Abstract
Prejudice is an enduring and pervasive aspect of human cognition. An emergent trend in modern psychology has focused on understanding how cognition is linked to neural function, leading researchers to investigate the neural correlates of prejudice. Research in this area using racial group memberships has quickly highlighted the amygdala as a neural structure of importance. In this article, we offer a critical review of social neuroscientific studies of the amygdala in race-related prejudice. Rather than the dominant interpretation that amygdala activity reflects a racial or outgroup bias per se, we argue that the observed pattern of sensitivity in this literature is best considered in terms of potential threat. More specifically, we argue that negative culturally-learned associations between black males and potential threat better explain the observed pattern of amygdala activity. Finally, we consider future directions for the field and offer specific experiments and predictions to directly address unanswered questions.
Highlights
An emergent trend in modern psychology, spurred by the ability to non-invasively image the human brain and its neural activity, has focused on understanding how cognition is linked to neural function
In combining the social psychological backdrop on prejudice with neuroimaging and interference studies of the amygdala, we argue that the prevalent ingroup–outgroup interpretation does not fully capture amygdala activity across the race-related social neuroscience literature
We offer an alternative explanation: that differential amygdala activity may best be considered in terms of threat, arising through culturally-learned associations between black males and potential threat
Summary
An emergent trend in modern psychology, spurred by the ability to non-invasively image the human brain and its neural activity, has focused on understanding how cognition is linked to neural function. We offer an alternative interpretation of the social neuroscience literature on race-related amygdala activity This raises the question of whether the observed pattern of amygdala modulation directly reflects a racial or outgroup bias per se, or, as we shall argue, that differential activity stems from perceived threat/uncertainty, which is likely to emerge as a learned bias against black males. Richeson et al (2008) and Demos et al (2008) demonstrate an important pattern of results: (a) bilateral amygdala modulation is elicited by social markers of threat, compared to inconsistent, unilateral amygdala modulation by racial group membership; and (b) direct eye-gaze can even override the expected basic pattern of race-related activity. It is difficult to make a threat-based prediction in experiments
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