ArticleSocial cognitive and affective neuroscience2017
Empathy and moral emotions in post-apartheid South Africa: an fMRI investigation.
Article in Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- A Meta-Analysis of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Studies on In-Group and Out-Group Categorization.Brain and behavior · 2026Pooled it
- Shared and distinct functional networks for empathy and pain processing: a systematic review and meta-analysis of fMRI studies.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2020Pooled it
- A meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies on pain empathy: investigating the role of visual information and observers' perspective.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2019Pooled it
- Childhood abuse and neglect are differentially related to perceived discrimination and structural change in empathy-related circuitry.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Reducing racial ingroup biases in empathy and altruistic decision-making by shifting racial identification.Science advances · 2025Article
- The influence of sexual prejudice and gender on trait and state-level empathy.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- A kind mind: effects of compassion-based meditation on prosocial intergroup outcomes in a South African pilot sample.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- The vocal side of empathy: neural correlates of pain perception in spoken complaints.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2023Article
- Article
- Increasing self-other similarity modulates ethnic bias in sensorimotor resonance to others' pain.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2022Article
- Stronger brain activation for own baby but similar activation toward babies of own and different ethnicities in parents living in a multicultural environment.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Affective and cognitive brain-networks are differently integrated in women and men while experiencing compassion.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- COVID-19 as Natural Intervention: Guilt and Perceived Historical Privilege Contributes to Structural Reform Under Conditions of Crisis.Affective science · 2022Article
- Effects of early adversity and social discrimination on empathy for complex mental states: An fMRI investigation.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Interactions between oxytocin receptor gene and intergroup relationship on empathic neural responses to others' pain.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2019Article
- Neural Correlates of Public Apology Effectiveness.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Moral emotions elicited in response to others' suffering are mediated by empathy and affect how we respond to their pain. South Africa provides a unique opportunity to study group processes given its racially divided past. The present study seeks insights into aspects of the moral brain by investigating behavioral and functional MRI responses of White and Black South Africans who lived through apartheid to in- and out-group physical and social pain. Whereas the physical pain task featured faces expressing dynamic suffering, the social pain task featured victims of apartheid violence from the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission to elicit heartfelt emotion. Black participants' behavioral responses were suggestive of in-group favoritism, whereas White participants' responses were apparently egalitarian. However, all participants showed significant in-group biases in activation in the amygdala (physical pain), as well as areas involved in mental state representation, including the precuneus, temporoparietal junction (TPJ) and frontal pole (physical and social pain). Additionally, Black participants reacted with heightened moral indignation to own-race suffering, whereas White participants reacted with heightened shame to Black suffering, which was associated with blunted neural empathic responding. These findings provide ecologically valid insights into some behavioral and brain processes involved in complex moral situations.
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