An fMRI investigation of the impact of interracial contact on executive function

Abstract

We investigated whether individual differences in racial bias among white participants predict the recruitment, and potential depletion, of executive attentional resources during contact with black individuals. White individuals completed an unobtrusive measure of racial bias, then interacted with a black individual, and finally completed an ostensibly unrelated Stroop color-naming test. In a separate functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) session, subjects were presented with unfamiliar black male faces, and the activity of brain regions thought to be critical to executive control was assessed. We found that racial bias predicted activity in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in response to black faces. Furthermore, activity in this region predicted Stroop interference after an actual interracial interaction, and it statistically mediated the relation between racial bias and Stroop interference. These results are consistent with a resource depletion account of the temporary executive dysfunction seen in racially biased individuals after interracial contact.

Putting Ourselves in Another’s Skin: Using the Plasticity of Self-Perception to Enhance Empathy and Decrease Prejudice

“…In contrast, both the vAI and dAI have been found to show increased activation for out-groups compared to in-groups (Richeson et al, 2003;Ronquillo et al, 2007). While both AI regions have been strongly implicated in self-processing, their role as a centre for interoceptive information processing means that they are also linked to the visceral representation of emotion and particularly negative affect (Nitschke, Sarinopoulos, MacKiewicz, Schaefer, & Davidson, 2006).…”

The Quadruple Process model approach to examining the neural underpinnings of prejudice

“…Although the IAT is one of the most popular behavioral measures of automatic (or implicit) attitudes, particularly for prejudice (Fazio and Olson, 2003), behavioral and modeling research suggests that IAT performance reflects both automatic and controlled processes (Conrey et al, 2005;Sherman et al, 2008). Previous fMRI studies involving the IAT are consistent with this view; significant activation has been found in regions associated with automatic processing, such as the amygdala (Cunningham et al, 2004;Phelps et al, (2000) although see Phelps et al, (2003) for evidence that amygdala is not critical for implicit racial bias) as well as controlled processing such as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (Richeson et al, 2003), middle frontal gyrus (Knutson et al, 2007), ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (Luo et al, 2006), and cingulate gyrus (Luo et al, 2006). The proposed research builds on this work by applying the Quadruple Process model (Quad model; Conrey et al, 2005;Sherman et al, 2008) to the interpretation of IAT performance in an fMRI environment, in order to examine the neural correlates of specific automatic and controlled processes that contribute to prejudice.…”

“…In other words, automatic associations may not be expressed because of controlled processing. In order to address the problematic behavioral measurement of automatic aspects of attitudes, a small amount of neural research interested in the neural systems underlying prejudice has drawn on the Implicit Association Test (IAT: Greenwald et al, 1998) (Chee et al, 2000;Cunningham et al, 2004;Knutson et al, 2006;2007;Luo et al, 2006;Phelps et al, 2003;Phelps et al, 2000;Richeson et al, 2003). Although the IAT is one of the most popular behavioral measures of automatic (or implicit) attitudes, particularly for prejudice (Fazio and Olson, 2003), behavioral and modeling research suggests that IAT performance reflects both automatic and controlled processes (Conrey et al, 2005;Sherman et al, 2008).…”

The mentalizing network orchestrates the impact of parochial altruism on social norm enforcement

“…Although recent studies have fundamentally improved our knowledge of how the brain modulates norm compliance [Baumgartner et al, 2008[Baumgartner et al, , 2009Delgado et al, 2005;Harbaugh et al, 2007;King-Casas et al, 2005;Rilling et al, 2002;Spitzer et al, 2007] and norm enforcement [Buckholtz et al, 2008;de Quervain et al, 2004;Fehr and Camerer, 2007;Knoch et al, 2006Knoch et al, , 2008Rangel et al, 2008;Sanfey, 2007;Sanfey et al, 2003;Strobel et al, 2011] they do not examine the parochial nature of this phenomena. There is also an important literature examining the neural circuitry of the cognitions involved in the evaluation of faces from distinct races [Cunningham et al, 2004;Golby et al, 2001;Phelps et al, 2000], the judgment of people belonging to other races [Eberhardt, 2005;Freeman et al, 2010;Ito and Bartholow, 2009;Lieberman et al, 2005;Richeson et al, 2003], prejudice [Beer et al, 2008], the evaluation of very poor and ''disgusting'' outgroups such as addicts and beggars in dirty clothes [Harris and Fiske, 2006], and the general evaluation of ingroup-outgroup interactions [Mathur et al, 2010;Van Bavel et al, 2008] but none of the individuals in these studies had to make costly punishment decisions that involved real costs and benefits for themselves or for others. In these studies there was thus no trade off between the individual punisher's self-interest, which suggests that he should not punish at all, and the punisher's altruistic concerns, which suggest that he should protect the victim of norm violations.…”