Limitations and future directions
pain
Numerous important theoretical questions remain for future research. Further research should resolve whether the observed effect of reduced activity of areas involved in mentalization after exposure to hate speech is long-lasting. For instance, a longitudinal study has found that, despite numerous studies showing a decrease in empathy directly after playing video games, such effects do not persist over timeThere are several limitations to this study. One of the limitations of our study is the sample size. Although it exceeds the median size for experimental fMRI studies in recent yearsMoreover, the sample was not diverse in terms of political attitudes and education. To increase the generalizability of the results and mechanisms investigated, a more diverse sample should be examined. We also cannot rule out that, to some extent, the lack of ingroup bias may be related to low sensitivity in the experimental procedures. Due to time constraints, we chose to use only narratives describing physical pain because numerous previous studies had shown that there is greater empathic arousal in response to physical pain experienced by ingroup individuals compared to outgroup individuals