Prejudice Formation in Childhood: How Parental Bonding Can Affect Social Dominance Orientation

TL;DR

This study explores how childhood parental bonding influences adult prejudice and social dominance, and how these relate to brain structure.

Contribution

The study links parental bonding styles in childhood to adult Social Dominance Orientation and identifies neural correlates, particularly in the amygdala.

Findings

PBI and SDO are strongly correlated.

PBICare and PBIProtection scores significantly predict SDO scores.

SDO is positively associated with amygdala grey matter volume.

Abstract

Background: How individuals develop and form perspectives of those around them differs from person to person. Factors such as childhood parental bonding styles can affect how prejudice forms. Social dominance in adulthood may also be affected by childhood experiences through the bonding received. Not many studies examine how an individual’s Social Dominance Orientationcan be influenced by parental bonding styles in childhood. Furthermore, few studies that investigated neural correlates are associated with these two variables. As such, this study aims to establish how parental bonding in childhood affects brain regions that are also implicated in adult SDO. Methods: Ninety-one participants were recruited and underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) and Parental Bonding Index (PBI) were collected. We used DARTEL package in SPM12 to conduct a whole-brain analysis. The ROI analyses were focused on amygdala grey matter volume (GMV). Results: This study identified a strong correlation between PBI and SDO. Interestingly, PBICare and PBIProtection scores significantly predicted SDO scores. SDO was positively associated with amygdala GMV, PBICare was negatively associated with amygdala GMV, and PBIProtection was positively associated with amygdala GMV. Conclusions: Our results show that PBI and SDO are highly correlated as well as their association with the amygdala and other key regions of the brain.

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