Adolescents growing up amidst intractable conflict attenuate brain response to pain of outgroup

Neural alignment during outgroup intervention predicts future change of affect towards outgroup

While social psychology studies have shown that paradoxical thinking intervention has a moderating effect on negative attitudes toward members from rival social groups (i.e. outgroup), the neural underpinnings of the intervention have not been studied. Here, we investigate this by examining neural alignment across individuals at different phases during the intervention regarding Covid-19 vaccine-supporters' attitudes against vaccine-opposers. We raise two questions: Whether neural alignment varies during the intervention, and whether it predicts a change in outgroup attitudes measured via a survey 2 days after the intervention and compared to baseline. We test the neural alignment using magnetoencephalography-recorded neural oscillations and multiset canonical correlation analysis. We find a build-up of neural alignment which emerges at the final phase of the paradoxical thinking intervention in the precuneus-a hub of mentalizing; there was no such effect in the control conditions. In parallel, we find a behavioral build-up of dissent to the interventional stimuli. These neural and behavioral patterns predict a prosocial future change in affect and actions toward the outgroup. Together, these findings reveal a new operational pattern of mentalizing on the outgroup, which can change the way individuals may feel and behave toward members of that outgroup.

EEG evidence for racial ingroup bias in collective empathy for pain

Previous research on racial ingroup bias in empathy for pain focused on neural responses to a single person's suffering. It is unclear whether empathy for simultaneously perceived multiple individuals' pain (denoted as collective empathy in this study) is also sensitive to perceived racial identities of empathy targets. We addressed this issue by recording electroencephalography from Chinese adults who responded to racial identities of 2 × 2 arrays of Asian or White faces in which 4 faces, 1 face, or no face showed painful expressions. Participants reported greater feelings of others' pain and their own unpleasantness when viewing 4 compared to 1 (or no) painful faces. Behavioral responses to racial identities of faces revealed decreased speeds of information acquisition when responding to the face arrays with 4 (vs. 1 or no) painful expressions of Asian (but not White) faces. Moreover, Asian compared to White face arrays with 4 (vs. 1 or no) painful expressions elicited a larger positive neural response at 160-190 ms (P2) at the frontal/central electrodes and enhanced alpha synchronizations at 288-1,000 ms at the central electrodes. Our findings provide evidence for racial ingroup biases in collective empathy for pain and unravel its relevant neural underpinnings.

Neural dynamics of vicarious physical pain processing reflect impaired empathy toward sexually objectified versus non-sexually objectified women

Sexually objectified women are perceived as dehumanized. This may affect the behavioral and neural responses underlying the observer's empathic reactions for their physical pain, although this hypothesis still lacks empirical support. In the present study, we measured the electrophysiological activity of 30 participants (14 females and 16 males), in an empathy for physical pain paradigm in which pictures of sexualized and non-sexualized women were presented in painful and non-painful situations. The behavioral results revealed that sexualized women were evaluated as experiencing less pain than non-sexualized women. Neural evidence corroborated this finding showing that the perception of vicarious physical pain is lacking for sexualized women in both event-related potentials (ERPs) and brain oscillation domains. Specifically, the P2 component and the event-related synchronization/desynchronization (ERS/ERD) on the mu frequency band differed between painful and non-painful stimulation exclusively when women were not sexualized. Our results provide the first evidence that the neurophysiological responses to the vicarious experience of physical pain are dampened or even absent for sexualized women. These findings expand our understanding of the neurophysiological signatures of empathic processes and highlight the detrimental effect of a sexual-objectification bias in everyday contexts.

Epigenetic modification of the oxytocin receptor gene is associated with child-parent neural synchrony during competition

Interpersonal neural synchrony (INS) occurs when neural electrical activity temporally aligns between individuals during social interactions. It has been used as a metric for interpersonal closeness, often during naturalistic child-parent interactions. This study evaluated whether other biological correlates of social processing predicted the prevalence of INS during child-parent interactions, and whether their observed cooperativity modulated this association. Child-parent dyads (n = 27) performed a visuospatial tower-building task in cooperative and competitive conditions. Neural activity was recorded using mobile electroencephalogram (EEG) headsets, and experimenters coded video-recordings post-hoc for behavioral attunement. DNA methylation of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTRm) was measured, an epigenetic modification associated with reduced oxytocin activity and socioemotional functioning. Greater INS during competition was associated with lower child OXTRm, while greater behavioral attunement during competition and cooperation was associated with higher parent OXTRm. These differential relationships suggest that interpersonal dynamics as measured by INS may be similarly reflected by other biological markers of social functioning, irrespective of observed behavior. Children's self-perceived communication skill also showed opposite associations with parent and child OXTRm, suggesting complex relationships between children's and their parents' social functioning. Our findings have implications for ongoing developmental research, supporting the utility of biological metrics in characterizing interpersonal relationships.

Neural shifts in alpha rhythm's dual functioning during empathy maturation

INTRODUCTION

Empathy is a social-cognitive process that operates by relying mainly on the suppression of the cortical alpha rhythm. This phenomenon has been evidenced in dozens of electrophysiological studies targeting adult human subjects. Yet, recent neurodevelopmental studies indicated that at a younger age, empathy involves reversed brain responses (e.g., alpha enhancement patterns). In this multimodal study, we capture neural activity at the alpha range, and hemodynamic response and target subjects at approximately 20 years old as a unique time window in development that allows investigating both low-alpha suppression and high-alpha enhancement. We aim to further investigate the functional role of low-alpha power suppression and high-alpha power enhancement during empathy development.

METHODS

Brain data from 40 healthy individuals were recorded in two consecutive sessions of magnetoencephalography (MEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while subjects perceived vicarious physical pain or no pain.

RESULTS

MEG revealed that the alpha pattern shift during empathy happens in an all-or-none pattern: power enhancement before 18 and suppression after 18 years of age. Additionally, MEG and fMRI highlight a correspondence between high-alpha power increase and blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) decrease before 18, but low-alpha power decrease and BOLD increase after 18. Importantly, this neurodevelopmental transition was not revealed by four other measures: self-reported (a) ratings of the task stimuli, (b) ratings of naturalistic vignettes of vicarious pain, (c) trait empathy, or neural data from (d) a control neuroimaging task.

DISCUSSION

Findings suggest that at the critical age of around 18, empathy is underpinned by an all-or-none transition from high-alpha power enhancement and functional inhibition to low-alpha power suppression and functional activation in particular brain regions, possibly indicating a marker of maturation in empathic ability. This work advances a recent neurodevelopmental line of studies and provides insight into the functional maturation of empathy at the coming of age.

The neurobiology of hatred: Tools of Dialogue© intervention for youth reared amidst intractable conflict impacts brain, behaviour, and peacebuilding attitudes

Myths, drama, and sacred texts have warned against the fragile nature of human love; the closer the affiliative bond, the quicker it can turn into hatred, suggesting similarities in the neurobiological underpinnings of love and hatred. Here, I offer a theoretical account on the neurobiology of hatred based on our model on the biology of human attachments and its three foundations; the oxytocin system, the "affiliative brain", comprising the neural network sustaining attachment, and biobehavioural synchrony, the process by which humans create a coupled biology through coordinated action. These systems mature in mammals in the context of the mother-infant bond and then transfer to support life within social groups. During this transition, they partition to support affiliation and solidarity to one's group and fear and hatred towards out-group based on minor variations in social behaviour. I present the Tools of Dialogue© intervention for outgroup members based on social synchrony. Applied to Israeli and Palestinian youth and implementing RCT, we measured social behaviour, attitudes, hormones, and social brain response before and after the 8-session intervention. Youth receiving the intervention increased reciprocity and reduced hostile behaviour towards outgroup, attenuated the neural marker of prejudice and increased neural empathic response, reduced cortisol and elevated oxytocin, and adapted attitudes of compromise. These neural changes predicted peacebuilding support 7 years later, when young adults can engage in civil responsibilities. Our intervention, the first to show long-term effects of inter-group intervention on brain and behaviour, demonstrates how social synchrony can tilt the neurobiology of hatred towards the pole of affiliation.

Are women more empathetic than men? Questionnaire and EEG estimations of sex/gender differences in empathic ability

The debate regarding whether women are more empathetic than men has broad scientific, social and clinical implications. However, previous independent questionnaires and brain imaging studies that tested different samples reported inconsistent results regarding sex/gender differences in empathic ability. We conducted three studies to investigate sex/gender differences in empathic ability using large-sample questionnaires and electroencephalography (EEG) measures. We showed that the estimation of empathic ability using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index questionnaire showed higher rating scores in women than in men in all studies. However, our EEG measures of empathy, indexed by both phase-locked and non-phased-locked neural responses to others' painful (vs neutral) facial expressions, support a null hypothesis of the sex/gender difference in empathic ability. In addition, we showed evidence that priming social expectations of women and men's ability to share and care about others' feelings eliminated the sex/gender difference in questionnaire measures of empathic ability. Our large-sample EEG results challenge the notion of women's superiority in empathy that is built based on subjective questionnaire measures that are sensitive to social desirability. Our findings indicate that whether the notion of women's superiority in empathic ability reflects a biological/social difference between women and men or a gender-role stereotype remains an open question.

Turning the lens in the study of precarity: On experimental social psychology's acquiescence to the settler-colonial status quo in historic Palestine

This review examines the coloniality infused within the conduct and third reporting of experimental research in what is commonly referred to as the 'Israeli-Palestinian conflict'. Informed by a settler colonial framework and decolonial theory, our review measured the appearance of sociopolitical terms and critically analysed the reconciliation measures. We found that papers were three times more likely to describe the context through the framework of intractable conflict compared to occupation. Power asymmetry was often acknowledged and then flattened via, for instance, adjacent mentions of Israeli and Palestinian physical violence. Two-thirds of the dependent variables were not related to material claims (e.g. land, settlements, or Palestinian refugees) but rather to the feelings and attitudes of Jewish Israelis and Palestinians. Of the dependent measures that did consider material issues, they nearly universally privileged conditions of the two-state solution and compromises on refugees' right of return that would violate international law. The majority of the studies sampled Jewish-Israeli participants exclusively, and the majority of authors were affiliated with Israeli institutions. We argue that for social psychology to offer insights that coincide with the decolonization of historic Palestine, the discipline will have to begin by contextualizing its research within the material conditions and history that socially stratify the groups.

Using performance art to promote intergroup prosociality by cultivating the belief that empathy is unlimited

Empathy is important for resolving intergroup conflicts. However, people often tend to feel less empathy toward people who do not belong to their social group (i.e., outgroup members). We propose that this tendency is due, in part, to the belief that empathy is a limited resource. To overcome this issue, we develop an intervention synthesizing psychology and art to increase the belief that empathy is unlimited. In six studies (n = 2118), we find that the more people believe empathy is limited, the less outgroup empathy they experience. Moreover, leading people to believe that empathy is unlimited increase outgroup empathy, leads to greater support for prosocial actions toward outgroup members, and encourages more empathic behaviors toward outgroup members in face-to-face intergroup interactions. These intervention effects are observed across various intergroup contexts involving different ethnic, national, religious, and political groups. Thus, changing beliefs about empathy may improve intergroup relations, and conveying this belief through art may promote social change.

Dialogue intervention for youth amidst intractable conflict attenuates neural prejudice response and promotes adults' peacemaking

Humans' dependence on group living has led to the formation of tenacious, often nonconscious negative perceptions of other social groups, a phenomenon termed "intergroup bias" that sustains one of the world's most imminent problem: intergroup conflicts. Adolescents' participation in intergroup conflicts has been continuously on the rise, rendering the need to devise interventions that can mitigate some of their deleterious effects on youth an urgent societal priority. Framed within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and targeting youth, we implemented a dialogue-enhancing intervention for adolescents (16 to 18 years) reared amidst intractable conflict that builds on social synchrony and the neurobiology of affiliation. Implementing a randomized controlled trial design, before and after the 8-week intervention adolescents underwent magnetoencephalography to assess a neural marker of implicit prejudice and interviewed on their attitudes toward the conflict. Adolescents who received the intervention showed attenuation of the neural prejudice response, as indexed by sustained occipital alpha that was significantly reduced at post-intervention and adopted attitudes of peacemaking. Change in the neural prejudice response predicted attitudes of compromise and support in peacebuilding 7 years later, when young adults can already engage in active civil duties and responsibilities. These results underscore adolescence as a window of opportunity for enhancing inter-group dialogue and demonstrate the long-term associations between the neural evaluation of prejudice and self-reported measures of proclivity for compromise and peace in the context of an intractable century-long conflict.

Racial outgroup favoritism in neural responses to others' pain emerges during sociocultural interactions

Racial ingroup favoritism in empathic brain activity has been widely observed and is associated with biased behavior toward same-race and other-race individuals. We investigated whether racial outgroup favoritism in neural responses to others' pain - an objective measure of empathy - may emerge during sociocultural interactions in a new social environment. We recorded magnetoencephalography to pain and neutral expressions of Asian and White faces from White students who had stayed in China for 6-36 weeks (Experimental group) or 2-4 weeks (Control group). The experimental group showed better neural decoding of and greater insular/sensorimotor responses to pain vs. neutral expressions of Asian compared to White faces. By contrast, the control group showed better neural decoding of pain vs. neutral expressions of White than Asian faces. In addition, participants of the experimental group who had stayed longer in China showed greater sensorimotor responses to pain (vs. neutral) expressions of Asian faces but weaker sensorimotor responses to pain (vs. neutral) expressions of White faces. Our findings revealed emerging racial outgroup favoritism in brain activities associated with sensorimotor resonance and affective sharing of others' pain during sociocultural interactions.

The Early Expression of Blatant Dehumanization in Children and Its Association with Outgroup Negativity

Dehumanization is observed in adults across cultures and is thought to motivate human violence. The age of its first expression remains largely untested. This research demonstrates that diverse representations of humanness, including a novel one, readily elicit blatant dehumanization in adults (N = 482) and children (aged 5-12; N = 150). Dehumanizing responses in both age groups are associated with support for outgroup inferiority. Similar to the link previously observed in adults, dehumanization by children is associated with a willingness to punish outgroup transgressors. These findings suggest that exposure to cultural norms throughout adolescence and adulthood are not required for the development of outgroup dehumanization.

Oxytocin has 'tend-and-defend' functionality in group conflict across social vertebrates

Across vertebrate species, intergroup conflict confronts individuals with a tension between group interests best served by participation in conflict and personal interest best served by not participating. Here, we identify the neurohormone oxytocin as pivotal to the neurobiological regulation of this tension in distinctly different group-living vertebrates, including fishes, birds, rodents, non-human primates and humans. In the context of intergroup conflict, a review of emerging work on pro-sociality suggests that oxytocin and its fish and birds homologues, isotocin and mesotocin, respectively, can elicit participation in group conflict and aggression. This is because it amplifies (i) concern for the interests of genetically related or culturally similar ‘in-group’ others and (ii) willingness to defend against outside intruders and enemy conspecifics. Across a range of social vertebrates, oxytocin can induce aggressive behaviour to ‘tend-and-defend’ the in-group during intergroup contests.

This article is part of the theme issue ‘Intergroup conflict across taxa’.

The Apple Doesn't "Feel" Far From the Tree: Mother-Child Socialization of Intergroup Empathy

Like adults, children experience less empathy toward some groups compared with others. In this investigation, we propose that mothers differ in how much empathy they want their children to feel toward specific outgroups, depending on their political ideology. We suggest that how mothers want their children to feel (i.e., the motivation for their child's empathy), in turn, is correlated with children's actual experience of empathy toward the outgroup. Across four studies in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (N_Total = 734), the degree of empathy mothers wanted their children to experience in the intergroup context varied as a function of their political ideology. Mothers' motivation for their child's empathy toward the outgroup (but not in general) was further associated with how they chose to communicate messages to their children in a real-life context and how children actually felt toward the outgroup. We discuss implications for the socialization of intergroup empathy.

Adaptive Empathy: A Model for Learning Empathic Responses in Response to Feedback

Empathy is usually deployed in social interactions. Nevertheless, common measures and examinations of empathy study this construct in isolation from the person in distress. In this article we seek to extend the field of examination to include both empathizer and target to determine whether and how empathic responses are affected by feedback and learned through interaction. Building on computational approaches in feedback-based adaptations (e.g., no feedback, model-free and model-based learning), we propose a framework for understanding how empathic responses are learned on the basis of feedback. In this framework, adaptive empathy, defined as the ability to adapt one's empathic responses, is a central aspect of empathic skills and can provide a new dimension to the evaluation and investigation of empathy. By extending existing neural models of empathy, we suggest that adaptive empathy may be mediated by interactions between the neural circuits associated with valuation, shared distress, observation-execution, and mentalizing. Finally, we propose that adaptive empathy should be considered a prominent facet of empathic capabilities with the potential to explain empathic behavior in health and psychopathology.

Oxytocin and the Neurobiology of Prosocial Behavior

Humans are an unusually prosocial species, who engage in social behaviors that include altruism-whereby an individual engages in costly or risky acts to improve the welfare of another person-care, and cooperation. Current perspectives on the neurobiology of human prosociality suggest that it is deeply rooted in the neuroendocrine architecture of the social brain and emphasize the modulatory role of the neuropeptide hormone oxytocin. In this review, we provide a conceptual overview of the neurobiology of prosocial behavior with a focus on oxytocin's modulatory role in human prosociality. Specifically, we aim to encourage a better understanding of the peptide's susceptibility to diverse factors that produce heterogeneity in outcomes and the resulting methodological implications for measuring the behavioral effects of oxytocin in humans. After providing an overview of the state-of-the-art research on oxytocin's exogenous use, we elaborate on the peptide's modulatory role in the context of care-based altruism, cooperation, and conflict and discuss its potential for therapeutic interventions in psychiatric disorders characterized by social dysfunction.

Neural shifts in alpha rhythm's dual functioning during empathy

INTRODUCTION

Alpha oscillations are unique in their capacity to relay neuronal information through a dual-process named "gating by inhibition": rhythmic enhancement inhibits task-irrelevant regions while rhythmic suppression engages task-relevant regions in the brain. A social-cognitive process that operates by relying on the suppression of the alpha rhythm in the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) is the ability to generate empathy. This phenomenon has been evidenced in dozens of electrophysiological studies targeting adult human subjects. Yet, recent studies on the neurodevelopment of empathy indicate that in younger age, empathy does not involve alpha suppression in S1 but only enhancement. More interestingly, right before adulthood, this rhythm is still enhanced, but in a remarkable shift, a pattern of suppression emerges. In this registered magnetoencephalography (MEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we will capture frequency-decomposed neural activity particularly at the alpha range and its corresponding hemodynamic response and target subjects at around 20 years old as a unique time-window in development that allows investigating in parallel both low-alpha suppression and high-alpha enhancement. We aim to address two questions: (a) Does alpha power suppression in the S1 region during empathy correspond to BOLD increase in this region? (b) What is the functional role of alpha power enhancement during empathy development (BOLD signal increase or decrease)? Addressing these questions will particularly advance knowledge on the process of empathy in the brain, and the way in which it is underpinned by alpha oscillations. Moreover, examining these experimental outcomes can potentially lay the ground for future studies that would further examine the role of alpha oscillations in empathy during the course of development.

METHODS

Brain data of forty healthy individuals close to 20 years old will be recorded in two consecutive MEG and fMRI sessions while subjects observing physical pain versus neutral stimuli. Besides, each participant's subjective experiences wll be measred by questionnaires, interviews and rating of the stimuli.

Neural Rhythmic Underpinnings of Intergroup Bias: Implications for Peace-Building Attitudes and Dialogue

Intergroup bias is a ubiquitous socio-cognitive phenomenon that, while sustaining human dependence on group living, often leads to prejudice, inequity, and violence; yet, its neural underpinnings remain unclear. Framed within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and targeting youth, this study utilized magnetoencephalography to describe intrinsic neural oscillatory processes that represent the intergroup bias and may link with engagement in peacemaking in order to shed further light on the neural mechanisms underpinning intergroup conflict. Across the oscillatory spectrum, from very low to very high frequency bands, the only rhythm found to underlie the intergroup bias was the alpha rhythm. Alpha was continuously activated across the task and integrated a rapid perceptual component in occipital cortex with a top-down cognitive-control component in medial cingulate cortex. These components were distinctly associated with real-life intergroup dialog style and expressed attitudes that promote active engagement in peacemaking. Our findings suggest that the cortical alpha rhythm plays a crucial role in sustaining intergroup bias and address its impact on concrete intergroup experiences. Results highlight the need to provide opportunities for active peace-building dialog to youth reared amidst intractable conflicts.

Cognitive and neural bases of decision-making causing civilian casualties during intergroup conflict

Civilian casualties occur during military attacks. Such 'collateral damage' is prohibited by international laws but increases with substantial consequences when intergroup conflict escalates. Here, we investigate cognitive and neural bases of decision-making processes resulting in civilian harm, using a task that simulates punishment decision-making during intergroup conflict. We test two groups of Chinese participants in a laboratory setting, and members of two ethnic groups (Jewish and Palestinian) in Israel. The results dissociate two psychological constructs, harm preference and harm avoidance, which respectively characterize punishment decision-making related to outgroup combatants and outgroup noncombatants during intergroup conflict. In particular, individuals show decreased avoidance of harming outgroup noncombatants when conflict escalates. Brain imaging (functional magnetic resonance imaging) reveals that decreased harm avoidance is predicted by inhibition of the left middle frontal activity during selection of punishment decisions. Our findings provide insight into the cognitive and neural bases of decision-making involving civilian harm during intergroup conflict.

Interpersonal Synchrony in the Context of Caregiver-Child Interactions: A Document Co-citation Analysis

Social interactions accompany individuals throughout their whole lives. When examining the underlying mechanisms of social processes, dynamics of synchrony, coordination or attunement emerge between individuals at multiple levels. To identify the impactful publications that studied such mechanisms and establishing the trends that dynamically originated the available literature, the current study adopted a scientometric approach. A sample of 543 documents dated from 1971 to 2021 was derived from Scopus. Subsequently, a document co-citation analysis was conducted on 29,183 cited references to examine the patterns of co-citation among the documents. The resulting network consisted of 1,759 documents connected to each other by 5,011 links. Within the network, five major clusters were identified. The analysis of the content of the three major clusters-namely, "Behavioral synchrony," "Towards bio-behavioral synchrony," and "Neural attunement"-suggests an interest in studying attunement in social interactions at multiple levels of analysis, from behavioral to neural, by passing through the level of physiological coordination. Furthermore, although initial studies on synchrony focused mostly on parent-child interactions, new hyperscanning paradigms are allowing researchers to explore the role of biobehavioral synchrony in all social processes in a real-time and ecological fashion. Future potential pathways of research were also discussed.

Non-phase-locked alpha oscillations are involved in spontaneous racial categorization of faces

Racial categorization of faces has a notable impact on human behavior, but its neural underpinnings remain unresolved. Previous electroencephalography (EEG) research focused on contributions of phase-locked neural activities to racial categorization of faces. We investigated functional roles of non-phase-locked neural oscillations in spontaneous racial categorization of faces by recording EEG from Chinese adults who performed an individuation task on Asian/White faces in Experiment 1 and on Asian/Black faces in Experiment 2. We quantified neural processes involved in spontaneous racial categorization of faces by examining repetition suppression of non-phase-locked neural oscillations when participants viewed faces of one race presented repeatedly in the same block of trials (repetition condition), or faces of two races presented alternately in the same block of trials (alternating condition). We found decreased power of alpha (9-13 Hz) oscillations in the repetition than alternating conditions at 80-240 ms over frontal-central electrodes induced by White/Black (but not Asian) faces. Moreover, larger repetition suppression of alpha oscillations in response to White/Black (vs. Asian) faces predicted greater implicit negative attitudes toward White/Black faces across individuals. Our findings suggest that non-phase-locked alpha oscillations are engaged in spontaneous racial categorization of faces and are associated with implicit negative attitudes toward other-race faces.

Rhythmic Neural Patterns During Empathy to Vicarious Pain: Beyond the Affective-Cognitive Empathy Dichotomy

Empathy is often split into an affective facet for embodied simulation or sometimes sensorial processing, and a cognitive facet for mentalizing and perspective-taking. However, a recent neurophenomenological framework proposes a graded view on empathy (i.e., "Graded Empathy") that extends this dichotomy and considers multiple levels while integrating complex neural patterns and representations of subjective experience. In the current magnetoencephalography study, we conducted a multidimensional investigation of neural oscillatory modulations and their cortical sources in 44 subjects while observing stimuli that convey vicarious pain (vs no-pain) in a broad time window and frequency range to explore rich neural representations of pain empathy. Furthermore, we collected participants' subjective-experience of sensitivity to vicarious pain, as well as their self-reported trait levels of affective and cognitive empathy to examine the possible associations between neural mechanisms and subjective experiences and reports. While extending previous electrophysiological studies that mainly focused on alpha suppression, we found here four significant power modulation patterns corresponding to multiple facets of empathy: an early central (peaking in the paracentral sulcus) alpha (6-11 Hz) suppression pattern plausibly reflecting sensory processing, two early beta (15-23 Hz) suppression patterns in the mid-cingulate cortex (plausibly reflecting the affective component) and in the precuneus (plausibly reflecting the cognitive component), and a late anterior (peaking in the orbitofrontal cortex) alpha-beta (11-19 Hz) enhancement pattern (plausibly reflecting cognitive-control inhibitory response). Interestingly, the latter measure was negatively correlated with the subjective sensitivity to vicarious pain, thereby possibly revealing a novel inhibitory neural mechanism determining the subjective sensitivity to vicarious pain. Altogether, these multilevel findings cannot be accommodated by the dichotomous model of empathy (i.e., affective-cognitive), and provide empirical support to the Graded Empathy neurophenomenological framework. Furthermore, this work emphasizes the importance of examining multiple neural rhythms, their cortical generators, and reports of subjective-experience in the aim of elucidating the complex nature of empathy.

Increasing self-other bodily overlap increases sensorimotor resonance to others' pain

Empathy for another person’s pain and feeling pain oneself seem to be accompanied by similar or shared neural responses. Such shared responses could be achieved by mapping the bodily states of others onto our own bodily representations. We investigated whether sensorimotor neural responses to the pain of others are increased when experimentally reducing perceived bodily distinction between the self and the other. Healthy adult participants watched video clips of the hands of ethnic ingroup or outgroup members being painfully penetrated by a needle syringe or touched by a cotton swab. Manipulating the video presentation to create a visuospatial overlap between the observer’s and the target’s hand increased the perceived bodily self-attribution of the target’s hand. For both ingroup and outgroup targets, this resulted in increased neural responses to the painful injections (compared with nonpainful contacts), as indexed by desynchronizations of central mu and beta scalp rhythms recorded using electroencephalography. Furthermore, these empathy-related neural activations were stronger in participants who reported stronger bodily self-attribution of the other person’s hand. Our findings provide further evidence that empathy for pain engages sensorimotor resonance mechanisms. They also indicate that reducing bodily self-other distinction may increase such resonance for ingroup as well as outgroup targets.

Artificial intelligence against hate: Intervention reducing verbal aggression in the social network environment

This article presents a quasi-experimental intervention study designed to reduce the level of verbal aggression on a social networking service (Reddit). The interventions were based on three psychological mechanisms: induction of a descriptive norm, induction of a prescriptive norm, and empathy induction. Each intervention was generated using a communicating bot. Participants exposed to these interventions were compared with a control group that received no intervention. The bot-generated normative communications (both the ones priming descriptive and the ones priming prescriptive norms), as well as the empathizing intervention, reduced the proportion of verbal aggression posted by Reddit accounts. All three interventions proved effective in reducing verbal violence when compared with the control condition.

The default mode network: where the idiosyncratic self meets the shared social world

The default mode network (DMN) is classically considered an 'intrinsic' system, specializing in internally oriented cognitive processes such as daydreaming, reminiscing and future planning. In this Perspective, we suggest that the DMN is an active and dynamic 'sense-making' network that integrates incoming extrinsic information with prior intrinsic information to form rich, context-dependent models of situations as they unfold over time. We review studies that relied on naturalistic stimuli, such as stories and movies, to demonstrate how an individual's DMN neural responses are influenced both by external information accumulated as events unfold over time and by the individual's idiosyncratic past memories and knowledge. The integration of extrinsic and intrinsic information over long timescales provides a space for negotiating a shared neural code, which is necessary for establishing shared meaning, shared communication tools, shared narratives and, above all, shared communities and social networks.

The integration of social and neural synchrony: a case for ecologically valid research using MEG neuroimaging

The recent decade has seen a shift from artificial and environmentally deprived experiments in neuroscience to real-life studies on multiple brains in interaction, coordination and synchrony. In these new interpersonal synchrony experiments, there has been a growing trend to employ naturalistic social interactions to evaluate mechanisms underlying synchronous neuronal communication. Here, we emphasize the importance of integrating the assessment of neural synchrony with measurement of nonverbal behavioral synchrony as expressed in various social contexts: relaxed social interactions, planning a joint pleasurable activity, conflict discussion, invocation of trauma, or support giving and assess the integration of neural and behavioral synchrony across developmental stages and psychopathological conditions. We also showcase the advantages of magnetoencephalography neuroimaging as a promising tool for studying interactive neural synchrony and consider the challenge of ecological validity at the expense of experimental rigor. We review recent evidence of rhythmic information flow between brains in interaction and conclude with addressing state-of-the-art developments that may contribute to advance research on brain-to-brain coordination to the next level.

Neural dynamics of pain expression processing: Alpha-band synchronization to same-race pain but desynchronization to other-race pain

Both electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have revealed enhanced neural responses to perceived pain in same-race than other-race individuals. However, it remains unclear how neural responses in the sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective subsystems vary dynamically in the first few hundreds of milliseconds to generate racial ingroup favoritism in empathy for pain. We recorded magnetoencephalography signals to pain and neutral expressions of Asian and white faces from Chinese adults during judgments of racial identity of each face. We found that pain compared to neutral expressions of same-race faces induced early increased alpha oscillations in the precuneus/parietal cortices followed by increased alpha-band oscillations in the left anterior insula and temporoparietal junction. Pain compared to neutral expressions of other-race faces, however, induced early suppression of alpha-band oscillations in the bilateral sensorimotor cortices and left insular cortex. Moreover, decreased functional connectivity between the left sensorimotor cortex and left anterior insula predicted reduced subjective feelings of other-race suffering. Our results unraveled distinct patterns of modulations of neural dynamics of sensorimotor, affective, and cognitive components of empathy by interracial relationships between an observer and a target person, which provide possible brain mechanisms for understanding racial ingroup favoritism in social behavior.

The Social Neuroscience of Prejudice

The social neuroscience approach to prejudice investigates the psychology of intergroup bias by integrating models and methods of neuroscience with the social psychology of prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination. Here, we review major contemporary lines of inquiry, including current accounts of group-based categorization; formation and updating of prejudice and stereotypes; effects of prejudice on perception, emotion, and decision making; and the self-regulation of prejudice. In each section, we discuss key social neuroscience findings, consider interpretational challenges and connections with the behavioral literature, and highlight how they advance psychological theories of prejudice. We conclude by discussing the next-generation questions that will continue to guide the social neuroscience approach toward addressing major societal issues of prejudice and discrimination.

Group Cooperation, Carrying-Capacity Stress, and Intergroup Conflict

Peaceful intergroup relations deteriorate when individuals engage in parochial cooperation and parochial competition. To understand when and why intergroup relations change from peaceful to violent, we present a theoretical framework mapping out the different interdependence structures between groups. According to this framework, cooperation can lead to group expansion and ultimately to carrying-capacity stress. In such cases of endogenously created carrying-capacity stress, intergroup relations are more likely to become negatively interdependent, and parochial competition can emerge as a response. We discuss the cognitive, neural, and hormonal building blocks of parochial cooperation, and conclude that conflict between groups can be the inadvertent consequence of human preparedness - biological and cultural - to solve cooperation problems within groups.

Reflective function: A move to the level of concern

Reflective function (RF) is the capacity to reflect on one’s own thinking and feelings, as well as on that of others. It involves an increasingly complex awareness that there is more than what is visible on the surface. Most studies of RF have focused on its significance for self-development and interpersonal relationships in dyadic and family contexts. In this article, I suggest that by imparting a more accurate perception of the intra- and interpersonal reality and interrelatedness, RF is inextricably related to concern and to reaching others in widening circles. I further suggest that obstacles to its development and realization can be found at the individual, relational, and sociopolitical levels. I conclude that the construct of RF both captures and facilitates the connection between psychology and ethics, and that psychologists play a key role in exploring the conditions that affect the realization of RF, and in promoting social change in general.

What is resilience: an affiliative neuroscience approach

Resilience - a key topic in clinical science and practice - still lacks a clear conceptualization that integrates its evolutionary and human-specific features, refrains from exclusive focus on fear physiology, incorporates a developmental approach, and, most importantly, is not based on the negation (i.e., absence of symptoms following trauma). Building on the initial condition of mammals, whose brain matures in the context of the mother's body and caregiving behavior, we argue that systems and processes that participate in tuning the brain to the social ecology and adapting to its hardships mark the construct of resilience. These include the oxytocin system, the affiliative brain, and biobehavioral synchrony, all characterized by great flexibility across phylogenesis and ontogenesis. Three core features of resilience are outlined: plasticity, sociality and meaning. Mechanisms of sociality by which coordinated action supports diversity, endurance and adaptation are described across animal evolution. Humans' biobehavioral synchrony matures from maternal attuned behavior in the postpartum to adult-adult relationships of empathy, perspective-taking and intimacy, and extends from the mother-child relationship to other affiliative bonds throughout life, charting a fundamental trajectory in the development of resilience. Findings from three high-risk cohorts, each tapping a distinct disruption to maternal-infant bonding (prematurity, maternal depression, and early life stress/trauma), and followed from birth to adolescence/young adulthood, demonstrate how components of the neurobiology of affiliation confer resilience and uniquely shape the social brain.

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid! Motivated Intergroup Emotion Regulation

Group-based emotions can shape group members' behaviors and intergroup relations. Therefore, we propose that people may try to regulate emotions of outgroup members to attain ingroup goals. We call this phenomenon "motivated intergroup emotion regulation." In four studies, conducted in both hypothetical and real-world contexts, we show that deterrence and reconciliation goals influence how fearful or calm people want outgroup members to feel, respectively. We further show that such motivated intergroup emotion regulation can guide behavior toward the outgroup, influencing how outgroup members feel (Studies 1, 2, and 4) and behave (Study 4). We demonstrate how affiliation with the ingroup, which renders ingroup goals more salient, shapes what ingroup members want outgroup members to feel (Studies 3 and 4) and subsequently how outgroup members feel and behave (Study 4). Finally, we discuss how motivated intergroup emotion regulation might contribute to understanding motivation in emotion regulation, group-based emotions, and intergroup relations.

A neurobiological association of revenge propensity during intergroup conflict

Revenge during intergroup conflict is a human universal, but its neurobiological underpinnings remain unclear. We address this by integrating functional MRI and measurements of endogenous oxytocin in participants who view an ingroup and an outgroup member's suffering that is caused mutually (Revenge group) or by a computer (Control group). We show that intergroup conflict encountered by the Revenge group is associated with an increased level of oxytocin in saliva compared to that in the Control group. Furthermore, the medial prefrontal activity in response to ingroup pain in the Revenge group but not in the Control group mediates the association between endogenous oxytocin and the propensity to give painful electric shocks to outgroup members, regardless of whether they were directly involved in the conflict. Our findings highlight an important neurobiological correlate of revenge propensity, which may be implicated in conflict contagion across individuals in the context of intergroup conflict.

The interactive effect of empathy and motor cortex stimulation on hand gesture comprehension

Previous research has demonstrated that the Action-Observation Network (AON) is involved in both emotional-embodiment (empathy) and action-embodiment mechanisms. In the current study, we hypothesized that interfering with the AON will impair action recognition and that this impairment will be modulated by empathy levels. Fifty-two participants conducted a semantic decision task of hand gesture recognition, while we interfered with the AON by applying active (n = 26) or sham (n = 26) transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) to the hand area of the primary motor cortex. We found that interfering with the AON impaired the performance of participants with high empathy levels and enhanced the performance of participants with low empathy. This finding suggests that the embodiment module may be flexible, and that it can be enhanced in individuals with low empathy by simple manipulation of motor activation.

Graded Empathy: A Neuro-Phenomenological Hypothesis

The neuroscience of empathy has enormously expanded in the past two decades, thereby making instrumental progress for the understanding of neural substrates involved in affective and cognitive aspects of empathy. Yet, these conclusions have relied on ultrasimplified tasks resulting in the affective/cognitive dichotomy that was often modeled and overemphasized in pathological, developmental, and genetic studies of empathy. As such, the affective/cognitive model of empathy could not straightforwardly accommodate and explain the recent surge of neuroscientific data obtained from studies employing naturalistic approaches and intergroup conditions. Inspired by phenomenological philosophy, this article paves the way for a new scientific perspective on empathy that breaks thorough the affective/cognitive dichotomy. This neuro-phenomenological account leans on phenomenological analyses and can straightforwardly explain recent neuroscience data. It emphasizes the dynamic, subjective, and piecemeal features of empathic experiences and unpicks the graded nature of empathy. The graded empathy hypothesis postulates that attending to others' expressions always facilitates empathy, but the parametric modulation in the levels of the empathic experience varies as a function of one's social interest (e.g., via intergroup or inter-personal cues) in the observed other. Drawing on multiple resources that integrate neuroscience with phenomenology, we describe the potential of this graded framework in an era of real-life experimentation. By wearing lenses of neuro-phenomenology, this original perspective can change the way empathy is considered.

The enemy's gaze: Immersive virtual environments enhance peace promoting attitudes and emotions in violent intergroup conflicts

Perspective-taking is essential for improving intergroup relations. However, it is difficult to implement, especially in violent conflicts. Given that immersive virtual reality (VR) can simulate various points of view (POV), we examined whether it can lead to beneficial outcomes by promoting outgroup perspective-taking, even in armed conflicts. In two studies, Jewish-Israelis watched a 360° VR scene depicting an Israeli-Palestinian confrontation from different POVs–outgroup’s, ingroup’s while imagining outgroup perspective or ingroup’s without imagined perspective-taking. Participants immersed in the outgroup’s POV, but not those who imagined the outgroup’s perspective, perceived the Palestinians more positively than those immersed in the ingroup’s POV. Moreover, participants in the outgroup’s POV perceived the Palestinian population in general more favorably and judged a real-life ingroup transgression more strictly than those in the ingroup’s POV, even five months after VR intervention. Results suggest that VR can promote conflict resolution by enabling effective perspective-taking.

Chronic trauma impairs the neural basis of empathy in mothers: Relations to parenting and children's empathic abilities

Early life stress carries long-term negative consequences for children's well-being and maturation of the social brain. Here, we utilize a unique cohort to test its effects on mothers' social brain, targeting mothers' neural empathic response in relation to caregiving and child empathic abilities. Mother-child dyads living in a zone of repeated war-related trauma were followed from early childhood and mother-child behavioral synchrony was repeatedly observed. At pre-adolescence(11-13 years) children's empathic abilities were assessed and mothers(N = 88, N = 44 war-exposed) underwent magnetoencephalography(MEG) while exposed to vicarious pain. All mothers showed alpha suppression in sensorimotor regions, indicating automatic response to others' pain. However, trauma-exposed mothers did not exhibit gamma oscillations in viceromotor cortex, a neural marker of mature empathy which utilizes interoceptive mechanisms for higher-order understanding and does not emerge before adulthood. Mother-child synchrony across the first decade predicted mothers' viceromotor gamma, and both synchrony and maternal viceromotor gamma mediated the relations between war-exposure and child empathic abilities, possibly charting a cross-generational pathway from mothers' mature neural empathy to children's empathic capacities. Our findings are first to probe the maternal social brain in adolescence in relation to parenting and underscore the need for targeted interventions to mothers raising children in contexts of chronic stress.

Synchronous Interactions Foster Empathy

Despite growing interest in the neuroscience of empathy, very little is known about the developmental processes that foster the neural maturation of an empathic response. Here, we suggest that the synchronous interaction shapes and fosters the ability to empathize with others. We argue that this intriguing relationship between synchrony and empathy expands beyond the mother-child relationship to social relationships in general. It will be important to further explore this relationship in more social settings and to probe the biological mechanisms, which may underlie it. Advancing research on the relationship between these two social processes may support the work of practitioners, psychologists, and educators in moderating the devastating outcomes of mental disorders and promoting social maturity and growth.

The Role of Empathy and Compassion in Conflict Resolution

Empathy and empathy-related processes, such as compassion and personal distress, are recognized to play a key role in social relations. This review examines the role of empathy in interpersonal and intergroup relations, including intractable conflicts. Despite the limitations of empathy, there is growing evidence that empathy and compassion are associated with more prosocial behavior in interpersonal relations. Furthermore, empathy and compassion have been associated with more favorable attitudes and higher readiness for reconciliation across a range of intergroup settings. This review ends by summarizing recent evidence for the beneficial effects of compassion training on interpersonal and intergroup relations and by outlining new avenues for future research on how compassion training could reduce intergroup conflicts.

Dialogue intervention to youth amidst intractable conflict attenuates stress response to outgroup

Encounter with outgroup has been shown to elicit physiological stress response and when outgroup is perceived as threatening to one's own family and community, stress is higher. In such contexts, becoming familiar and learning to empathize with the other side may reduce stress. Building on the long-lasting Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we developed an eight-week group intervention focused on dialogue and empathy and tested it within a randomized controlled trial. Eighty-eight Israeli-Jewish and Arab-Palestinian adolescents (16-18 years) were randomly assigned to intervention or control groups. Before(T1) and after(T2) intervention, one-on-one interaction with outgroup member was videotaped, cortisol levels assessed five times during a 2.5-hour session involving exposure to outgroup stimuli, and adolescents were interviewed regarding national conflict. Intervention reduced cortisol response to social contact and reminders of outgroup (F = 4.92, p = .032, Eta² = 0.109). This HPA-activity suppression was defined by two pathways. First, intervention had a direct impact on cortisol decrease; and second, intervention increased youth's behavioral empathy during one-on-one interaction with outgroup member and this empathic response mediated the effect of intervention on cortisol reduction. Adolescents' belief in the potential for reconciliation at T1 predicted greater empathy at T2. Our study provides the first evidence-based intervention for youth growing up amidst intractable conflict and demonstrates its impact on adolescents' physiological stress response to outgroup. Results contribute to research on the neurobiology of ingroup/outgroup relations, highlight the key role of dialogical empathy and social interactions for interventions targeting youth, and emphasize the importance of enhancing motivation for social inclusion for initiating positive behavioral and physiological processes. Clinical Trials Registry (NCT02122887; https://clinicaltrials.gov).

Disarming Ex-Combatants' Minds: Toward Situated Reintegration Process in Post-conflict Colombia

Collective violence in the context of armed conflict impacts the economy, health systems, and social stability of affected countries. This is considered a complex phenomenon with interwoven biological, psychological, social, cultural, and political factors. However, most of the research on this topic still lacks suitable established integrative approaches to assess multilevel perspectives. Social, cognitive and affective mental processes (SCAMP) are critical factors that should be considered in multilevel approaches. In this article, we critically discuss some of the classically isolated approaches used in violence research, the absence of successful interventions for ex-combatants reintegration, and the specific neglect of SCAMP in these interventions. We present the case of post-conflict Colombia as a unique opportunity to study the different roots of collective violence, and we call for a more robust and situated approach to understanding of and intervention in this multifaceted phenomenon. In addition, we suggest a two-stage approach for addressing ex-combatants’ reintegration programs, which considers the situated nature of post-conflict scenarios and the urgent need for evidence-based interventions. This approach focuses on the comprehensive scientific assessment of specific factors involved in violence exposure and the subsequent design of successful interventions. The implementation of this approach will contribute to the effective reintegration of individuals who have been exposed to extreme violence for more than 50 years.

Oxytocin promotes coordinated out-group attack during intergroup conflict in humans

Intergroup conflict contributes to human discrimination and violence, but persists because individuals make costly contributions to their group’s fighting capacity. Yet how group members effectively coordinate their contributions during intergroup conflict remains poorly understood. Here we examine the role of oxytocin for (the coordination of) contributions to group attack or defense in a multi-round, real-time feedback economic contest. In a double-blind placebo-controlled study with N=480 males in an Intergroup Attacker-Defender contest game, we found that oxytocin reduced contributions to attack and over time increased attacker’s within-group coordination of contributions. However, rather than becoming peaceful, attackers given oxytocin better tracked their rival’s historical defense and coordinated their contributions into well-timed and hence more profitable attacks. Our results reveal coordination of contributions as a critical component of successful attacks and subscribe to the possibility that oxytocin enables individuals to contribute to in-group efficiency and prosperity even when doing so implies outsiders are excluded or harmed.

Editorial note: This article has been through an editorial process in which the authors decide how to respond to the issues raised during peer review. The Reviewing Editor's assessment is that all the issues have been addressed (see decision letter).

Conflict between groups is a recurring theme in human history. We tend to form social bonds with others who share the same characteristics as ourselves, whether that is nationality, ethnicity, or supporting the same football team. Individuals that belong to the same group as us comprise our ‘in-group’. All other individuals make up our ‘out-groups’. Competition and conflict with out-groups – from benign sporting rivalry to warfare – has a key role in shaping human cultures and societies.

Such conflict often requires individuals to act in ways that harm their own self-interests. It also requires them to coordinate their actions with other members of their in-group. How does our biology drive this behavior? When small groups prepare for conflict with other groups, they often perform social bonding routines and rituals. These trigger the brain to release a hormone called oxytocin into the bloodstream. Known as the ‘love hormone’, oxytocin helps promote pair bonding as well as social bonding with in-group members. Studies in both humans and monkeys show that boosting oxytocin levels artificially via a nasal spray makes individuals more trusting and cooperative.

But Zhang et al. now show that the ‘love hormone’ also helps individuals launch more coordinated ‘attacks’ on out-groups. In a study involving a multi-round economic contest game between groups of ‘attackers’ and ‘defenders’, oxytocin did not make attackers less aggressive. Instead it enabled them to better coordinate their attacks. Each contest game involved three attackers individually contributing money to a group pool to outbid the other group and win more money, and three defenders making similar contributions to their own group pool to defend it against the rivals’ attacks and protect themselves from losing all their money. Attackers who used an oxytocin nasal spray were better at tracking their rivals' defensive strategies than attackers whose nasal spray contained a placebo. Under the influence of oxytocin, the attackers timed their strikes to occur when their rivals were vulnerable. Over time, the oxytocin users became better at coordinating their behavior with other members of their in-group. This resulted in more earnings.

Success – and even survival – in intergroup conflicts depends on how willing individuals are to make contributions that incur a personal cost. They also depend on how well individuals coordinate their contributions. Social strategies, such as leading by example, and neurobiological mechanisms such as oxytocin can both help achieve the coordination needed to exploit out-group rivals.

The Neural Basis of Empathy and Empathic Behavior in the Context of Chronic Trauma

Background: Accumulating evidence in social neuroscience suggests that mature human empathy relies on the integration of two types of processes: a lower-order process mainly tapping into automatic and sensory mechanisms and a higher-order process involving affect and cognition and modulated by top-down control. Studies have also indicated that neural measures of empathy often correlate with behavioral measures of empathy. Yet, little is known on the effects of chronic trauma on the neural and behavioral indices of empathy and the associations among them. Methods: Mothers exposed to chronic war-related trauma and nonexposed controls (N = 88, N = 41 war-exposed) underwent magnetoencephalography (MEG) while watching stimuli depicting vicarious emotional distress. Maternal empathic behavior was assessed during mother-child interaction involving a joint task. Results: Empathy-evoking vignettes elicited response in alpha rhythms in a network involving both sensorimotor and viceromotor (anterior insula) regions, suggesting integration of the sensory and affective components of empathy. Whereas exposure to chronic stress did not affect the level of neural activations in this network, it reduced maternal empathic behavior. Furthermore, trauma exposure impaired the coherence of brain and behavior; only among controls, but not among trauma-exposed mothers, the neural basis of empathy was predicted by maternal empathic behavior. Conclusions: Chronic stress takes a toll on the mother's empathic ability and indirectly impacts the neural basis of empathy by disrupting the coherence of brain and behavior.

Endogenous oxytocin predicts helping and conversation as a function of group membership

Humans cooperate with unrelated individuals to an extent that far outstrips any other species. We also display extreme variation in decisions about whether to cooperate or not, and the mechanisms driving this variation remain an open question across the behavioural sciences. One candidate mechanism underlying this variation in cooperation is the evolutionary ancient neurohormone oxytocin (OT). As current research focuses on artificial administration of OT in asocial tasks, little is known about how the hormone in its naturally occurring state actually impacts behaviour in social interactions. Using a new optimal foraging paradigm, the 'egg hunt', we assessed the association of endogenous OT with helping behaviour and conversation. We manipulated players' group membership relative to each other prior to an egg hunt, during which they had repeated opportunities to spontaneously help each other. Results show that endogenous baseline OT predicted helping and conversation type, but crucially as a function of group membership. Higher baseline OT predicted increased helping but only between in-group players, as well as decreased discussion about individuals' goals between in-group players but conversely more of such discussion between out-group players. Subsequently, behaviour but not conversation during the hunt predicted change in OT, in that out-group members who did not help showed a decrease in OT from baseline levels. In sum, endogenous OT predicts helping behaviour and conversation, importantly as a function of group membership, and this effect occurs in parallel to uniquely human cognitive processes.

A social neuroscience approach to conflict resolution: Dialogue intervention to Israeli and Palestinian youth impacts oxytocin and empathy

The rapid increase in terror-related activities, shift of battlefield into civilian locations, and participation of youth in acts of violence underscore the need to find novel frameworks for youth interventions. Building on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and social neuroscience models we developed an eight-week dialogue group-intervention for youth growing up amidst intractable conflict. Eighty-eight Israeli-Jewish and Arab-Palestinian adolescents (16-18years) were randomly assigned to intervention or control groups. Before (T1) and after (T2) intervention, one-on-one conflict interaction with outgroup member were videotaped, oxytocin levels assayed, attitudes self-reported, and youth interviewed regarding national conflict. We tested the hypothesis that dialogue intervention would enhance empathic behavior and increase oxytocin levels following interaction with outgroup member. Intervention increased youth perspective-taking on national conflict. Oxytocin increased from T1 to T2 only for adolescents undergoing intervention who improved perspective taking in the process. Structural equation modelling charted three pathways to behavioral empathy toward outgroup member at T2; via endogenous oxytocin, empathic cognitions, and dialogue intervention; however, an alternative model without the intervention arm was non-significant. Our findings highlight the important role of empathy in programs for inter-group reconciliation and support evolutionary models on the precarious balance between the neurobiology of affiliation and the neurobiology of outgroup derogation.