Mina Cikara

Us Versus Them Social Identity Shapes Neural Responses to Intergroup Competition and Harm

Intergroup competition makes social identity salient, which in turn affects how people respond to competitors’ hardships. The failures of an in-group member are painful, whereas those of a rival out-group member may give pleasure—a feeling that may motivate harming rivals. The present study examined whether valuation-related neural responses to rival groups’ failures correlate with likelihood of harming individuals associated with those rivals. Avid fans of the Red Sox and Yankees teams viewed baseball plays while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. Subjectively negative outcomes (failure of the favored team or success of the rival team) activated anterior cingulate cortex and insula, whereas positive outcomes (success of the favored team or failure of the rival team, even against a third team) activated ventral striatum. The ventral striatum effect, associated with subjective pleasure, also correlated with self-reported likelihood of aggressing against a fan of the rival team (controlling for general aggression). Outcomes of social group competition can directly affect primary reward-processing neural systems, which has implications for intergroup harm.

The Neuroscience of Intergroup Relations: An Integrative Review

We review emerging research on the psychological and biological factors that underlie social group formation, cooperation, and conflict in humans. Our aim is to integrate the intergroup neuroscience literature with classic theories of group processes and intergroup relations in an effort to move beyond merely describing the effects of specific social out-groups on the brain and behavior. Instead, we emphasize the underlying psychological processes that govern intergroup interactions more generally: forming and updating our representations of “us” and “them” via social identification and functional relations between groups. This approach highlights the dynamic nature of social identity and the context-dependent nature of intergroup relations. We argue that this theoretical integration can help reconcile seemingly discrepant findings in the literature, provide organizational principles for understanding the core elements of intergroup dynamics, and highlight several exciting directions for future research at the interface of intergroup relations and neuroscience.

On the wrong side of the trolley track: neural correlates of relative social valuation

Using moral dilemmas, we (i) investigate whether stereotypes motivate people to value ingroup lives over outgroup lives and (ii) examine the neurobiological correlates of relative social valuation using fMRI. Saving ingroup members, who seem warm and competent (e.g. Americans), was most morally acceptable in the context of a dilemma where one person was killed to save five people. Extreme outgroup members, who seem neither warm nor competent (e.g. homeless), were the worst off; it was most morally acceptable to sacrifice them and least acceptable to save them. Sacrificing these low-warmth, low-competence targets to save ingroup targets, specifically, activated a neural network associated with resolving complex tradeoffs: medial PFC (BA 9, extending caudally to include ACC), left lateral OFC (BA 47) and left dorsolateral PFC (BA 10). These brain regions were recruited for dilemmas that participants ultimately rated as relatively more acceptable. We propose that participants, though ambivalent, overrode general aversion to these tradeoffs when the cost of sacrificing a low-warmth, low-competence target was pitted against the benefit of saving ingroup targets. Moral decisions are not made in a vacuum; intergroup biases and stereotypes weigh heavily on neural systems implicated in moral decision making.

Their pain, our pleasure: stereotype content and schadenfreude

People often fail to empathize with others, and sometimes even experience schadenfreude—pleasure at others’ misfortunes. One potent predictor of schadenfreude is envy, which, according to the stereotype content model, is elicited by high‐status, competitive targets. Here we review our recent research program investigating the relationships among stereotypes, envy, schadenfreude, and harm. Experiment 1 demonstrates that stereotypes are sufficient to influence affective responses to targets’ misfortunes; participants not only report feeling less negative when misfortunes befall high‐status, competitive targets as compared to other targets, they also smile more (assessed with facial EMG). Experiment 2 replicates the self‐report findings from Experiment 1 and assesses behavioral tendencies toward envied targets; participants are more willing to endorse harming high‐status, competitive targets as compared to other targets. Experiment 3 turns off the schadenfreude response by manipulating status and competition‐relevant information regarding envied targets. Finally, Experiment 4 investigates affective and neural markers of intergroup envy and schadenfreude in the context of a long‐standing sports rivalry and the extent to which neurophysiological correlates of schadenfreude are related to self‐reported likelihood of harming rival team fans. We conclude with implications and future directions.

Addressing Empathic Failures

Empathy is critical for social functioning, but it often wanes when it is needed most. Resulting empathic failures precipitate and worsen social conflict. Accordingly, conflict-reduction interventions prioritize developing empathy in order to achieve harmony. Recent research has indicated that such interventions can benefit from a more nuanced understanding of empathy. First, empathy is a multidimensional construct, including understanding, sharing, and feeling concern for others’ emotions. The expression of these empathic processes is further influenced by psychological factors that “tune” people toward or away from empathy. Interventions must therefore diagnose the specific nature and precursors of empathic failures and tailor interventions appropriately. Second, empathy alone may be insufficient to produce prosocial behavior, especially when parties differ in status or power. In these cases, interventions should promote equitable goals and norms in addition to empathy. By understanding its component processes and boundary conditions, practitioners can work to promote empathy in maximally effective ways.

Cutting Gordian Knots Reducing Prejudice Through Attachment Security

The positive role of secure attachment in reducing intergroup biases has been suggested in prior studies. We extend this work by testing the effects of secure attachment primes on negative emotions and aggressive behaviors toward outgroup members across four experiments. Results from Studies 1A and 1B reveal that secure attachment prime, relative to neutral, can reduce negative outgroup emotions. In addition, Studies 1B and 3 results rule out positive mood increase as an alternative explanation for the observed effects. Results from Studies 2 and 3 reveal that secure attachment primes can reduce aggressive behavior toward an outgroup member. The effect of secure attachment primes on outgroup harm was found to be fully mediated by negative emotions in Studies 2 and 3. An interaction between secure attachment primes and ingroup identification in Study 2 indicated that the positive effects of secure attachment in reducing outgroup harm may be especially beneficial for highly identified ingroup members.

Minding the Gap: Narrative Descriptions about Mental States Attenuate Parochial Empathy

In three experiments, we examine parochial empathy (feeling more empathy for in-group than out-group members) across novel group boundaries, and test whether we can mitigate parochial empathy with brief narrative descriptions. In the absence of individuating information, participants consistently report more empathy for members of their own assigned group than a competitive out-group. However, individualized descriptions of in-group and out-group targets significantly reduce parochial empathy by interfering with encoding of targets’ group membership. Finally, the descriptions that most effectively decrease parochial empathy are those that describe targets’ mental states. These results support the role of individuating information in ameliorating parochial empathy, suggest a mechanism for their action, and show that descriptions emphasizing targets’ mental states are particularly effective.

Parochial Empathy Predicts Reduced Altruism and the Endorsement of Passive Harm

Empathic failures are common in hostile intergroup contexts; repairing empathy is therefore a major focus of peacebuilding efforts. However, it is unclear which aspect of empathy is most relevant to intergroup conflict. Although trait empathic concern predicts prosociality in interpersonal settings, we hypothesized that the best predictor of meaningful intergroup attitudes and behaviors might not be the general capacity for empathy (i.e., trait empathy), but the difference in empathy felt for the in-group versus the out-group, or “parochial empathy.” Specifically, we predicted that out-group empathy would inhibit intergroup harm and promote intergroup helping, whereas in-group empathy would have the opposite effect. In three intergroup contexts—Americans regarding Arabs, Hungarians regarding refugees, Greeks regarding Germans—we found support for this hypothesis. In all samples, in-group and out-group empathy had independent, significant, and opposite effects on intergroup outcomes, controlling for trait empathic concern.

Decoding "Us" and "Them": Neural representations of generalized group concepts

Humans form social coalitions in every society on earth, yet we know very little about how the general concepts us and them are represented in the brain. Evolutionary psychologists have argued that the human capacity for group affiliation is a byproduct of adaptations that evolved for tracking coalitions in general. These theories suggest that humans possess a common neural code for the concepts in-group and out-group, regardless of the category by which group boundaries are instantiated. The authors used multivoxel pattern analysis to identify the neural substrates of generalized group concept representations. They trained a classifier to encode how people represented the most basic instantiation of a specific social group (i.e., arbitrary teams created in the lab with no history of interaction or associated stereotypes) and tested how well the neural data decoded membership along an objectively orthogonal, real-world category (i.e., political parties). The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex/middle cingulate cortex and anterior insula were associated with representing groups across multiple social categories. Restricting the analyses to these regions in a separate sample of participants performing an explicit categorization task, the authors replicated cross-categorization classification in anterior insula. Classification accuracy across categories was driven predominantly by the correct categorization of in-group targets, consistent with theories indicating in-group preference is more central than out-group derogation to group perception and cognition. These findings highlight the extent to which social group concepts rely on domain-general circuitry associated with encoding stimuli’s functional significance.

Unpacking Social Hypersensitivity: Vulnerability to the Absence of Positive Feedback

Navigating social life requires accurately calibrated sensitivity to external feedback, thus extreme sensitivity to external feedback may be maladaptive. Using a daily diary design, the authors investigated whether the relationship between social hypersensitivity and daily events predicted level, lability, and reactivity of both self-esteem and affect. Relative to their less sensitive peers, socially hypersensitive people exhibited lower levels of self-esteem and greater negative affect and experienced greater fluctuations in self-esteem and negative affect. Although most people were negatively reactive to the presence of negative feedback, socially hypersensitive people were negatively reactive to the absence of positive feedback as well. The authors argue that reactivity to the absence of positive feedback is a fundamental, heretofore untested aspect of what makes social hypersensitivity a pernicious orientation.