Multiculturalism on a neurological level : an fMRI study of in-group/out-group perception among Singaporean chinese females

Abstract

Singapore is a unique multicultural city where people from four ethnic groups converged to form the nation’s population in the early days and lived in close proximity. Many scholars have studied the environmental influences on individuals’ perceptions of in-group/out-group, but few have investigated the impact of strong exposure and frequent personal contact with other ethnic group members on processes of in-group/out-group memberships on a neurological level. Aside from ethnic group-membership, individuals are also driven by cultural membership, creating an enlarged in-group. Therefore, the current study uses fMRI to explore how Singaporean Chinese females (n = 27) perceived in-group faces (IFs) and out-group faces (OFs) after being primed with cultural contexts (i.e. local Singaporean; CC) and ethnic contexts (i.e. foreign; EC). While using whole-brain analyses between conditions, neural activity was expected to differ in the fusiform gyrus, occipital cortex, amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex, which are substantially recruited for facial and in-group/out-group processing. Results reflect hypotheses: (1) CC primes evoked more neural activations than EC primes when viewing IFs, (2) IFs induced greater neural activations than OFs under CC primes, (3) Interestingly, EC primes elicited more prominent neural activations than CC primes when viewing OFs, against our hypothesis. Activated regions included the fusiform gyrus, middle occipital cortex, and unexpectedly, superior temporal gyrus, cuneus and lingual gyrus. Consequently, it appears that participants do recognize an enlarged cultural in-group membership on a neurological, automatic and unbiased level, thus demonstrating that cultural environment can inspire a spontaneous sense of belonging to a multi-ethnic group.