Children's neural processing of moral scenarios provides insight into the formation and reduction of in‐group biases

Abstract

Survival is dependent on sociality within groups which ensure sustenance and protection. From an early age, children show a natural tendency to sort people into groups and discriminate among them. The computations guiding evaluation of third-party behaviors are complex, requiring integration of intent, consequences, and knowledge of group affiliation. This study examined how perceiving third-party morally laden behavior influences children's likelihood to exhibit or reduce group bias. Following a minimal group paradigm assignment, young children (4-7 years) performed a moral evaluation task where group affiliations and moral actions were systematically juxtaposed, so that they were exposed to disproportionately antisocial in-group and prosocial out-group scenarios. Electroencephalography was recorded, and group preference was assessed with a resource allocation game before and after the EEG session. Across all children, evaluations of others' moral actions arose from early and automatic processing (~150 ms), followed by later interactive processing of affiliation and moral valence (~500 ms). Importantly, individual differences in bias manifestation and attitude change were predicted by children's neural responses. Children with high baseline bias selectively exhibited a rapid detection (~200 ms) of scenarios inconsistent with their bias (in-group harm and out-group help). Changes in bias corresponded to distinct patterns in longer latency neural processing. These new developmental neuroscience findings elucidate the multifaceted processing involved in moral evaluation of others' actions, their group affiliations, the nature of the integration of both into full judgments, and the relation of individual differences in neural responses to social decision-making in childhood.

See, Touch, and Feel: Enhancing Young Children's Empathy Learning Through a Tablet Game

“…In line with our hypothesis, P2 served as an index of perceptual sensitivity to harming actions, which is consistent with findings from Meidenbauer et al (). In nonaffective ERP studies, P2 is more positive when the target stimuli are infrequent (Luck & Hillyard, ; Mangun & Hillyard, ).…”

“…The developmental trajectory of P2 is not well known. However, in preschool‐aged children, P2 amplitudes are greater when viewing “antisocial” actions than “prosocial” actions (Meidenbauer et al, ). In adult populations, reduced P2 to negative stimuli (e.g., fearful or distressed faces) are associated with CU traits (Brislin et al, ) or “emotional desensitization” (Stockdale et al, ).…”

“…Existing publications (e.g., Cowell & Decety, , ; Meidenbauer et al, ) served as a priori information to guide the choice of latency windows and electrode sites. This was possible as the recordings were performed in the same condition reported in these publications (same EEG hardware, same sampling rate, reference, impedance threshold level etc.).…”

“…P200 amplitudes at frontal and central sites are higher with negative stimuli than with positive or neutral stimuli, showing the “negativity bias” (Carretié, Martín‐Loeches, Hinojosa, & Mercado, ; Carretié, Mercado, Tapia, & Hinojosa, ). In typically developing preschool aged children, P200 amplitudes are greater for “antisocial” than for “prosocial” actions (Meidenbauer, Cowell, & Decety, ). In adult population, conditions such as phobic (Sarlo & Munafò, ), high‐level of callous‐unemotional (CU) traits (Brislin et al, ) and “emotional desensitization” resulting from exposure to violence (Stockdale, Morrison, Kmiecik, Garbarino, & Silton, ) are known to lead to reduced P200 in response to distress cues (e.g., expression of fear), indicating that sustained attention and processing is precluded.…”

An investigation of children's empathic dispositions and behaviours across seven countries

“…As with situational empathy and empathic disposition, prosociality was also positively associated with age. The age-prosociality association was present regardless of empathic disposition level and aligns with research indicating increased prosocial tendencies in older North American and Western European children (Benenson et al, 2007;Fehr, Bernhard, & Rockenbach, 2008;Meidenbauer et al, 2018), extending this finding to a broader sample. The relationship between prosociality and age has been linked to an increasing importance of socialization and norms during development (Jensen et al, 2014;Smith, Blake, & Harris, 2013).…”