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46
Loving-kindness meditation increases social connectedness
- Emotion
, 2008
"... The need for social connection is a fundamental human motive, and it is increasingly clear that feeling socially connected confers mental and physical health benefits. However, in many cultures, societal changes are leading to growing social distrust and alienation. Can feelings of social connection ..."
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Cited by 35 (3 self)
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The need for social connection is a fundamental human motive, and it is increasingly clear that feeling socially connected confers mental and physical health benefits. However, in many cultures, societal changes are leading to growing social distrust and alienation. Can feelings of social connection and positivity toward others be increased? Is it possible to self-generate these feelings? In this study, the authors used a brief loving-kindness meditation exercise to examine whether social connection could be created toward strangers in a controlled laboratory context. Compared with a closely matched control task, even just a few minutes of loving-kindness meditation increased feelings of social connection and positivity toward novel individuals on both explicit and implicit levels. These results suggest that this easily implemented technique may help to increase positive social emotions and decrease social isolation.
Effortful control, explicit processing and the regulation of human evolved predispositions
- Psychological Review
, 2008
"... This article analyzes the effortful control of automatic processing related to social and emotional behavior, including control over evolved modules designed to solve problems of survival and reproduction that were recurrent over evolutionary time. The inputs to effortful control mechanisms include ..."
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Cited by 23 (2 self)
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This article analyzes the effortful control of automatic processing related to social and emotional behavior, including control over evolved modules designed to solve problems of survival and reproduction that were recurrent over evolutionary time. The inputs to effortful control mechanisms include a wide range of nonrecurrent information—information resulting not from evolutionary regularities but from explicit appraisals of costs and benefits. Effortful control mechanisms are associated with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the ventral anterior cingulated cortex. These mechanisms are largely separate from mechanisms of cognitive control (termed executive function) and working memory, and they enable effortful control of behavior in the service of long range goals. Individual differences in effortful control are associated with measures of conscientiousness in the Five Factor Model of personality. Research in the areas of aggression, ethnocentrism, sexuality, reward seeking, and emotion regulation is reviewed indicating effortful control of automatic, implicit processing based on explicit appraisals of the context. Evidence is reviewed indicating that evolutionary pressure for cooperation may be a critical adaptive function accounting for the evolution of explicit processing.
A social neuroscience approach to self and social categorisation: A new look at an old issue
, 2011
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Social groups that elicit disgust are differentially processed in mPFC.
- Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience,
, 2007
"... Social neuroscience suggests medial pre-frontal cortex (mPFC) as necessary for social cognition. However, the mPFC activates less to members of extreme outgroups that elicit disgust, an emotion directed toward both people and objects. This study aimed to counteract that effect. Participants made ei ..."
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Cited by 20 (3 self)
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Social neuroscience suggests medial pre-frontal cortex (mPFC) as necessary for social cognition. However, the mPFC activates less to members of extreme outgroups that elicit disgust, an emotion directed toward both people and objects. This study aimed to counteract that effect. Participants made either superficial categorical age estimations or individuating food-preference judgments about people, while fMRI recorded neural activity. Besides replicating the reduced mPFC activity to extreme outgroups that elicit disgust, this study demonstrates that the same type of judgment for these individuals is processed in a region anatomically distinct from social groups that elicit exclusively social emotions (pity, envy, pride). Finally, inferring individuating information (food preferences) increases mPFC activation above superficial categorical judgments. This evidence fits differentiated mPFC processing of extreme outgroups, which activate mPFC less than other groups, but suggests that individuation increases activation.
The good, the bad, and the ugly: an fMRI investigation of the functional anatomic correlates of stigma
- Soc. Neurosci
, 2006
"... Social interactions require fast and efficient person perception, which is best achieved through the process of categorization. However, this process can produce pernicious outcomes, particularly in the case of stigma. This study used fMRI to investigate the neural correlates involved in forming bot ..."
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Cited by 19 (4 self)
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Social interactions require fast and efficient person perception, which is best achieved through the process of categorization. However, this process can produce pernicious outcomes, particularly in the case of stigma. This study used fMRI to investigate the neural correlates involved in forming both explicit (‘‘Do you like or dislike this person?’’) and implicit (‘‘Is this a male or female?’’) judgments of people possessing well-established stigmatized conditions (obesity, facial piercings, transsexuality, and unattractiveness), as well as normal controls. Participants also made post-scan disgust ratings on all the faces that they viewed during imaging. These ratings were subsequently examined (modeled linearly) in a parametric analysis. Regions of interest that emerged include areas previously demonstrated to respond to aversive and disgust-inducing material (amygdala and insula), as well as regions strongly associated with inhibition and control (anterior cingulate and lateral prefrontal cortex). Further, greater differences in activation were observed in the implicit condition for both the amygdala and prefrontal cortical regions in response to the most negatively perceived faces. Specifically, as subcortical responses (e.g., amygdala) increased, cortical responses (e.g., lateral PFC and anterior cingulate) also increased, indicating the possibility of inhibitory processing. These findings help elucidate the neural underpinnings of stigma.
The Neural Basis of Implicit Attitudes
- Current Directions in Psychological Science
, 2008
"... ABSTRACT-Evidence that human preferences, beliefs, and behavior are influenced by sources that are outside the reach of conscious awareness, control, intention, and selfreflection is incontrovertible. Recent advances in neuroscience have enabled researchers to investigate the neural basis of these ..."
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Cited by 15 (2 self)
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ABSTRACT-Evidence that human preferences, beliefs, and behavior are influenced by sources that are outside the reach of conscious awareness, control, intention, and selfreflection is incontrovertible. Recent advances in neuroscience have enabled researchers to investigate the neural basis of these implicit attitudes, particularly attitudes involving social groups. From this research, a model with three identified neural components related to the automatic activation and regulation of implicit attitudes is beginning to emerge. The amygdala is implicated in the automatic evaluation of socially relevant stimuli, while the anterior cingulate and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices are involved in the detection and regulation, respectively, of implicit attitudes. Further support for this model comes from the inclusion of these regions in current models concerning the cognitive regulation of emotion and the detection of conflict. The identification of a putative neural substrate for implicit attitudes has had a direct impact on psychological research into their nature and operational characteristics. We discuss how this emerging neural model has influenced current research on implicit attitudes and describe the importance of such models for directing future research. KEYWORDS-implicit attitude; implicit bias; social cognition; social neuroscience; amygdala Attitudes or preferences are a fundamental component of all living systems. They orient the organism toward or away from people, things, and events in the world. When plants orient toward the sun and flies flee from swatters, their behavior is based on a relatively simple and automatic system of preferences (e.g., tropisms, taxis) without which survival would be compromised. In humans, the levels of preferences and attitudes that guide behavior range from the simple to the highly complex. Attitudes enable us to rapidly and efficiently react to simple sensory inputs as well as to multifaceted experiences such as individuals, groups, objects, and events we encounter in our social worlds. Unlike other organisms, humans have the ability to introspectively identify and even change the attitudes they hold. As Max Klinger of M n
Principles, processes, and puzzles of social cognition: An introduction for the special issue on social cognitive neuroscience
, 2005
"... This article introduces the special issue of NeuroImage focused on social cognitive neuroscience. Social psychology has a rich history of making sense of the often paradoxical aspects of social cognition and the social world. This article reviews the principles, processes, and puzzles of social cogn ..."
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Cited by 8 (0 self)
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This article introduces the special issue of NeuroImage focused on social cognitive neuroscience. Social psychology has a rich history of making sense of the often paradoxical aspects of social cognition and the social world. This article reviews the principles, processes, and puzzles of social cognition and behavior that have been examined by social psychologists for decades. Five principles of social cognition and behavior are reviewed including: (1) the power of the situation over behavior, (2) blindness for situational influences, (3) social perception and self-perception are constructive processes, (4) blindness for the constructed nature of social and self-perception, and (5) self-processes are social. Four processes of social cognition are reviewed including: (1) cognitive architecture; (2) automaticity and control; (3) motivated reasoning; and (4) accessibility, frames, and expectations. Finally, five areas of social cognition that contain enduring puzzles are described including (1) the self, (2) attitudes, (3) reflective social cognition, (4) automatic social cognition, and (5) social motives. In several of the areas of study reviewed, cognitive neuroscience is well positioned to make important contributions to these research traditions either by allowing for new tests of hypotheses or by allowing for unobtrusive measurement of social cognitive processes.
Eye-gaze direction modulates race-related amygdala activity
- Group Processes and Intergroup Relations
, 2008
"... The online version of this article can be found at: ..."
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Cited by 8 (0 self)
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The online version of this article can be found at:
The neuroscience of stigma and stereotype threat
- Group Processes & Intergroup Relations
, 2008
"... This article reviews social neuroscience research on the experience of stigma from the target’s perspective. More specifi cally, we discuss several research programs that employ electro-encephalography, event-related potentials, or functional magnetic resonance imaging methods to examine neural corr ..."
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Cited by 6 (3 self)
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This article reviews social neuroscience research on the experience of stigma from the target’s perspective. More specifi cally, we discuss several research programs that employ electro-encephalography, event-related potentials, or functional magnetic resonance imaging methods to examine neural correlates of stereotype and social identity threat. We present neuroimaging studies that show brain activation related to the experience of being stereotyped and ERP studies that shed light on the cognitive processes underlying social identity processes. Among these are two projects from our own lab. The fi rst project reveals the important role of the neurocognitive confl ict-detection system in stereotype threat effects, especially as it pertains to stereotype threat ‘spillover’. The second project examines the role of automatic ingroup evaluations as a neural mediator between social identity threats and compensatory ingroup bias. We conclude with a discussion of the benefi ts, limitations, and unique contributions of social neuroscience to our understanding of stigma and social identity threat.
Dynamic representations of race: processing goals shape race decoding in the fusiform gyri
"... People perceive and evaluate others on the basis of social categories, such as race, gender and age. Initial processing of targets in terms of visually salient social categories is often characterized as inevitable. In the current study, we investigated the influence of processing goals on the repre ..."
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Cited by 4 (2 self)
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People perceive and evaluate others on the basis of social categories, such as race, gender and age. Initial processing of targets in terms of visually salient social categories is often characterized as inevitable. In the current study, we investigated the influence of processing goals on the representation of race in the visual processing stream. Participants were assigned to one of two mixed-race teams and categorized faces according to their group membership or skin color. To assess neural representations of race, we employed multivariate pattern analysis to examined neural activity related to the presentation of Black and White faces. As predicted, patterns of neural activity within the early visual cortex and fusiform gyri (FG) could decode the race of face stimuli above chance and were moderated by processing goals. Race decoding in early visual cortex was above chance in both categorization tasks and below chance in a prefrontal control region. More importantly, race decoding was greater in the FG during the group membership vs skin color categorization task. The results suggest that, ironically, explicit racial categorization can diminish the representation of race in the FG. These findings suggest that representations of race are dynamic, reflecting current processing goals.
