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Harming the ‘outgroup’ linked to elevated activity in the brain reward circuitry

neurosciencenews.com

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Re: Harming the ‘outgroup’ linked to elevated activity in the brain reward circuitry

#41

Post by feet »

meany wrote: post #37
feet wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Something thing you might want to consider. as this article points out human brains evolved to push the individual to identify with a group and be hostile to other groups because it improved fitness. Through most of human existence this group survival pressure outweighed objective rational perception of reality . Political parties often tap into this in group out group emotional connection. While I agree that Republi…

Well I'm not democrat either, both parties do it to a degree, the republicans are just completely insane and super aggressive about it so its a bit more obvious

Re: Harming the ‘outgroup’ linked to elevated activity in the brain reward circuitry

#42

Post by christophilus »

feet wrote: post #9
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #8

> The researchers had 35 male college students complete a competitive, aggressive task against either a student from their university or from what they were told was a rival university. Male college students, an “aggressive task”, and a rival university. College students are literally trained to associate out-competing rival universities as a fun and desirable activity. It’s the entire foundation of sports programs.…

>College students are literally trained to associate out-competing rival universities as a fun and desirable activity. This was not my experience in undergrad, literally at all. No idea where this comes from

I really enjoy trolling the Harvard grads I know by referring to their “time at Yale or Princeton or wherever.” Old school rivalries run deep and are a lot of fun to play up.

Also, for all of you in South Carolina, go Tigers (and Chants), booo Cocks!

Re: Harming the ‘outgroup’ linked to elevated activity in the brain reward circuitry

#43

Post by feet »

ben_w wrote: post #24
feet wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I'm not American and I've only visited for four months total, so my view of the politics is mainly from the news and forums like this one. From this, given how often I see Republicans saying it's the Democrats who are restricting freedoms, I have to assume the two camps (as in being or the other as identity, not necessarily just voting red or blue last time) actually want to do different things — if you'll bear with…

The freedoms that republicans care about is the freedom to deny gay people marriage, the freedom to purchase assault weapons before your brain fully matures and without any training whatsoever, the freedom to use your religion as an excuse to shit on people and indoctrinate the children of others

Democrats only care about corporations and profits.

Republicans are social conservatives, Democrats are fiscal conservatives

Re: Harming the ‘outgroup’ linked to elevated activity in the brain reward circuitry

#44

Post by Bacito »

I think this is nature's risk management mechanism at play. I believe nature has put a mechanism in our heads, which prevents the easy spread of global threats to humanity by dividing us (the society) to different subgroups. This division acts as a barrier for the contagion effects of different threats or at least slows them down significantly.

Let's take for example the current Crypto sale. People who invested in crypto are losing money, but fortunately nature created other individuals, who think crypto is a scam and they've never put their money on the table. They are safe compared the their peers. An example, where this mechanism has been compromised by humanity is the civil aviation and the COVID spread. If we didn't have a sophisticated and integrated civil aviation industry COVID would have had a hard time spreading around the globe so fast. 100 years earlier and the virus would have needed many more months to spread.

So, I think nature deliberately (or evolutionary) put a mechanism in our heads, where we try to protect our own group and harm the outsiders. This reinforces nature's risk management.

Re: Harming the ‘outgroup’ linked to elevated activity in the brain reward circuitry

#45

Post by charlie0 »

In otherwords, water is wet. It's very easy to see that tribal behavior is hardwired into the brain. One just has to look at history and current events to see that.

I own a sports motorcycle. One of the first things you learn at the track is that your initial instincts in certain situations are wrong because physics says so. During the course you learn to remold or even completely change your instincts.

I've often wondered what we could accomplish as a species if we could just overcome some of these hardwired / knee-jerk instincts.

We have amazing technology and could do so much more, but we're still stuck with the parts of our brain that are millions of years old.

Re: Harming the ‘outgroup’ linked to elevated activity in the brain reward circuitry

#46

Post by xg15 »

So in effect they found the biological basis for hate?

> But why do people show such a ready tendency to harm people in opposing groups?

A new study led by researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University has used functional brain imaging technology to reveal a potential answer: It increases activity in the brain’s reward network.

I think the underlying assumption here is already worth thinking about: That interpersonal and societal behaviour might be a lot more driven by instincts than we'd like to believe - and that in particular the tendency of people to structure the social landscape into "us" and "them" groups might be biologically hardwired.

The other thing I believe would be useful to study at some time would be if there is some innate biological mechanism for sadistic behaviour, which in effect "flips the sign on the reward function" when we consider an action in particular contexts - so doing harm suddenly feels good and doing good feels bad. At least, that would explain to me, why in so many situations where a person has the power to make rules that others have to follow, the rules seem to skew towards being unpleasant, even if they wouldn't have to be rationally.

Re: Harming the ‘outgroup’ linked to elevated activity in the brain reward circuitry

#47

Post by yieldcrv »

katzgrau wrote: post #35
yieldcrv wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont see how it fixed anything related to harming the outgroup when popular interpretations and outcomes involved massive harming of outgroups It seems the same behaviors exist in the absence and presence of that religion

> It seems the same behaviors exist in the absence and presence of that religion Right, just humans doing their thing and twisting literally anything to justify their pursuit of power. Christianity not necessary. But there's something to be said for a set of values that emphasizes love, empathy, and reciprocity, regardless of the religion.

> But there's something to be said for a set of values that emphasizes love, empathy, and reciprocity, regardless of the religion.

Such as how often the religious one fails to do that?

My impression is that there is a recurring theme that it is violent towards outgroups and even more violent towards ingroups that don’t conform exactly. Leaving only compassion towards an ever splintering sect for the brief time everyone believes the exact same thing.

Also not exclusive to Christianity, but I mostly only hear from the escapees.

In any case, what do you see?

Re: Harming the ‘outgroup’ linked to elevated activity in the brain reward circuitry

#49

Post by wanderingstan »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #8

> The researchers had 35 male college students complete a competitive, aggressive task against either a student from their university or from what they were told was a rival university. Male college students, an “aggressive task”, and a rival university. College students are literally trained to associate out-competing rival universities as a fun and desirable activity. It’s the entire foundation of sports programs.…

This research gives evidence that outgroup aggression feels good/rewarding. I’d tend to think this is hard-wired biologically. You’re right that it could conceivably be trained, but that’s not what it felt like for me as a young male in college.

While many people (myself included) could anecdotally say that aggression to an outgroup can feel good, it’s the job of science to look for the hard evidence in the brain. This quote from the researchers seemed key:

> “This finding helps to balance the narrative about the psychological processes that underlie aggression against outgroup members, which typically emphasizes negative emotional states such as anger and fear,” Chester said.

Re: Harming the ‘outgroup’ linked to elevated activity in the brain reward circuitry

#50

Post by dalbasal »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #8

> The researchers had 35 male college students complete a competitive, aggressive task against either a student from their university or from what they were told was a rival university. Male college students, an “aggressive task”, and a rival university. College students are literally trained to associate out-competing rival universities as a fun and desirable activity. It’s the entire foundation of sports programs.…

Perhaps, and studies such as these should have to withstand such questioning. But.....

The problem as I see it isn't expiremntal design. The problem is larger scientific "design." To learn something useful with a sufficiently nuances understanding would take a lot of studies. Replication, redesign, boundary testing of the hypothesis, re-theorizing, etc. Science is supposed to be a process.

With this, it may be possible to arrive at usable knowledge about human psychology and why/how we behave badly. This smattering of disparate studies, even if they were well designed and executed.... It just doesn't lead anywhere.

If expiremnts and studies were pieces in a larger scientific endeavour, I think both quality issues resilience to quality issues would improve naturally.

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