Racial Bias Reduces Empathic Sensorimotor Resonance with Other-Race Pain

• Published in: Current biology Vol. 20; no. 11; pp. 1018 - 1022
• Main Authors: Avenanti, Alessio, Sirigu, Angela, Aglioti, Salvatore M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Inc 08.06.2010
• Subjects: Continental Population Groups - psychology; Empathy - physiology; Humans; Pain - physiopathology; Pain - psychology; Pain Measurement; Prejudice; SYSNEURO; SYSNEURO
• ISSN: 0960-9822; 1879-0445
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2010.03.071

Although social psychology studies suggest that racism often manifests itself as a lack of empathy [ 1, 2], i.e., the ability to share and comprehend others' feelings and intentions [ 3–7], evidence for differential empathic reactivity to the pain of same- or different-race individuals is meager [ 8, 9]. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation, we explored sensorimotor empathic brain responses [ 10–15] in black and white individuals who exhibited implicit but not explicit ingroup preference and race-specific autonomic reactivity [ 16–20]. We found that observing the pain of ingroup models inhibited the onlookers' corticospinal system as if they were feeling the pain [ 10–15, 21, 22]. Both black and white individuals exhibited empathic reactivity also when viewing the pain of stranger, very unfamiliar, violet-hand models. By contrast, no vicarious mapping of the pain of individuals culturally marked as outgroup members on the basis of their skin color was found. Importantly, group-specific lack of empathic reactivity was higher in the onlookers who exhibited stronger implicit racial bias. These results indicate that human beings react empathically to the pain of stranger individuals [ 3–7]. However, racial bias and stereotypes may change this reactivity into a group-specific lack of sensorimotor resonance [ 1–3, 9, 23, 24]. ► Observing the pain of a model inhibits the corticospinal motor system of an onlooker ► This so-called sensorimotor contagion indexes a basic form of empathic reactivity ► Sensorimotor contagion is not found for the pain of different racial group models ► Higher reduction of sensorimotor contagion parallels stronger implicit race bias