Psychology Colloquium: Dr Eliane Deschrijver

Dr Eliane Deschrijver (USYD)Unequal resource division occurs in the absence of group division and identity
Abstract
The seminal minimal group experiment has shown that discrimination can follow from intergroup relations and social identity. A large body of research evidenced that people discriminate against members of their out versus ingroup, even if groups and identities were assigned on the basis of one’s dot guessing style, aesthetic judgement or a chance outcome. But is group and social identity assignment required for unequal resource division to arise here? We show via Bayesian models in 6 pre-registered experiments (>900 subjects) that unequal resource division strategies persist against a single person that demonstrates a different versus the same quantity estimate, painting preference, or even coin flip (Experiments 1-3), with 43.1% more money awarded for sameness relative to difference conditions (Experiments 4-6). These findings open up the possibility that one key driver of discrimination may exist in a neural mechanism of interindividual comparison that treats difference more negatively than sameness. Theoretical implications, ongoing work, and future aspirations for understanding cognitive and brain systems of discrimination will be discussed.
Bio
Dr Eliane Deschrijver is a senior neuroscientist and a DECRA fellow at the University of Sydney. She works on the nexus of social neuroscience, experimental psychology, philosophy of mind and social psychology, and has an added interest in sociology. Over the past few years, her thinking has focussed on how the brain processes a difference between one’s own world view and that of another person, independent of what the disagreement is about. She has theoretically argued that such a difference may come with a conflict signal in the brain, which is negatively valenced and may lead to behavioral change. She is now investigating what this concept of “sheer difference” may mean for our understanding of discrimination. Breaking with the singular focus of social neuroscientists on the brain, she believes that the most thorny social-cognitive scientific issues deserve an exceedingly interdisciplinary future approach, in particular by enticing philosophers of mind and social psychologists into the debate.