In Two Minds: Similarity, Threat, and Prejudice Contribute to Worse Mindreading of Outgroups Compared With an Ingroup

Abstract

We examined Turkish participants’ mindreading accuracy toward ingroup versus outgroup targets. Three hundred and fifty-four Turkish participants were randomly assigned to one of three target groups: Turkish, Syrian, or Norwegian. The mindreading accuracy for these targets was measured along with the perceived cultural similarity of the target to the ingroup, as well as prejudice and threat perception. Participants evidenced higher mindreading accuracy toward Turkish targets compared with Syrian and Norwegian targets. Mindreading accuracy for the Syrian and Norwegian targets did not differ, but lower perceived similarity to the Turkish ingroup significantly predicted lower mentalizing for Syrian and Norwegians. In the Syrian target group, lower perceived similarity interacted with lower education and higher prejudice, resulting in a further reduction in mindreading. For Norwegian targets, lower similarity impaired mindreading through an interaction with higher threat perception. Results indicate that even when mentalizing capacity is mature, intergroup factors are linked with the deployment of mindreading.

Theory of Mind as a Correlate of Bystanders’ Reasoning About Intergroup Bullying of Syrian Refugee Youth

“…They also found that discrimination and threat perception toward refuges were negatively related to adolescents’ outgroup ToM performance. Similarly, Ekerim-Akbulut et al (2020) also showed that Turkish college students’ ToM abilities differ based on participants’ perceived similarity with the refugees by using the Strange Stories task. More specifically, participants who reported lower perceived similarity with the targeted outgroups (refugees) showed worse performance in attributing mental states to Syrian refugee individuals compared to Turkish individuals.…”

“…However, high school students’ ingroup ToM and outgroup ToM performance did not differ from each other (H1 was partially supported). Earlier research examined this phenomenon in early childhood ( McLoughlin and Over, 2017 ; McLoughlin et al, 2018 ), middle childhood ( Gönültaş et al, 2020 ), and young adulthood ( Perez-Zapata et al, 2016 ; Ekerim-Akbulut et al, 2020 ). It is likely that adolescents may have more opportunities for contact with Syrian refugees in their school environments compared to children and adults which may lead to an increase in perceived similarity.…”

“…Participants’ performance was calculated by summing scores from two stories (ranged between 0 and 4) for both ingroup ToM and outgroup ToM. The Turkish version of this measure has been previously used by earlier studies ( Ekerim-Akbulut et al, 2020 ; Gönültaş et al, 2020 ).…”

“…Two studies have been examined outgroup ToM in Turkish adolescents ( Gönültaş et al, 2020 ) and young adults ( Ekerim-Akbulut et al, 2020 ) to examine their mental state attribution to Syrian refugee individuals. Gönültaş et al (2020) demonstrated that Turkish adolescents were more likely to attribute mental states to Turkish story characters (ingroup ToM) compared to Syrian refugee characters (outgroup ToM) in a study using the Strange Stories task.…”

The Role of Socioeconomic Adversity and Armed Conflict in Executive Function, Theory of Mind and Empathy in Children

“…Alternatively, this finding might reflect the complex relation between threat perception and social cognition. Literature shows that threat perception can influence perceptual and attitudinal processes [75], as well as mental state understanding [76][77][78], but it could do so in different ways. One possibility is a quick and valid response to threat as a self-defense mechanism, which sets off socio-cognitive processes to ward off potential damage [75].…”