Social cognition in members of conflict groups: behavioural and neural responses in Arabs, Israelis and South Americans to each other's misfortunes

Bruneau, Emile; Dufour, Nicholas; Saxe, Rebecca

doi:10.1098/rstb.2011.0293

Cited by 81 publications

(85 citation statements)

References 63 publications

(69 reference statements)

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“…Thus, people exhibited greater motor resonance with out-group members when those targets became threatening. Related, recent evidence suggests that the emotional suffering of a threatening out-group member not only elicits as much activity in mentalizing regions as ingroup suffering does, but also more activity than neutral out-group suffering (Bruneau, Dufour, & Saxe, 2012). Processes ranging from motor resonance to empathy for emotional suffering can be brought on-line when out-groups pose an active threat.…”

Section: The Neuroscience Of Competition and Cooperationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Neuroscience of Intergroup Relations

Cikara

Bavel

2014

Perspect Psychol Sci

281

235

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We review emerging research on the psychological and biological factors that underlie social group formation, cooperation, and conflict in humans. Our aim is to integrate the intergroup neuroscience literature with classic theories of group processes and intergroup relations in an effort to move beyond merely describing the effects of specific social out-groups on the brain and behavior. Instead, we emphasize the underlying psychological processes that govern intergroup interactions more generally: forming and updating our representations of "us" and "them" via social identification and functional relations between groups. This approach highlights the dynamic nature of social identity and the context dependent nature of intergroup relations. We argue that this theoretical integration can help reconcile seemingly discrepant findings in the literature, provide organizational principles for understanding the core elements of intergroup dynamics, and highlight several exciting directions for future research at the interface of intergroup relations and neuroscience. (146 words)The neuroscience of intergroup relations 3The neuroscience of intergroup relations: An integrative reviewThe human brain is "truly social", which is to say specialized for group living (Caporeal, 1997;Dunbar, 1998). People who accurately identify, value, and cooperate with in-group members enjoy numerous benefits, including the fulfillment of many basic psychological needs (Allport, 1954;Correll & Park, 2005;Kurzban & Neuberg, 2005;Wilson & Wilson, 2007). The value humans place on group membership is illustrated by the ease with which humans form groups and favor in-group members. The propensity to prefer one's in-group has been observed in every culture on earth (Brown, 1991) and in children as young as five (Dunham et al., 2011;Fehr, Bernhard, & Rockenbach, 2008). Extensive research has shown that even arbitrary assignment to a group elicits preferences for in-group relative to out-group members across a wide variety of indices, and does so in the absence of factors typically thought to account for intergroup discrimination, such as prior contact with in-group or out-group members and competition over resources (Tajfel, 1970).The functional benefits of group membership notwithstanding, group life is also a source of social strife and destruction (e.g., pressure to conform within groups, protracted conflict between groups; Brewer, 1999;Cosmides, 1989;Hewstone et al., 2002;Neuberg & Cottrell, 2006). Intergroup conflict, in particular, has been described as "one of the greatest problems facing the world today" (Cohen & Insko, 2008). For example, it has been estimated that over 200 million people were killed in the last century due to genocide, war, and other forms of group conflict (Woolf & Hulsizer, 2004). The social and economic obstacles of group living have attracted the attention of scholars and scientists from social, developmental, evolutionary, and cognitive psychology, social neuroscience, biological and cultural anthropology,...

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Section: The Neuroscience Of Competition and Cooperationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Neuroscience of Intergroup Relations

Cikara

Bavel

2014

Perspect Psychol Sci

281

235

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“…and Arab-Palestinian adolescents is timely and relevant. Despite pioneering behavioral (16) and fMRI (17,18) work on empathic attitudes in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms via which conflict impedes empathy for others' suffering is lacking. Moreover, it remains unknown how the neural markers of empathy relate to adolescents' dialog styles in interpersonal situations and their attitudes toward the intergroup conflict.…”

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

Adolescents growing up amidst intractable conflict attenuate brain response to pain of outgroup

Lévy

Goldstein

Influs

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Adolescents' participation in intergroup conflicts comprises an imminent global risk, and understanding its neural underpinnings may open new perspectives. We assessed Jewish-Israeli and Arab-Palestinian adolescents for brain response to the pain of ingroup/outgroup protagonists using magnetoencephalography (MEG), one-on-one positive and conflictual interactions with an outgroup member, attitudes toward the regional conflict, and oxytocin levels. A neural marker of ingroup bias emerged, expressed via alpha modulations in the somatosensory cortex (S1) that characterized an automatic response to the pain of all protagonists followed by rebound/ enhancement to ingroup pain only. Adolescents' hostile social interactions with outgroup members and uncompromising attitudes toward the conflict influenced this neural marker. Furthermore, higher oxytocin levels in the Jewish-Israeli majority and tighter brain-to-brain synchrony among group members in the Arab-Palestinian minority enhanced the neural ingroup bias. Findings suggest that in cases of intractable intergroup conflict, top-down control mechanisms may block the brain's evolutionary-ancient resonance to outgroup pain, pinpointing adolescents' interpersonal and sociocognitive processes as potential targets for intervention.intergroup conflict | empathy | alpha oscillations | oxytocin | brain-to-brain synchrony

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“…Empathic breakdown between members of rival or conlict groups is well documented [69][70][71]. People's relationships to others play a signiicant role in determining how they respond to their sufering: whereas a friend's misfortune typically elicits empathy, a foe's misfortune might be experienced as less distressing, or even as pleasurable [72,73].…”

Section: Factors That Contribute To Empathic Breakdown In Intergroup mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Less Attractive Feature of Empathy: Intergroup Empathy Bias

Fourie¹,

Subramoney²,

Gobodo-Madikizela³

2017

Empathy - An Evidence-Based Interdisciplinary Perspective

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Empathy with others' successes and misfortunes is a critical component of group living that promotes social cohesion. Unfortunately, empathy is a malleable phenomenon in that its elicitation is not automatic, but modulated by multiple interlocking factors. This chapter explores the speciic phenomenon of intergroup empathy bias-the diference in empathy for members of social ingroups versus outgroups-which poses profound challenges for our modern human world characterized by a multitude of groups, ethnicities, and cultures. The chapter frames the discussion by contextualizing empathy as consisting of three interacting component processes, namely experience sharing, perspective taking, and empathic concern. It then goes on to examine research describing the efects of intergroup bias on each of these component processes. Next, it explores the factors, both at the level of the group and at the level of the individual, which may contribute to empathic breakdown in intergroup contexts. Finally, it considers strategies that may have potential in mitigating intergroup empathy bias. Here, we draw on our own experiences in the South African context, which is characterized by pervasive racial inequality and legacies of apartheid violence, to suggest that intergroup empathy is best stimulated in a context of reciprocal mutual engagement with the other.

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Social cognition in members of conflict groups: behavioural and neural responses in Arabs, Israelis and South Americans to each other's misfortunes

Cited by 81 publications

References 63 publications

The Neuroscience of Intergroup Relations

The Neuroscience of Intergroup Relations

Adolescents growing up amidst intractable conflict attenuate brain response to pain of outgroup

A Less Attractive Feature of Empathy: Intergroup Empathy Bias

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