Racial Bias Influence on Moral Judgment by fNIRS Brain Hemodynamic Analysis

• Grant number: 19/19946-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: December 01, 2019
• End date: November 30, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Physiological Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Paulo Sérgio Boggio
• Grantee: Fernanda Naomi Pantaleão
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Biológicas e da Saúde (CCBS). Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie (UPM). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Human beings commonly organize each other into social categories according to similar characteristics, considering skin color as a particularly relevant aspect to differentiate between ingroup and outgroup. Social categorization, however, can cause bias or favoritism which may benefit ingroup members; there are situations in which this favoritism might lead to a disadvantage to outogroup members, with an intention to cause them harm. In addition, people naturally judge others and their actions; considering the existence of virtues, supposedly common to most societies, such as justice and honesty, some judgments occur towards attitudes that preserve or undermine those virtues - this is the so-called moral judgment. Similarly to racial bias, moral judgment is also influenced by emotions; therefore, social categorization may affect the way different groups act and perceive each other. Some studies have already shown that outgroup members are generally seen as less reliable than ingroup members, and that exclusion of the former can be accepted and justified by group cohesion. Thus, the need for a study that evaluates the influence of racial bias in moral judgment is stablished, considering the neural processes related to these aspects, since there is a possibility that there are relevant social consequences arising from this relationship.