The Role of In-Group and Out-Group Facial Feedback in Implicit Rule Learning

Implicit learning refers to the fact that people acquire new knowledge (structures or rules) without conscious awareness. Previous studies have shown that implicit learning is affected by feedback. However, few studies have investigated the role of social feedback in implicit learning concretely. Here, we conducted two experiments to explore how in-group and out-group facial feedback impact different difficulty levels of implicit rule learning. In Experiment 1, the Chinese participants in each group could only see one type of facial feedback, i.e., either in-group (East Asian) or out-group (Western) faces, and learned the implicit rule through happy and sad facial expressions. The only difference between Experiment 2 and Experiment 1 was that the participants saw both the in-group and out-group faces before group assignment to strengthen the contrast between the two group identities. The results showed that only in Experiment 2 but not Experiment 1 was there a significant interaction effect in the accuracy of tasks between the difficulty levels and groups. For the lowest difficulty level, the learning accuracy of the in-group facial feedback group was significantly higher than that of the out-group facial feedback group, whereas this did not happen at the two highest levels of difficulty. In conclusion, when the contrast of group identities was highlighted, out-group feedback reduced the accuracy of the least difficult task; on the contrary, there was no accuracy difference between out-group and in-group feedback conditions. These findings have extensively important implications for our understanding of implicit learning and improving teaching achievement in the context of educational internationalization.

Which is More Important, Proposer Identity or Allocation Motive? Event-Related Potential in Economic Decision-Making

Purpose

Most studies have supported the view that individuals prefer to reward the in-group and discriminate against the out-group in response to unfair offers in the Ultimatum Game. However, the current study advanced a different view, that is, the "black sheep effect", in which in-group members were punished more severely compared with out-group members. This study aimed to incorporate proposer identity and allocation motive as possible explanations for offer rejection.

Methods

In the current study, the in-group and out-group identities were distinguished by their health condition, and the allocation motive was defined according to its benefit maximization. With a total of 89 healthy college student participants, a mixed design of 2 (proposer identity: out-group vs in-group) × 2 (allocation motive: selfish vs random) × 2 (offer type: unfair vs fair) was used in the Ultimatum Game. Event-related potential (ERP) technology was used, and ERPs were recorded while participants processed the task.

Results

The behavioral result showed that the "black sheep effect" was found on the fair offer when a random allocation motive was used. Our ERP result suggested that feedback-related negativity (FRN) and P300 were modulated by proposer identity but not by allocation motive. However, the allocation motive interacted with proposer identity affecting FRN and P300 when the fair offer was proposed.

Conclusion

These findings demonstrated that the "black sheep effect" was related to the experience of the out-group member, such as disadvantage or distress, but it was also modulated by allocation motive. Meanwhile, the out-group (depressed college students) captured more attention because they violated individual expectations, according to the P300. This finding plays an integral role in understanding the mechanism of response to the "black sheep effect".

Oxytocin has 'tend-and-defend' functionality in group conflict across social vertebrates

Across vertebrate species, intergroup conflict confronts individuals with a tension between group interests best served by participation in conflict and personal interest best served by not participating. Here, we identify the neurohormone oxytocin as pivotal to the neurobiological regulation of this tension in distinctly different group-living vertebrates, including fishes, birds, rodents, non-human primates and humans. In the context of intergroup conflict, a review of emerging work on pro-sociality suggests that oxytocin and its fish and birds homologues, isotocin and mesotocin, respectively, can elicit participation in group conflict and aggression. This is because it amplifies (i) concern for the interests of genetically related or culturally similar ‘in-group’ others and (ii) willingness to defend against outside intruders and enemy conspecifics. Across a range of social vertebrates, oxytocin can induce aggressive behaviour to ‘tend-and-defend’ the in-group during intergroup contests.

This article is part of the theme issue ‘Intergroup conflict across taxa’.

Human sickness detection is not dependent on cultural experience

Animals across phyla can detect early cues of infection in conspecifics, thereby reducing the risk of contamination. It is unknown, however, if humans can detect cues of sickness in people belonging to communities with whom they have limited or no experience. To test this, we presented Western faces photographed 2 h after the experimental induction of an acute immune response to one Western and five non-Western communities, including small-scale hunter-gatherer and large urban-dwelling communities. All communities could detect sick individuals. There were group differences in performance but Western participants, who observed faces from their own community, were not systematically better than all non-Western participants. At odds with the common belief that sickness detection of an out-group member should be biased to err on the side of caution, the majority of non-Western communities were unbiased. Our results show that subtle cues of a general immune response are recognized across cultures and may aid in detecting infectious threats.

Out-group animosity drives engagement on social media

There has been growing concern about the role social media plays in political polarization. We investigated whether out-group animosity was particularly successful at generating engagement on two of the largest social media platforms: Facebook and Twitter. Analyzing posts from news media accounts and US congressional members (n = 2,730,215), we found that posts about the political out-group were shared or retweeted about twice as often as posts about the in-group. Each individual term referring to the political out-group increased the odds of a social media post being shared by 67%. Out-group language consistently emerged as the strongest predictor of shares and retweets: the average effect size of out-group language was about 4.8 times as strong as that of negative affect language and about 6.7 times as strong as that of moral-emotional language-both established predictors of social media engagement. Language about the out-group was a very strong predictor of "angry" reactions (the most popular reactions across all datasets), and language about the in-group was a strong predictor of "love" reactions, reflecting in-group favoritism and out-group derogation. This out-group effect was not moderated by political orientation or social media platform, but stronger effects were found among political leaders than among news media accounts. In sum, out-group language is the strongest predictor of social media engagement across all relevant predictors measured, suggesting that social media may be creating perverse incentives for content expressing out-group animosity.

Effects of the Presence and Behavior of In-Group and Out-Group Strangers on Moral Hypocrisy

Moral hypocrisy (MH) occurs when people fail to practice what they preach. Despite the prevalence of the effect of social identity on an individual’s MH, few empirical studies have explored contextual factors that may help reduce MH. By conducting two experiments based on the research paradigm of real stranger presence, we examined how in-group and out-group strangers’ presence and moral behavior may contribute to reducing MH. The results of experiment 1 demonstrated that compared with the presence of out-group strangers, the presence of in-group strangers could effectively inhibit MH (no significant difference between participants reported and actual donation proportions was obtained). The results of experiment 2 replicated and extended the results of experiment 1, first by showing that the presence of in-group strangers could effectively inhibit MH and then by revealing the influence of present strangers’ behavior (moral or hypocritical) on MH. The results indicated that strangers’ moral behavior could effectively eliminate participants’ MH, especially in the presence of in-group strangers. However, when present strangers exhibited hypocritical behavior, they exhibited no effect on participants’ MH, irrespective of the condition of in-group and out-group strangers. The current study provides empirical support for theories related to MH and moral decision-making and contributes to the literature on in-group and out-group effects on MH and decision-making.

Moved by Observing the Love of Others: Kama Muta Evoked Through Media Fosters Humanization of Out-Groups

People often view out-groups as less human than their in-group. Some media video content is heart-warming and leaves one feeling touched or moved. Recent research indicates that this reflects a positive social emotion, kama muta, which is evoked by a sudden increase in interpersonal closeness, specifically by the relational model of communal sharing. Because forming strong, close, and communal bonds exemplifies valued human qualities, and because other humans are our primary target partners of communal sharing, we predicted that feeling kama muta in response to observing communal sharing among out-group strangers would make people view out-groups as more human. In Study 1, we replicated a model obtained through a large exploratory preliminary study which indicated that videos depicting out-group members enacting communal sharing evoked kama muta and increased protagonist humanization. This, in turn, led to decreased blatant dehumanization of the entire out-group via perceived out-group warmth and motivation to develop a communal sharing relationship with the protagonist. The preregistered Study 2 further tested our model, demonstrating (1) that the relationship between protagonist humanization and kama muta is bidirectional such that baseline humanization of the protagonist also increases feelings of kama muta in response to acts of communal sharing; (2) that watching videos of communal sharing, as compared to funny videos, increased protagonist humanization; and (3) that kama muta videos, compared to funny videos, had an indirect effect on the reduction of out-group blatant dehumanization, which was mediated by protagonist humanization and out-group warmth.

Contextual knowledge provided by a movie biases implicit perception of the protagonist

We are constantly categorizing other people as belonging to our in-group (‘one of us’) or out-group (‘one of them’). Such grouping occurs fast and automatically and can be based on others’ visible characteristics such as skin color or clothing style. Here we studied neural underpinnings of implicit social grouping not often visible on the face, male sexual orientation. A total of 14 homosexuals and 15 heterosexual males were scanned in functional magnetic resonance imaging while watching a movie about a homosexual man, whose face was also presented subliminally before (subjects did not know about the character’s sexual orientation) and after the movie. We discovered significantly stronger activation to the man’s face after seeing the movie in homosexual but not heterosexual subjects in medial prefrontal cortex, frontal pole, anterior cingulate cortex, right temporal parietal junction and bilateral superior frontal gyrus. In previous research, these brain areas have been connected to social perception, self-referential thinking, empathy, theory of mind and in-group perception. In line with previous studies showing biased perception of in-/out-group faces to be context dependent, our novel approach further demonstrates how complex contextual knowledge gained under naturalistic viewing can bias implicit social perception.

When There Are Only Minorities: Identity and In-Group / Out-Group Orientations of Emerging Adults in Four South African Ethnocultural Groups

Intergroup relation perspectives stem from research in Western contexts with clear distinctions between the dominant and nondominant groups. In South Africa, with at least 13 different cultural groups and 11 official languages, no group is dominant in all life spheres. We examine the relationship between identity and in-/out-group orientation across Black-Zulu, Coloured (mixed racial ancestry), Indian, and White-Afrikaans emerging adults (N = 390; 75% females, M_age = 19.97 years, SD = 2.44). Results indicate that personal identity for all groups and ethnic identity for Black-Zulu, Indian, and White-Afrikaans emerging adults were important for intergroup relations. Black-Zulu, Coloured, and Indian emerging adults distinguish themselves less from others, whereas White-Afrikaans emerging adults are less open to others. Ultimately, the complexity of intergroup relations in South Africa has implications for the effective transformation interventions needed to counter experiences of threat and make group boundaries more flexible for emerging adults.

Is social categorization based on relational ingroup/outgroup opposition? A meta-analysis

Social categorization is known to be an important part of social cognition. The categorizations we use, despite their multitude, frequently take the form of the general ingroup/outgroup distinction. A meta-analysis of 33 fMRI studies, reporting selective activations to various social groups, was used to identify common neural structures responsible for relational representation of social structure. Activation Likelihood Estimation (ALE) analysis revealed areas in bilateral amygdala, cingulate gyrus, fusiform gyrus, right TPJ and right insula as implementing various aspects of social categorization. Activation of amygdala can be associated with modulation of behavioral response to subjectively significant stimuli. A more ventral part of anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) can be associated with self-referential reasoning about ingroup members while a more dorsal part of ACC is involved in the regulation of emotions toward outgroup members. Right insula can be engaged in the modulation of outgroup avoidance behavior. Fusiform gyrus (FG) appears to be directly involved in social categorization process via top-down modulation of social perception. Yet it is difficult to associate any of the revealed clusters with the relational ingroup/outgroup structure.

Islamic Headdress Influences How Emotion is Recognized from the Eyes

Previous research has shown a negative bias in the perception of whole facial expressions from out-group members. Whether or not emotion recognition from the eyes is already sensitive to contextual information is presently a matter of debate. In three experiments we tested whether emotions can be recognized when just the eyes are visible and whether this recognition is affected by context cues, such as various Islamic headdresses vs. a cap or a scarf. Our results indicate that fear is still well recognized from a briefly flashed (100 ms) image of a women wearing a burqa with less than 20% transparency of the eye region. Moreover, the type of headdress influences how emotions are recognized. In a group of participants from non-Islamic background, fear was recognized better from women wearing a niqāb than from women wearing a cap and a shawl, whereas the opposite was observed for happy and sad expressions. The response patterns showed that fearful and anger labels were more often attributed to women with a niqāb vs. a cap and a shawl and again, an opposite pattern was observed for the happy response. However, there was no general response bias: both correct and incorrect responses were influenced by the facial expression as well. Anxiety levels and/or explicit negative associations with the Islam as measured via questionnaires did not mediate the effects. Consistent with the face literature, we conclude that the recognition of emotions from the eyes is also influenced by context.