Neural responses to ingroup and outgroup members' suffering predict individual 
differences in costly helping

Hein, Grit; Silani, Giorgia; Preuschoff, Kerstin; Batson, C. Daniel; Singer, Tania

doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2010.09.003

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Add to Basket

Local TagsRelease HistoryDetailsSummary

Released

Journal Article

Neural responses to ingroup and outgroup members' suffering predict individual differences in costly helping

MPS-Authors

/persons/resource/persons20000

Singer, Tania
Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems Research, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, University of Zurich, Switzerland;
Department Social Neuroscience, MPI for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Max Planck Society;

External Resource

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2010.09.003
(Publisher version)

Fulltext (restricted access)

There are currently no full texts shared for your IP range.

Fulltext (public)

There are no public fulltexts stored in PuRe

Supplementary Material (public)

There is no public supplementary material available

Citation

Hein, G., Silani, G., Preuschoff, K., Batson, C. D., & Singer, T. (2010). Neural responses to ingroup and outgroup members' suffering predict individual differences in costly helping. Neuron, 68(1), 149-160. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2010.09.003.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0010-CB35-C

Abstract

Little is known about the neurobiological mechanisms underlying prosocial decisions and how they are modulated by social factors such as perceived group membership. The present study investigates the neural processes preceding the willingness to engage in costly helping toward ingroup and outgroup members. Soccer fans witnessed a fan of their favorite team (ingroup member) or of a rival team (outgroup member) experience pain. They were subsequently able to choose to help the other by enduring physical pain themselves to reduce the other's pain. Helping the ingroup member was best predicted by anterior insula activation when seeing him suffer and by associated self-reports of empathic concern. In contrast, not helping the outgroup member was best predicted by nucleus accumbens activation and the degree of negative evaluation of the other. We conclude that empathy-related insula activation can motivate costly helping, whereas an antagonistic signal in nucleus accumbens reduces the propensity to help. © 2010 Elsevier Inc.