Fig. 1: Experimental design.

In this figure, a computer desk icon indicates the behavioral parts of the experiment, and the MRI icon indicates the fMRI session. a The first fMRI session of the experiment, during which participants completed a baseline assessment of brain activation in response to guided self-evaluation (attributing traits to the self vs. performing a lexical control task on the same words) and monetary reward (winning vs. losing money). b The first behavioral session of the socio-evaluative task, which included 3 min of public speaking in front of two judges in a pre-recorded video call and ratings of pre-speech self-efficacy (light orange) and post-speech self-evaluation (peach). Participants had 10 min to prepare the speech, and reported on their distress level at several time points relative to the speech onset (see Fig. 2a for the exact schedule of distress reports). c Exemplar trial from the social feedback task. Ranges of neutral and positive feedback are marked in red and green, respectively. After scanning, participants re-evaluated their speech performance. d Ratings of expected performance in an additional speech (i.e., post-feedback self-efficacy), which was ultimately canceled. All icons in this figure were downloaded freely from canva.com.