Us versus them: social identity shapes neural responses to intergroup competition and harm
Open accessAbstract
Intergroup competition makes social identity salient, which in turn affects how people respond to competitors' hardships. The failures of an in-group member are painful, whereas those of a rival out-group member may give pleasure-a feeling that may motivate harming rivals. The present study examined whether valuation-related neural responses to rival groups' failures correlate with likelihood of harming individuals associated with those rivals. Avid fans of the Red Sox and Yankees teams viewed baseball plays while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. Subjectively negative outcomes (failure of the favored team or success of the rival team) activated anterior cingulate cortex and insula, whereas positive outcomes (success of the favored team or failure of the rival team, even against a third team) activated ventral striatum. The ventral striatum effect, associated with subjective pleasure, also correlated with self-reported likelihood of aggressing against a fan of the rival team (controlling for general aggression). Outcomes of social group competition can directly affect primary reward-processing neural systems, which has implications for intergroup harm.
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Outgroup pain is related to enhanced activity in the reward system (e.g., ventral striatum and nucleus accumbens).
“Outgroup pain, on the other hand, is related to enhanced activity in the reward system (e.g., the ventral striatum and nucleus accumbens [Hein et al., 2010; Cikara et al., 2011; Luo et al., 2015]).”
From A neurobiological association of revenge propensity during intergroup conflict (2020) · cites this paper as Cikara et al., 2011
Previous fMRI studies have identified increased activity in both the empathy network (e.g., aMCC and AI) and the theory-of-mind network (e.g., mPFC and TPJ) in response to ingroup pain.
“Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have identified increased activity in both the empathy network (e.g., the anterior midcingulate [aMCC] and anterior insula [AI]) and the theory-of-mind network (e.g., the medial prefrontal cortex [mPFC] and the temporoparietal junction [TPJ]) in response to ingroup pain (Hein et al., 2010; Cikara et al., 2011; Han, 2018).”
From A neurobiological association of revenge propensity during intergroup conflict (2020) · cites this paper as Cikara et al., 2011
People prefer for their groups to do better than other groups.
“In addition to comparing our own outcomes with others’ outcomes, we also prefer for our groups to do better than other groups.”
From The social brain and reward: Social information processing in the human striatum (2014) · cites this paper as [87]
Sports fans experience greater positive emotions and increased ventral striatum activity when seeing their favorite team do well or their rival team do poorly in reference to a neutral team.
“That is, sports fans experience greater positive emotions and increased ventral striatum activity when seeing their favorite team do well or their rival team do poorly in reference to a neutral team 87.”
From The social brain and reward: Social information processing in the human striatum (2014) · cites this paper as [87]
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Self-citationA neurobiological association of revenge propensity during intergroup conflict
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- Authors
- Cikara, M., Botvinick, M. M., & Fiske, S. T.
- Affiliations
- Princeton University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Cikara, Mina
- Venue
- Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2011-01-26
- Volume
- 22
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 306-313
- ISSN
- 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9280
- PMC
- PMC3833634
- OpenAlex
- W2127117461
- Cited by
- 494
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 22 · 2025: 28 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 37 · 2022: 32 · 2021: 51 · 2020: 41 · 2019: 31 · 2018: 35 · 2017: 24 · 2016: 29 · 2015: 40 · 2014: 36 · 2013: 27 · 2012: 20
- FWCI
- 106.75
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- Russell Sage Foundation
- University Center for Human Values, Princeton University
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R24HD047879)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Sports, Gender, and Society
- Keywords
- intergroup competition, social identity, ventral striatum, anterior cingulate cortex, insula, baseball fans, Red Sox, New York Yankees, sports fandom
- MeSH terms
- Achievement, Aggression, Agonistic Behavior, Arousal, Basal Ganglia, Baseball, Brain, Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Competitive Behavior, Dominance, Cerebral, Emotions, Female, Gyrus Cinguli, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Social Identification, Young Adult
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