Attentional saliency and ingroup biases: From society to the brain

There is ample evidence demonstrating intergroup biases on cognition and emotion. However, it remains unclear how exactly group identification influences these processes, with issues of context sensitivity and goal dependence remaining open to scrutiny. Providing a range of interdisciplinary material, the current review attempts to inform understanding of these issues. Specifically, we provide evidence revealing that individuals show enhanced attention for stimuli associated with an ingroup compared to an outgroup. At the attentional level, such biases can be explained by the assignment of different levels of saliency to ingroup versus outgroup targets. Critically, however, salience assignment is not fixed but varies as a function of context and goal-directed behavior. We suggest that the network in the brain previously associated with social and emotional saliency and attention - notably the anterior insula, posterior superior temporal sulcus, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex - underpins these effects. Moreover, although attention typically favors ingroup targets, outgroup members can be prioritized on occasion. The implications of this viewpoint and future lines of investigation are considered.