ArticleScientific reports2019
Effects of early adversity and social discrimination on empathy for complex mental states: An fMRI investigation.
Article in Scientific reports, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 37 citations in OpenAlex.
- A systematic review of the neural correlates of sexual minority stress: towards an intersectional minority mosaic framework with implications for a future research agenda.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2022Pooled it
- Exposure to hate speech deteriorates neurocognitive mechanisms of the ability to understand others' pain.Scientific reports · 2023Trial
- Associations between amygdala connectivity and experienced discrimination in children.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Early Life Adversity and Empathy: A Scoping Review of Past Research and Recommendations for Future Directions.Clinical child and family psychology review · 2025Article
- Residence in Communities With Higher Violent Crimes Associated With Lower Reward-related Brain Function.Biopsychosocial science and medicine · 2025Article
- Childhood abuse and neglect are differentially related to perceived discrimination and structural change in empathy-related circuitry.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Exploring the Role of Empathy in the Association Between Early Life Adversity and Antisocial Behavior.Affective science · 2025Article
- Exploring aggressive emotions in women in prison: the role of empathy and perceived social support in moderating the effects of childhood discrimination experiences.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Early life adversity reduces affiliative behavior with a stressed cagemate and leads to sex-specific alterations in corticosterone responses in adult mice.Hormones and behavior · 2024Article
- How Discrimination Gets Under the Skin: Biological Determinants of Discrimination Associated With Dysregulation of the Brain-Gut Microbiome System and Psychological Symptoms.Biological psychiatry · 2023Article
- Everyday discrimination and cancer metaphor preferences: The mediating effects of needs for personal significance and cognitive closure.SSM - population health · 2022Article
- Neurobiological correlates of the social and emotional impact of peer victimization: A review.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Review
- COVID-19 as Natural Intervention: Guilt and Perceived Historical Privilege Contributes to Structural Reform Under Conditions of Crisis.Affective science · 2022Article
- Parental Education, Household Income, Race, and Children's Working Memory: Complexity of the Effects.Brain sciences · 2020Article
- The role of social cognition skills and social determinants of health in predicting symptoms of mental illness.Translational psychiatry · 2020Article
- Placebo Effect on Modulating Empathic Pain: Reduced Activation in Posterior Insula.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
There is extensive evidence of an association between early adversity and enduring neural changes that impact socioemotional processing throughout life. Yet little is known about the effects of on-going social discrimination on socioemotional functioning. Here we examined how cumulative experiences of social discrimination impact brain response during empathic responding-a crucial issue in South Africa, given its historical apartheid context and continuing legacies. White and Black South Africans completed measures of social adversity (early adversity and social discrimination), and underwent fMRI while viewing video clips depicting victims and perpetrators of apartheid crimes. Increased neural response was detected in brain regions associated with cognitive rather than affective empathy, and greater social adversity was associated with reduced reported compassion across participants. Notably, social discrimination (due to income level, weight, gender) in White participants was associated with increased amygdala reactivity, whereas social discrimination (due to race) in Black participants mediated the negative associations of temporoparietal junction and inferior frontal gyrus activation with compassion during emotionally provocative conditions. These findings suggest that (i) social discrimination has comparable associations at the neural level as other psychosocial stressors, and that (ii) the mechanisms underlying empathic responding vary as a function of the type of social discrimination experienced.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.