Even More Evidence that Preference for One's Own has Deep Roots
RichAsianKid
It's a concise review, but also part exhortation, perhaps even part
lament, from a white patriot in America. Again, I encourage everyone to
tune in:
Highlighted in the above talk was previous research demonstrating how we
all prefer our own kind. Even plants do.
Dated July 2nd, 2009, this following latest news release from a study
from Peking University in China adds yet another data point that fits so
well into what we in the 21st century understand to be an integral
aspect of our evolutionary heritage.
* * * *
http://tinyurl.com/lle5p8
No racial bias? Really? A brain scan may give you away.
6:02 PM, July 2, 2009
Our brains may empathize along racial lines, even if we report no such
bias.
Observers shown video clips of subjects receiving painful stimuli showed
increased brain activation in the areas associated with empathy and
emotion when subjects shared the observer�s race, Chinese researchers
reported in a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience on Wednesday.
The study is the first to use brain imaging technology to confirm
subconscious in-group prejudice, a topic that has been investigated
since the 1950s.
Perceiving others� pain is an automatic reaction that activates the same
neural circuit in the brain as the one that is activated during
first-person pain. This kind of empathic response has been shown, in
studies, to be stronger if there is a connection between individuals.
For example, a 2002 study showed that white college students who read a
passage involving a black or white man charged with a criminal act
reported greater empathy for, and assigned more lenient punishments to,
the white defendant.
In this study, from Peking University in Beijing, Chinese and Caucasian
university participants watched video clips showing faces of Chinese and
Caucasian models with neutral expressions receiving either a painful
(needle penetration) or non-painful (Q-tip touch) stimulation on the cheek.
The participants were then asked to rate the amount of pain the model
felt, as well as their own level of discomfort while watching the jabs.
Race had no effect on the survey responses by either Chinese or
Caucasian observers. But the same was not true in their brains.
While participants watched the videos, researchers used functional MRI
to scan what was going on inside their heads. The scans revealed
increased activation in the brain regions that mediate the empathic
neural response. But when the painful simulations were applied to
subjects who shared a race with observers, the neural responses
increased significantly more than when the ones being stuck with needles
were of the other racial group.
The findings suggest that bias against those from other groups may exist
at a fundamental level in the human mind, despite what self-reports reveal.
�If this is confirmed in future research, people then should be careful
about their own behaviors during social interaction even though we
intend to deal with in-group and out-group members equally well at the
conscious level of the mind,� says coauthor Shihui Han, a professor at
Peking University's Department of Psychology, in an e-mail.
-- Shara Yurkiewicz
* * * * * *
Full Reference:
http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/29/26/8525
The Journal of Neuroscience, July 1, 2009, 29(26):8525-8529
Do You Feel My Pain? Racial Group Membership Modulates Empathic Neural
Responses
Xiaojing Xu,1 Xiangyu Zuo,1 Xiaoying Wang,2 and Shihui Han1
1Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, and
2Department of Radiology, Peking University First Hospital, Beijing
100034, People's Republic of China
Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Shihui Han, Department of
Psychology, Peking University, 5 Yiheyuan Road, Beijing 100871, People's
Republic of China. Email: sh...@pku.edu.cn
The pain matrix including the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) mediates
not only first person pain experience but also empathy for others' pain.
It remains unknown, however, whether empathic neural responses of the
pain matrix are modulated by racial in-group/out-group relationship.
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging we demonstrate that, whereas
painful stimulations applied to racial in-group faces induced increased
activations in the ACC and inferior frontal/insula cortex in both
Caucasians and Chinese, the empathic neural response in the ACC
decreased significantly when participants viewed faces of other races.
Our findings uncover neural mechanisms of an empathic bias toward racial
in-group members.
harmony
number keeps increasing, now surpassing probably 10 pct. it strikes me that
the marriages i attended this year were more interacial than before.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18090277/
"RichAsianKid" <RichAs...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:h2lum1$qfg$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
> I've just recently posted a lecture which I encourage all to listen to.
> It's a concise review, but also part exhortation, perhaps even part
> lament, from a white patriot in America. Again, I encourage everyone to
> tune in:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/n5fj6a
>
> Highlighted in the above talk was previous research demonstrating how we
> all prefer our own kind. Even plants do.
>
> Dated July 2nd, 2009, this following latest news release from a study from
> Peking University in China adds yet another data point that fits so well
> into what we in the 21st century understand to be an integral aspect of
> our evolutionary heritage.
>
> * * * *
> http://tinyurl.com/lle5p8
> No racial bias? Really? A brain scan may give you away.
> 6:02 PM, July 2, 2009
>
> Our brains may empathize along racial lines, even if we report no such
> bias.
>
> Observers shown video clips of subjects receiving painful stimuli showed
> increased brain activation in the areas associated with empathy and
> emotion when subjects shared the observer�s race, Chinese researchers
> reported in a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience on Wednesday.
>
> The study is the first to use brain imaging technology to confirm
> subconscious in-group prejudice, a topic that has been investigated since
> the 1950s.
>
> Perceiving others� pain is an automatic reaction that activates the same
> �If this is confirmed in future research, people then should be careful
> about their own behaviors during social interaction even though we intend
> to deal with in-group and out-group members equally well at the conscious
> level of the mind,� says coauthor Shihui Han, a professor at Peking
htnakirs
two people prefer each other, that is the end of the story.