Empathic responses are reduced to competitive but not non-competitive outgroups

Abstract

Individuals feel more empathy for those in their group (i.e. ingroup members) than those who are not (i.e. outgroup members). But empathy is not merely selective to group distinctions, rather it fluctuates according to how groups are perceived. The goal of this research was to determine whether group-based evaluations can drive biases in self-reported empathy as well as in the underlying neural activity. Participants were asked to rate a target's physical pain while BOLD responses were recorded via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The target was either a member of the ingroup or one of two outgroups, one which was more of a rival to the ingroup than the other. Participants reported feeling more empathy for targets experiencing painful compared to innocuous events, showing bias only in favour of their ingroup. Neural responses were stronger while observing painful, compared to innocuous, events but only for targets from the ingroup or the less competitive outgroup. The difference was non-significant and trended in the opposite direction when the target was from the more competitive outgroup. This provides evidence that empathy is not merely selective to "us" vs "them" but is more nuanced by whom we refer to by "them".

A Neurocognitive Model of Ideological Thinking

“…There are also structural neuroimaging studies demonstrating that brain regions such as the bilateral amygdala (Nam et al, 2018) and the anterior cingulate cortex (Kanai et al, 2011) may have structurally different forms in people with different ideological worldviews. Functional neuroimaging studies with fMRI and EEG are also revealing the impact of political ideology (Schreiber et al, 2013;Haas, Baker, & Gonzalez, 2017), intergroup threat (Chang, Krosch, & Cikara, 2016;Richins, Barreto, Karl, & Lawrence, 2019;Hein, Engelmann, & Tobler, 2018), social power (Schmid, Hackel, & Amodio, 2017), and race (Hughes et al, 2019;Krosch & Amodio, 2019) on neurocognitive processes and sensory perception. In a notable study by Schreiber and colleagues (2013), participants completed a risk-taking task while in the brain scanner.…”

Insights From fMRI Studies Into Ingroup Bias

“…Therefore, increased empathy for ingroup members in pain and increased prosocial behavior to relieve ingroup members’ suffering may be a functional response developed throughout our human history. While most fMRI studies reviewed in section three showed a reduced neural response in brain areas associated with empathy when watching people from a different group in pain ( Xu et al, 2009 ; Hein et al, 2010 ; Azevedo et al, 2013 ; Contreras-Huerta et al, 2013 ), Richins et al (2018) also showed that this reduced response depends on the relationship with the outgroup. Participants showed no ingroup bias in neural responses toward a group that was not a direct threat to the status of the ingroup.…”

“…Individual ingroup bias differences in neural responses in these regions is also associated with reduced helping behavior ( Hein et al, 2010 ), and increased implicit negative bias toward outgroup members ( Azevedo et al, 2013 ). However, as the study by Richins et al (2018) suggests, this reduced neural response when confronted with outgroup members in pain depends on the type of outgroup people are dealing with.…”

“…Participants that showed a greater ingroup bias in AI activation, also showed a larger ingroup bias as measured by the IAT. Finally, a recent fMRI study suggests that perceived threat of the outgroup to the status of the ingroup can modulate ingroup bias ( Richins et al, 2018 ). Students who watched other students from the same and other university in pain only showed less activation in AI and dACC for outgroup members if the student was from a competing university, and not if the student was from a university that was not considered a threat to the status of the ingroup.…”

Adults and Children Blatantly Dehumanize Outgroups

“…The link between Theory of Mind abilities and dehumanization are suggested by the central role of mentalizing in promoting prosocial behavior -including empathic responses to others (Hare, 2017). Neurobiological evidence suggests mental states of threatening outgroup members are not recognized (Bedny, Pascual-Leone, & Saxe, 2009;Cikara, Bruneau, & Saxe, 2011;Cikara, Eberhardt, & Fiske, 2011;Harris & Fiske, 2006;Levy et al, 2016;Richins, Barreto, Karl, & Lawrence, 2019;Viki et al, 2013). Blatant dehumanization shows neural specificity that distinguishes it from negative or prejudice responses to others (Bruneau, Jacoby, Kteily, & Saxe, 2018).…”