Does your brain care about other people? It depends

In the 1760s a young British nobleman, Lord George Gordon, entered the Royal Navy as a junior officer. Though born into privilege, he found himself caring deeply about the welfare of the sailors. He campaigned to improve their conditions—generating scorn and mistrust from his fellow officers. And his empathy extended beyond the decks: upon sailing to Jamaica, he was disgusted by the slavery there and berated the British governor.

Why did Lord Gordon, a person so capable of empathy, harbour such antipathy for his Catholic neighbors? The answer unmasks a fundamental fact of human nature: our tendency to form ingroups and outgroups—that is, groups that we feel attached to and those that we don’t. Our empathy is selective: we care most about those with whom we share a connection, such as a hometown, a school or a religion.

A deeper dive into the data, however, revealed that the participants displayed more brain activity while watching the pain of fans who liked the same team they did. They showed less brain activity when watching fans of a rival team. Their brains simply responded more to their ingroup. In fact, the difference was strong enough that we were able to use a participant’s brain activity alone to blindly predict their ingroup with 72% accuracy. Strikingly, atheists showed the same ingroup bias as religious participants, suggesting the bias is not so much about religion as it is about the degree of affiliation to a group. Labels alone can spur bias.

To understand the flexibility of allegiances, we had our participants read a sentence about a fictional war, in which three of the religions were fighting the other three. The narrative about allegiances was enough to modify the brain’s empathic response: allies became more like ingroup members.

davideagleman DrDonVaughn Yes I agree with the statement but people are directed and controlled by leadership. Whilst may you favour people from your town in general you may also dislike your neighbour. What of the individuals who refuse to join the group they I think become outcast.

davideagleman DrDonVaughn HongKongPoliceForce definitely don’t care about the others.

alllibertynews davideagleman DrDonVaughn Required reading

davideagleman DrDonVaughn It takes a human to define a human. So you may say without each other life loses purpose.

davideagleman DrDonVaughn great stuff!

davideagleman DrDonVaughn Being totaly emphatetic is not evolutionarily sustainable. To evolve one must compete. That is not cruel. That's how evolution works.

davideagleman DrDonVaughn Yes best friend! Now what about maggots?

davideagleman DrDonVaughn Fantastic article!

davideagleman DrDonVaughn A classic example....GOVERNMENT!!!

davideagleman DrDonVaughn Are you need flyer, poster, Brochure, Business Card, Banner Etc Design? Check out my gig on fiverr flyer poster flyers graphics photoshop branding girl fun style smile food sexy

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