Decoding Emotional Brain Patterns During Intergroup Encounters: the Role of Emotional Expressions and Physical Proximity in Intergroup Dynamics

Intergroup emotions regulate intergroup interactions, often leading to attitudes and behaviors that favor the ingroup. Theoretical frameworks in social psychology suggest that group identities, perceived threats, stereotypes, and context shape intergroup outcomes, including intergroup emotions. Hence, studying emotions in intergroup dynamics can enhance our understanding of the mechanisms underlying prejudice and emotional bias. In this research, we aimed to investigate how emotional expressions and physical proximity of group members modulate brain patterns of emotions during intra- and intergroup encounters. We presented a series of 360-degree videos showing ingroup and outgroup members either looking at the Finnish White majority participants (N = 40) from a distance or approaching them while their BOLD activity was measured with fMRI. The protagonists in the videos expressed neutral, happy, or angry facial expressions. Evoked emotions were measured by decoding emotion-related neural patterns while watching the videos. The results suggest that the valence of emotional expressions modified the perception of warmth of ingroup and outgroup members, as happy-looking outgroup members evoked emotions associated with the paternalistic stereotype, whereas angry-looking ingroup members elicited emotions associated with the envious stereotype. Moreover, physical proximity enhanced intergroup emotional bias, with close-proximity ingroup members evoking neural patterns of anger and fear, while close-proximity outgroup members evoked patterns of contempt and discomfort. The results are discussed in terms of their contribution to neuroscientifically informed models of intergroup emotions.