Sensitivity to Kinship: From Electrophysiological Perspective

It is well known that different person have specific psychological meaning to us. We usually feel more positive to intimates (kin) than relatively non-intimate ones (non-kin). However, until recently, the underlying mechanism about kinship remains poorly understood. Thus, we further investigated whether the degree of kinship between a perceiver and a target person leads to the perceiver’s specific electrophysiological response. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) of 22 participants (age: 20.8 ± 2.13) were observed when changed the degree of kinship (father, uncle, acquaintance) in morally laden scenarios. Our results demonstrated that the amplitudes of neural response varied among kins and acquaintance. Specifically, fronto-central positive activity at 180 - 230 ms (P2) and central-parietal late positive activity at 350 - 500 ms (LPC) were of larger mean amplitude in response to father than to uncle and acquaintance, which are indicative of intense information processing and sensitivity to a lineal relative in moral cognitive context. Those findings showed direct evidences of consanguineous bias in moral-related contexts, which will provide valuable reference for intervention of tensioned relationship and other related disorders.