Abstract

Research indicates that the posterior medial frontal cortex (pMFC) functions as a ‘neural alarm’ complex broadly involved in registering threats and helping to muster relevant responses. Holbrook and colleagues investigated whether pMFC similarly mediates ideological threat responses, finding that downregulating pMFC via transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) caused (i) less avowed religious belief despite being reminded of death and (ii) less group bias despite encountering a sharp critique of the national in-group. While suggestive, these findings were limited by the absence of a non-threat comparison condition and reliance on sham rather than control TMS. Here, in a pre-registered replication and extension, we downregulated pMFC or a control region (MT/V5) and then primed participants with either a reminder of death or a threat-neutral topic. As mentioned previously, participants reminded of death reported less religious belief when pMFC was downregulated. No such effect of pMFC downregulation was observed in the neutral condition, consistent with construing pMFC as monitoring for salient threats (e.g. death) and helping to recruit ideological responses (e.g. enhanced religious belief). However, no effect of downregulating pMFC on group bias was observed, possibly due to reliance on a collegiate in-group framing rather than a national framing as in the prior study.

中文翻译：

---

后内侧额叶皮层和威胁增强的宗教信仰：复制和扩展

摘要

研究表明，后内侧额叶皮层（pMFC）起到“神经警报”的作用，广泛参与威胁的记录和帮助引起相关反应。Holbrook及其同事调查了pMFC是否同样介导了意识形态威胁反应，发现通过经颅磁刺激（TMS）来下调pMFC导致（i）尽管提醒人们死亡，但其宣誓的宗教信仰较少；（ii）尽管遭到了强烈的批评，但群体偏见较少。全国分组。尽管具有启发性，但由于缺乏无威胁的比较条件以及依赖假手术而不是对照TMS，这些发现受到了限制。在这里，在预先注册的复制和扩展中，我们下调了pMFC或控制区域（MT / V5），然后用提醒死亡或威胁中性的话题给参与者灌装。如前所述，当pMFC被下调时，提醒人们死亡的参与者宗教信仰减少。在中性条件下未观察到pMFC下调的这种影响，这与将pMFC解释为监测显着威胁（例如死亡）并帮助招募意识形态反应（例如增强宗教信仰）相一致。但是，未观察到下调pMFC对组偏倚的影响，这可能是由于依赖于学院内的组内框架，而不是先前研究中的国家框架。增强宗教信仰）。但是，未观察到下调pMFC对组偏倚的影响，这可能是由于依赖于学院内的组内框架，而不是先前研究中的国家框架。增强宗教信仰）。但是，未观察到下调pMFC对组偏倚的影响，这可能是由于依赖于学院内的组内框架，而不是先前研究中的国家框架。