Study: Modest People Handle Criticism More Easily 0 10

Researchers from Peking University have concluded that modesty influences the processing of social feedback in the brain. This is reported by HBM.

In an experiment involving 47 young men and women, MRI scanning was used: participants completed a task simulating peer evaluation and received feedback—positive or negative, expected or unexpected.

Analysis revealed differences in brain activity: for less modest individuals, unexpected evaluations heightened activity in areas related to self-esteem, whereas for modest participants, such a reaction was much weaker. This indicates that modest people are less fixated on discrepancies between expectations and others' evaluations and handle criticism more easily.

The researchers also found that modest individuals regulate emotions not by suppressing feelings but by reinterpreting the situation. Although the study was conducted in China with specific cultural settings, its results suggest that modesty may provide a neural advantage in the process of social adaptation.