What happen in our brains when we prejudge about someone or something? Our prejudices also affect our decision making mechanism, how does it occur among neurons?
And if you know research that used fMRI, you can share with us.
Actually, neuroimaging can prove a lot about the structure and function of the brain regions associated with mechanisms underlying complex behaviors like prejudice and discrimination which are convoluted aspects of decision-making under specific circumstances.
For example, there has been a study (using EEG) on gender prejudice (which is one of the major and prevalent types of prejudice) using a completely implicit paradigm to avoid social desirability processes. They demonstrated interesting results as violation of gender-bias prejudices elicited an anterior N400 response followed by left anterior negativity (LAN). For more details check:
Article Electrophysiological markers of prejudice related to sexual gender
Another study (using fMRI) on categorization and stereotyping of faces tested how prejudice affects race category competition and stabilization when perceiving faces varying in racial prototypicality. They indicated that relative prejudice tempers the extent of category competition and response conflict engaged when initially perceiving faces. For further details check:
I think the prejudice is reinforced by neuronal plasticity. In fact, the prejudice, as a mental scheme, induces predefined behaviors that, being repeated over time, can determine modifications at the level of brain structures. And these neuronal changes, in turn, reinforce the prejudice, thus causing a vicious circle.
This seems to be related to learning, memory and some conditioning. Neuroplasticity plays a part in this. Neural pathways develop as a result of the learning and memory.