TY - JOUR
T1 - Decoding "Us" and "Them"
T2 - Neural representations of generalized group concepts
AU - Cikara, Mina
AU - Van Bavel, Jay J.
AU - Ingbretsen, Zachary A.
AU - Lau, Tatiana
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 American Psychological Association.
Copyright:
Copyright 2017 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2017/5
Y1 - 2017/5
N2 - Humans form social coalitions in every society on earth, yet we know very little about how the general concepts us and them are represented in the brain. Evolutionary psychologists have argued that the human capacity for group affiliation is a byproduct of adaptations that evolved for tracking coalitions in general. These theories suggest that humans possess a common neural code for the concepts in-group and out-group, regardless of the category by which group boundaries are instantiated. The authors used multivoxel pattern analysis to identify the neural substrates of generalized group concept representations. They trained a classifier to encode how people represented the most basic instantiation of a specific social group (i.e., arbitrary teams created in the lab with no history of interaction or associated stereotypes) and tested how well the neural data decoded membership along an objectively orthogonal, real-world category (i.e., political parties). The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex/middle cingulate cortex and anterior insula were associated with representing groups across multiple social categories. Restricting the analyses to these regions in a separate sample of participants performing an explicit categorization task, the authors replicated cross-categorization classification in anterior insula. Classification accuracy across categories was driven predominantly by the correct categorization of in-group targets, consistent with theories indicating in-group preference is more central than out-group derogation to group perception and cognition. These findings highlight the extent to which social group concepts rely on domain-general circuitry associated with encoding stimuli's functional significance.
AB - Humans form social coalitions in every society on earth, yet we know very little about how the general concepts us and them are represented in the brain. Evolutionary psychologists have argued that the human capacity for group affiliation is a byproduct of adaptations that evolved for tracking coalitions in general. These theories suggest that humans possess a common neural code for the concepts in-group and out-group, regardless of the category by which group boundaries are instantiated. The authors used multivoxel pattern analysis to identify the neural substrates of generalized group concept representations. They trained a classifier to encode how people represented the most basic instantiation of a specific social group (i.e., arbitrary teams created in the lab with no history of interaction or associated stereotypes) and tested how well the neural data decoded membership along an objectively orthogonal, real-world category (i.e., political parties). The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex/middle cingulate cortex and anterior insula were associated with representing groups across multiple social categories. Restricting the analyses to these regions in a separate sample of participants performing an explicit categorization task, the authors replicated cross-categorization classification in anterior insula. Classification accuracy across categories was driven predominantly by the correct categorization of in-group targets, consistent with theories indicating in-group preference is more central than out-group derogation to group perception and cognition. These findings highlight the extent to which social group concepts rely on domain-general circuitry associated with encoding stimuli's functional significance.
KW - Functional magnetic resonance imaging
KW - Intergroup relations
KW - Multi-voxel pattern analysis
KW - Social categories
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U2 - 10.1037/xge0000287
DO - 10.1037/xge0000287
M3 - Article
C2 - 28459261
AN - SCOPUS:85018971252
VL - 146
SP - 621
EP - 631
JO - Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
JF - Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
SN - 0096-3445
IS - 5
ER -