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Oxytocin modulates the racial Bias in neural responses to others' suffering
Abstract
The intergroup relationship between a perceiver and a target person influences empathic neural responses to others' suffering, which are increased for racial in-group members compared to out-group members. The current study investigated whether oxytocin (OT), a neuropeptide that has been linked to empathic concern and in-group favoritism, contributes to the racial bias in empathic neural responses. Event-related brain potentials were recorded in Chinese male adults during race judgments on Asian and Caucasian faces expressing pain or showing a neutral expression after intranasal self-administration of OT or placebo. A fronto-central positive activity at 128-188 ms (P2) was of larger amplitude in response to the pain expressions compared with the neutral expressions of racial in-group members but not of racial out-group members. OT treatment increased this racial in-group bias in neural responses and resulted in its correlation with a positive implicit attitude toward racial in-group members. Our findings suggest that OT interacts with the intergroup relationship to modulate empathic neural responses to others' suffering.
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“Likewise, intranasal administration of OT (vs. placebo) in humans enhanced both empathic neural responses to ingroup pain (Sheng et al., 2013) and individuals’ contributions to ingroup payoffs (De Dreu et al., 2010; De Dreu, 2010).”
From A neurobiological association of revenge propensity during intergroup conflict (2020) · cites this paper as Sheng et al., 2013
In the citing paper
“Increasing evidence suggests that the oxytocinergic system is involved in modulating multiple social emotions that are either positively (e.g., empathy, Sheng et al., 2013) or negatively (e.g., schadenfreude, Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2009) related to social behaviors.”
From A neurobiological association of revenge propensity during intergroup conflict (2020) · cites this paper as Sheng et al., 2013
In the citing paper
“it can also promote aversive avoidance behavior by increasing envy and schadenfreude (Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2009), ethnocentrism (e.g., trust and empathy; De Dreu et al., 2010; Sheng et al., 2013), group-serving dishonesty (Shalvi and De Dreu, 2014), and noncooperation (Bartz et al., 2011; De Dreu et al., 2012).”
From Oxytocin facilitates approach behavior to positive social stimuli via decreasing anterior insula activity (2018) · cites this paper as Sheng et al., 2013
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The Social Salience Hypothesis of Oxytocin
Shamay-Tsoory, S. G., & Abu-Akel, A. (2016) · Biological Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2015.07.020 · Cited by 904
“empathic neural responses in the P2 time window (a fronto-central positive waveform component of the event-related potential activity at 128-188 ms) to pain expressions of racial ingroup members but not to racial outgroup members (63).”
Music, empathy and cultural understanding
Clarke, E., DeNora, T., & Vuoskoski, J. K. (2015) · Physics of Life Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.plrev.2015.09.001 · Cited by 359
“[181], in a study that used intranasally administered oxytocin, found increased in-group favouritism rather than increased affiliation for an out-group, it is nevertheless possible that oxytocin may have contributed to the effects observed in the present study.”
ResultDe Dreu, C. K. W., & Kret, M. E. (2016) · Biological Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2015.03.020 · Cited by 297
“Others found that individuals receiving oxytocin attached greater value to and liked better their own nation’s cultural symbols such as the national flag and its leadership (84) and that oxytocin increased in-group bias in neural responses (85) and intergroup discrimination not only in healthy control subjects but als…”
BackgroundCochran, D. M., Fallon, D., Hill, M., & Frazier, J. A. (2013) · Harvard Review of Psychiatry · doi:10.1097/hrp.0b013e3182a75b7d · Cited by 267
Neurocognitive Basis of Racial Ingroup Bias in Empathy
Han, S. (2018) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2018.02.013 · Cited by 182
“An ERP study testing Chinese students found that intranasal administration of oxytocin (versus placebo) significantly increased the P2 amplitude to painful (versus neutral) expression of same-race but not to other-race faces [44], resulting in greater racial ingroup bias in empathic brain activity.”
Self-citation
Metadata
- Authors
- Sheng, F., Liu, Y., Zhou, B., Zhou, W., & Han, S.
- Affiliations
- Peking University (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Han, Shihui
- Venue
- Biological Psychology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2013-02
- Volume
- 92
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 380-386
- ISSN
- 0301-0511 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1982909081
- Semantic Scholar
- 87115e91dbfdb522fb277bb4a1a1598889f2a9b0
- Cited by
- 139
- References
- 53
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 26 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 21 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 15 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 12
- FWCI
- 15.45
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Biological Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Beijing Municipal Natural Science Foundation (Z111107067311058)
- National Key Research and Development Program of China (2010CB833903)
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (81161120539, 91024032, 30910103901)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Endocrine and Autonomic Systems › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Keywords
- oxytocin, racial bias, empathic concern, pain perception, facial expressions of pain, in-group favoritism, intergroup relations, implicit attitudes, event-related potentials, P2 component, intranasal oxytocin, Chinese adults
- MeSH terms
- Administration, Intranasal, Adolescent, Adult, Analysis of Variance, Brain, Brain Mapping, Double-Blind Method, Electroencephalography, Emotions, Empathy, Evoked Potentials, Female, Humans, Male, Oxytocin, Photic Stimulation, Reaction Time, Stress, Psychological, Young Adult, Racism
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