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

Abstract

ObjectivePeople 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.MethodsSubjects 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).ResultsStrikingly, 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.ConclusionsThe influence of fusion on social behavior therefore seems to be linked to processing in the VMPFC.

Depletion manipulations decrease openness to dissent via increased anger

“…As discussed previously, individuals who experience fatigue may be resistant to dissenting opinions due to a perception of limited resources (Lapointe et al ., ), or more open to dissent due to a motivation to seek acceptance in personal relationships (Halbesleben, ). For example, the distinction between ingroup and outgroup members (e.g., people who support the same sports team and the rival team, respectively; Apps, McKay, Azevedo, Whitehouse, & Tsakiris, ) may moderate the association between fatigue and openness to dissent. Individuals who experience fatigue may be more open to an ingroup member's different perspectives because they are more likely to seek acceptance from him or her.…”

Recent advances, misconceptions, untested assumptions, and future research agenda for identity fusion theory

“…A series of investigations have used fMRI techniques to examine the neural bases of identity fusion and its correlates. Some authors have found that the level of fusion modulates the differential activation of the ventromedial portions of the prefontal cortext (VMPFC) in response to fair (vs. unfair) money offers received from ingroup (vs. outgroup) members, suggesting that the activation of these portions of the brain may mediate the influence of fusion on our reaction to the behavior of other individuals (Apps, McKay, Azevedo, Whitehouse, & Tsakiris, 2018). Some others have tried to disentangle the neural correlates of the relation between identity fusion, sacred values, the will to fight and violent extremism (Hamid et al, 2019; Pretus et al, 2018, 2019).…”

Fair Is Fair, or Is It? Territorial Identity Triggers Influence Ultimatum Game Behavior

“…Fairness perception is not an objectively reliable measure. In/outgroup alignments, including race (Kubota, Li, Bar‐David, Banaji, & Phelps, ) and even football team membership (Apps, McKay, Azevedo, Whitehouse, & Tsakiris, ) can influence individuals’ behavior in response to equally fair/unfair monetary offers, even when this behavior is economically irrational. This process is further complicated in multilevel polities where simple in/out relationships between individuals' various territorial identities do not pertain—where multiple identities coexist in a “marble‐cake” fashion (Risse, ) and when low‐level or banal, often implicit, reminders of co‐occurring territorial belongings are widespread and pervasive (Cram, ).…”