title: The role of the medial prefrontal cortex in social categorization.
abstract: Group membership is an important aspect of our everyday behavior. Recently, we showed that existing relevant in-group labels increased activation in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) compared with out-group labels, suggesting a role of the MPFC in social categorization. However, the question still remains whether this increase in MPFC activation for in-group representation is solely related with previous experience with the in-group. To test this, we randomly assigned participants to a red or blue team and in a subsequent functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment they categorized red and blue team words as belonging to either the in-group or the out-group. Results showed that even under these minimal conditions increased activation was found in the MPFC when participants indicated that they belonged to a group, as compared with when they did not. This effect was found to be associated with the level of group identification. These results confirm the role of MPFC in social categorization.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, McElwain Building, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia. p.molenberghs@uq.edu.au.
authors.forename: Pascal
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Molenberghs
authors.forename: Samantha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Morrison
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time; D012933:Social Identification; D055815:Young Adult