Enlarged Ingroup Effect: How a Shared Culture Shapes In-Group Perception

Abstract

Increasing levels of migration and constant redefinition of a 'sense of belonging' characterize modern societies. Thus, social perception of people from different ethnicities as in-group or out-group members is influenced by a shared culture that might go beyond ethnicity. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we aim to study how sharing a common culture changes the social perceptions of in-groups and out-groups. We presented same-and different-race faces to young adults living in an integrated multicultural society. Same-and different-race faces were primed by images of environmental context that promotes identification with the participants' ethnicity or a common shared culture. We found that same and different-race faces recruit similar brain networks only when associated with an environmental context, which promoted identification with a common shared culture. These results support a possible emergent phenomenon in multicultural societies that we call enlarged multi-ethnic in-group effect, which may form the basis of a potential new way to categorize oneself and others in terms of membership.KEYWORD: same race faces, different race faces, cultural and ethnic context, enlarged in-group effect, face categorization

The Influence of Baby Schema Effect and Mere Exposure Effect on Implicit and Explicit Face Processing: a Follow-Up Study

“…1) We carried out our research in Singapore, a multi-ethnic city. Since exposure to faces of other ethnicities has been proven effective in lowering out-group bias [38,45,56], we expect the influence of the ethnicity of the stimuli to be lower in comparison to previous studies.…”

Stronger brain activation for own baby but similar activation toward babies of own and different ethnicities in parents living in a multicultural environment

“…When neural responses of in-group and out-group faces were examined in an integrated multicultural society, perception and processing of faces were dependent on the identification with a common shared culture 77 , suggesting a divergence from the traditional conception of racial categorization. When the society explicitly and positively supports cross-ethnic interactions, an “enlarged in-group” has been reported, such that out-groups are processed similarly to in-groups 77 .…”

“…When neural responses of in-group and out-group faces were examined in an integrated multicultural society, perception and processing of faces were dependent on the identification with a common shared culture 77 , suggesting a divergence from the traditional conception of racial categorization. When the society explicitly and positively supports cross-ethnic interactions, an “enlarged in-group” has been reported, such that out-groups are processed similarly to in-groups 77 . In contrast to the classical ethnic in- and out-group categorization, the study by Rigo et al 77 demonstrated a form of categorization dependent on culture, and not ethnicity, which shapes and drives spontaneous social judgment of others.…”

“…When the society explicitly and positively supports cross-ethnic interactions, an “enlarged in-group” has been reported, such that out-groups are processed similarly to in-groups 77 . In contrast to the classical ethnic in- and out-group categorization, the study by Rigo et al 77 demonstrated a form of categorization dependent on culture, and not ethnicity, which shapes and drives spontaneous social judgment of others. This is consistent with an earlier pattern of findings by Zuo and Han 78 , which found no difference in neural activity in the pain matrix for in-group (Asian) and out-group (Caucasian) amongst Chinese adults who grew up in Western countries.…”

“…It is expected that infant face stimuli of different ethnicity and kinship would induce different brain activation patterns, recruiting different networks, in parents. Taking into consideration the finding of an “enlarged in-group” reported in a multicultural society (Rigo et al 77 ), it is postulated that the baby schema effect is robust in a multi-ethnic context, such that there will be (1) no significant difference in brain activations between viewing non-own ethnic in-group and out-group. In addition, the viewing of one’s own infant (vs. non-own in-group and out-group infants) would be reflected in greater involvement of brain areas underlying (2) empathic processing (insula, fusiform gyrus, superior temporal gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, and inferior temporal gyrus), (3) reward and motivation (amygdala, insula, fusiform gyrus, middle occipital gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, and inferior temporal gyrus), and (4) greater involvement of cerebral regions previously reported in response to own infant faces in connection with motor intentions and control (supplementary motor area, and middle cingulum), which collectively play a pivotal role in parent-infant bonding as the baby schema response network.…”