Richins Matt T, Barreto Manuela, Karl Anke, Lawrence Natalia
a School of Psychology , University of Exeter , Exeter , UK.
b Centre for Social Research and Intervention, Lisbon University Institute (CIS/ISCTE-IUL) , Lisboa , Portugal.
Soc Neurosci. 2019 Jun;14(3):345-358. doi: 10.1080/17470919.2018.1463927. Epub 2018 Apr 18.
Individuals feel more empathy for those in their group (i.e. ingroup members) than those who are not (i.e. outgroup members). But empathy is not merely selective to group distinctions, rather it fluctuates according to how groups are perceived. The goal of this research was to determine whether group-based evaluations can drive biases in self-reported empathy as well as in the underlying neural activity. Participants were asked to rate a target's physical pain while BOLD responses were recorded via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The target was either a member of the ingroup or one of two outgroups, one which was more of a rival to the ingroup than the other. Participants reported feeling more empathy for targets experiencing painful compared to innocuous events, showing bias only in favour of their ingroup. Neural responses were stronger while observing painful, compared to innocuous, events but only for targets from the ingroup or the less competitive outgroup. The difference was non-significant and trended in the opposite direction when the target was from the more competitive outgroup. This provides evidence that empathy is not merely selective to "us" vs "them" but is more nuanced by whom we refer to by "them".
个体对自己群体中的成员（即内群体成员）比非群体成员（即外群体成员）更有同理心。但同理心并非仅仅对群体差异有选择性，相反，它会根据对群体的认知而波动。本研究的目的是确定基于群体的评价是否会导致自我报告的同理心以及潜在神经活动中的偏差。参与者被要求对目标对象的身体疼痛进行评分，同时通过功能磁共振成像（fMRI）记录血氧水平依赖（BOLD）反应。目标对象要么是内群体成员，要么是两个外群体之一，其中一个外群体对内群体来说比另一个更具竞争性。与无害事件相比，参与者报告说对经历痛苦事件的目标对象更有同理心，且仅表现出对内群体的偏向。与观察无害事件相比，观察痛苦事件时神经反应更强，但仅针对内群体或竞争性较小的外群体的目标对象。当目标对象来自竞争性更强的外群体时，差异不显著且趋势相反。这提供了证据表明，同理心不仅仅是对“我们”与“他们”的选择性，而是更细微地体现在我们用“他们”指代谁上。
