Ascribing beliefs to ingroup and outgroup political candidates: neural correlates of perspective-taking, issue importance and days until the election

Abstract

We used the five weeks leading up to the 2008 presidential election as a backdrop to examine the ways that the brain processes attitudes and beliefs under different circumstances. We examined individual differences in personal issue importance and trait perspective-taking, as well as the temporal context in which attitude representation took place (i.e. number of days until the election). Finally, we examined the extent to which similar or dissimilar processes were recruited when considering the attitudes of political ingroup and outgroup candidates. Brain regions involved in social cognition and theory of mind, and to a lesser extent the limbic system, were modulated by these factors. Higher issue importance led to greater recruitment of neural regions involved in social cognition, across target perspectives. Higher trait perspective-taking was also associated with greater recruitment of several regions involved in social cognition, but differed depending on target perspective; greater activity was observed in prefrontal regions associated with social cognition when considering the perspective of one's own candidate compared with the opponent, and this effect was amplified closer to the election. Taken together, these results highlight ways in which ability and motivational relevance modulate socio-affective processing of the attitudes of others.

Figure 1.

Election study overview. Participants were scanned in the five weeks leading up to the 2008 presidential election. While undergoing fMRI scanning, participants responded to a range of issues relevant to the 2008 election from their own perspective and from the perspective of each of the two major party presidential candidates. Upon exiting the scanner, participants also provided information about the importance of each issue to them personally.

Figure 2.

Example stimulus block. Each stimulus block began with a reminder of the target perspective that participants should take in considering the issue presented. This reminder was displayed for 3 s, followed by visual and auditory presentation of an issue relevant to the election. Following exposure to the issue, participants were queried as to the attitude of the target individual (self, Obama or McCain), and allowed 3 s to make a response. The order of targets was counterbalanced across subjects, both in terms of ordering of self/Obama/McCain, and also in terms of the order in which one's own candidate appeared relative to the opposing candidate. The number of liberal/conservative statements was also counterbalanced across sections, as was the distribution of issues for each candidate. Trials within blocks were jittered using values drawn from a random exponential function, with a mean of 1 s.

Figure 3.

Main effects of issue importance and temporal context. (a) Main effect of issue importance. Increased personal issue importance was associated with activity in regions involved in social cognition, including temporoparietal junction (TPJ), precuneus_PCC and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). Results displayed at p < 0.005, k = 20. (b) Main effect of temporal context. As election day drew nearer, increased activity was observed in dorsal striatum. Results displayed at p < 0.005, k = 20.

Figure 4.

Effect of trait perspective-taking by target group. Several regions associated with social cognition were observed for those higher in trait perspective-taking (measured using the perspective-taking subscale of the IRI [18]) when taking the perspective of both (a) ingroup and (b) outgroup candidates. However, more regions of the network were observed when taking the perspective of one's own candidate than the opponent, and specifically, activity in both medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC) were higher for ingroup than outgroup targets (c). Results displayed at p < 0.005, k = 20.

Figure 5.

Interaction between trait perspective-taking and temporal context. (a) Widespread activity in the mentalizing network and in affective processing regions was observed for those higher in perspective-taking (measured using the perspective-taking subscale of the IRI [18]), as election day approached. However, neural activity in these regions was not equally recruited when considering the attitudes of one's own candidate compared with the opponent (b). Several regions associated with perspective-taking (dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, DMPFC; temporoparietal junction, TPJ; precuneus_PCC) were more strongly associated with this interaction when taking the perspective of one's own candidate, compared with taking the perspective of the opponent. Results displayed at p < 0.005, k = 20.