Person:

Cikara, Mina

In three experiments, we examine parochial empathy (feeling more empathy for in-group than out-group members) across novel group boundaries, and test whether we can mitigate parochial empathy with brief narrative descriptions. In the absence of individuating information, participants consistently report more empathy for members of their own assigned group than a competitive out-group. However, individualized descriptions of in-group and out-group targets significantly reduce parochial empathy by interfering with encoding of targets’ group membership. Finally, the descriptions that most effectively decrease parochial empathy are those that describe targets’ mental states. These results support the role of individuating information in ameliorating parochial empathy, suggest a mechanism for their action, and show that descriptions emphasizing targets’ mental states are particularly effective.

Correctly identifying friends and foes is integral to successful group living. Here, we use repetition suppression to examine the neural circuitry underlying generalized group categorization—the process of categorizing in-group and out-group members across multiple social categories. Participants assigned to an arbitrary team (i.e., Eagles or Rattlers) underwent fMRI while categorizing political and arbitrary in-group and out-group members. We found that frontoparietal control network exhibited repetition suppression in response to “identical in-group” (Democrat-Democrat or Eagles-Eagles) and “different in-group” (Eagles-Democrat or Democrat-Eagles) trials relative to “out-group/in-group trials” (Republican-Democrat or Rattler-Eagles). Specifically, the repetition suppression contrast map included bilateral superior parietal lobule, bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and bilateral middle temporal gyrus. Participants who reported an increased tendency to join and value their social groups exhibited decreased repetition suppression in bilateral DLPFC. Comparison of our whole-brain repetition suppression map with an independently identified map of frontoparietal control network revealed 34.3% overlap. Social categorization requires recognizing both a target’s group membership but also the target’s orientation toward one’s self. Fittingly, we find that generalized social categorization engages a network that acts as a functional bridge between dorsal attentional (exogenously-oriented) and default mode (internally-oriented) networks.

Despite its early origins and adaptive functions, empathy is not inevitable; people routinely fail to empathize with others, especially members of different social or cultural groups. In five experiments, we systematically explore how social identity, functional relations between groups, competitive threat, and perceived entitativity contribute to intergroup empathy bias: the tendency not only to empathize less with out-group relative to in-group members,but also to feel pleasure in response to their pain (and pain in response to their pleasure). When teams are set in direct competition, affective responses to competition-irrelevant events are characterized not only by less empathy toward out-group relative to in-groupmembers, but also by increased counter-empathic responses: Schadenfreude and Glückschmerz (Experiment 1). Comparing responses to in-group and out-group targets against responses to unaffiliated targets in this competitive context suggests that intergroup empathy bias may be better characterized by out-group antipathy rather than extraordinary in-group empathy (Experiment 2). We also find that intergroup empathy bias is robust to changes in relative group standing—feedback indicating that the out-group has fallen behind (Experiment 3a) or is no longer a competitive threat (Experiment 3b) does not reduce the bias. However, reducing perceived in-group and out-group entitativity can significantly attenuate intergroup empathy bias (Experiment 4). This research establishes the boundary conditions of intergroup empathy bias and provides initial support for a more integrative framework of group-based empathy.

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.

In the target article, Nick Haslam (this issue) explores the incidence, origins, and potential consequences of concept creep in psychology. He dedicates the majority of the article to documenting how concept creep has manifested in six psychological concepts: abuse, bullying, trauma, mental disorder, addiction, and prejudice. Haslam convincingly demonstrates that these concepts have indeed expanded over time to include both qualitatively different and less severe forms of each concept. I agree whole-heartedly with Haslam when he says: “Understanding what drives this trend and evaluating its costs and benefits are important goals for people who care about psychology's place in our cultures. Equally important is the task of deciding whether the trend should be encouraged, ignored, or resisted” (p. 15). Throughout the target article, Nick Haslam (this issue) is careful to avoid normative claims regarding creep's costs and benefits with regard to any one of the concepts in isolation. Regarding prejudice, for example, he notes, It is important to reiterate here that by documenting the expanding meaning of prejudice in recent social psychology I am not questioning the validity of this expansion or advocating a return to a narrower understanding of the concept. … My point is simply that the concept now refers to much more than it did several decades ago. (p. 10)

However, Haslam does state that as a general phenomenon, concept creep may “have potentially damaging ramifications for society and for psychology that cannot be ignored” (p. 2). Specifically, he suggests that concept creep may cause more people to identify as victims, which may reduce their sense of agency. Drawing on “moral typecasting” theory (Gray & Wegner, 2009) he states, A possible adverse looping effect of concept creep is therefore a tendency for more and more people to see themselves as victims who are defined by their suffering, vulnerability, and innocence, and who have diminished agency to overcome their plight. (p. 14)

The goal of this commentary is to challenge this last suggestion. Focusing on concept creep as it relates to prejudice and discrimination, I highlight three mechanisms by which conceptual expansion may actually serve to empower “victims,” interaction partners, and third-party allies. (It is worth noting that several of these mechanisms could generalize to the other concepts highlighted in the target article.) First, labeling less qualitatively and quantitatively prototypical instances of prejudice as prejudice may reduce targets' uncertainty about their experiences. Thus, rather than diminishing agency, concept expansion may dampen diffuse negative arousal, reduce an avoidance orientation to intergroup interactions, and inspire greater engagement in collective action on behalf of one's group. Second, these labels may serve to reduce uncertainty among well-meaning interaction partners and third parties, fostering stronger alliances in the long term between disadvantaged and advantaged individuals and groups. Finally, concept expansion may open up institutional channels for redressing social ills and inequalities that would remain closed if less prototypical manifestations of prejudice were considered categorically distinct.

If humans are innately good, cooperative, fair, and averse to harming one another, why does widespread intergroup violence continue to afflict society? Several factors contribute to fomenting aggression between groups; here I focus on the role of pleasure in response to out-group pain.

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 intuitively impartial.

Gervais & Fessler's analysis collapses across two orthogonal dimensions of social value to explain contempt: relational value, predicted by cooperation, and agentic value, predicted by status. These dimensions interact to potentiate specific social emotions and behaviors in intergroup contexts. By neglecting the unique roles of these dimensions – and their associated attributes: warmth and competence – the sentiment framework cedes predictive precision.

Empathic failures are common in hostile intergroup contexts; repairing empathy is therefore a major focus of peacebuilding efforts. However, it is unclear which aspect of empathy is most relevant to intergroup conflict. Although trait empathic concern predicts prosociality in interpersonal settings, we hypothesized that the best predictor of meaningful intergroup attitudes and behaviors might not be the general capacity for empathy (i.e., trait empathy), but the difference in empathy felt for the in-group versus the out-group, or “parochial empathy.” Specifically, we predicted that out-group empathy would inhibit intergroup harm and promote intergroup helping, whereas in-group empathy would have the opposite effect. In three intergroup contexts—Americans regarding Arabs, Hungarians regarding refugees, Greeks regarding Germans—we found support for this hypothesis. In all samples, in-group and out-group empathy had independent, significant, and opposite effects on intergroup outcomes, controlling for trait empathic concern.