Abstract
Social aggression referred to the intentionally antisocial behavior directed to damage others’ social reputations or interpersonal relationships through socially manipulative tactics. Sufficient evidence demonstrated the potential role of personality traits such as Machiavellianism in increasing social aggression. However, little was known about the brain structure basis of social aggression and how Machiavellianism and the underlying neuroanatomical mechanisms linked to social aggression. In this investigation, we examined these issues in a sample of 176 undergraduate students via voxel-based morphometry (VBM). The whole-brain regression analyses indicated that the regional gray matter volume (rGMV) in the left superior frontal gyrus (SFG) was linked to both Machiavellianism and social aggression. Furthermore, mediation analysis revealed that the rGMV of the overlapping SFG mediated the relationship between Machiavellianism and social aggression, as well as Machiavellianism mediated the relation between the rGMV of the overlapping region in the SFG and social aggression. These results indicated that Machiavellianism and social aggression shared the common brain correlates in left SFG and provided two possible mediation models regarding the relationship among Machiavellianism, the feature of brain structure and social aggression. Taken together, our study provided the first anatomical evidence that the SFG as the key region related to social aggression, and discovered the possibly underlying brain-personality mechanism behind the development of social aggression.
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The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
For their suggestions and information, the authors wish to thank all study participants and all research collaborators from Southwest University, Beijing Normal University, Guangxi Normal University.
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This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32171071), General project of Chongqing Natural Science Foundation (cstc2021jcyj-msxmX0607), and Educational Information Science and Technology Cultivation Project of Natural Science (2020JY001).The funding institutions had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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Gong, X., Quan, F., Wang, L. et al. The relationship among regional gray matter volume in the brain, Machiavellianism and social aggression in emerging adulthood: A voxel-based morphometric study. Curr Psychol 42, 25160–25170 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03574-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03574-1