Effects of early adversity and social discrimination on empathy for complex mental states: An fMRI investigation

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.

Figure 1

Subjective emotion ratings for participants in response to the 4 conditions of interest: victim forgiving (VF), victim unforgiving (VU), perpetrator apologetic (PA) and perpetrator unapologetic (PU). Note that anger represents moral indignation. Error bars indicate standard error of the mean. *p < 0.05. **p < 0.01. ***p < 0.001.

Figure 2

Whole-brain contrasts for the 4 conditions of interest (VF, VU, PA, and PU) against the neutral condition displayed on sagittal (left) and axial (right) sections in Talaraich space (p < 0.005 corrected for multiple comparisons using Monte Carlo cluster-level thresholding).

Figure 3

Regions showing a significant main effect of participant group (left panel). Activation in the right pSTS, vmPFC, dACC, and left dlPFC were significantly greater for Black compared to White individuals (p < 0.005 corrected for multiple comparisons using Monte Carlo cluster-level thresholding). Parameter estimates (betas) reflect the average signal intensity for each cluster for each condition (right panel). Error bars indicate standard error of the mean. dACC: dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, dlPFC: dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, pSTS: posterior superior temporal sulcus, vmPFC: ventromedial prefrontal cortex. **p < 0.01. ***p < 0.001.

Figure 4

Amygdala reactivity. (a) Image shows ROI peak voxels defined based on independent data. (b) Parameter estimates (betas) reflect the average signal intensity in the left and right amygdala in response to the various experimental conditions. (c) Higher activation in the right amygdala was associated with reduced compassion ratings in response to the PU condition across participants. Error bars indicate standard error of the mean. VF: victim forgiving, VU: victim unforgiving, PA: perpetrator apologetic, PU: perpetrator unapologetic. **p < 0.01.

Figure 5

Mediation analysis for the victim unforgiving (VU) condition. (a) Both social discrimination (Everyday Discrimination scores) and early adversity (CTQ Emotional Abuse scores) mediated the negative relationship between reported compassion and left TPJ activation (R² > 0.48, ps < 0.01). (b) Social discrimination also mediated the negative relationship between reported compassion and left IFG activation (R² = 0.46, p = 0.01). Sobel tests showed that, in each case, including the mediator in the model significantly reduced the effect of compassion on brain activation. Scatter plots show the correlations (Pearson’s r, 2-tailed) between brain activation in the left TPJ/IFG and reported compassion and social adversity for Black and White participants, respectively. Brain images show corresponding ROIs based on independent data. *p < 0.05. **p < 0.01.