If you're happy and you know it: neural correlates of self-evaluated psychological health and well-being.

Abstract

Psychological health and well-being have important implications for individual and societal thriving. Research underscores the subjective nature of well-being, but how do individuals intuit this subjective sense of well-being in the moment? This pre-registered study addresses this question by examining the neural correlates of self-evaluated psychological health and their dynamic relationship with trial-level evaluations. Participants (N = 105) completed a self-evaluation task and made judgments about three facets of psychological health and positive functioning-self-oriented well-being, social well-being and ill-being. Consistent with pre-registered hypotheses, self-evaluation elicited activity in the default mode network, and there was strong spatial overlap among constructs. Trial-level analyses assessed whether and how activity in a priori regions of interest-perigenual anterior cingulate cortex (pgACC), ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and ventral striatum-were related to subjective evaluations. These regions explained additional variance in whether participants endorsed or rejected items but were differentially related to evaluations. Stronger activity in pgACC was associated with a higher probability of endorsement across constructs, whereas stronger activity in vmPFC was associated with a higher probability of endorsing ill-being items, but a lower probability of endorsing self-oriented and social well-being items. These results add nuance to neurocognitive accounts of self-evaluation and extend our understanding of the neurobiological basis of subjective psychological health and well-being.