Abstract
There is extensive evidence of an association between early adversity and enduring neural changes that impact socioemotional processing throughout life. Yet little is known about the effects of on-going social discrimination on socioemotional functioning. Here we examined how cumulative experiences of social discrimination impact brain response during empathic responding—a crucial issue in South Africa, given its historical apartheid context and continuing legacies. White and Black South Africans completed measures of social adversity (early adversity and social discrimination), and underwent fMRI while viewing video clips depicting victims and perpetrators of apartheid crimes. Increased neural response was detected in brain regions associated with cognitive rather than affective empathy, and greater social adversity was associated with reduced reported compassion across participants. Notably, social discrimination (due to income level, weight, gender) in White participants was associated with increased amygdala reactivity, whereas social discrimination (due to race) in Black participants mediated the negative associations of temporoparietal junction and inferior frontal gyrus activation with compassion during emotionally provocative conditions. These findings suggest that (i) social discrimination has comparable associations at the neural level as other psychosocial stressors, and that (ii) the mechanisms underlying empathic responding vary as a function of the type of social discrimination experienced.
Highlights
Social experiences critically shape the neural circuitry underpinning social and emotional behavior throughout life[1]
The present research investigated the effects of early adversity and social discrimination on neural response when White and Black South Africans empathized with apartheid victims and perpetrators
The findings suggest that Black compared to White participants responded with heightened empathic sensitivity
Summary
Social experiences critically shape the neural circuitry underpinning social and emotional behavior throughout life[1]. We examined empathy in response to ecological video clips depicting victims (forgiving/ unforgiving) and perpetrators (apologetic/unapologetic) of apartheid crimes, and determined the extent to which experiences of early adversity and social discrimination are associated with altered responses in neural circuits involved in cognitive and affective empathy. We speculated that these different social stressors may converge via shared psychological mechanisms impacting overlapping neural circuits, in marginalized populations living in environments with complex social challenges, such as poverty, racial stratification, negative social connectedness, and early exposure to these conditions[23]
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