Reduced self-referential neural response during intergroup competition predicts competitor harm
Author(s)
Cikara, M.; Jenkins, A.C.; Dufour, Nicholas Paul; Saxe, Rebecca R
Downloadnihms-585296.pdf (572.7Kb)
PUBLISHER_CC
Publisher with Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution
Terms of use
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Why do interactions become more hostile when social relations shift from "me versus you" to "us versus them"? One possibility is that acting with a group can reduce spontaneous self-referential processing in the moral domain and, in turn, facilitate competitor harm. We tested this hypothesis in an fMRI experiment in which (i) participants performed a competitive task once alone and once with a group; (ii) spontaneous self-referential processing during competition was indexed unobtrusively by activation in an independently localized region of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) associated with self-reference; and (iii) we assessed participants' willingness to harm competitors versus teammates. As predicted, participants who showed reduced mPFC activation in response to descriptions of their own moral behaviors while competing in a group were more willing to harm competitors. These results suggest that intergroup competition (above and beyond inter-personal competition) can reduce self-referential processing of moral information, enabling harmful behaviors towards members of a competitive group.
Date issued
2014-04Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive SciencesJournal
NeuroImage
Publisher
Elsevier
Citation
Cikara, M. et al. “Reduced Self-Referential Neural Response During Intergroup Competition Predicts Competitor Harm.” NeuroImage 96 (August 2014): 36–43 © 2014 Elsevier
Version: Author's final manuscript
ISSN
1053-8119