TY - JOUR T1 - Self-reassurance reduces neural and self-report reactivity to negative life events JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/2020.09.14.285486 SP - 2020.09.14.285486 AU - Jeffrey J. Kim AU - Ross Cunnington AU - James N. Kirby Y1 - 2020/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/09/15/2020.09.14.285486.abstract N2 - Adverse life events are inescapable, but how we relate to setbacks and challenges matters. Using fMRI, we invited participants to engage in self-criticism and self-reassurance toward written descriptions of negative life events (mistakes, setbacks, failures). Our results identify that neural pain and trial-by-trial markers of intensity are suppressed under conditions of self-reassurance, relative to self-criticism. Engagement in self-reassurance can therefore reduce the ‘sting’ of negative life-events, both neural and self-report.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. ER -