Brain Scans Get at Roots of Prejudice

Harvard study shows that liberals are just as bigoted as those they consider bigots:

WEDNESDAY, May 17 (HealthDay News) -- The human brain may have a built-in mechanism for keeping racially or politically distinct groups apart, a new Harvard study suggests.

U.S. researchers observed the brain activity of liberal college students who were asked to think about Christian conservatives. As they did so, a brain region strongly linked to the self and to empathy with others nearly shut down, while another center -- perhaps linked to stereotypic thoughts -- swung into high gear.

"It's as if you think that 'they' don't think like you do -- it's like you believe they are governed by a different set of rules when they think," explained study author Dr. Jason Mitchell, a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University's department of psychology.

His team published its findings in the May 18 issue of Neuron.

According to Mitchell, social psychologists have long known that people engage different mental criteria when thinking about the possible thoughts and actions of people within their own ethnic, cultural or political group, vs. those outside that group.

The neurological mechanisms governing this process has been much less clear, however.

"Our work is about 'other-ness,' " Mitchell said. "There's this question of 'How do I figure out what's going on inside your head? How do I make inferences about what you are feeling?' "

One theory that's gained credence among social neuroscientists is that people look to themselves when thinking about people they already include in their "group."

"If you and I are similar, then I can use what I know about myself to figure out what you are thinking," said Mitchell, who will become an assistant professor of psychology at Harvard in July.

Previous studies have shown that an area toward the front of the brain, called the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), always lights up when people think about themselves or people they consider similar to themselves.

But which part of the mPFC activates when people think about those outside their group?

To find out, the Harvard team hooked up a group of liberal Boston college students to a functional MRI machine, which tracks real-time changes in brain energy use.

They then asked the students to read detailed profiles of two people: one, a liberal-minded person much like themselves, and the other, a fundamentalist Christian conservative with views and activities very different from their own.

"We showed that there are distinct brain regions active in the mPFC," depending on the political stripe of the object in question, Mitchell said.

When the students thought about the liberal person, the mPFC's ventral region -- strongly associated with thoughts about the self -- got very active. But it quieted down when the subject was the Christian conservative -- instead, the mPFC's dorsal area took over.

"The dorsal region is a lot more mysterious," Mitchell said. "It's more engaged when I think about a dissimilar other."

"These data challenge the naive view that we bring the same mental orientation to bear when we think about those who are similar or different from us," said study co-author Dr. Mahzarin Banaji, a professor of social ethics in Harvard's department of psychology. "In particular, it raises questions about who can, objectively speaking, sit in judgment on whom."

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My Comments:
Which may help explain why bigoted liberals come up with crap like this.