Investigating the role of trait anxiety in the relationships between neural representations of intergroup perception and conceptual models of perceived warmth

Abstract

Efficiently identifying the group membership and intent of a target has served an important adaptive function throughout history. Whilst the role of group categorisations has changed through the development of social institutions and norms, to this day differences persist in how different groups are perceived. The Stereotype Content Model (SCM) posits that these evaluations occur along two dimensions: warmth and competence. Previous research has reported differential neural processes related to the perception of prototypical groups across the SCM quadrants. For instance, perception of extreme outgroups (low perceived warmth and competence) has been associated with increased activity in the amygdala and insula, which are involved in the processing of salient information. The current research used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with naturalistic stimuli that simulated realistic encounters with nationalities that represented different quadrants of the SCM. A representational similarity analysis (RSA) was utilised to compare the neural representational patterns with conceptual models of perceived warmth that were built based on the SCM. Additionally, the influence of trait anxiety on these representations was investigated. The findings revealed significant relationships between the low warmth (LW) conceptual model and the neural activation patterns in multiple ROIs (temporal pole, insula, fusiform gyrus, superior temporal gyrus). This suggests that targets considered low on perceived warmth may be represented with more similarity in these regions, compared to targets with high perceived warmth, indicating a potential intergroup bias. Notably, the findings differed between the low trait anxiety (LA) and high trait anxiety (HA) groups. For instance, the relationship between the LW model and the neural patterns was significant in the supramarginal gyrus only in the LA group, but not in the HA or overall group. Moreover, significant differences in the general neural representations were identified between the LA and HA groups in the temporal pole (TP) and fusiform gyrus (FG). Taken together, these findings provide novel insights into the influence of trait anxiety on the neural representations underlying intergroup perception.