Challenging emotional prejudice by changing self-concept: priming independent self-construal reduces racial in-group bias in neural responses to other’s pain

Challenging emotional prejudice by changing self-concept: priming independent self-construal reduces racial in-group bias in neural responses to other’s pain Chenbo Wang Bing Wu Yi Liu Xinhuai Wu Shihui Han

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Challenging emotional prejudice by changing self-concept: priming independent self-construal reduces racial in-group bias in neural responses to other’s pain 2015 Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 10.1093/scan/nsv005 wang2015-challenging-emotional-prejudice-by wang2015-challenging-emotional-prejudice-by.txt, the project's staged copy a0fcb857dae6969cd6a17fdfe35ecf41e751a79d open-access social-neuroscience

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0 spans located by searching the stored text for the quote's exact words, allowing any whitespace between them The racial in-group bias in empathic neural response to others' pain, and whether shifting a person's self-construal changes it. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Cultures differ in how strongly people favour their own group's suffering - is the self-construal that distinguishes those cultures the thing actually doing the work? Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Shows the neural in-group bias is not fixed: priming an independent self-construal reduces it in insula, mid-cingulate and SMA, which makes self-construal a candidate cause rather than a correlate. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. mechanism Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. racial in-group bias in empathy for pain Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. fmri fmri Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. mechanisms self-construal sets where the psychological boundary falls: interdependence draws the line between in-group and out-group, independence draws it between self and all others and so weakens the in-group/out-group split that produces biased empathy Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. mechanisms independent priming shifts cultural identity toward Western cultures, so Caucasian models are recategorised as in-group and their suffering draws a stronger neural response Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. mechanisms independent priming weakens race-based group affiliation between the Chinese participants and the Chinese models, dissolving the basis of the in-group advantage Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. mechanisms empathic concern generates altruistic motivation, so a bias in empathy toward in-group members produces parochial altruism in behaviour Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. mechanisms an interdependent self organises behaviour by reference to others in one's relationships, which sharpens the in-group/out-group line Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. mechanisms an independent self organises behaviour by reference to one's own thoughts, which weakens the group boundary and lets a person cross it easily Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. mechanisms the route from bias to behaviour runs through empathy: empathic concern produces altruistic motivation, so a biased empathy yields a parochial altruism duplicate of: mechanisms[3] Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. mechanisms self-construal is treated as temporarily shiftable, not as a fixed cultural trait - a 108-second reading task moves it Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. The two competing explanations offered for why independent priming shifted responses toward out-group faces are not yet tested Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. The reduction of racial bias under independent priming does not license the conclusion that Westerners lack racial in-group bias Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. The self-report measures showed no racial in-group bias at all, so the effect rests on the imaging measures Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. One cultural sample: 30 Chinese university students, in a design whose logic is about differences between cultures. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. The mechanism linking culture to bias was unknown going in, and the study offers a candidate rather than settling it. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Race is operationalised as Asian versus Caucasian faces in short video clips, which is a narrow stand-in for a social category. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Markus and Kitayama's independent/interdependent self-construal distinction, imported as the cognitive variable that might explain a cultural difference in neural empathy Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the order of independent and interdependent self-construal priming counterbalanced across participants, two scans following each eliminates: an order effect and carry-over between the two priming conditions within a participant · outcome (stated by the tagger, no quotation): held Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. empathy empathy Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. in-group bias in-group bias Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. self-construal self-construal Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. parochial altruism parochial altruism Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. BOLD BOLD Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. insula insula Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. mid-cingulate mid-cingulate Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Interpersonal Reactivity Index Interpersonal Reactivity Index Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. empathy - as a neural event: the BOLD response when watching another person be hurt, deliberately chosen over asking the person Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. empathy - as a self-reported trait, with four subscales: perspective taking, fantasy, empathic concern and personal distress Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. self-construal - as a stable cultural orientation distinguishing collectivistic from individualistic societies Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. self-construal - as a temporary state that a 108-second reading task can shift within one person Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. claim_type: mechanism a second reading reaching the same value. Recorded: mechanism — note: a second reading reaching the same value from a different sentence. Not applied - a person decides. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. method: fmri a second reading reaching the same value. Recorded: fmri — note: a second reading reaching the same value from a different sentence. Not applied - a person decides. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. phenomenon: racial in-group bias in empathic neural responses to others' pain, and its modulation by self-construal a second reading DIFFERING from the recorded value. Recorded: racial in-group bias in empathy for pain — note: a second reading, verbatim-verified, disagreeing with the value on the record. Not applied - a person decides. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. replicates → Xu et al. (2009); Azevedo et al. (2013); Contreras-Huerta et al. (2013); Sheng et al. (2014) Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. builds-on → Markus and Kitayama (2010) Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. replicates → Singer et al. (2004); Jackson et al. (2005); Gu and Han (2007); Han et al. (2009) Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. extends → Mathur et al. (2010) and Cheon et al. (2011) on cultural differences in the neural in-group empathy bias Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. builds-on → Markus and Kitayama's self-construal framework Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. builds-on → Xu et al. (2009), whose stimulus set and paradigm are reused Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. self-construal —causes→ in-group bias self-construal in-group bias strength of the relation: 1 Audit 2026-09-28: DOUBTFUL - read against its full span and kept, but the span says the findings SUGGEST this; hedged. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. in-group bias —causes→ parochial altruism in-group bias parochial altruism status: the paper's own words: may · strength of the relation: 1 Audit 2026-09-28: DOUBTFUL - read against its full span and kept, but the span says in-group bias MAY provide a mechanism of parochial altruism; hedged. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. empathy —operationalised-as→ BOLD empathy BOLD strength of the relation: 1 Audit 2026-09-28: DOUBTFUL - read against its span and kept, but empathic responses were recorded as BOLD; operationalised-as is loose. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. empathy —operationalised-as→ Interpersonal Reactivity Index empathy Interpersonal Reactivity Index strength of the relation: 1 Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. ANOVA ANOVA Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. t-test t-test Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. p-value p-value Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. effect size effect size Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Cohen's d Cohen's d Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. confidence interval confidence interval Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. correlation correlation Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. general linear model general linear model Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. standard deviation standard deviation Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. multiple comparison correction multiple comparison correction Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. statistical power analysis statistical power analysis Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. effect-size effect-size Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. statistical-power statistical-power Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. standard-deviation standard-deviation Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. After interdependent self-construal priming, watching a racial in-group member in pain produced stronger activity than an out-group member in the mid-cingulate cortex, left supplementary motor area and left insula. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Priming independent self-construals abolished that racial in-group bias in neural responses to others' pain. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Priming independent rather than interdependent self-construals both lowered the response to in-group members' pain and raised the response to out-group members' pain, although only the increased mid-cingulate response to out-group faces reached significance across priming conditions. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Subjective ratings of others' pain and of the observer's own unpleasantness showed no racial in-group bias, unlike the brain measures. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Participants' habitual (chronic) self-construal scores were unrelated to how much racial in-group bias their brain activity showed. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Across all conditions, seeing painful compared with non-painful stimulation applied to another person activated the mid-cingulate cortex, bilateral supplementary motor area, bilateral insula/inferior frontal gyrus, bilateral secondary somatosensory cortex, bilateral superior parietal and middle temporal gyri, and bilateral posterior cerebellum. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. A whole-brain priming-by-race interaction, at a relaxed voxel threshold, located the same modulation in the left supplementary motor area, left inferior frontal gyrus and right temporo-parietal junction. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. After interdependent priming, in-group pain produced stronger activity than out-group pain in mid-cingulate, left insula and SMA - the bias is present. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. After independent priming the in-group bias in the same regions was significantly reduced. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. The neural bias has behavioural consequences: it predicts willingness to sacrifice for in-group members. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. The cultural pattern the study explains: both the empathy bias and parochial altruism are stronger in collectivistic than individualistic settings. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. empathy empathy Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. independent schema of self independent schema of self Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. interdependent schema of self interdependent schema of self Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. original ES original ES Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. empathy empathy Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. independent self-construal independent self-construal Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. interdependent self-construal interdependent self-construal Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. self-construal priming self-construal priming Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. race race Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. contrast value contrast value Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. empathy trait empathy trait Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. self-construal self-construal Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. racial in-group bias racial in-group bias Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. pain feelings pain feelings Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. unpleasantness unpleasantness Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. 30 participants (16 males, 14 females) — final analysed sample after exclusions, with mean age 22.6 years Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Two participants — number dropped from the original 32 for excessive head movement in the scanner Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. a power of 0.85 — the statistical power the sample size was planned for, using a prior self-construal priming effect size of 0.51 and alpha 0.05 Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. F (1,29) = 5.144, P = 0.031 — the Priming x Race interaction in the mid-cingulate cortex, the key test that priming changes racial in-group bias Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. d = 5.63 and 5.26 — effect sizes of the painful vs non-painful manipulation on rated pain intensity and on rated self-unpleasantness Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. 48 video clips — number of pain/no-pain stimulus clips, showing six Asian and six Caucasian models Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. 108 s — duration of each self-construal priming session preceding a functional scan Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. 50 fMRI studies — size of the prior meta-analysis of empathy for pain used to define the five regions of interest independently of this dataset Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. 30 participants (16 male, 14 female, mean 22.6 ± 2.4 years) — analysed sample after two exclusions for head movement Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. effect size 0.51, alpha 0.05, power 0.85 — the a priori power calculation fixing the sample size Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. 48 video clips — stimulus set: six Asian and six Caucasian models receiving painful or non-painful stimulation Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.

The full text of this article is not redistributable, so it is not included here. The evidence sentences are withheld with it; the tag layer and its grounding status remain. The article itself is at https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsv005.