The influence of group membership on the neural correlates involved in empathy
Open accessAbstract
Empathy involves affective, cognitive, and emotion regulative components. The affective component relies on the sharing of emotional states with others and is discussed here in relation to the human Mirror System. On the other hand, the cognitive component is related to understanding the mental states of others and draws upon literature surrounding Theory of Mind (ToM). The final component, emotion regulation, depends on executive function and is responsible for managing the degree to which explicit empathic responses are made. This mini-review provides information on how each of the three components is individually affected by group membership and how this leads to in-group bias.
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A large body of research documents that there is a racial gap in empathy, in which individuals have empathic responses to members of their own group but not to members of a racial outgroup.
“A large body of research documents that there is a racial gap in empathy, in which individuals have empathic responses to members of their own group but not to members of a racial outgroup [109].”
From Reducing Racial Inequities in Health: Using What We Already Know to Take Action (2019) · cites this paper as [109]
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Measurement of Empathy in Virtual Reality with Head-Mounted Displays: A Systematic Review
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Heart Rate Variability reveals the fight between racially biased and politically correct behaviour
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- Authors
- Eres, R., & Molenberghs, P.
- Affiliations
- The University of Queensland (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Molenberghs, Pascal
- Venue
- Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2013
- Volume
- 7
- Pages
- 176-176
- ISSN
- 1662-5161 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3644680
- OpenAlex
- W2027504557
- Cited by
- 92
- References
- 81
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 3
- FWCI
- 14.01
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Minerva Access (University of Melbourne) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Swinburne figshare (Swinburne University of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Keywords
- empathy, group membership, mirror system, theory of mind, emotion regulation, executive function, in-group favoritism, affective empathy, cognitive empathy, neural correlates of empathy
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