Adolescents growing up amidst intractable conflict attenuate brain response to pain of outgroup

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1612903113
• Publication Date: 2016-11-15T03:30:41Z
• Authors: Jonathan Levy; Abraham Goldstein; Moran Influs; Shafiq Masalha; Orna Zagoory-Sharon; Ruth Feldman
• Keywords: Outgroup; Group conflict

Significance Intergroup conflicts are among the world’s most imminent problems, particularly with shift of battlefields into heart civilian locations and participation increasingly younger adolescents in intergroup conflict. We found that Israeli Palestinian reared a climate long-standing strife shut down brain’s automatic response to outgroup pain. This neural modulation characterized top-down process superimposed upon an pain all was sensitive hostile behavior toward outgroup, uncompromising worldviews, brain-to-brain synchrony group members. Findings pinpoint adolescents’ sociocognitive processes as targets for intervention.