Consciousness and Cognition 17 (2008) 451–456

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Consciousness and Cognition

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate /concog

Elucidating the neural correlates of egoistic and moralisticself-enhancement

Veronica Barrios a, Virginia S.Y. Kwan b, Giorgio Ganis c,d,e, Jaime Gorman a,Jennifer Romanowski a, Julian Paul Keenan a,*

a Cognitive Neuroimaging Laboratory, Montclair State University, 219 Dickson Hall, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043, USAb Department of Psychology, Princeton University, 2N8 Green Hall, Princeton, NJ 08540, USAc Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USAd Department of Psychology, Harvard University, William James Hall, Cambridge, MA 02138, USAe Massachusetts General Hospital, Athinoula Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, 149 Thirteenth Street, Suite 2301, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 28 February 2008Available online 15 April 2008

Keywords:Self-deceptionMedial prefrontal cortexMPFCTranscranial magnetic stimulationTMSSelf-awarenessSelf-enhancement

1053-8100/$ - see front matter � 2008 Elsevier Incdoi:10.1016/j.concog.2008.03.006

* Corresponding author. Fax: +1 9736555121.E-mail address: keenanj@mail.montclair.edu (J.P

a b s t r a c t

Self-enhancement is the biasing of one’s view of oneself in a positive direction. The brain cor-relates of self-enhancement remain unclear though it has been reported that the medial pre-frontal cortex (MPFC) may be important for producing self-enhancing responses. Previousstudies have not examined whether the neural correlates of self-enhancement depend onthe particular domain in which individuals are enhancing themselves. Both moralistic andegoistic words were presented to participants while transcranial magnetic stimulation(TMS) was applied to the MPFC, precuneus or in a sham orientation. Participants were askedto make decisions as to the words describing themselves, some of which were positive andsome of which were negative. It was found the MPFC TMS significantly disrupted egoisticself-enhancement when TMS was delivered to the MPFC. Judgments involving moralisticwords were not influenced by TMS. These data provide further evidence that MPFC isinvolved in self-enhancement, and that the role of MPFC may be selective in this regard.

� 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

John and Robins (1994) asserted that ‘‘the self is a ‘special’ kind of observer” (p. 217), such that the way we perceive our-selves is different from the way we perceive others. Previous research has shown that individuals are often biased in theirown self-perception when compared to perceptions of others (see Taylor & Brown, 1988). Individuals with high levels of self-enhancement bias also those tend to be narcissistic (Paulhus, 1998). On the other hand, self-enhancement bias may serve thepurpose of maintaining mental health (Mar, DeYoung, Higgins, & Peterson, 2006; Taylor & Brown, 1988, 1994).

Indeed, two theories of depressive cognition, including depressive realism (Alloy & Abramson, 1988) and negative self-judgment bias (Beck, 1967), suggest that depressed individuals lack traditional self-enhancement biases that nondepressedindividuals normally display. Interestingly, PET studies of depressed individuals have provided evidence of decreased bloodflow to medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) (Drevets et al., 1992). Additionally, increased lesions in medial orbital PFC are asso-ciated with late-onset depression and correlate with severity of depression (MacFall, Payne, Provenzale, & Krishnan, 2001).While these data alone are not necessarily suggestive of the role of the MPFC in self-enhancement, other patient studies havehighlighted its possible role: patients with frontotemporal dementia not only exaggerate positive and minimize negativepersonality qualities (Rankin, Baldwin, Pace-Savitsky, Kramer, & Miller, 2005) but they also display a general deficit in

. All rights reserved.

. Keenan).

452 V. Barrios et al. / Consciousness and Cognition 17 (2008) 451–456

self-evaluation and error monitoring (O’Keeffe et al., 2007). Clearly, while this excludes many of the complexities of depres-sion in terms of cortico-limbic networks and systems (Mayberg, 2003; Ressler & Mayberg, 2007), the data suggest that self-enhancement may play a role in depression and such enhancement may be mediated via MPFC structures.

Although it remains uncertain if the MPFC plays a role in self-enhancement, there is considerable evidence that it may beinvolved in networks associated with self-monitoring and self-evaluation (Johnson et al., 2005; Ochsner et al., 2004, 2005).For example, researchers have noted MPFC involvement during evaluation of self-relevant adjectives or statements (Craiket al., 1999; Fossati et al., 2003, 2004; Heatherton et al., 2006; Johnson et al., 2002 & Lou et al., 2004). Furthermore, activityin the MPFC has been noted during general self-reflection (Gusnard & Raichle, 2001; Johnson et al., 2006). Of course, self-perception itself involves more than a single perspective and researchers have documented separate cortical networks fordirected (‘how you perceive yourself’) and reflected (‘how others perceive you’) self evaluations. Whereas directed self-eval-uation resulted in significant activation in MPFC, right PFC, and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), reflected self-evaluationactivated regions of the orbital frontal, insula, and temporal cortices (Ochsner et al., 2005).

While the findings of these and other studies have provided suggestive evidence of MPFC involvement in directevaluations of the self, it is still unclear whether these regions are additionally responsible for the enhancement of positiveself-evaluations. Recently, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to disrupt activity in the MPFC, supplementarymotor area (SMA) or precuneus during a self-evaluation task and found that TMS delivered to the MPFC reduced self-enhancement (Kwan et al., 2007). These data suggest that at least the dorsal aspects of the MPFC (dMPFC) may be involvedin self-enhancement which is consistent with literature differentiating regions of the MPFC (D’Argembeau et al., 2007;Schmitz & Johnson, 2007). And while it is controversial as to the influence TMS may have on deeper regions (i.e., vMPFC),certainly the effect is greater to dorsal, rather than ventral regions in terms of medial aspects. Therefore, it is possible thatour previous finding may be limited to aspects of self-enhancement that are more self-related (i.e., egoistic) rather thaninteractive (i.e., moralistic) and thus involve more ventral aspects of the MPFC (Mitchell, Macrae, & Banaji, 2006).

Clearly, self-enhancement may involve multiple concepts as the role of personality, values, and motives may interact withwhat can be constituted as self-enhancement. For example, Paulhus and John (1998) have alluded to a distinction betweentwo forms of self-enhancement defined by two personality forms: the alpha ‘‘superhero” type personality and gamma ‘‘saint-like” personality. While the alpha personality type, termed ‘‘egoistic,” is described as obtaining an inflated sense of worth,specifically regarding social and intellectual status, because of want of power and status, the gamma personality type,termed ‘‘moralistic,” has an inflated sense of good character, specifically by observance of social norms, due to the needfor acceptance (Paulhus & John, 1998). In essence, individuals self-enhance in accordance to their personality types, thoughthe nature of this relation on a causal level is not known.

The purpose of the current study was 2-fold. We first sought to replicate the findings reported in Kwan et al. (2007) inwhich self-enhancement was disrupted via TMS delivered to the MPFC. In addition, we hoped to further elucidate the roleof the cortical networks of self-enhancement to determine if different forms of enhancement would be related to midlinecortical structures.

2. Method

2.1. Participants

Ten female university students were recruited by word of mouth for the study. All participants were paid $25 for theirparticipation. All of the participants were treated in accordance to the guidelines set forth by the Institutional Review Boardat Montclair State University and the guidelines of the American Psychological Association.

2.1.1. Measures of self-enhancementTo measure self-enhancement, one of the authors and two experts in personality psychology selected 128 trait adjectives

from Anderson0s (1968) list, ensuring that each selected adjective reflects either egoistic or moralistic self-enhancement butnot both. Sixty-four adjectives were moralistic (e.g., considerate, moral), and sixty-four were egoistic (e.g., ambitious, pop-ular). Of these, half were rated as being positive and half as negative (see Anderson, 1968). Therefore, there were 32 positiveegoistic words, 32 negative egoistic words, 32 positive moralistic words, and 32 negative egoistic words. The study was runin eight blocks. For each brain site (Sham, MPFC, and Pz, as defined below), two lists of adjectives were presented- one for self(‘does this word describe you?’) and for other (‘does this word describe your best friend?’). Therefore, for each block (i.e., self-ratings at MPFC) a total of 16 words were presented. Participants indicated their response (yes or no) via a standard key-board. Best friend was defined as being the person the participant felt closest with, of the same gender, in which therewas a high degree of familiarity.

Reaction time was measured as the time of adjective onset to key response. TMS was delivered 500 ms after adjectiveonset for all trials. Self-enhancement was computed via the same method used previously (Kwan et al., 2007). In brief,we first assigned a value of ‘‘1” to a ‘‘yes” response and a value of ‘‘0” to a ‘‘no” response to the desirable adjectives. We thendid the reverse (�1 for a ‘‘yes” response) for the undesirable adjectives and added the partial scores so that a total value over0 indicated a tendency to respond positively, whereas a value under 0 indicated a tendency to respond negatively. Next, wecompared the ratings for self to the ratings for the best friend (Kwan et al., 2007).

V. Barrios et al. / Consciousness and Cognition 17 (2008) 451–456 453

2.2. Procedure

The guidelines of Wasserman (1998) were used to set the limits of stimulation throughout the entire testing session. Thetesting involved two phases: motor threshold (MT) determination and the main experiment. The participants were first fit-ted with a tight fitting lycra swim cap. Single suprathreshold TMS pulses were then delivered in an attempt to locate theregion that provided the maximal MEP response in the contralateral Abductor Pollicis Brevis (APB) muscle. The coil wasmoved until the region was found that induced MEPs of maximal peak-to-peak amplitude. Determination of individualMT was employed using procedures as outlined by the IFCN (Rossini et al., 1994), such that threshold was established when50% (5 of 10) of the TMS pulses delivered induced a measured MEP of P50 uV. All stimulation was delivered at 90% MT. AllMT measurements were made via BioPac MP150 amplifiers and software. Once the MT intensity was determined, the capwas marked in the 10/20 International system for EEG electrode positions.

The regions of interest were the Precuneus (Pz) and the anterior portion of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex (MPFC). DuringSham, the TMS coil was held at a 90� orientation and held over the vertex (Cz). Stimulation sites and measurements weresimilar to the anterior and posterior active sites described in Kwan et al. (2007).

Baseline performance was measured by a Sham condition. For all testing sessions, the participants wore protective ear-plugs to prevent transient threshold shifts caused by exposure to the acoustic artifact generated by the discharge of the TMScoil (Wasserman, 1998). Total testing time was approximately 60 min.

3. Results

Before examining self-enhancement, we examined reaction time. Overall reaction time was 740.92 (SE = 103.1). A three-way interaction was found using a 2 � 3 � 2 ANOVA (Word Type � Brain Site � Self-Other) using a within groups ANOVA(F(2,16) = 4.02, p = .039). Post-hoc comparisons across brain regions and word types revealed that there was a significantself-other difference at MPFC for egoistic words such that the reaction time for self (M = 903.20, SE = 141.45) was longer thanfor other (M = 678.10, SE = 104.91; t(9) = 2.35, p = .043. There were no other differences (all p’s > .05). This finding indicatedthat judgments for self were longer when the words were ego-based.

We then tested directly for self-enhancement. The overall self-enhancement score across all stimulation sites was �.183(SE = .23), indicating that there was a tendency across all conditions for the participants to not self-enhance. This value, how-ever, did not differ significantly from zero (i.e., no self-enhancement; t(9) = �.83, p = .43, ns). There was, however, a signif-icant difference between moralistic and egoistic self-enhancing such that there was more self-enhancing for moralisticwords (M = .37, SE = .35) than for egoistic words (M = �.73, SE = .30; p = .048; Fig. 1).

A 2 � 3 within groups ANOVA (Word Type x Brain Site) was employed to test for differences. There was a significant inter-action (F(2,16) = 5.71, p = .013). Post-hoc comparisons were then made to identify the nature of the interaction. We firstcompared the active conditions to sham and found that there were no differences for precuneus TMS for egoistic(t(9) = .15, p = .88; M = �.30, SD = 1.89) or moralistic words (t(9) = �1.10, p = .30; M = 0, SD = 1.41) when compared to shamTMS (sham ego M = �.4, SD�.96; sham moral M = .5, SD = 1.65), nor was there a difference for MPFC TMS for moralisticwords (t(9) = .17, p = .87; M = .6, SD = 1.43)). However, there was a difference between Sham TMS and MPFC TMS for egoisticwords (t(9) = �2.28, p = .048; M = �1.5, SD = 1.65) such that MPFC TMS significantly reduced self enhancement. These resultsindicate that the MPFC may be important for ego-based self-enhancement. Further, these data served as an extension of theprevious report.

We also examined the word types across brain regions and found no differences between moralistic and egoistic wordsfor Sham TMS (t(9) = �1.41, p = .19) and precuneus TMS (t(9) = �.39, p = .71). However, there was a difference for MPFC TMS(t(9) = �3.58, p = .006), indicating less self-enhancement following MPFC TMS for ego words as compared to moral words.This finding also indicates that the MPFC may be specific for egoistic evaluations in terms of self-enhancement. These datareplicate our previous finding that MPFC is critical for self-enhancement, though the effect may be exclusively for egoisticevaluations.

4. Discussion

There were two goals for this experiment. Initially, we wanted to replicate the results found in the Kwan et al. (2007)study, providing support for the finding that TMS delivered to the medial prefrontal cortex disrupts self-enhancement. Sec-ondly, we hoped to shed light on the neural correlates differentiating egoistic and moralistic self-enhancement. Significantdifferences in the current study centered on the MPFC region. Specifically, when investigating the relationship between wordtypes and brain regions, it was found that compared to both sham and precuneus stimulation, TMS applied to the MPFC sig-nificantly reduced self-enhancement for ego-related words. These results suggest that the role of MPFC in self-enhancementis primarily ego-based in the present sample. Therefore, we have replicated the original finding that the MPFC is involved inself-enhancement.

An interesting finding is that the subjects had an overall tendency to not self-enhance. This finding was unexpected, asself-enhancement is commonly found in Americans (Mar et al., 2006; Taylor & Brown, 1988, 1994). However, there are anumber of populations in which there is a tendency towards either no self-enhancement or self-effacing (Beck, 1967; John

Fig. 1. The bar graph illustrates the means and standard errors for self-enhancement scores. Significant differences were found at MPFC for egoistic wordswhen compared to sham TMS. Within the MPFC TMS condition, there was a significant difference between moralistic and egoistic words (all p’s < .05).Stimulation site locations are illustrated on an anatomical MRI obtained from an individual not used in the study.

454 V. Barrios et al. / Consciousness and Cognition 17 (2008) 451–456

& Robins, 1994). For example, it has been found that depressed subjects tend to demonstrate decreased or no self-enhance-ment (Alloy & Abramson, 1988). This may have been a feature of the current sample. However, even with this general ten-dency, TMS delivered to MPFC resulted in self-enhancement reductions (for egoistic judgments). Future studies shouldscreen participants for depression, even when recruited from non-clinical pools.

Gender may play a role in self-enhancement. In the current study, 100% of the participants were female. Previous studieshave indicated there may be differences in the self-enhancement levels between Japanese males and females when mea-sured for specific types of traits, with females having less of a tendency to self-enhance (Heine & Lehman, 1997). Paulhus

V. Barrios et al. / Consciousness and Cognition 17 (2008) 451–456 455

and John (1998) describe moralistic biases in self-enhancement as a ‘‘Gamma” trait type (as compared to ‘‘Alpha” responderswho are more ego-based). Response styles of the Gamma type were described as having a propagandistic bias (Damarin &Messick, 1965); a bias towards impression management (Paulhus, 1984); an emphasis on faking and lying (Edwards, 1970);and increased self-deceptive denial (Paulhus & Reid, 1991). In terms of self-evaluation and self-favoring, the Gamma type issaid to: have a Protestant ethic (Messick, 1960); consider oneself ‘‘socially good” (Rosenberg & Sedlack, 1972); and, to have aneed for approval (Raskin, Novacek, & Hogan, 1991). From the social-role perspective, there is a good reason to expect sig-nificant gender differences in these two types of self-enhancement. Future studies should replicate the present differences inegoistic and moralistic self-enhancement in terms of gender and perhaps country of origin.

There were no significant results in terms of identifying the neural correlates of moralistic self-enhancement. This lack offinding may demonstrate a number of significant limitations in employing TMS. First, all assumptions are made a priori interms of neural correlates. While we found that MPFC TMS did not influence moralistic self-enhancement, we are cautious toconclude anything based on this null result. Future studies should investigate other possible brain candidates or specifyareas with the MPFC. Ventral MPFC may be involved in more social awareness, in turn leading to more moralistic typesof enhancement (Greene, 2007; Heekeren, Wartenburger, Schmidt, Schwintowski, & Villringer, 2003). Again, TMS may notbe the ideal technique for investigating this possibility, though recent advances in coil design demonstrate promise inaddressing these types of questions (Hayward et al., 2007; Roth, Amir, Levkovitz, & Zangen, 2007; Salvador, Miranda, Roth,& Zangen, 2007).

In conclusion, the current study has investigated the role of the MPFC and other cortical structures in terms of moralisticand egoistic self-enhancement via TMS. It was found that MPFC stimulation results in disrupted self-enhancement, but thatthis effect may be limited to ego-related attributes. The difference was made evident by a delayed reaction time for self-eval-uations of ego-based words, and decreased egoistic self-enhancements following TMS at the MPFC. No statistically signifi-cant findings were available on the specific correlates of moralistic self-enhancement bias. However, past research hashinted at—and future studies should explore—the possible role of other brain regions in specific types of self-enhancementsuch as the ventral MPFC (Schmitz & Johnson, 2007).

References

Alloy, L. B., & Abramson, L. Y. (1988). Depressive realism: Four theoretical perspectives. In L. B. Alloy (Ed.), Cognitive processes in depression (pp. 223–265).New York: Guilford Press.

Anderson, N. (1968). Likeableness ratings of 555 personality-trait adjectives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 9(3), 272–279.Beck, A. T. (1967). Depression: Clinical, experimental, and theoretical aspects. New York: Harper and Row.Craik, F. I. M., Moroz, T. M., Moscovitch, M., Stuss, D. T., Winocur, G., Tulving, E., et al (1999). In search of the self: A positron emission tomography study.

Psychological Science, 10(1), 26–34.D’Argembeau, A., Ruby, P., Collette, F., Degueldre, C., Balteau, E., Luxen, A., et al (2007). Distinct regions of the medial prefrontal cortex are associated with

self-referential processing and perspective taking. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19(6), 935–944.Damarin, F., & Messick, S. (1965). Response styles as personality variables: A theoretical integration of multivariate research. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing

Service.Drevets, W. C., Videen, T. O., Price, J. L., Preskorn, S. H., Carmichael, S. T., & Raichle, M. E. (1992). A functional anatomical study of unipolar depression. The

Journal of Neuroscience, 12(9), 3628–3641.Edwards, A. L. (1970). The measurement of personality traits by scales and inventories. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Fossati, P., Hevenor, S. J., Graham, S. J., Grady, C., Keightley, M. L., Craik, F., et al (2003). In search of the emotional self: An FMRI study using positive and

negative emotional words. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 160(11), 1938–1945.Fossati, P., Hevenor, S. J., Lepage, M., Graham, S. J., Grady, C., Keightley, M. L., et al (2004). Distributed self in episodic memory: Neural correlates of successful

retrieval of self-encoded positive and negative personality traits. Neuroimage, 22(4), 1596–1604.Greene, J. D. (2007). Why are VMPFC patients more utilitarian? A dual-process theory of moral judgment explains. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11(8),

322–323. author reply 323–324.Gusnard, D. A., & Raichle, M. E. (2001). Searching for a baseline: Functional imaging and the resting human brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2(10),

685–694.Hayward, G., Mehta, M. A., Harmer, C., Spinks, T. J., Grasby, P. M., & Goodwin, G. M. (2007). Exploring the physiological effects of double-cone coil TMS over

the medial frontal cortex on the anterior cingulate cortex: An H2(15)O PET study. The European Journal of Neuroscience, 25(7), 2224–2233.Heatherton, T. F., Wyland, C. L., Macrae, C. N., Demos, K. E., Denny, B. T., & Kelley, W. M. (2006). Medial prefrontal activity differentiates self from close

others. Social Cognitve and Affective Neuroscience, 1(1), 18.Heekeren, H. R., Wartenburger, I., Schmidt, H., Schwintowski, H. P., & Villringer, A. (2003). An fMRI study of simple ethical decision-making. Neuroreport,

14(9), 1215–1219.Heine, S. J., & Lehman, D. R. (1997). The cultural construction of self-enhancement: An examination of group-serving biases. Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology, 72(6), 1268–1283.John, O. P., & Robins, R. W. (1994). Accuracy and bias in self-perception: Individual differences in self-enhancement and the role of narcissism. Journal of

Personality and Social Psychology, 66(1), 206–219.Johnson, M. K., Raye, C. L., Mitchell, K. J., Touryan, S. R., Greene, E. J., & Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (2006). Dissociating medial frontal and posterior cingulate activity

during self-reflection. Social Cognitve and Affective Neuroscience, 1(1), 56.Johnson, S., Schmitz, T., Kawahara-Baccus, T., Rowley, H., Alexander, A., Lee, J., et al (2005). The cerebral response during subjective choice with and without

self-reference. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 17(12), 1897–1906.Johnson, S. C., Baxter, L. C., Wilder, L. S., Pipe, J. G., Heiserman, J. E., & Prigatano, G. P. (2002). Neural correlates of self-reflection. Brain, 125(8), 1808–1814.Kwan, V. S., Barrios, V., Ganis, G., Gorman, J., Lange, C., Kumar, M., et al (2007). Assessing the neural correlates of self-enhancement bias: A transcranial

magnetic stimulation study. Experimental Brain Research, 182(3), 379–385.Lou, H. C., Luber, B., Crupain, M., Keenan, J. P., Nowak, M., Kjaer, T. W., et al (2004). Parietal cortex and representation of the mental self. Proceedings of the

National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 101(17), 6827–6832.MacFall, J. R., Payne, M. E., Provenzale, J. E., & Krishnan, K. R. R. (2001). Medial orbital frontal lesions in late-onset depression. Biological Psychiatry, 49(9),

803–806.Mar, R. A., DeYoung, C. G., Higgins, D. M., & Peterson, J. B. (2006). Self-liking and self-competence separate self-evaluation from self-deception: Associations

with personality, ability, and achievement. Journal of Personality, 74(4), 1047–1078.

456 V. Barrios et al. / Consciousness and Cognition 17 (2008) 451–456

Mayberg, H. S. (2003). Modulating dysfunctional limbic-cortical circuits in depression: Towards development of brain-based algorithms for diagnosis andoptimised treatment. British Medical Bulletin, 65, 193–207.

Messick, S. (1960). Dimensions of social desirability. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 24, 279–287.Mitchell, J. P., Macrae, C. N., & Banaji, M. R. (2006). Dissociable medial prefrontal contributions to judgments of similar and dissimilar others. Neuron, 50(4),

655–663.O’Keeffe, F. M., Murray, B., Coen, R. F., Dockree, P. M., Bellgrove, M. A., Garavan, H., et al (2007). Loss of insight in frontotemporal dementia, corticobasal

degeneration and progressive supranuclear palsy. Brain, 130(3), 753.Ochsner, K. N., Beer, J. S., Robertson, E. R., Cooper, J. C., Gabrieli, J. D., Kihsltrom, J. F., et al (2005). The neural correlates of direct and reflected self-knowledge.

Neuroimage, 28(4), 797–814.Ochsner, K. N., Knierim, K., Ludlow, D. H., Hanelin, J., Ramachandran, T., Glover, G., et al (2004). Reflecting upon feelings: An fMRI study of neural systems

supporting the attribution of emotion to self and other. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16(10), 1746–1772.Paulhus, D. L. (1984). Two-component models of socially desirable responding. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46(3), 598–609.Paulhus, D. L. (1998). Interpersonal and intrapsychic adaptiveness of trait self-enhancement: A mixed blessing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,

74(5), 1197–1208.Paulhus, D. L., & John, O. P. (1998). Egoistic and moralistic biases in self-perception: The interplay of self-deceptive styles with basic traits and motives.

Journal of Personality, 66(6), 1025–1060.Paulhus, D. L., & Reid, D. B. (1991). Enhancement and denial in socially desirable responding. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60(2), 307–317.Rankin, K. P., Baldwin, E., Pace-Savitsky, C., Kramer, J. H., & Miller, B. L. (2005). Self awareness and personality change in dementia. Journal of Neurology

Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, 76(5), 632–639.Raskin, R., Novacek, J., & Hogan, R. (1991). Narcissism, self-esteem, and defensive self-enhancement. Journal of Personality, 59(1), 19–38.Ressler, K. J., & Mayberg, H. S. (2007). Targeting abnormal neural circuits in mood and anxiety disorders: From the laboratory to the clinic. Nature

Neuroscience, 10(9), 1116–1124.Rosenberg, S., & Sedlack, A. (1972). Structural representations of perceived personality trait relationships. In A. K. Romney, R. N. Shepard, & S. B. Nerlove

(Eds.), Multidimensional scaling. New York: Seminar Press.Rossini, P. M., Barker, A. T., Berardelli, A., Caramia, M. D., Caruso, G., Cracco, R. Q., et al (1994). Non-invasive electrical and magnetic stimulation of the brain,

spinal cord and roots: Basic principles and procedures for routine clinical application. Report of an IFCN committee. EEG and Clinical Neurophysiology,91(2), 79–92.

Roth, Y., Amir, A., Levkovitz, Y., & Zangen, A. (2007). Three-dimensional distribution of the electric field induced in the brain by transcranial magneticstimulation using figure-8 and deep H-coils. Journal of Clinical Neurophysiology, 24(1), 31–38.

Salvador, R., Miranda, P. C., Roth, Y., & Zangen, A. (2007). High-permeability core coils for transcranial magnetic stimulation of deep brain regions. Conferenceof Proceedings of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine Biological Society, 1, 6652–6655.

Schmitz, T. W., & Johnson, S. C. (2007). Relevance to self: A brief review and framework of neural systems underlying appraisal. Neuroscience andBiobehavioral Reviews, 31(4), 585–596.

Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. (1988). Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103(2), 193–210.Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. (1994). Positive illusions and well-being revisited: Separating fact from fiction. Psychological Bulletin, 116(1), 21–27.Wasserman, E. M. (1998). Risk and safety of repetitive TMS: Report and suggested guidelines from International Workshop on the safety or TMS. EEG and

Clinical Neurophysiology, 108, 1–16.