Neural Basis of Preference for Human Social Hierarchy versus Egalitarianism

Chiao, Joan Y.; Mathur, Vani A.; Harada, Tokiko; Lipke, Trixie

doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04508.x

Cited by 108 publications

(83 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…It is notable that this subconscious social dominance / hierarchy perception paradigm elicited some similarities with our explicit forced-choice paradigm, but did not show the frontal-executive activations seen in our results. In their further study (Chiao et al, 2009b) a link between social dominance orientation (an individual's preference for a more hierarchical or egalitarian society) and empathy was made. Using a 'painful versus neutral scenario' paradigm this study (which used only female participants) reported anterior cingulate cortex activation to be correlated with social dominance orientation, independent of their dispositional empathy scores.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Higher or lower? The functional anatomy of perceived allocentric social hierarchies

et al. 2011

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Higher or lower? The functional anatomy of perceived allocentric social hierarchies

et al. 2011

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“…These results suggest that Societal and cultural factors. An examination of the influence of societal and cultural backgrounds will continue to play a large role in understanding the boundary conditions of many findings in the neuroscience of intergroup relations (e.g., Chiao, Mathur, Harada, & Lipke, 2009;Jost & Amodio, 2012;Moran et al, 2011). For example, Korean and white American participants both exhibited increased mPFC and bilateral TPJ activation when viewing same-race versus other-race targets' emotional suffering; however, Korean participants reported a significantly larger empathy gap relative to white American participants.…”

Section: How and To What Extent Do Self-representations Change In Intmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Neuroscience of Intergroup Relations

Cikara

Bavel

2014

Perspect Psychol Sci

287

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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“…Sidanius et al (2012) found that SDO partly determines levels of empathy and compassion. In an fMRI study, Chiao et al (2009) and Cheon et al (2011) established that SDO is strongly associated with decreased neural activity in brain regions associated with affective empathy and relative concern for others (ingroup vs. outgroup members).…”

Section: Sdo and Empathymentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiple Facets of Compassion: The Impact of Social Dominance Orientation and Economic Systems Justification

et al. 2014

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Business students appear predisposed to select disciplines consistent with pre-existing worldviews. These disciplines (e.g., economics) then further reinforce the worldviews which may not always be adaptive. For example, high levels of Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) is a trait often found in business school students (Sidanius et al., Political Psychol 12(4):691-721, 1991). SDO is a competitive and hierarchical worldview and belief-system that ascribes people to higher or lower social rankings. While research suggests that high levels of SDO may be linked to lower levels of empathy, research has not established the potential relationship between another related adaptive trait in the workplace, compassion. Compassion facilitates workplace performance by lowering levels of litigation, easing stress, and facilitating cooperation. Accordingly, the following study aimed to examine the relationship between SDO and compassion while hypothesizing Economic Systems Justification (ESJ) would mediate this relationship. Because of the importance of compassion in the workplace, the prevalence of SDO in the business academic community (Sidanius et al. 1991) and the topicality of ESJ, we conducted our study with business school students. Results confirmed all but one hypothesis.

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Neural Basis of Preference for Human Social Hierarchy versus Egalitarianism

Cited by 108 publications

References 26 publications

Higher or lower? The functional anatomy of perceived allocentric social hierarchies

Higher or lower? The functional anatomy of perceived allocentric social hierarchies

The Neuroscience of Intergroup Relations

Multiple Facets of Compassion: The Impact of Social Dominance Orientation and Economic Systems Justification

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