Exploring the neural correlates of social stereotyping

Susanne Quadflieg*, David J. Turk, Gordon D. Waiter, Jason P. Mitchell, Adrianna C. Jenkins, C. Neil Macrae

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

75 Citations (Scopus)
689 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Judging people on the basis of cultural stereotypes is a ubiquitous facet of daily life, yet little is known about how this fundamental inferential strategy is implemented in the brain. Using fMRI, we measured neural activity while partic- ipants made judgments about the likely actor (i.e., person- focus) and location (i.e., place-focus) of a series of activities, some of which were associated with prevailing gender stereo- types. Results revealed that stereotyping was underpinned by activity in areas associated with evaluative processing (e.g., ventral medial prefrontal cortex, amygdala) and the represen- tation of action knowledge (e.g., supramarginal gyrus, middle temporal gyrus). In addition, activity accompanying stereo- typic judgments was correlated with the strength of partic- ipants’ explicit and implicit gender stereotypes. These findings elucidate how stereotyping fits within the neuroscience of per- son understanding.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1560-1570
JournalJournal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Volume21
Issue number8
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2009

Research Groups and Themes

  • Cognitive Science

Keywords

  • MEDIAL PREFRONTAL CORTEX
  • HUMAN AMYGDALA
  • RACIAL PREJUDICE
  • TEMPORAL CORTEX
  • ACTIVATION
  • FACES
  • GENDER
  • COGNITION
  • BRAIN
  • RACE

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