typically involved in threat response became more active, just as they did in Giorgia’s tests. But when that threat was made to a stranger, only minimal activity was observed. Other studies, by researchers at China’s Shenzhen University, have indicated that we can struggle to feel empathy for those who we think of as having a higher status than us. This effect, of course, is made manifest in the fact that we often feel entitled to be extremely bullying and unfair to politicians, CEOs and celebrities who are, after all, no less human than we are. Once moral outrage is triggered, so is our
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