Science is one of those things that, unless you live in a particular field (and I don’t mean agricultural field) you are going to be one of the last to hear something new.
That being said, the sheer weight of people outside of any given scientific field as compared to those within, would suggest that we on the outside are the norm, and those on the inside are the aberrations. Nevertheless, with many advances in scientific knowledge, it takes the rest of the world a little while to catch up.
This is definitely the case with a discovery that was published in the journal Neuron, not within the last few weeks, but back in May of 2006.
Authored by Jason Mitchell and Mahzarin R. Banaji, of Harvard University, and C Neil Macrae, at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, the journal article is entitled “Dissociable Medial Prefrontal Contributions to Judgments of Similar and Dissimilar Others.”
Now I love scientific journals, because once again we refer back to my “inside/outside field” effect. No one on the outside has any clue what that heading would signify, and only the fact it is published in a journal called ‘Neuron’ would suggest it has something to do with the brain.
The opening summary is just as confusing, but is prelude to a study that is simply fascinating. So without further ado, and in a perfect display of just why I am an elitist snob, I will dumb down the article so that we can all understand it.
All of us have a preference as to who we will hang around with. These preferences are based on a myriad of categories that vary from one person to the next. Do they like the same music that you do, films, TV, do they read or do they hate books (these are the lowest form of life, as a note), do they have a different religion, skin color, do they like dogs over cats (don’t be ridiculous, who would like a dog over a cat?).
According to the study published in Neuron, the brain does calculate along those lines, and along a vast majority of other classifications. Specifically, an area of the forebrain called the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) seems to predict the behavior of outgroups based on what we believe their presumed outgroup is.
Referring to Wikipedia, ‘in sociology an outgroup is a social group towards which an individual feels contempt, opposition, or a desire to compete.’ Thus, and using myself as an example, if I were to be told that you (imaginary person number 1) were a republican, I would automatically categorize you in to an outgroup, and thus dislike you.
The focus of the paper though centered not on the cues to which we make these decisions, but the areas of the brain that respond to these pre-determined cues. They focused on the mPFC while studying the neural correlates of mentalizing.
According to a paper written by Chris D. Frith and Uta Frith, published in November 1999, and later edited by John Schmidt (possibly John T. Schmidt, director of the The University at Albany State University of New York Center for Neuroscience Research), mentalizing is the ability to understand other people’s behavior in terms of their mental states.
Mentalizing combines the powers of theory of mind – the specific cognitive capacity that attribute mental states- beliefs, intents, desires, etc – to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, intents, desires, etc, that are different from one’s own – with the presumptions that we hold about people with dissimilar backgrounds.
Stepping in to their research provides a clue as to what all of that means. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the brains of Harvard and other Boston-area students, the researchers showed students pictures of other college-age people whom the researchers randomly described in two categories; “liberal northeastern students” or “conservative Midwest fundamentalist Christian students.”
The pictures were of no such people, not intentionally at least, as they were simply downloaded images from an online dating site. The two categories were randomly assigned to the photos for one volunteer, who had no reason to believe otherwise, and were then reassigned for the next student, and so on. This ensured that ethnicity and the like was not a factor, and that it relied solely upon coherent cultural and political identities already assigned to the photos.
This research is not the first in to this area of the brain, however using the prior research they were able to focus their study primarily on the two areas of the brain thought to deal with mentalizing. The researchers hoped to differentiate between two important parts of the medial PFC; the ventral mPFC (toward the front of the mPFC) and the dorsal mPFC (further toward the top of the head), and whether they would react differently.
Their research was a success, which probably explains why it was published, as it showed heightened activity in the ventral mPFC when mentalization of self-similar people occurred, and heightened activity in the dorsal mPFC when mentalization of self-dissimilar people occurred.
An anomaly was found however when the participant considered whether a self-dissimilar person may behave the same as they would in a situation. An example used is that of going home for Thanksgiving (translatable in to any similar holiday). Naturally the majority of college students enjoy going home for Thanksgiving, irrespective of their background or political affiliation. So a liberal would then recognize that a conservative would probably like going home for Thanksgiving as well (even if they were misbegotten and wayward nitwits). When this sort of thinking occurred, the researchers noticed that the activity in both ventral and dorsal areas of the mPFC was equivalent.
This study has provided great insights in to our understanding of brain dynamics, especially in relation to stereotyping and prejudice. For instance, as shown above, when a commonality exists between someone dissimilar to us, there is the chance a linkage exists.
The authors concluded their report by saying "that a critical strategy for reducing prejudice may be to breach arbitrary boundaries based on social group membership by focusing instead on the shared similarity between oneself and outgroup members." Not what you would call revolutionary advice, but for those who needed it, now this advice comes with solid scientific backing.
Joshua Hill, a Geek’s-Geek from Melbourne, Australia, Josh is an aspiring author with dreams of publishing his epic fantasy, currently in the works, sometime in the next 5 years. A techie, nerd, sci-fi nut and bookworm.
