This work was funded by the National Science Centre [2015/19/B/HS6/01258].
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