Concept and neural evidence
Xu and colleagues (2009) showed Chinese and White participants videos of same-race or other-race faces being pricked by a needle. Responses in the anterior cingulate cortex, a brain region associated with empathy, were larger when viewing same-race pain. Avenanti and colleagues (2010) showed that when observers watched an other-race hand being pricked, the sensorimotor resonance in their own hand muscles was reduced. Cikara, Bruneau and Saxe (2011) brought such findings together as intergroup failures of empathy, in which people respond less to outgroup suffering.
Counter-empathy and pleasure at misfortune
Cikara, Botvinick and Fiske (2011) showed baseball scenes to Red Sox and Yankees fans. When the rival team failed, even against a third team, fans' ventral striatum, part of the brain's reward circuitry, was activated, and the stronger this response, the greater their willingness to harm rival fans. Cikara and colleagues (2014) showed that such counter-empathic responses grow when groups compete and the other group is perceived as cold and threatening. This means the empathy gap is not just a lack of empathy but can extend to pleasure at others' misfortune.
Behavioral consequences and reduction
Hein and colleagues (2010) showed that soccer fans had stronger empathic responses when fans of their own team suffered, and that these responses predicted helping even at the cost of pain to oneself. By contrast, rival fans' suffering elicited reward-related rather than empathic responses, and helping declined. Together with moral exclusion and dehumanization, this gap helps explain indifference to harm suffered by outgroups. Batson and Ahmad (2009) concluded that perspective taking, imagining an outgroup member's point of view, and hearing individual stories can increase empathy and improve intergroup relations.
FAQ
- What is intergroup empathy bias in simple terms?
- Feeling deeply for someone on your side who is hurt, but less, or even pleased, when someone on the other side is hurt.
- How can it be reduced?
- Perspective taking, imagining the other person's situation, and hearing one person's concrete story help increase empathy.
Sources reviewed: 2026-10-26
References
- Xu, X., Zuo, X., Wang, X., & Han, S. (2009). Do you feel my pain? Racial group membership modulates empathic neural responses. Journal of Neuroscience, 29(26), 8525–8529. Racial group membership modulates neural empathy.
- Avenanti, A., Sirigu, A., & Aglioti, S. M. (2010). Racial bias reduces empathic sensorimotor resonance with other-race pain. Current Biology, 20(11), 1018–1022. Reduced sensorimotor resonance with other-race pain.
- Hein, G., Silani, G., Preuschoff, K., Batson, C. D., & Singer, T. (2010). Neural responses to ingroup and outgroup members' suffering predict individual differences in costly helping. Neuron, 68(1), 149–160. Neural empathy predicts costly helping of ingroup members.
- Cikara, M., Botvinick, M. M., & Fiske, S. T. (2011). Us versus them: Social identity shapes neural responses to intergroup competition and harm. Psychological Science, 22(3), 306–313. Rival fans' misfortune activates reward circuits.
- Cikara, M., Bruneau, E. G., & Saxe, R. R. (2011). Us and them: Intergroup failures of empathy. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20(3), 149–153. A concise review of intergroup empathy failures.
- Cikara, M., Bruneau, E., Van Bavel, J. J., & Saxe, R. (2014). Their pain gives us pleasure: How intergroup dynamics shape empathic failures and counter-empathic responses. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 55, 110–125. When intergroup dynamics produce counter-empathy.
- Batson, C. D., & Ahmad, N. Y. (2009). Using empathy to improve intergroup attitudes and relations. Social Issues and Policy Review, 3(1), 141–177. Using empathy to improve intergroup relations.