One of the science fiction predictions, that has not yet come to pass, is the ability to categorise individuals by measuring certain thoughts or actions, with implications for individual freedom and status. That time may have drawn slightly closer. A forthcoming study, “Dehumanizing the Lowest of the Low: Neuro-imaging responses to Extreme Outgroups” published in “Psychological Science”, the Journal for the Association of Psychological Science, claims that prejudicial states can be measured through the imaging of the brain.
Medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) brain imaging determined if the students accurately chose the correct emotion illustrated by the picture (according to pretest results in which a different group of students determined the emotion that best fit each photograph). The MPFC is only activated when a person thinks about him- or her-self or another human. When viewing a picture representing disgust, however, no significant MPFC brain activity was recorded, showing that students did not perceive members of social out-groups as human. The area was only activated when viewing photographs that elicited pride, envy, and pity. (However, other brain regions – the amygdala and insula – were activated when viewing photographs of “disgusting” people and nonhuman objects.)
Emotions themselves were not responsible for generating this brain activity. Rather, it was the actual image viewed that produced a response.
One article does not count as evidence that people viewed as “disgusting” are subjected to a process of dehumanisation, reinforced by social interaction. It is an interesting example of how neuroimaging can inform our understanding of the entanglement between emotion, perception and prejudice, although the study only reveals the complexities of this area. By implication, one must keep the broadest definition of humanity.
By implication, one must keep the broadest definition of humanity.
Why? Perhaps nature and half a billion years of trial and error knows best. I am not saying that your moral assertion isn’t useful in the modern world, but I fail to see how it follows from the experiment, rather, it seems a bit of a non sequitur, facile and unexamined.
Perhaps the subject fails to find disgust in tha actions of ‘outliers’ not because he hates them, but because he’s being non-judgemental, seeing a moral equivilance between cannibalism and playing with children. In other words, a perfect leftist.
I’m just not understanding this.
If the MPFC is only “activated when a person thinks about him- or her-self or another human” how do the researchers know if the subject is thinking about his or herself or another human.
The reason this seems to be relevant to me is that how is one being prejudicial by thinking of one’s self in reaction to a certain emotion?
“…showing that students did not perceive members of social out-groups as human” Might the subject be thinking of his or herself?
Also, that statement in full – “When viewing a picture representing disgust, however, no significant MPFC brain activity was recorded, showing that students did not perceive members of social out-groups as human. ” – if no MPFC activity was recorded, why would the researchers assert that the students “did not perceive members of social out-groups as human”.
This is not a guy challenging a study, but a guy who really just doesn’t get it. Any assistance would be GREATLY appreciated.
Yet another example of the junk research that abounds in the soft sciences. I note that the individual thoughts of the subjects are discounted for the “correct” answers provided by a group of students.
And of course, the researchers just know exactly how the the brain processes images, right?
Isn’t Princeton the place with the unethical “ethicist” named Peter Singer?
… and its Institute of Advanced Studies fostered the Jewish Science of one Albert Einstein, which couldn’t possibly be true because of who promoted it and was connected with it. Let us purify Princeton at once, and install staff who only produce studies that agree with our preconceptions in every way!
Troy,
The study indicates that some parts of the brain in normal people to do with recognition of expressions are activated when they see images of people and not by inanimate objects, but that those parts appear to be turned off by associations of disgust, which can be shown to happen with some groups of people assumed to be disgusting. The plausible speculation is that normal people may not attribute emotional life to such out groups as easily.
I suspect those of us who are uncomfortable with emotional reactivity as a marker of humanity and virtue, will find this less counter-intuitive than the more emotionally-based. I note that I find recognition of expressions (and faces) much more difficult than most people appear to do.
Peter Simple long ago fantasised about an instrument called a prejudometer, which could be wielded by Local Council officials (who else?) in order to detect racism amongst their subjects.
Once again satire has been overtaken by events.
Note also the chilling reference to “correct” emotion (definition of correct to be supplied by the State, of course) : what happens to those who evince “incorrect” emotions, I wonder? The Gulag? Or the gas chambers?
I wouldn’t call it junk science. But we have to recognize that this is very preliminary, and treat it accordingly.
“and it’s Institute of Advanced Science which fostered the Jewish Science of one Albert Eiinstein”
Sorry Guy, all scientists are inspired by those who come before. In Einstein’s case it was the German science of one Max Planck, who by the way stayed in Germany but was openly critical of Nazi policies (at great personal risk) and even had a son executed for his involvement in an unsuccessful attempt on Hitler in 1944.
NOTE; the only nutters today who ascribe ethnicity to science are the Islamists who have non-scientists proclaim that every scientific advance was some how predicted in the Quran.
“Let us purify Princeton at once……”
Spot On old chap!
America’s “former” elite universities, now unfortunately todays “elitist” universities, coast on the good reputations for excellence that were carefully cultivated untill the early 1960’s. There is now an abundance of kook professors who don’t teach but indoctrinate and use Political Correctness to force an anti-intellectual conformity. The pathetic Peter Singer is just one case in point.
* He wrote “Animal Liberation” which equates animals and humans on the same moral plane.
…. funny, but I’d rather grill beef than human flesh, but that’s just me….
I give you the lying no-talent Ward Churchill at University of Colorado.
I give you the clueless nutter just exposed at the University of Wisconsin.
… so many examples, so little space…. at least in the good old US of A, we are in desperate need of some firm academic ass kicking and house cleaning.
Wow. Really obvious leap from something scientifically measurable (data) to some wildly subjective conclusion (opinion).
Did he use the same procedure while showing ultrasounds and guessing if the subject was pro-life or pro-abortion?
What crap.
It’s worth remembering that this is a news article describing the research. Reporters generally do a poor job at describing science, especially science that involves fine distinctions.
The study could be as flawed as we think it is. But it could also be a good study that is being caricatured by the news report.
I would be willing to wager that the “researchers” willfully played to the reporters. How else to generate more questions that of course need more funding to answer? Remember the study that said red wine was bad for you?
“Peter Simple”, in the Daily Telegraph, for many years wrote of machines that would measure racial prejudice (or prejudice in general) so that the prejudiced could be punished (or “treated”) by the noble people of the race relations industry (the degree of prejudice to be measured in “scientific units” of course).
It is not really worth talking to people who think that this is a good idea.
But once one has accepted “antidiscrimination” laws it is a perfectly logical development.