Pathogens and Intergroup Relations. How Evolutionary Approaches Can Inform Social Neuroscience
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THEORETICAL ARTICLE
Pathogens and Intergroup Relations. How Evolutionary Approaches Can Inform Social Neuroscience H. T. McGovern 1 & Eric John Vanman 1 Received: 22 July 2020 / Revised: 2 November 2020 / Accepted: 4 November 2020 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Evolutionary and neuroscientific approaches to intergroup bias have been highly generative, but research has yet to consider how these two approaches can build on each other. Here, we review neuroscientific methods findings on intergroup bias. We then review the emerging perspective that views intergroup bias as a psychological adaptation to pressures present in ancestral ecologies. We conclude by considering evidence that collectivist and individualist cultures evolved in response to unique ecological threats. As such, members of each should be differentially susceptible to environmental cues connoting threats to pathogens. We then propose future directions for neuroscientific research that assesses intergroup bias from an evolutionary perspective. Consideration of cultural factors should enable improved understanding of intergroup bias, with proper consideration of how biology and psychology have adapted to the social environments faced in ancestral populations. Keywords Culture . Intergroup relations . Neuroscience . Evolution . Prejudice . Collectivism
Intergroup Bias: Threats and Culture
Ethnic Intergroup Bias
Intergroup bias is pervasive through human history. Neuroscientific research has improved understanding of the neural mechanisms behind intergroup bias. Yet, with few exceptions, current neuroscientific knowledge of intergroup bias fails to inform how psychological tendencies toward intergroup bias arose in ancestral populations. We argue that future researchers should (1) use neuroscientific methods to assess how threats such as pathogens influence neural markers of intergroup bias and (2), due to their evolving in unique ecologies, compare neural responses to ingroup and outgroup members between members of collectivist and individualist cultures. Consideration of how selective pressures and cultural evolution affect neural mechanisms of intergroup bias will ultimately provide better understanding of its occurrence.
Intergroup bias bears responsibility for many atrocities (Yanagizawa-Drott 2014; Voigtländer and Voth 2015); it is thus important to understand how it occurs. Intergroup bias takes multiple forms including homophobia, ageism, and ethnic intergroup bias. All merit concern, but here we focus on ethnic intergroup bias (from here on referred to simply as intergroup bias). Intergroup bias has been of interest to psychologists through the last century (see Duckitt 1992; Dovidio et al. 2012), resulting in much theoretical diversity. Given the variety in existing theories, debate surrounds which perspective best explains intergroup bias. Given its consequences, research has focused closely on how to reduce intergroup bias. Despite this, most efforts to reduce intergroup bias are still unsuccessful (Paluck and Green 2009;
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