Document Detail


The blame game: the effect of responsibility and social stigma on empathy for pain.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  19425830     Owner:  NLM     Status:  MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
This investigation combined behavioral and functional neuroimaging measures to explore whether perception of pain is modulated by the target's stigmatized status and whether the target bore responsibility for that stigma. During fMRI scanning, participants were exposed to a series of short video clips featuring age-matched individuals experiencing pain who were (a) similar to the participant (healthy), (b) stigmatized but not responsible for their stigmatized condition (infected with AIDS as a result of an infected blood transfusion), or (c) stigmatized and responsible for their stigmatized condition (infected with AIDS as a result of intravenous drug use). Explicit pain and empathy ratings for the targets were obtained outside of the MRI environment, along with a variety of implicit and explicit measures of AIDS bias. Results showed that participants were significantly more sensitive to the pain of AIDS transfusion targets as compared with healthy and AIDS drug targets, as evidenced by significantly higher pain and empathy ratings during video evaluation and significantly greater hemodynamic activity in areas associated with pain processing (i.e., right anterior insula, anterior midcingulate cortex, periaqueductal gray). In contrast, significantly less activity was observed in the anterior midcingulate cortex for AIDS drug targets as compared with healthy controls. Further, behavioral differences between healthy and AIDS drug targets were moderated by the extent to which participants blamed AIDS drug individuals for their condition. Controlling for both explicit and implicit AIDS bias, the more participants blamed these targets, the less pain they attributed to them as compared with healthy controls. The present study reveals that empathic resonance is moderated early in information processing by a priori attitudes toward the target group.
Authors:
Jean Decety; Stephanie Echols; Joshua Correll
Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.    
Journal Detail:
Title:  Journal of cognitive neuroscience     Volume:  22     ISSN:  1530-8898     ISO Abbreviation:  J Cogn Neurosci     Publication Date:  2010 May 
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2010-03-05     Completed Date:  2010-05-27     Revised Date:  -    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  8910747     Medline TA:  J Cogn Neurosci     Country:  United States    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  985-97     Citation Subset:  IM    
Affiliation:
Departmentof Psychology, The University of Chicago, 5848 South University Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. decety@uchicago.edu
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MeSH Terms
Descriptor/Qualifier:
Adult
Brain Mapping*
Cerebral Cortex / blood supply,  physiology*
Christianity / psychology*
Empathy / physiology*
Female
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / methods
Magnetic Resonance Imaging / methods
Male
Neuropsychological Tests
Oxygen / metabolism
Pain* / psychology
Photic Stimulation / methods
Self Concept
Social Perception*
Young Adult
Chemical
Reg. No./Substance:
7782-44-7/Oxygen

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine


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