The Neuroscience of Intergroup Relations: An Integrative Review

No evidence for an other-race effect in dominance and trustworthy judgements from faces

A variety of evidence shows that social categorization of people based on their race can lead to stereotypical judgements and prejudicial behaviour. Here, we explore the extent to which trait judgements of faces are influenced by race. To address this issue, we measured the reliability of first impressions for own-race and other-race faces in Asian and White participants. Participants viewed pairs of faces and were asked to indicate which of the two faces was more dominant or which of the two faces was more trustworthy. We measured the consistency (or reliability) of these judgements across participants for own-race and other-races faces. We found that judgements of dominance or trustworthiness showed similar levels of reliability for own-race and other-race faces. Moreover, an item analysis showed that the judgements on individual trials were very similar across participants from different races. Next, participants made overall ratings of dominance and trustworthiness from own-race and other-race faces. Again, we found that there was no evidence for an ORE. Together, these results provide a new approach to measuring trait judgements of faces and show that in these conditions there is no ORE for the perception of dominance and trustworthiness.

Teachers' Punishment Intensity and Student Observer Trust: A Moderated Mediation Model

During social interactions, people decide whether to trust an actor based on their punitive behaviour. Several empirical studies have indicated that punishment intensity impacts observer trust, yet the underlying mechanism remains to be elucidated. This study included 242 junior high school students and was conducted to investigate the relationship between teachers' punishment intensity and levels of student bystander trust. Additionally, the mediating role of trustworthiness and the moderating role of group relationships were explored. The results showed that the relationship between punishment intensity and observer trust follows an inverted U-shaped pattern. In addition, mild punishment boosts observer trust by improving perceived trustworthiness (ability and integrity) compared to no punishment, while harsh punishment reduces observer trust more than mild punishment by diminishing perceived trustworthiness (ability, benevolence, and integrity). More importantly, group relationships positively moderate the relationship between punishment intensity and observer trust. Specifically, compared to mild or no punishment, harsh punishment decreases trustworthiness (ability, benevolence, and integrity) in close teacher-student relationships but has less impact on neutral relationships. The above findings demonstrate that guiding educators in developing appropriate disciplinary concepts contributes to enhancing student observer trust.

Imagination vs. routines: festive time, weekly time, and the predictive brain

This paper examines the relationship between societal structures shaped by traditions, norms, laws, and customs, and creative expressions in arts and media through the lens of the predictive coding framework in cognitive science. The article proposes that both dimensions of culture can be viewed as adaptations designed to enhance and train the brain's predictive abilities in the social domain. Traditions, norms, laws, and customs foster shared predictions and expectations among individuals, thereby reducing uncertainty in social environments. On the other hand, arts and media expose us to simulated experiences that explore alternative social realities, allowing the predictive machinery of the brain to hone its skills through exposure to a wider array of potentially relevant social circumstances and scenarios. We first review key principles of predictive coding and active inference, and then explore the rationale of cultural traditions and artistic culture in this perspective. Finally, we draw parallels between institutionalized normative habits that stabilize social worlds and creative and imaginative acts that temporarily subvert established conventions to inject variability.

Reading of ingroup politicians' smiles triggers smiling in the corner of one's eyes

Spontaneous smiles in response to politicians can serve as an implicit barometer for gauging electorate preferences. However, it is unclear whether a subtle Duchenne smile-an authentic expression involving the coactivation of the zygomaticus major (ZM) and orbicularis oculi (OO) muscles-would be elicited while reading about a favored politician smiling, indicating a more positive disposition and political endorsement. From an embodied simulation perspective, we investigated whether written descriptions of a politician's smile would trigger morphologically different smiles in readers depending on shared or opposing political orientation. In a controlled reading task in the laboratory, participants were presented with subject-verb phrases describing left and right-wing politicians smiling or frowning. Concurrently, their facial muscular reactions were measured via electromyography (EMG) recording at three facial muscles: the ZM and OO, coactive during Duchenne smiles, and the corrugator supercilii (CS) involved in frowning. We found that participants responded with a Duchenne smile detected at the ZM and OO facial muscles when exposed to portrayals of smiling politicians of same political orientation and reported more positive emotions towards these latter. In contrast, when reading about outgroup politicians smiling, there was a weaker activation of the ZM muscle and no activation of the OO muscle, suggesting a weak non-Duchenne smile, while emotions reported towards outgroup politicians were significantly more negative. Also, a more enhanced frown response in the CS was found for ingroup compared to outgroup politicians' frown expressions. Present findings suggest that a politician's smile may go a long way to influence electorates through both non-verbal and verbal pathways. They add another layer to our understanding of how language and social information shape embodied effects in a highly nuanced manner. Implications for verbal communication in the political context are discussed.

The Two Routes of Collective Psychological Ownership: Rights and Responsibilities Explain Intentions to Exclude Outsiders and Engage in Stewardship Behavior

People can have a sense of collective ownership of a particular territory, such as "our" country, "our" neighborhood, and "our" park. Collective psychological ownership is argued to go together with rights and responsibilities that have different behavioral implications. We found that collective psychological ownership leads to perceived determination right, and indirectly to the exclusion of outsiders from "our" place. Simultaneously, collective psychological ownership leads to perceived group responsibility, and indirectly to engagement in stewardship behavior. These results were found among Dutch adults, cross-sectionally in relation to their country (Study 1; N = 617) and a neighborhood (Study 2; N = 784), and experimentally in relation to an imaginary local park (Study 3; N = 384, Study 4; N = 502, both pre-registered). Our research shows that the feeling that a place is "ours" can, via perceived rights and responsibilities, result in both exclusionary and prosocial behavioral tendencies.

Gradual Loss of Social Group Support during Competition Activates Anterior TPJ and Insula but Deactivates Default Mode Network

Group forming behaviors are common in many species to overcome environmental challenges. In humans, bonding, trust, group norms, and a shared past increase consolidation of social groups. Being a part of a social group increases resilience to mental stress; conversely, its loss increases vulnerability to depression. However, our knowledge on how social group support affects brain functions is limited. This study observed that default mode network (DMN) activity reduced with the loss of social group support from real-life friends in a challenging social competition. The loss of support induced anterior temporoparietal activity followed by anterior insula and the dorsal attentional network activity. Being a part of a social group and having support provides an environment for high cognitive functioning of the DMN, while the loss of group support acts as a threat signal and activates the anterior temporoparietal junction (TPJ) and insula regions of salience and attentional networks for individual survival.

Learning from in-group and out-group models induces separative effects on human mate copying

Mate copying is a social learning process in which individuals gather public information about potential mates by observing models' choices. Previous studies have reported that individual attributes of female models affect mate copying, yet little is known about whether and how the group attributes of models influence mate copying. In the current behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies, female participants were asked to rate their willingness to choose the depicted males as potential romantic partners before and after observing in-group or out-group female models accepting, rejecting or being undecided (baseline) about the males. Results showed that participants changed their ratings to align with the models' acceptance or rejection choices. Compared to rejection copying, the effect of acceptance copying was stronger and regulated by in- and out-group models, manifesting a discounting copying effect when learning from out-group models. At the neural level, for acceptance copying, stronger temporoparietal junction (TPJ) activity and connectivity between TPJ and anterior medial prefrontal cortex (amPFC) were observed when female models belonged to out-group members; meanwhile, the functional connection of TPJ and amPFC positively predicted the rating changes when learning from out-group models. The results indicated that participants might need more resources to infer out-group members' intentions to overcome the in-group bias during acceptance copying.

Teenagers' but not young adults' beliefs about intrinsic interpersonal obligations for group members

Previous research has indicated that children perceive social category members as having intrinsic obligations toward each other, which shape their expectations for social interactions. However, it is unclear whether teenagers (aged 13 to 15) and young adults (aged 19 to 21) continue to hold such beliefs, given their increased experience with group dynamics and external social rules. To explore this question, three experiments were conducted with a total of 360 participants (N = 180 for each age group). Experiment 1 examined negative social interactions using different methods in two sub-experiments, while Experiment 2 focused on positive social interactions to examine whether participants viewed social category members as intrinsically obligated to avoid harming each other and to offer assistance. Results revealed that teenagers evaluated within-group harm and non-help as unacceptable, regardless of external rules, whereas they viewed between-group harm and non-help as both acceptable and unacceptable, depending on the presence of external rules. Conversely, young adults considered both within-group and between-group harm/non-help as more acceptable if an external rule permitted such behavior. These findings suggest that teenagers believe that members of a social category are intrinsically obligated to help and not harm each other, whereas young adults believe that individual social interactions are constrained mainly by external rules. That is, teenagers hold stronger beliefs than young adults about intrinsic interpersonal obligations to group members. Thus, in-group moral obligations and external rules contribute differently to the evaluation and interpretation of social interactions at different developmental stages.

Relationships between the race implicit association test and other measures of implicit and explicit social cognition

Background

The race-based Implicit Association Test (IAT) was proposed to measure individual differences in implicit racial bias subsumed within social cognition. In recent years, researchers have debated the theoretical tenets underpinning the IAT, questioning whether performance on this task: (1) measures implicit attitudes that operate automatically outside of conscious awareness; (2) reflects individual differences in social cognition; and (3) can predict social behavior. One way to better address these research questions is to assess whether the race-IAT correlates with other implicit processes that are subsumed within social cognition.

Aims

The current study assessed whether the race-IAT was related to other commonly used individual difference measures of implicit (and explicit) social cognition. Experiment 1 assessed whether dissociable patterns of performance on the race-IAT were related to measures of implicit imitative tendencies, emotion recognition and perspective taking toward White task actors, as well as explicit measures of trait and state affective empathy and racial bias. Overcoming limitations of task conceptual correspondence, Experiment 2 assessed whether these latter tasks were sensitive in detecting racial biases by using both White and Black task actors and again examined their relationships with the race-IAT.

Method

In two lab-based experiments, 226 and 237 participants completed the race-IAT followed by an extensive battery of social cognition measures.

Results

Across both experiments, pro-White/anti-Black bias on the race-IAT was positively related to a pro-White bias on explicit measures of positive affective empathy. However, relationships between the race-IAT and implicit imitative tendencies, perspective taking, emotion recognition, and explicit trait and negative state affective empathy were statistically equivalent.

Conclusion

The race-IAT was consistently related to explicit measures of positive state affective empathy but not to other individual difference measures of implicit social cognition. These findings are discussed with regards to the theoretical underpinnings of the race-IAT as an individual difference measure of implicit social cognition, as well as alternative explanations relating to the reliability of social cognition measures and the various combinations of general-purpose (social and non-social) executive processes that underpin performance on these tasks.

Collective psychological ownership as a new angle for understanding group dynamics

Even without legal ownership, groups can experience objects, places, and ideas as belonging to them ('ours'). This state of mind-collective psychological ownership-is understudied in social psychology, yet it is central to many intergroup conflicts and stewardship behaviour. We discuss our research on the psychological processes and social-psychological implications of collective psychological ownership. We studied territorial ownership, in different parts of the world and at different geographical levels, offering not only a cross-national but also conceptual replication of the processes. Our findings show that collective psychological ownership is inferred based on primo-occupancy, investment, and formation. Further, we demonstrate that collective psychological ownership can have positive intragroup and negative intergroup outcomes, which are guided by perceived group responsibility and exclusive determination right. We then discuss ownership threat (losing what is 'ours'), and we consider the role of group identification in ownership-related processes. We conclude by providing directions for future research.

Differentiating Between Us & Them: Reduced In-Group Bias as a Novel Mechanism Linking Childhood Violence Exposure with Internalizing Psychopathology

Strong in-group bonds, facilitated by implicit favoritism for in-group members (i.e., in-group bias), promote mental health across development. Yet, we know little about how the development of in-group bias is shaped by early-life experiences. Childhood violence exposure is known to alter social information processing biases. Violence exposure may also influence social categorization processes, including in-group biases, in ways that influence risk for psychopathology. We examined associations of childhood violence exposure with psychopathology and behavioral and neural indices of implicit and explicit bias for novel groups in children followed longitudinally across three time points from age 5 to 10 years old (n = 101 at baseline; n = 58 at wave 3). To instantiate in-group and out-group affiliations, youths underwent a minimal group assignment induction procedure, in which they were randomly assigned to one of two groups. Youth were told that members of their assigned group shared common interests (in-group) and members of the other group did not (out-group). In pre-registered analyses, violence exposure was associated with lower implicit in-group bias, which in turn was associated prospectively with higher internalizing symptoms and mediated the longitudinal association between violence exposure and internalizing symptoms. During an fMRI task examining neural responses while classifying in-group and out-group members, violence-exposed children did not exhibit the negative functional coupling between vmPFC and amygdala to in-group vs. out-group members that was observed in children without violence exposure. Reduced implicit in-group bias may represent a novel mechanism linking violence exposure with the development of internalizing symptoms.

(Not) part of the team: Racial empathy bias in a South African minimal group study

Minimal Group Paradigm (MGP) research suggests that recategorization with an arbitrarily defined group may be sufficient to override empathy biases among salient social categories like race. However, most studies utilizing MGPs do not consider sufficiently the socio-historical contexts of social groups. Here we investigated whether the recategorization of White participants into arbitrarily defined mixed-race teams using a non-competitive MGP would ameliorate racial empathy biases towards ingroup team members in the South African context. Sixty participants rated their empathic and counter-empathic (Schadenfreude, Glückschmerz) responses to ingroup and outgroup team members in physically painful, emotionally distressing, and positive situations. As anticipated, results indicated significant ingroup team biases in empathic and counter-empathic responses. However, mixed-race minimal teams were unable to override ingroup racial empathy biases, which persisted across events. Interestingly, a manipulation highlighting purported political ideological differences between White and Black African team members did not exacerbate racial empathy bias, suggesting that such perceptions were already salient. Across conditions, an internal motivation to respond without prejudice was most strongly associated with empathy for Black African target individuals, regardless of their team status. Together, these results suggest that racial identity continues to provide a salient motivational guide in addition to more arbitrary group memberships, even at an explicit level, for empathic responding in contexts characterized by historical power asymmetry. These data further problematize the continued official use of race-based categories in such contexts.

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.

Neural correlates of performance monitoring vary as a function of competition between automatic and controlled processes: An ERP study

Dual process theories of attitude formation propose that an evolutionary old associative system automatically generates subjective judgments by processing mere spatiotemporal contiguity between paired objects, subjects, or events. These judgments can potentially contradict our well-reasoned evaluations and highjack decisional or behavioral outcomes. Contrary to this perspective, other models stress the exclusive work of a single propositional system that consciously process co-occurrences between environmental cues and produce propositions, i.e., mental statements that capture the specific manner through which stimuli are linked. We constructed an experiment on the premise that it would be possible, if the associative system does produce attitudes in a parallel non-conscious fashion, to condition two mutually exclusive attitudes (one implicit, the other explicit) toward a same stimulus. Through explicit ratings, inhibition performance, and neural correlates of performance monitoring, we assessed whether there was a discrepancy between stimuli that were conditioned with (1) the two systems working in harmony (i.e., producing congruent attitudes), or (2) the two systems working in competition (i.e., producing incongruent attitudes). Compared with congruent stimuli, incongruent stimuli consistently elicited more neutral liking scores, higher response times and error rates, as well as a diminished amplitudes in two well-studied neural correlates of automatic error detection (i.e., error-related negativity) and conscious appraisal of error commission (i.e., error-related positivity). Our findings are discussed in the light of evolutionary psychology, dual-process theories of attitude formation and theoretical frameworks on the functional significance of error-related neural markers.

The role of empathy in shared intentionality: Contributions from Inter-Processual Self theory

Research in psychology related to the conceptualization of empathy has been on the rise in the last decades. However, we argue that there is still space for further research to help capture the important notion of empathy and its theoretical and conceptual depth. Following a critical review of the current state of the research that conceptualizes and measures empathy, we focus on works that highlight the importance of a shared vision and its relevance in psychology and neuroscience. Considering the state of the art of current neuroscientific and psychological approaches to empathy, we argue for the relevance of shared intention and shared vision in empathy-related actions. Upon review of different models that emphasize a shared vision for informing research on empathy, we suggest that a newly developed theory of self, human growth and action–the so-called Inter-Processual Self theory (IPS)–can significantly and novelly inform the theorization on empathy beyond what the literature has stated to date. Then, we show how an understanding of integrity as a relational act that requires empathy is an essential mechanism for current key research on empathy and its related concepts and models. Ultimately, we aim to present IPS as a distinctive proposal to expand upon the conceptualization of empathy.

Social cognitive processes explain bias in juror decisions

Jury decisions are among the most consequential social decisions in which bias plays a notable role. While courts take measures to reduce the influence of non-evidentiary factors, jurors may still incorporate biases into their decisions. One common bias, crime-type bias, is the extent to which the perceived strength of a prosecutor's case depends on the severity of the crime. Moral judgment, affect and social cognition have been proposed as core processes underlying this and other biases. Behavioral evidence alone has been insufficient to distinguish these explanations. To identify the mechanism underlying crime-type bias, we collected functional magnetic resonance imaging patterns of brain activation from mock jurors reading criminal scenarios. Brain patterns from crime-type bias were most similar to those associated with social cognition (mentalizing and racial bias) but not affect or moral judgment. Our results support a central role for social cognition in juror decisions and suggest that crime-type bias and cultural bias may arise from similar mechanisms.

Sympathy-Empathy and the Radicalization of Young People

BACKGROUND

The sympathy-empathy (SE) system is commonly considered a key faculty implied in prosocial behaviors, and SE deficits (also called callous-unemotional traits, CUTs) are associated with nonprosocial and even violent behaviors. Thus, the first intuitive considerations considered a lack of SE among young people who undergo radicalization. Yet, their identification with a cause, their underlying feelings of injustice and grievance, and the other ways in which they may help communities, suggest that they may actually have a lot of empathy, even an excess of it. As a consequence, the links between SE and radicalization remain to be specified. This critical review aims to discuss whether and how SE is associated with developmental trajectories that lead young people to radicalization.

METHOD

We first recall the most recent findings about SE development, based on an interdisciplinary perspective informed by social neuroscience. Then, we review sociological and psychological studies that address radicalization. We will critically examine the intersections between SE and radicalization, including neuroscientific bases and anthropologic modulation of SE by social factors involved in radicalization.

RESULTS

This critical review indicates that the SE model should clearly distinguish between sympathy and empathy within the SE system. Using this model, we identified three possible trajectories in young radicalized individuals. In individuals with SE deficit, the legitimization of violence is enough to engage in radicalization. Concerning individuals with normal SE, we hypothesize two trajectories. First, based on SE inhibition/desensitization, individuals can temporarily join youths who lack empathy. Second, based on an SE dissociation, combining emotional sympathy increases for the in-group and cognitive empathy decreases toward the out-group.

CONCLUSIONS

While confirming that a lack of empathy can favor radicalization, the counterintuitive hypothesis of a favorable SE development trajectory also needs to be considered to better specify the cognitive and affective aspects of this complex phenomenon.

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.

Morality is Supreme: The Roles of Morality, Fairness and Group Identity in the Ultimatum Paradigm

Purpose

A large number of decision-making need to be carried out in the context of social interactions. Previous studies have demonstrated the impact of fairness perception, moral judgment, and group identity on decision-making. However, there is no clear conclusion as to how the effect of these factors existing simultaneously on decision-making and the extent to which these factors play a role.

Methods

We manipulated the moral quality of proposers to explore the issue of whether morality has an impact on fairness perception and manipulated the moral quality of proposer and responder simultaneously forming group identity to explore whether group identity has an impact on the effect of morality on fairness in decision-making.

Results

Participants displayed a higher acceptance rates for positive moral proposers than the negative moral proposers regardless of the fairness of the allocation of money (Experiment 1) and group identity (Experiment 2). However, the effect of group identity was working, though it partially supported the In-group Preference (Experiment 1 and Experiment 2 combined analysis). We hold that the group identity was influenced by morality.

Conclusion

When making an economic decision, morality has the supreme influence on individuals.

Encoding of Race Categories by Single Neurons in the Human Brain

Previous research has suggested that race-specific features are automatically processed during face perception, often with out-group faces treated categorically. Functional imaging has illuminated the hemodynamic correlates of this process, with fewer studies examining single-neuron responses. In the present experiment, epilepsy patients undergoing microwire recordings in preparation for surgical treatment were shown realistic computer-generated human faces, which they classified according to the emotional expression shown. Racial categories of the stimulus faces varied independently of the emotion shown, being irrelevant to the patients’ primary task. Nevertheless, we observed race-driven changes in neural firing rates in the amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, and hippocampus. These responses were broadly distributed, with the firing rates of 28% of recorded neurons in the amygdala and 45% in the anterior cingulate cortex predicting one or more racial categories. Nearly equal proportions of neurons responded to White and Black faces (24% vs. 22% in the amygdala and 26% vs. 28% in the anterior cingulate cortex). A smaller fraction (12%) of race-responsive neurons in the hippocampus predicted only White faces. Our results imply a distributed representation of race in brain areas involved in affective judgments, decision making, and memory. They also support the hypothesis that race-specific cues are perceptually coded even when those cues are task-irrelevant.

Latent structure learning as an alternative computation for group inference

In contrast to Pietraszewski's account, latent structure learning neither requires conflict nor relies on observation of explicit coalitional behavior to support group inference. This alternative addresses how even non-conflict-based groups may be defined and is supported by experimental evidence in human behavior.

Neural Mechanisms of Intergroup Exclusion and Retaliatory Aggression

Aggression occurs frequently and severely between rival groups. Although there has been much study into the psychological and socio-ecological determinants of intergroup aggression, the neuroscience of this phenomenon remains incomplete. To examine the neural correlates of aggression directed at outgroup (versus ingroup) targets, we recruited 35 healthy young male participants who were current or former students of the same university. While undergoing functional MRI, participants completed an aggression task against both an ingroup and an outgroup opponent in which their opponents repeatedly provoked them at varying levels and then participants could retaliate. Participants were then socially included and then excluded by two outgroup members and then completed the same aggression task against the same two opponents. Both before and after outgroup exclusion, aggression towards outgroup members was positively associated with activity in the ventral striatum during decisions about how aggressive to be towards their outgroup opponent. Aggression towards outgroup members was also linked to greater post-exclusion activity in the rostral and dorsal medial prefrontal cortex during provocation from their outgroup opponent. These altered patterns of brain activity suggest that frontostriatal mechanisms may play a significant role in motivating aggression towards outgroup members.

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.

Ingroup favoritism overrides fairness when resources are limited

Ingroup favoritism and fairness are two potentially competing motives guiding intergroup behaviors in human. Here, we investigate if and how limited resources can modulate the way these two motives affect individuals’ decisions in intergroup situation. In the present study, participants (N = 58) were asked to accept or reject three types of resource allocation proposals generated by a computer: the ingroup advantageous condition, outgroup advantageous condition, and neutral condition. In general, participants were more willing to accept the proposals in the ingroup advantageous condition than the outgroup advantageous or the neutral conditions, and also in the moderate inequality than the extreme inequality condition. This may indicate that people sought a careful balance between ingroup favoritism and fairness, although we also found marked individual differences in their preferences for ingroup favoritism or fairness. Importantly, as predicted, participants were more likely to show ingroup favoritism only when limited resources affect the well-being of ingroup members. The present study provides novel insights into the situational and personality factors affecting human intergroup behaviors, shedding light on motives underlying intergroup conflicts prevalent in human societies.

Fight Alone or Together? The Influence of Risk Perception on Helping Behavior

Will there be a greater sense of solidarity and friendship during public crises? This study aims to determine whether risk perception influences employees’ willingness to assist in times of public crisis, taking COVID-19 as a specific research scenario and based on the theory of “tend and befriend”. This study hypothesized that risk perception will influence employees’ helping behavior via the in-group identity, with the degree of impact dependent on the COVID-19 pandemic’s severity. A questionnaire survey of 925 practitioners from various industries in the pandemic area revealed that: risk perception has a positive influence on employees’ helping behavior; in-group identity plays a certain mediating role in the process of risk perception that influences employees’ helping behavior; and the severity of a local pandemic negatively moderates the relationship between risk perception and helping behavior, but positively moderates the relationship between risk perception and in-group identity. Specifically, employees in high-risk areas are more likely to “align” (higher degree of recognition by the in-group) but demonstrate less helping behavior, compared with those in areas with moderate and low risk from the COVID-19. By contrast, employees in low-risk areas display more helping behavior but have less in-group identity, compared with those in areas with moderate and high risk from the COVID-19. This study expands the research on the relationship between risk perception and helping behavior, enriches the research results on risk management theory, and provides a practical reference for risk governance.

Procedural (in)justice in children: Children choose procedures that favor their ingroup

Research has shown that both ingroup bias and concern for procedural justice emerge early in development; however, these concerns can conflict. We investigated whether 6- to 8-year-old children are more influenced by procedural justice versus ingroup favoritism in a resource allocation task. In our first study, children played a novel spinner game in which they chose among fair, ingroup favoring, and outgroup favoring procedures to decide whether a resource would go to an unfamiliar ingroup or outgroup recipient. We found that 6- to 8-year-olds overall chose ingroup favoring procedures. However, this tendency decreased with age; whereas younger children were more likely to select procedures that were advantageous to their ingroup, older children (7- and 8-year-olds) mostly chose fair procedures. Our second study investigated the motivations underpinning children's choices by testing whether children's fair procedure choices were in part driven by a desire to appear fair. Here we varied whether children made procedure choices in public, allowing them to manage their reputation, versus in private, where reputational concerns should not guide their choices. We found that from 6 to 8 years of age children chose ingroup favoring procedures and that this tendency was slightly stronger when choosing in private. Taken together, our research suggests that ingroup favoritism often trumps procedural justice in resource allocation tasks, especially for younger children and especially when reputation is not in play.

What Bias Management Can Learn From Change Management? Utilizing Change Framework to Review and Explore Bias Strategies

This paper conducted a preliminary study of reviewing and exploring bias strategies using a framework of a different discipline: change management. The hypothesis here is: If the major problem of implicit bias strategies is that they do not translate into actual changes in behaviors, then it could be helpful to learn from studies that have contributed to successful change interventions such as reward management, social neuroscience, health behavioral change, and cognitive behavioral therapy. The result of this integrated approach is: (1) current bias strategies can be improved and new ones can be developed with insight from adjunct study fields in change management; (2) it could be more sustainable to invest in a holistic and proactive bias strategy approach that targets the social environment, eliminating the very condition under which biases arise; and (3) while implicit biases are automatic, future studies should invest more on strategies that empower people as "change agents" who can act proactively to regulate the very environment that gives rise to their biased thoughts and behaviors.

Electrophysiological Correlates of Social Decision-making: An EEG Investigation of a Modified Ultimatum Game

Cooperation behaviors during social decision-making have been shown to be sensitive to manipulations of context. However, it remains unclear how aspects of context in dynamic social interactions, such as observed nonverbal behaviors, may modulate cooperation decisions and the associated neural mechanisms. In this study, participants responded to offers from proposers to split $10 in an Ultimatum Game following observation of proposer approach (friendly) or avoidance (nonfriendly) behaviors, displayed by dynamic whole-body animated avatars, or following a nonsocial interaction control condition. As expected, behavioral results showed that participants tended to have greater acceptance rates for unfair offers following observed nonverbal social interactions with proposers compared with control, suggesting an enhancing effect of social interactions on cooperative decisions. ERP results showed greater N1 and N2 responses at the beginning of social interaction conditions compared with control, and greater sustained and late positivity responses for observed approach and avoidance proposer behaviors compared with control. Event-related spectral perturbation (ERSP) results showed differential sensitivity within theta, alpha, and beta bands during observation of social interactions and offers that was associated with subsequent decision behaviors. Together, these results point to the impact of proposers' nonverbal behaviors on subsequent cooperation decisions at both behavioral and neural levels. The ERP and ERSP findings suggest modulated attention, monitoring, and processing of biological motion during the observed nonverbal social interactions, influencing the participants' responses to offers. These findings shed light on electrophysiological correlates of response to observed social interactions that predict subsequent social decisions.

Older adults across the globe exhibit increased prosocial behavior but also greater in-group preferences

Population aging is a global phenomenon with substantial implications across society1,2. Prosocial behaviors-actions that benefit others-promote mental and physical health across the lifespan3,4 and can save lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. We examined whether age predicts prosociality in a preregistered global study (46,576 people aged 18-99 across 67 countries) using two acutely relevant measures: distancing during COVID-19 and willingness to donate to hypothetical charities. Age positively predicted prosociality on both measures, with increased distancing and donations among older adults. However, older adults were more in-group focused than younger adults in choosing who to help, making larger donations to national over international charities and reporting increased in-group preferences. In-group preferences helped explain greater national over international donations. Results were robust to several control analyses and internal replication. Our findings have vital implications for predicting the social and economic impacts of aging populations, increasing compliance with public health measures and encouraging charitable donations.

The neuroscience of intergroup threat and violence

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a global increase in hate crimes and xenophobia. In these uncertain times, real or imaginary threats can easily lead to intergroup conflict. Here, we integrate social neuroscience findings with classic social psychology theories into a framework to better understand how intergroup threat can lead to violence. The role of moral disengagement, dehumanization, and intergroup schadenfreude in this process are discussed, together with their underlying neural mechanisms. We outline how this framework can inform social scientists and policy makers to help reduce the escalation of intergroup conflict and promote intergroup cooperation. The critical role of the media and public figures in these unprecedented times is highlighted as an important factor to achieve these goals.

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.

The neural underpinnings of intergroup social cognition: an fMRI meta-analysis

Roughly 20 years of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have investigated the neural correlates underlying engagement in social cognition (e.g. empathy and emotion perception) about targets spanning various social categories (e.g. race and gender). Yet, findings from individual studies remain mixed. In the present quantitative functional neuroimaging meta-analysis, we summarized across 50 fMRI studies of social cognition to identify consistent differences in neural activation as a function of whether the target of social cognition was an in-group or out-group member. We investigated if such differences varied according to a specific social category (i.e. race) and specific social cognitive processes (i.e. empathy and emotion perception). We found that social cognition about in-group members was more reliably related to activity in brain regions associated with mentalizing (e.g. dorsomedial prefrontal cortex), whereas social cognition about out-group members was more reliably related to activity in regions associated with exogenous attention and salience (e.g. anterior insula). These findings replicated for studies specifically focused on the social category of race, and we further found intergroup differences in neural activation during empathy and emotion perception tasks. These results help shed light on the neural mechanisms underlying social cognition across group lines.

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.

The neuroscience of social feelings: mechanisms of adaptive social functioning

Social feelings have conceptual and empirical connections with affect and emotion. In this review, we discuss how they relate to cognition, emotion, behavior and well-being. We examine the functional neuroanatomy and neurobiology of social feelings and their role in adaptive social functioning. Existing neuroscience literature is reviewed to identify concepts, methods and challenges that might be addressed by social feelings research. Specific topic areas highlight the influence and modulation of social feelings on interpersonal affiliation, parent-child attachments, moral sentiments, interpersonal stressors, and emotional communication. Brain regions involved in social feelings were confirmed by meta-analysis using the Neurosynth platform for large-scale, automated synthesis of functional magnetic resonance imaging data. Words that relate specifically to social feelings were identfied as potential research variables. Topical inquiries into social media behaviors, loneliness, trauma, and social sensitivity, especially with recent physical distancing for guarding public and personal health, underscored the increasing importance of social feelings for affective and second person neuroscience research with implications for brain development, physical and mental health, and lifelong adaptive functioning.

Perspective taking reduces intergroup bias in visual representations of faces

Intergroup biases shape most aspects of person construal, including lower-level visual representations of group members' faces. Specifically, ingroup members' faces tend to be represented more positively than outgroup members' faces. Here, we used a reverse-correlation paradigm to test whether engaging in perspective taking (i.e., actively imagining another person's mental states) can reduce these biased visual representations. In an initial image-generation experiment, participants were randomly assigned to a minimal group and then composed a narrative essay about an ingroup or an outgroup target person, either while adopting the person's perspective or while following control instructions. Afterward, they generated an image of the person's face in a reverse-correlation image-classification task. Subsequent image-assessment experiments using an explicit rating task, a sequential priming task, and an economic trust game with separate samples of participants revealed that ingroup faces elicited more likability and trustworthiness than did outgroup faces. Importantly, this pattern of intergroup bias was consistently weaker in faces created by perspective takers. Additional image-assessment experiments identified the mouth (i.e., smiling cues) as a critical facial region wherein the interactive effects of group membership and perspective taking emerged. These findings provide initial evidence that perspective taking may be an effective strategy for attenuating, though not for eliminating, intergroup biases in visual representations of what group members look like.

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.

Picturing donations: Do images influence conservation fundraising?

Many environmental organizations use photographic images to engage donors and supporters. While images play a role in fundraising, visual framing remains understudied in the environmental field. Few real-world experiments have examined which types of images result in higher donations to biodiversity conservation. We examined the role of images in conservation fundraising through a public experiment at Zoomarine, a marine park located in southern Portugal. Zoomarine runs a program called Dolphin Emotions where visitors pay to learn about dolphin biology and to interact with dolphins. We placed a donation box and a large informational poster about the Marine Megafauna Foundation, a conservation partner, in the lounge of the Dolphin Emotions program, which is open to participants and their families. The text on the poster, which solicited donations for the Marine Megafauna Foundation, was held constant, while four different image conditions were tested: dolphins, ocean wildlife, children, and people staring out from the poster (i.e., “watching eyes”). Each image condition was displayed for three days at a time and was on display for at least seven randomly assigned three-day periods over the course of 91 days. 20,944 visitors passed the donation box and the four poster conditions during this time and a total of € 952.40 was collected. The differences in mean donations in € per visitor per 3-day period were not statistically significant, F(3, 25) = 0.745, p = 0.54. Thus, we did not find that different images had a significant influence on donations to conservation. This may be due to our choice of visual frames or to the use of a donation box, which is a passive fundraising channel. Future research should examine how visual framing influences donations in other public settings and should test the influence of other visual frames on philanthropic behavior.

Racial Ingroup Bias and Efficiency Consideration Influence Distributive Decisions: A Dynamic Analysis of Time Domain and Time Frequency

Although previous studies have demonstrated that identity had effect on justice norms and behavioral decisions, the neural mechanism of that effect remains unclear. In this study, the subjects made their distributive decisions on the trade-off between equity and efficiency among Chinese and foreign children and their scalp potentials were recorded. Behavioral results showed that efficiency consideration played an important part in the distribution task. Meanwhile, participants gave preferential treatment to same-race children. Relative to the distribution within ingroup children, the distribution involving outgroup children induced higher N170 amplitude. The distribution involving outgroup children also elicited weakened P300 amplitude and enhanced delta response than the distribution within ingroup children when subjects are facing the conflict between equality and efficiency. In other words, ingroup bias affected the neural process of the trade-off between equality and efficiency. The combination of time-domain and time-frequency analyses provided spatiotemporal and spectral results for a better understanding of racial ingroup favoritism on distributive justice.

The gender-binary cycle: the perpetual relations between a biological-essentialist view of gender, gender ideology, and gender-labelling and sorting

Gender inequality is one of the most pressing issues of our time. A core factor that feeds gender inequality is people's gender ideology-a set of beliefs about the proper order of society in terms of the roles women and men should fill. We argue that gender ideology is shaped, in large parts, by the way people make sense of gender differences. Specifically, people often think of gender differences as expressions of a predetermined biology, and of men and women as different 'kinds'. We describe work suggesting that thinking of gender differences in this biological-essentialist way perpetuates a non-egalitarian gender ideology. We then review research that refutes the hypothesis that men and women are different 'kinds' in terms of brain function, hormone levels and personality characteristics. Next, we describe how the organization of the environment in a gender-binary manner, together with cognitive processes of categorization drive a biological-essentialist view of gender differences. We then describe the self-perpetuating relations, which we term the gender-binary cycle, between a biological-essentialist view of gender differences, a non-egalitarian gender ideology and a binary organization of the environment along gender lines. Finally, we consider means of intervention at different points in this cycle. This article is part of the theme issue 'The political brain: neurocognitive and computational mechanisms'.

Positive and negative behavioural intentions towards immigrants: A question of ethnic categorisation or worldview conflict?

Anti-immigrant attitudes are often explained in terms of ethnic boundaries in which a categorical distinction between the ethnic ingroup and immigrant outgroup is made. However, these attitudes might also result from contrasting cultural worldviews. We examined the importance of ethnic categorisation and perceived cultural worldview difference in explaining behavioural intentions towards immigrants. Using an experimental survey design with a national sample of ethnic Dutch respondents (N = 832), we studied two positive and two negative behavioural intentions towards either immigrants with a contrasting cultural worldview or co-ethnics with such as worldview. Our findings indicate similar behavioural intentions towards both target groups. Furthermore, except for "the intention to learn" there were no differences in behavioural intentions towards both target groups for respondents with lower and higher authoritarian dispositions. Overall, this pattern of findings is theoretically most in line with a worldview conflict perspective rather than an ethnic boundary perspective.

Clinician-Patient Movement Synchrony Mediates Social Group Effects on Interpersonal Trust and Perceived Pain

Pain is an unfortunate consequence of many medical procedures, which in some patients becomes chronic and debilitating. Among the factors affecting medical pain, clinician-patient (C-P) similarity and nonverbal communication are particularly important for pain diagnosis and treatment. Participants (N = 66) were randomly assigned to clinician and patient roles and were grouped into C-P dyads. Clinicians administered painful stimuli to patients as an analogue of a painful medical procedure. We manipulated the perceived C-P similarity of each dyad using groups ostensibly based on shared beliefs and values, and each patient was tested twice: Once with a same group clinician (concordant, CC) and once with a clinician from the other group (discordant, DC). Movement synchrony was calculated as a marker of nonverbal communication. We tested whether movement synchrony mediated the effects of group concordance on patients' pain and trust in the clinician. Movement synchrony was higher in CC than DC dyads. Higher movement synchrony predicted reduced pain and increased trust in the clinician. Movement synchrony also formally mediated the group concordance effects on pain and trust. These findings increase our understanding of the role of nonverbal C-P communication on pain and related outcomes. Interpersonal synchrony may be associated with better pain outcomes, independent of the specific treatment provided. PERSPECTIVE: This article demonstrates that movement synchrony in C-P interactions is an unobtrusive measure related to their relationship quality, trust toward the clinician, and pain. These findings suggest that interpersonal synchrony may be associated with better patient outcomes, independent of the specific treatment provided.

Fusiform Activity Distinguishes Between Subjects With Low and High Xenophobic Attitudes Toward Refugees

This study analyzes how people's attitudes to the European refugee crisis (ERC) correspond to selected psychological state and trait measures and impact the neural processing of media images of refugees. From a large pool of respondents, who filled in an online xenophobia questionnaire, we selected two groups (total N = 38) with the same socio-demographic background, but with opposite attitudes toward refugees. We found that a negative attitude toward refugees (high xenophobia - HX) was associated with a significantly higher conscientiousness score and with a higher trait aggression and hostility, but there was no group effect connected with empathy, fear, and anxiety measures. At the neural level we found that brain activity during the presentation of ERC stimuli is affected by xenophobic attitudes—with more xenophobic subjects exhibiting a higher BOLD response in the left fusiform gyrus. However, while the fMRI results demonstrate increased attention and vigilance toward ERC-related stimuli in the HX group, they do not show differentiated patterns of brain activity associated with perception of dehumanized outgroup.

Experimental Games and Social Decision Making

Experimental games model situations in which the future outcomes of individuals and groups depend on their own choices and on those of other (groups of) individuals. Games are a powerful tool to identify the neural and psychological mechanisms underlying interpersonal and group cooperation and coordination. Here we discuss recent developments in how experimental games are used and adapted, with an increased focus on repeated interactions, partner control through sanctioning, and partner (de)selection for future interactions. Important advances have been made in uncovering the neurobiological underpinnings of key factors involved in cooperation and coordination, including social preferences, cooperative beliefs, (emotion) signaling, and, in particular, reputations and (in)direct reciprocity. Emerging trends at the cross-sections of psychology, economics, and the neurosciences include an increased focus on group heterogeneities, intergroup polarization and conflict, cross-cultural differences in cooperation and norm enforcement, and neurocomputational modeling of the formation and updating of social preferences and beliefs.

The Dark Side of Morality - Neural Mechanisms Underpinning Moral Convictions and Support for Violence

People are motivated by shared social values that, when held with moral conviction, can serve as compelling mandates capable of facilitating support for ideological violence. The current study examined this dark side of morality by identifying specific cognitive and neural mechanisms associated with beliefs about the appropriateness of sociopolitical violence, and determining the extent to which the engagement of these mechanisms was predicted by moral convictions. Participants reported their moral convictions about a variety of sociopolitical issues prior to undergoing functional MRI scanning. During scanning, they were asked to evaluate the appropriateness of violent protests that were ostensibly congruent or incongruent with their views about sociopolitical issues. Complementary univariate and multivariate analytical strategies comparing neural responses to congruent and incongruent violence identified neural mechanisms implicated in processing salience and in the encoding of subjective value. As predicted, neuro-hemodynamic response was modulated parametrically by individuals' beliefs about the appropriateness of congruent relative to incongruent sociopolitical violence in ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and by moral conviction in ventral striatum. Overall moral conviction was predicted by neural response to congruent relative to incongruent violence in amygdala. Together, these findings indicate that moral conviction about sociopolitical issues serves to increase their subjective value, overriding natural aversion to interpersonal harm.

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.