Harm avoiders suppress motor resonance to observed immoral actions

Liuzza, Marco Tullio; Candidi, Matteo; Sforza, Anna; Aglioti, Salvatore Maria

doi:10.1093/scan/nsu025

Cited by 24 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…In fact, the delay found in response to the Arabian outgroup member as he moved toward a gun can be interpreted as a freeze reaction to a harmfully perceived event as suggested by several studies that show that spontaneous body responses to social threat cues elicit freeze-like behaviors in humans (Roelofs et al, 2010). Moreover, our findings are in line with previous studies on the effects of morality on MR (Liuzza et al, 2015) showing a decrease in MR when observing immoral actions, in particular in individuals presenting high levels of harm avoidance. As an extension of this work, it will be interesting to investigate the relation between MR and visual attention.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…More specifically, we expected that social threat elicited by a specific outgroup (i.e., stereotypically aggressive) in a specific context (i.e., threatening contextual cues) is likely to amplify the pattern. This hypothesis is in line with previous studies on the effect of morality on MR (Liuzza et al, 2015), which shows that the phenomenon is significantly reduced when observing immoral actions (namely actions related to social threats; Brambilla et al, 2013) in individuals presenting high levels of harm avoidance.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 91%

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Social Threat and Motor Resonance: When a Menacing Outgroup Delays Motor Response

et al. 2016

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Motor resonance (MR) involves the activation of matching motor representations while observing others’ actions. Recent research has shown that such a phenomenon is likely to be influenced by higher order variables such as social factors (e.g., ethnic group membership). The present study investigates whether and how the perception of a social threat elicited by an outgroup member and by contextual cues can modulate motor responses while an individual observes others’ movements. In an experimental study based on an action observation paradigm, we asked participants to provide answers through computer mouse movements (MouseTracker). We manipulated the agents’ group membership (ingroup vs. outgroup) and the social valence of the objects present in a context (neutral vs. threatening) to elicit social menace through contextual cues. Response times and computer mouse trajectories were recorded. The results show a higher level of MR (i.e., participants started to respond earlier and were faster at responding) when observing an action performed by the ingroup members rather than by the outgroup members only when threatening objects are present in a given context. Participants seem to resonate better with their ingroup; conversely, the outgroup member movements tend to delay motor responses. Therefore, we extend prior research going beyond the general ingroup bias effect on MR and showing that the interaction between membership and contextual cues is likely to elicit threat-related stereotypes. Practical implications of these findings are discussed.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Social Threat and Motor Resonance: When a Menacing Outgroup Delays Motor Response

et al. 2016

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“…As expected, participants made fewer egoistic lies to high than low‐warmth individuals, supporting the idea that moral information is of primary importance in guiding social judgements and interpersonal behaviour (Brambilla, Rusconi, Sacchi, & Cherubini, ; Delgado et al ., ; Liuzza, Candidi, Sforza, & Aglioti, ; Mancini, Betti, Panasiti, Pavone, & Aglioti, ; Panasiti, Puzzo, & Chakrabarti, ; Willis & Todorov, ; Wojciszke et al ., ). These results expand previous evidence that people tend to trust (Delgado et al ., ) and cooperate (Steinel & De Dreu, ) more with warm individuals, by showing that inferred warmth reduces the tendency to deceive others.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceived warmth and competence of others shape voluntary deceptive behaviour in a morally relevant setting

Azevedo

Panasiti

Maglio³

et al. 2017

British J of Psychology

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The temptation to deceive others compares to a moral dilemma: it involves a conflict between the temptation to obtain some benefit and the desire to conform to personal and social moral norms or avoid aversive social consequences. Thus, people might feel different levels of emotional and moral conflict depending on the target of the deception. Here we explored, in a morally relevant setting, how social judgements based on two fundamental dimensions of human social cognition – ‘warmth’ and ‘competence’ – impact on the decision to deceive others. Results revealed independent effects for warmth and competence. Specifically, while people are less inclined to deceive for self‐gain those individuals they perceive as warm, they also tend to lie more to highly competent others. Furthermore, the perceived warmth and competence modulated the general tendency to reduce deceptive behaviour when there was a risk of disclosure compared to when the lying was anonymous, highlighting the importance of these judgements in social evaluation processes. Together, our results demonstrate that the emotional costs and personal moral standards that inhibit engagement in deceptive behaviour are not stable but rather malleable according to the target and the consequences of the deception.

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“…Incorporating the perceptual and personality domain, a recent TMS study showed that interhemispheric connectivity was related to an attentional bias to angry facial expressions and to an aggressive personality style (Hofman & Schutter, 2009). As effects of personality on motor corticospinal excitability levels have also been reported (Avenanti, Minio-Paluello, Bufalari, & Aglioti, 2009;Liuzza, Candidi, Sforza, & Aglioti, 2015;Wassermann, Greenberg, Nguyen, & Murphy, 2001), future studies may incorporate measures of aggression-and/or anxiety-related traits in the study of perception and interpretation of threat and the occurrence of defensive and/or aggressive behavior.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When anger dominates the mind: Increased motor corticospinal excitability in the face of threat

2016

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Threat demands fast and adaptive reactions that are manifested at the physiological, behavioral, and phenomenological level and are responsive to the direction of threat and its severity for the individual. Here, we investigated the effects of threat directed toward or away from the observer on motor corticospinal excitability and explicit recognition. Sixteen healthy right‐handed volunteers completed a transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) task and a separate three‐alternative forced‐choice emotion recognition task. Single‐pulse TMS to the left primary motor cortex was applied to measure motor evoked potentials from the right abductor pollicis brevis in response to dynamic angry, fearful, and neutral bodily expressions with blurred faces directed toward or away from the observer. Results showed that motor corticospinal excitability increased independent of direction of anger compared with fear and neutral. In contrast, anger was better recognized when directed toward the observer compared with when directed away from the observer, while the opposite pattern was found for fear. The present results provide evidence for the differential effects of threat direction on explicit recognition and motor corticospinal excitability. In the face of threat, motor corticospinal excitability increases independently of the direction of anger, indicative of the importance of more automatic reactions to threat.

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Harm avoiders suppress motor resonance to observed immoral actions

Cited by 24 publications

References 54 publications

Social Threat and Motor Resonance: When a Menacing Outgroup Delays Motor Response

Social Threat and Motor Resonance: When a Menacing Outgroup Delays Motor Response

Perceived warmth and competence of others shape voluntary deceptive behaviour in a morally relevant setting

When anger dominates the mind: Increased motor corticospinal excitability in the face of threat

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