Morality in intergroup conflict

Intergroup conflict encompasses a broad range of situations with moral relevance. Researchers at the intersection of social and moral psychology employ diverse methodologies, including surveys, moral dilemmas, economic games, and neuroimaging, to study how individuals think, feel, and act in intergroup moral encounters. We review recent research pertaining to four types of intergroup moral encounters: (a) value-expressive and identity-expressive endorsements of conflict-related actions and policies; (b) helping and harming ingroup and out-group members; (c) reacting to transgressions committed by in-group or out-group members; and (d) reacting to the suffering of in-group or out-group members. Overall, we explain how sacred values, social motives, group-based moral emotions, and the physiological processes underlying them, shape moral behavior in intergroup conflict

Deliberation erodes cooperative behavior — Even towards competitive out-groups, even when using a control condition, and even when eliminating selection bias

By many accounts cooperation appears to be a default strategy in social interaction. There are, however, several documented instances in which reflexive responding favors aggressive behaviors: for example, interactions with out-group members. We conduct a rigorous test of potential boundary conditions of intuitive prosociality by looking at whether intuition favors cooperation even towards competitive out-group members, and even in losses frames. Moreover, we address three major methodological limitations of previous research in this area: a lack of an unconstrained control condition; non-compliance with time manipulations leading to high rates of exclusions and thus a selection bias; and non-comprehension of the structure of the game. Even after eliminating participant selection bias and non-comprehension, we find that deliberation decreases cooperation: even in competitive contexts towards out-groups and even in a losses frame, though the differences in cooperation between groups was consistent across conditions. People may be intuitive cooperators, but they are not in- tuitively impartial

Reduced self-referential neural response during intergroup competition predicts competitor harm

Psycholog

The neuroscience of intergroup threat and violence

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a global increase in hate crimes and xenophobia. In these uncertain times, real or imaginary threats can easily lead to intergroup conflict. Here, we integrate social neuroscience findings with classic social psychology theories into a framework to better understand how intergroup threat can lead to violence. The role of moral disengagement, dehumanization, and intergroup schadenfreude in this process are discussed, together with their underlying neural mechanisms. We outline how this framework can inform social scientists and policy makers to help reduce the escalation of intergroup conflict and promote intergroup cooperation. The critical role of the media and public figures in these unprecedented times is highlighted as an important factor to achieve these goals

Watching Eyes effects: When others meet the self

International audienc

Not on my team: Medial prefrontal cortex responses to ingroup fusion and unfair monetary divisions

Objective People are highly attuned to fairness, with people willingly suffering personal costs to prevent others benefitting from unfair acts. Are fairness judgments influenced by group alignments? A new theory posits that we favor ingroups and denigrate members of rival outgroups when our personal identity is fused to a group. Although the mPFC has been separately implicated in group membership and fairness processing, it is unclear whether group alignments affect medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) activity in response to fairness. Here, we examine the contribution of different regions of the mPFC to processing from ingroup and outgroup members and test whether its response differs depending on how fused we are to an ingroup. Methods Subjects performed rounds of the Ultimatum Game, being offered fair or unfair divisions of money from supporters of the same soccer team (ingroup), the fiercest rival (outgroup) or neutral individuals whilst undergoing functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Results Strikingly, people willingly suffered personal costs to prevent outgroup members benefitting from both unfair and fair offers. Activity across dorsal and ventral (VMPFC) portions of the mPFC reflected an interaction between fairness and group membership. VMPFC activity in particular was consistent with it coding one's fusion to a group, with the fairness by group membership interaction correlating with the extent that the responder's identity was fused to the ingroup. Conclusions The influence of fusion on social behavior therefore seems to be linked to processing in the VMPFC

고통 공감의 의지적 조절과 그 성차: EEG 연구

학위논문(석사) -- 서울대학교대학원 : 인문대학 협동과정 인지과학전공, 2021.8. 이성은.Contrary to the long-held belief that empathy is automatic and reflexive, recent evidence has begun to emphasize the role of top-down processes in empathic experience. That is, empathy is increasingly conceived as motivational in nature. The present study aims to investigate whether the effect of motivation for empathy is modulated by biological sex. 24 subjects (14 men, 10 women) viewed pictures of painful situations either passively or actively trying to up- or down-regulate empathy. As an index of empathic resonance with the target’s pain, I measured the EEG mu suppression. The results showed that men, as expected, exhibited the strongest mu suppression during up-regulation. For women, however, the strongest mu suppression occurred while trying to down-regulate pain empathy. One possible interpretation of such results for women is that their active inhibiting efforts “backfired”, paradoxically leading to the greatest level of vicarious pain. In conclusion, women appear to experience greater difficulty voluntarily modulating pain empathy. Empathy for men, on the other hand, appears to be more motivational and flexible in nature. These findings contribute a line of neural evidence to the Primary Caretaker Hypothesis, which posits that empathy may have evolved from offspring care, a role predominantly associated by female primates. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.공감이란, 타인이 겪고 있는 감정적 상황을 마주할 때, 그 감정을 공유하는 인지적 현상을 의미한다. 학계의 인식과 대중의 통념을 막론하고, 공감은 자동적인 현상으로 오랫동안 이해되어 왔다. 즉, 공감은 단순 반사와 같은 현상으로서 선천적으로 부여된 기질이자 능력이기에, 그 경험을 크게 향상시키거나 억제하는 등의 자발적 조절은 쉽지 않다고 여겨져 왔다. 하지만, 공감의 경험에 있어 주체의 선택이나 의지가 갖는 역할이 간과되어서는 안 되며, 본 연구는 이러한 공감의 하향식(top-down) 조절에 주목하고자 하였다. 본 연구는 ‘일차양육자 가설’을 그 이론적 기반으로 차용하여, 공감의 하향식 조절에 있어 생물학적 남녀차가 있을 것임을 예측하였다. 이러한 가설을 경험적으로 확인하기 위하여, 총 24명(남성 14명, 여성 10명)의 참여자가 모집되었다. 이들은 고통스러운 상황을 묘사하는 사진을 총 세 가지 조건 아래에서 감상하였다. 첫째, 평소와 같은 상태, 둘째, 상대의 고통에 대한 공감을 최대화하기 위하여 적극적으로 노력하는 상태, 셋째, 상대의 고통에 대한 공감을 최소화하기 위하여 적극적으로 노력하는 상태가 상기한 세 가지 조건이었다. 이 때, 상이한 조건들 아래에서 참여자가 보이는 고통 공감의 정도는 EEG(electroencephalogram)를 통하여 뇌파의 형태로써 기록되었다. 보다 구체적으로, 고통 공감의 정도는 참여자의 체감각피질의 간접적 활성화 정도를 반영하는 뮤리듬을 통하여 측정되었다. 실험 결과, 남성들은 공감을 증가시키기 위하여 노력할 때, 가장 강한 체감각피질의 활성화를 보였다. 그러나 여성의 경우, 공감을 억제하기 위하여 노력하는 동안 역설적으로 가장 강한 체감각피질의 활성화를 보였다. 이러한 결과는, 인위적으로 고통 공감을 억제하려는 노력이 오히려 역효과를 야기하였을 가능성을 비친다. 즉, 본 연구의 결과는, 여성의 공감이 남성의 그것에 비해 더욱 자동적이며 보편적으로 체화된 생물학적 반응일 수 있음을 함의한다. 반면, 남성의 고통 공감은 더 유연하며 선택적 성질을 띨 수 있는 것으로 보인다. 따라서, 이들의 고통 공감에 대한 의지적 조절은 상대적으로 더 수월할 수 있었다고 해석 가능하다. 본 연구의 이러한 발견은, 공감의 진화적 근원은 ‘육아’라는 여성의 역할이라고 추정하는 ‘일차양육자 가설’에 뇌과학적 근거를 기여할 수 있을 것으로 판단한다. 그 밖의 이론적, 실용적 함의가 논의된다.1.Introduction 1 2.Literature Review 7 2.1. The Nature of Empathy 7 2.1.1. Empathy and Its Neurobiological Basis 7 2.1.2. Pain Empathy and Its Neurobiological Basis 10 2.2. Theories of Empathy 12 2.2.1. Automaticity as a Theme in the Empathy Literature 12 2.2.2. Motivation as a Theme in the Empathy Literature 15 2.2.3. Sex-related Effects in Motivated Empathy 19 2.3. Research Objectives and Hypotheses 23 3.Methodology 24 3.1. Electroencephalogram (EEG) 24 3.2. Time-Frequency Analysis 25 3.3. Mu Rhythm 26 3.4. Alpha Rhythm 29 3.5. Overview of the Study 30 4.Expereiment 31 4.1. Participants 31 4.2. General Procedures 32 4.3. Picture Stimuli 35 4.4. EEG Data Acquisition 37 4.5. EEG Data Pre-processing and Time-Frequency Analysis 38 4.6. Statistical Analysis 40 5.Results 41 5.1. Behavioral Results 41 5.2. EEG Results 42 5.3. Correlation of Mu Suppressions and Self-report Measures of Pain Empathy 46 6. Discussion 47 6.1. Summary and Interpretation of the Results 47 6.2. Theoretical Contributions and Practical Implications 54 6.3. Limitations and Future Directions 55 7. Overall Conclusions 56 References 58 Appendix 74 Abstract in Korean 78석

The Neuroscience of Intergroup Relations

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.Psycholog