Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo 02150, Finland.
Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 9190501, Israel.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2023 Jun 20;18(1). doi: 10.1093/scan/nsad029.
Several studies in political psychology reported higher levels of empathy among political leftists (i.e. liberals) as compared to political rightists (i.e. conservatives). Yet, all those studies lean on self-reports, which are often limited by subjective bias and conformity to social norms. Here, we tested this putative asymmetry using neuroimaging: we recorded oscillatory neural activity using magnetoencephalography while 55 participants completed a well-validated neuroimaging paradigm for empathy to vicarious suffering. The findings revealed a typical rhythmic alpha-band 'empathy response' in the temporal-parietal junction. This neural empathy response was significantly stronger in the leftist than in the rightist group. In addition to this dichotomous division, the neural response was parametrically associated with both self-reported political inclination and right-wing ideological values. This is the first study to reveal an asymmetry in the neural empathy response as a function of political ideology. The findings reported in this study are in line with the current literature in political psychology and provide a novel neural perspective to support the ideological asymmetry in empathy. This study opens new vistas for addressing questions in political psychology by using neuroimaging.
一些政治心理学研究报告称，与政治右派（即保守派）相比，政治左派（即自由派）的同理心水平更高。然而，所有这些研究都依赖于自我报告，而自我报告往往受到主观偏见和对社会规范的遵从的限制。在这里，我们使用神经影像学来检验这种假设的不对称性：我们使用脑磁图记录了 55 名参与者在完成一个经过充分验证的同理心代受痛苦神经影像学范式时的振荡神经活动。研究结果显示，在颞顶联合区存在典型的节律 alpha 带“同理心反应”。与右倾群体相比，这种神经同理心反应在左倾群体中明显更强。除了这种二分法的划分外，神经反应与自我报告的政治倾向和右翼意识形态价值观呈参数相关。这是第一项揭示政治意识形态功能神经同理心反应不对称性的研究。本研究的结果与当前政治心理学文献一致，为同理心的意识形态不对称提供了一个新的神经视角。这项研究通过使用神经影像学为解决政治心理学问题开辟了新的视野。
