Shared beliefs enhance shared feelings: religious/irreligious identifications modulate empathic neural responses

Area of Science:

• Social neuroscience
• Cognitive psychology
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Previous research indicates racial in-group favoritism in empathic neural responses.
• The extent to which social identification, beyond race, influences empathy remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if religious/irreligious identification modulates empathic neural responses to others' pain.
• To determine if in-group favoritism in empathy extends to belief-based social groups.

Main Methods:

• Recorded event-related brain potentials (ERPs) from Chinese Christian and atheist participants.
• Participants viewed pain and neutral expressions on faces identified by religious/irreligious beliefs.
• Analyzed neural activity in response to perceived pain expressions.

Main Results:

• Both Christian and atheist participants exhibited enhanced neural activity to pain expressions from same-belief individuals (in-group) compared to different-belief individuals (out-group).
• This in-group favoritism was observed in early frontal ERP components (132-168 ms and 200-320 ms).
• Later central/parietal activity (412-612 ms) showed in-group favoritism in Christians but not atheists.

Conclusions:

• Intergroup relationships based on shared religious or irreligious beliefs can foster in-group favoritism in empathy.
• Empathic neural responses are sensitive to social identifications beyond race, including belief systems.
• Findings highlight the role of social categorization in shaping empathic processing of others' suffering.