Neuromodulation of group prejudice and religious belief.
People cleave to ideological convictions with greater intensity in the aftermath of threat. The posterior medial frontal cortex (pMFC) plays a key role in both detecting discrepancies between desired and current conditions and adjusting subsequent behavior to resolve such conflicts. Building on prior literature examining the role of the pMFC in shifts in relatively low-level decision processes, we demonstrate that the pMFC mediates adjustments in adherence to political and religious ideologies. We presented participants with a reminder of death and a critique of their in-group ostensibly written by a member of an out-group, then experimentally decreased both avowed belief in God and out-group derogation by downregulating pMFC activity via transcranial magnetic stimulation. The results provide the first evidence that group prejudice and religious belief are susceptible to targeted neuromodulation, and point to a shared cognitive mechanism underlying concrete and abstract decision processes. We discuss the implications of these findings for further research characterizing the cognitive and affective mechanisms at play.
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA, cholbrook01@ucla.edu.
Colin
C
Holbrook
Department of Psychology, University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5DD, UK.
Keise
K
Izuma
Department of Neurology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA and.
Choi
C
Deblieck
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
Daniel M T
DM
Fessler
Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
Marco
M
Iacoboni
D000339:Affect; D001293:Attitude to Death; D003657:Decision Making; D054242:Emigrants and Immigrants; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D010812:Physical Stimulation; D011287:Prejudice / Q000523:psychology*; D012067:Religion; D050781:Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation; D014481:United States; D055815:Young Adult
ethnocentrism; posterior medial frontal cortex; religiosity; transcranial magnetic stimulation