Clarifying the Role of Inflammation in Social Prejudice

社会生活的一个事实是，人们认为社会环境中的某些个体是自己群体（“内群体”）的成员，而其他人则认为是其他群体（“外群体”）的成员。通常，这种分类会导致社会偏见，包括对外群体的偏见和歧视。人们根据性别、残疾、种族、族裔或血统等人类变异性的维度，将他人归类为外群体成员。这些分类产生的偏见最终可能会导致仇恨犯罪和其他消极形式的社会互动。社会和行为科学领域数十年的理论发展和研究已经对个体差异和与偏见加剧相关的情境因素有了很好的理解。对于可能造成这种偏见的神经生物学过程知之甚少。该项目研究免疫系统活动在人们如何处理和响应社会信息中的作用。当人们生病或应对威胁时，免疫系统活动通常会增加。这是身体抵抗感染的方式。然而，其后果可能远远超出生理范围，影响人们对他人的思考和感受。一个实际意义与“出勤主义”的做法有关——带病工作的做法。这在企业和医疗环境中很常见，可能会对高风险决策和他人评估产生不利影响。该项目将社会心理学与心理神经免疫学相结合，研究免疫系统激活如何改变人们在社会环境中感知他人的方式。它侧重于可能导致对其他文化群体的人产生更多负面评价的社会认知过程。使用实验方法来操纵疫苗注射后的免疫系统活动。从长远来看，疫苗有助于增强免疫力。但在最初的二十四小时内，人们的身体会对疫苗产生普遍的炎症反应。据推测，这种普遍的炎症反应将与对来自其他文化背景的人的更多社会偏见有关。该研究还测试了可能支撑这种效应的特定社会认知过程，例如更大的内群体偏爱和/或外群体贬损、改变对谁属于内群体与外群体的看法、更大的应用刻板印象的可能性以及增加启发式处理。该项目阐明了重要的生物过程如何导致社会偏见，并有助于为与病假相关的更广泛的社会政策提供信息。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

A fact of social life is that people consider some individuals in their social environments to be members of their own group (the “ingroup”) and others to be members of other groups (the “outgroups”). Often, this categorization results in social biases, including prejudice and discrimination toward outgroups. People categorize others as outgroup members along such dimensions of human variability as gender, disability, race, ethnicity, or ancestry. Biases stemming from these categorizations may ultimately contribute to hate crimes and other negative forms of social interaction. Decades of theory development and research in the social and behavioral sciences have produced a good understanding of the individual differences and situational factors associated with heightened biases. Much less is known about neurobiological processes that may underlie such biases. This project investigates the role of immune system activity in how people process and respond to social information. An increase in immune system activity is common when people are ill or responding to threat. It is the body’s way of fighting infection. Yet, its consequences may extend far beyond the physiological, impacting the way people think and feel about others. One practical implication relates to the practice of “presenteeism” – the practice of working while sick. This is common in corporate and medical settings, and may adversely affect high-stakes decision making and evaluations of others.This project combines social psychology with psychoneuroimmunology to examine how immune system activation may change the way people perceive others in their social environments. It focuses on social cognitive processes that may contribute to more negative evaluations of people from other cultural groups. An experimental approach is used to manipulate immune system activity as a result of a vaccine injection. Vaccines help develop immunity in the long-run. But within the first twenty-four hours people’s bodies respond to the vaccine with a general inflammatory response. It is hypothesized that this general inflammatory response will be associated with more social bias against people from cultural backgrounds other than one’s own. The research also tests specific social cognitive processes that may underpin this effect, such as greater ingroup favoritism and/or outgroup derogation, altered perception of who belongs to one’s ingroup versus the outgroup, greater likelihood of stereotype application, and increased heuristic processing. The project clarifies how an important biological process can lead to social prejudice, and helps to inform broader societal policies associated with sick leave.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.