The Neuroscience of Prejudice

Psychological research on the origins and consequences of prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping has moved into previously uncharted directions through the introduction of neuroscientific measures. Psychologists can now address issues that are difficult to examine with traditional methodologies and monitor motivational and emotional as they develop during ongoing intergroup interactions, thus enabling the empirical investigation of the fundamental biological bases of prejudice.

However, several very promising strands of research have largely developed independently of each other. By bringing together the work of leading prejudice researchers from across the world who have begun to study this field with different neuroscientific tools, this volume provides the first integrated view on the specific drawbacks and benefits of each type of measure, illuminates how standard paradigms in research on prejudice and intergroup relations can be adapted for the use of neuroscientific methods, and illustrates how different methodologies can complement each other and be combined to advance current insights into the nature of prejudice.

This cutting-edge volume will be of interest to advanced undergraduates, graduates, and researchers students who study prejudice, intergroup relations, and social neuroscience.

Belle Derks is Assistant Professor in Social and Organizational Psychology at Leiden University, the Netherlands. She has published research articles and book chapters on the psychological, behavioral, and neural correlates of stigma and social identity threat. She has served as editor of the Dutch Yearbook of Social Psychology.

Daan Scheepers is Assistant Professor in Social and Organizational Psychology at Leiden University, the Netherlands. He has published several research articles on group processes and intergroup relations, with a focus on the physiological and psychological correlates of social identity threat. He is consulting editor of the European Journal of Social Psychology and has co-edited a special issue of Group Processes & Intergroup Relations.

Naomi Ellemers is Professor in Social and Organizational Psychology at Leiden University, the Netherlands. She has published extensively on prejudice and intergroup relations, and recently won a Spinoza award from the Dutch National Science Foundation (NWO) for her research on the use of neuroscientific methods in intergroup research. She has served as editor of the Dutch Journal of Psychology and the Dutch Yearbook of Social Psychology, was associate editor of the British Journal of Social Psychology and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, co-edited a special issue of the Journal of Social Issues, and is a member of the editorial board of the Annual Review of Psychology. She has co-edited books on stereotyping (1997), social identity (1999), and identity in organizations (2003).